God gave man Dominion over all the Earth to Subdue and Deal with God’s Enemy, Satan

God’s intention in His creation of man in His image and according to His likeness is that man would express Him and represent Him; God gave man dominion to subdue God’s enemy, Satan, who rebelled against God.

God created man so that man would look like God and have the capacity to contain God so that he may express God.

On one hand God created man in His image, that is, according to God’s inner being; man has the capacity to contain God with His divine attributes, the most prominent of which are love, light, holiness, and righteousness.

On the other hand, God created man according to His likeness, which refers to God’s form, the expression of His essence and the nature of God’s person; man can look like God and have the form of God.

However, the first man, Adam, failed, and God had to come Himself as the first God-man to live the life and do the work that God intended Adam to live and do.

The Lord Jesus Christ came as a man, in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and He lived a perfect human life on earth; on one hand He expressed God in His divine attributes through His human virtues, and on the other hand, He represented God with His authority by dealing with God’s enemy, Satan.

Christ Himself as the first God-man fulfilled God’s purpose in creating man.

Through His death and resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit to be duplicated, spread, and reproduced in many who believe into Him; now all those who believe into the Lord become the Lord’s increase, His duplication, and His reproduction.

We were made in God’s image and according to His likeness to express God and represent God, and through regeneration Christ has come into us to live such a life, a life that fully expresses God and represents Him with His authority.

When we believe into the Lord, God comes into us as life and makes us His expression on the earth; our Christian life is a life of allowing the Lord to work Himself into us and transform us inwardly until we are conformed to the image of Christ to express God and represent Him in a corporate way.

How we thank and praise the Lord that, on the cross, He nailed all the ordinances and things that separated men, and He has created in Himself one new man – and this new man fulfills God’s intention in creating man!

The one new man is a duplicate of Christ, a reproduction of Christ, to be His corporate expression and representation.

The one new man makes God happy because it looks like God, speaks like God, and lives like God. This is what the Lord is after today – the church as the Body of Christ to be the one new man fulfilling God’s original intention in creating man!

God gave man Dominion over all the Earth to Subdue and Deal with God’s Enemy, Satan

After God created man in His image and according to His likeness, He blessed man and told him to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over everything that is on earth (Gen. 1:26, 28).

He especially mentioned the birds in the air, the fish in the sea, the cattle on the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. Man was not only created in the image of God and according to His likeness to express God, but also for the purpose of representing God with His dominion.

God gave man dominion to rule over all these negative things, all the creeping creatures, which signify Satan and his powers.

God’s intention in giving man dominion is that man would subdue God’s enemy, Satan, who rebelled against God.

God has an enemy in the universe – Satan – who rebelled against Him, and this one also instigated many of the angels to follow him; furthermore, Satan has deceived man to also rebel against God.

A negative aspect of God’s eternal purpose in creating man is that He wants man to have His dominion to defeat and subdue God’s enemy.

Satan is a creature, and God as the Creator cannot lower Himself down to defeat him directly; He needs another creature, man, who has His image and likeness, who has His life, and who has His dominion to subdue the enemy.

The function of this corporate man is to subdue Satan. The creeping things that creep upon the earth typify Satan, the serpent, and his angels, as well as the demons, who follow Satan (Gen. 1:26; 3:1, 14; Rev. 12:4, 7, 9; Matt. 25:41; cf. Luke 10:19).

A corporate man was created by God to exercise His dominion; dominion means to have authority to rule and to form a kingdom.

If man would have authority but no sphere over which to rule, he has no dominion; man, however, was given all things – including the enemy, Satan – to rule over them.

The invisible God desires not only to have a visible expression through man but also to have His authority exercised to deal with His enemy.

The three areas over which man has authority is the air, the sea, and the earth.

The earth is the field of Satan’s activities; he is very active on earth (Luke 4:5-6), so God gave man authority over all the earth so that he may exercise dominion for God, ruling over the earth as God’s representative.

The sea is the dwelling place of the demons, and the air is the place where Satan and his angels are.

When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He had to deal with Satan on earth for he troubled Him constantly, and He rebuked the wind and the waves during a storm because the fallen angels in the air and the demons in the water were troubling Him.

He stopped the wind and calmed the waves; He exercised dominion over the fallen angels, Satan, and the demons, and He overruled them.

