God’s Covenants
I think of the Davidic Covenant every day, partly because it is a major hue in a crucial prism for a correct view of the world. The future of the world is the King Jesus Christ on and over the earth. Psalm 110, the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New, asserts that Jesus will sit on a throne right next to God the Father until He rules with a rod of iron. Until then, He rules among His enemies. In fulfillment of Isaiah 9:6, a future time will occur when the government of the world will sit on Lord Jesus Christ’s shoulders.
The Davidic Covenant is another unilateral or unconditional covenant that is a crucial prism for a correct view of the world. When I’m praying that the kingdom will come in accordance with the model prayer of Jesus (Matthew 6, Luke 11), I do it with the assurance that the kingdom will occur and I will be a part of it. The Davidic Covenant is not the only unconditional covenant, but it is one of those that provide a crucial prism for a correct view of the world.
Trusting God
A major point or question, depending on the approach, is whether someone can trust the covenants of God. The Bible reiterates, “Yes.” The outcomes of those covenants are God’s will and God has the power and wisdom to accomplish whatever He wills. He is faithful to His promises. God does not lie. Since God is pure good, His will also is always good, so we should join in the desire for that with Him. We shouldn’t argue against what He wants. He’s got a purpose and the best for us aligns with it.
These crucial prisms represent a theocentric rather than anthropocentric accounting of everything. Looking through God’s covenants changes about everything in what we see and then in what we do. A second crucial prism for a correct view of the world is God’s Cultural Mandate.
2. GOD’S CULTURAL MANDATE
The cultural mandate (also called the creation mandate or dominion mandate) in Genesis 1:28 calls humanity, created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), to exercise stewardship and dominion over creation by cultivating it through creativity, rationality, morality, relationships, and cultural development to reflect God’s character and glory. This “image of God” in both male and female (imago Dei) endows humans with inherent dignity and purpose, serving as a unifying prism for a correct worldview, integrating biblical truth and faith across every sphere of life without sacred-secular divides.
The phrase “created equal” in the Declaration of Independence is not a secular platitude but a direct borrowing from Genesis 1:27. The founders did not ground equality in autonomous human reason, as Enlightenment rationalists tried to do. In fact, every person bears God’s image and is therefore accountable to the same Creator who bestows the same intrinsic dignity. The image of God provided the metaphysical foundation for the American constitutional order. The founders rejected both aristocratic hierarchies, which treated some humans as naturally superior, and radical egalitarian leveling, which denies real differences that God endows.
Equality and Distinctions
The quality of essence means every human being, male and female, rich and poor, is stamped with the image of God (Genesis 1:27; Acts 17:26; Galatians 3:28). On the other hand, the image does not erase distinctions in authority, talent, or calling (1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4). For true harmony, God designed the inequality of role and gifting too, which neither does He abrogate .
The Bible does not teach that all people are equal in talent, intelligence, or opportunity. Scripture, however, does say that every single human life has equal value before God. That is the only basis on which one can say that a peasant or a king and a mentally handicapped child or intellectual genius both have the same intrinsic worth. The rudimentary expression of God’s mandate propels equal treatment regardless of role or even behavior. Equal treatment and valuing of other human beings proceeds from God’s creation, not merit.
God’s original commission to humanity is to actively steward, develop, and redeem creation and culture as image-bearers of God. This is not limited to personal salvation or evangelism but extends to all spheres of life—work, arts, science, society, and institutions—reflecting God’s creativity and lordship. Therefore, humanity’s purpose is to create culture by unfolding the potential God placed in creation.
Being Fruitful
The cultural mandate involves, one, being fruitful, which means developing social structures like families, communities, laws, and institutions. To begin, God establishes the family and then procreation. God designed marriage and child-bearing as the foundational institution for populating the earth with image-bearers. The command to “be fruitful and multiply” corresponds only to God’s design for heterosexual marriage and the raising of godly children
Filling the Earth
Two, it means multiplying, filling the earth. This requires spreading humanity across the globe, not merely overpopulating one region. Obedience to this aspect implies migration, settlement, and the development of societies.
Subduing
Thirdly, it includes subduing nature through innovation like farming, technology, or art. To subdue, men exercise control over the created order. Subdue is an aggressive Hebrew verb meaning to “conquer” or “bring into submission.” Man should harness the earth’s resources, tame wilderness, and bring the creation under productive management.
Exercising Dominion
Finally, it necessitates ruling responsibly, exercising dominion as stewards, not exploiters. God intended man to rule as His vice-regent. Man is to govern creation the way God would govern it—wisely, justly, and for God’s glory.
The mandate applies to all humanity by means of the pre-Fall command in Genesis 1:26-28 and 2:15 and reaffirmed post-Fall to Noah in Genesis 9:1–7. Even thought it was given in a perfect environment, it remains in effect after the Fall, though now carried out in a cursed world with toil and difficulty (Genesis 3:17–19).
More to Come