Life is for the expression of God. There is the need of life because God’s intention is to express Himself, and life is the means to express God. In creation all the lower lives are for the higher lives, all the higher lives are for the highest created life, and this highest life is for the divine life. Man as the highest created life is living to express God. We must remember that man is after God’s kind. Man is not in his likeness, but in God’s likeness. Man is not in his image, but in God’s image. James tells us that man uses his tongue not only to bless the Lord but also to “curse men, who have been made according to the likeness of God” (3:9). We have to realize that all men have been made according to the likeness of God, so we should not despise any man. First Corinthians 11:7 says, “For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, being God’s image and glory.” Man was made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26) to express God and glorify Him. We may say that God is our glory, but this verse says that we are God’s glory. We may realize that God is our glory and may want to experience God as our glory. But we also have to realize that we are God’s glory because we are going to express God by His life. Without life, man can never express God. Thus, life is the means for us to express God. The plant life and the animal life are for the human life, for us to live for God. The human life, the highest created life, is for the divine life, the uncreated life.
Man was created not only to express God but also to represent God. We have been committed, entrusted, with God’s authority. This means that God has authorized us to be His representatives. Thus, we have dominion over all things on earth except God (Gen. 1:26). God is above us; we are under God, but we are above everything else. We are above the things in the water, the things on the earth, and the things in the air. Man is the real commander-in-chief of the land, of the sea, and of the air, and he was made to represent God by life.
God’s eternal purpose is to have Himself expressed through the created human life, but Satan came in to frustrate this. He did everything he could to damage God’s purpose, to frustrate God from accomplishing His eternal intention. There is a struggle, a war, in the universe between Satan and God. God’s direction is toward the expression of Himself, and Satan’s direction is against this. Thus, in this universe there are two directions: the divine direction and the satanic direction. These two directions contradict each other. God is going to fulfill His purpose, and Satan is doing everything he can to frustrate God’s purpose. This is the unique war and struggle in the entire universe, and this war is also going on within us. Within us there is a struggle between Satan and God. God wants to express Himself through us, and Satan is doing everything to frustrate this.
Before man was created, Satan rebelled against God and ruined and even usurped the earth. In a sense, the right of God on this earth has been robbed by Satan. The earth was and still is, in a sense, under the usurping hand of the enemy (1 John 5:19). There is no problem for God in the heavens, but there is a real problem for God on this earth. This is why the Lord Jesus prayed, “Let Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth” (Matt. 6:10). There is no problem for God’s will in heaven, but there is a real problem for God’s will on this earth. This is why we need to pray that the Father’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. The real problem is that Satan today is usurping the earth. The earth is under his usurping hand. This is why God said in Genesis 1 that the life that resembles Him has to conquer the earth, to subdue the earth (v. 28). The earth has to be subdued and conquered because of the rebellion against God on this earth instigated by Satan. The rebellious earth needs to be conquered by man living with God’s life. To conquer, to subdue, the earth we need the divine life.
Genesis 1:26 tells us that man was to have dominion “over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Among the creeping things is the serpent. The serpent signifies Satan, the Devil, who is the leader of the creeping things (cf. Luke 10:19). To have dominion over the creeping things means to rule over Satan. To conquer means to conquer the rebellion of Satan. Since God is almighty, all-powerful, it would be easy for Him to get rid of Satan on His own. But God would not get rid of Satan directly by Himself. God wanted another creature, man, to be used by Him to get rid of Satan. Thus, the human life is the means for God to get rid of Satan.
In His creation of man, God desires to accomplish two things: He wants to express Himself, and He wants to get rid of His enemy, Satan. God uses man to express Himself and to get rid of Satan.
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