God gave us the authority and dominion to deal with His enemy, Satan, who is typified by the creeping things. Satan is typified by the serpent (Gen. 3:1) and he is even called the ancient serpent (Rev. 12:9).

Hallelujah, we have God’s dominion to deal with His enemy, for God gave man dominion over all the earth!

Thank You Lord for creating us in Your image and according to Your likeness and giving us Your authority to have dominion over all the earth and over Your enemy. Thank You for granting us such a high honor to rule over the earth, the air, and the seas for God. Amen, Lord Jesus, we come to You and we want to be one with You, for You are the One who has all authority in heaven and on earth. May we as the church become the one new man who not only expresses God with His image but also represents God with His authority over the enemy, dealing with Satan for God!

We’re made in God’s Image to Express Him and Deal with Satan in our Daily Life

For us as men to bear the image of God is not a small thing, for His image involves all of God’s divine attributes, which are replicated in man to be his human virtues.

We were made in the image of God and according to His likeness so that we may express Him (on the positive side) and represent Him with His authority (on the negative side).

This means that we men are made in God’s image to express God and to deal with Satan; this starts with each one of us in our daily life.

Especially when it comes to dealing with Satan, we need to realise that the problems, reactions, and bad things happening are not mainly because of men doing this or that, but because Satan is behind the scenes operating.

Even in our family life, at home with the dear members of our family, many times we see the serpent being expressed.

Sometimes we may have the clear discernment that Satan is being expressed through someone; what should we do then?

We were created in God’s image to deal with Satan, and this has to start in our daily life. This means that we need to come before the Lord and ask Him, Lord, bind the serpent.

When we sense that Satan is being expressed and is manifested, we shouldn’t try to directly deal with the ones through whom Satan is expressed, but simply come to the Lord and ask Him to bind the serpent.

Sometimes the serpent is expressed through us; sometimes it is us who express him; even in such a case, we should go to the Lord and ask Him to bind the serpent.

We have to admit that many times our experience is that Satan’s power is expressed, while the authority of God is not exercised. Oh Lord Jesus!

How about our living at home, our daily life at our job, our being with other people….do we exercise to express God and to deal with Satan in our daily life?

Sometimes the husband loses his temper, and the wife provokes him to lose his temper; it is not really the husband who loses his temper or the wife who provokes him, but it is the serpent, Satan, who operates behind the scenes.

We shouldn’t “deal with our husband” or “deal with our wife” but go before the Lord and ask Him to deal with and subdue the serpent.

Exchanging words can never deal with Satan, for the more we argue, the more Satan gains ground; the only way is for us to go to the Lord, pray, call on the name of Jesus, and ask Him to bind the serpent.

In ourselves and by ourselves we cannot express the Lord in His image or deal with the enemy; we need to come to the Lord, be filled with Him, be infused with Him, and be one with Him, and in prayer we can ask Him to deal with the enemy first in us and then around us.

May we learn to cooperate with the Lord to deal with the enemy of God in our daily life!

Lord, deal with Your enemy, Satan, in us. Bind the serpent. We come to You, Lord, and we bring ourselves before You together with all those around us, our situations, and all things related to us. Thank You for creating us in Your image to express You and giving us Your authority to exercise dominion for You over the enemy. Bind Your enemy in us and around us. Keep us coming to You whenever we see the serpent being manifested and expressed, and keep us in prayer before You for You to bind him and deal with him. Amen, Lord, we are one with You for Your expression and representation on earth!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis, msgs. 6-8 (Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man (2019 fall ITERO), week 1, God’s Eternal Purpose and the One New Man.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # In the Word of old, we are clearly told, / In His image God created man. / To express His worth, to subdue the earth, / Have dominion and fulfill His plan. / Image, image, / In His image He created man. / Image, image, / For dominion, to fulfill His Plan. (Hymns #1144)
  # Within God’s sovereign kingdom / His Christ is magnified; / When Christ in life is reigning, / The Father’s glorified. / When God is in dominion, / All things are truly blessed; / When Christ for God is reigning. / God’s glory is expressed. (Hymns #941)
  # Teach us to pray that we may cause / The enemy to flee, / That we his evil pow’r may bind, / His prisoners to free. (Hymns #767)