What is the Real Meaning of
Easter?

3. The Purpose of Man

Our text here is "the Dominion Mandate," Genesis 1:26-28. Also, Genesis 2:15,19

Here we read the purpose for which God created Man.
Human beings were created to "exercise dominion" over the earth as stewards of God's property.
This means growing and building the Kingdom of God, for the glory of God.
This means transforming a wilderness into a Garden, and the Garden into the City of God, the New Jerusalem, a city of unlimited growth and wealth.

I have benefited from a book entitled, Images of the Spirit by Meredith G. Kline. Kline suggests that the physical theophanic Glory of the Holy Spirit, who hovered over the original earth creation in Gen 1:2, served as the "divine model" for man's creation. In expounding these themes, Kline develops a system of typology where the Garden of Eden, the tabernacle, temple, priest and prophet are all modeled after the archetypal form of the Glory-Spirit, which is a model of heaven itself. Jesus taught us to pray that God's will would be done "on earth as it is in heaven." Comparing the first chapters of Genesis and the last chapters of Revelation suggests that man's original purpose is nothing less than building the City of God, the New Jerusalem. Edenic motifs are clearly seen in Revelation 21. The "newness" of the "New" Jerusalem is the absence of the ceremonial temple, and the liturgical or restorative patterns of reconciling God and sinners found in the Old Covenant. Just as man was to "dress and keep" the Garden, so he was/is to dress the entire world into the City of God.

Many people object to the idea that man builds the Kingdom of God. They say this is "humanistic," and that the Polis of God must be created wholly by God with no participation by man, and then handed to man on a silver platter. Correct thinking on this issue requires a "paradigm shift." Hal Lindsey represents the old paradigm:

There used to be a group called "postmillennialists." They believed that the Christians would root out all the evil in the world, abolish godless rulers, and convert the world through ever-increasing evangelism until they brought about the Kingdom of God through their own efforts. Then after 1000 years of the institutional church reigning on earth with peace, equality and righteousness, Christ would return and time would end. These people rejected much of the Scripture as being literal and believed in the inherent goodness of man. World War I greatly disheartened this group and World War II virtually wiped out this viewpoint. No self-respecting scholar who looks at the world conditions and the accelerating decline of Christian influence today is a "postmillennialist."
Hal Lindsey, The Late, Great Planet Earth, 1970, p. 176

The idea that Christians would bring about the Kingdom of God "through their own efforts" is a real red-flag for these kind of Christians. They say it reeks of "secular humanism."

Obviously, "anarcho-preterists" do not believe that The City of God is designed by a joint act of Congress. The New Jerusalem is not the vision of an ecclesiastical council or synod, or ecumenical one-world religion. But even as the leaders of church and state conspired together to kill Jesus, even today they are unwittingly orchestrated by the "Invisible Hand of Divine Providence" to enlarge the City of God.

The New Jerusalem is the Bride of Christ, and she must adorn herself for her Husband with righteous acts (Revelation 21:2; 19:7-8; Psalm 45:9-14; Isaiah 54:5; 61:10; 62:4).

But God still gets all the credit.