We have seen that man is the center of God's creation and that the human life is the highest created life. We should never forget the nine items of life mentioned in Genesis chapter one: the grass, the herbs, the trees, the fish, the birds, the cattle, the beasts, the creeping things, and man. Man is the highest created life. According to the record of Genesis 1, when God reached the point of creating man, He held a conference. This conference among the Godhead was very impressive. God said, "Let us..." This is quite meaningful. The three Persons of the Godhead were needed for the creation of man. The subsequent books of the whole Bible develop the subject of the work of the Triune God upon man. God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Then God said, "Let them." God did not say men; He said man. Man is a singular noun, but them is a plural pronoun. "Let us make man...let them..." Was there one God or many? Was there one man or many? Our God is One, but triune. Man is one, but corporate. Hallelujah! Never forget the two "lets" in Genesis 1:26. God said, "Let us" and God said, "let them." The word "us" reveals that the one God is triune; the word "them" reveals that the one man is corporate. The Triune God created a corporate man.
God said, "Let us make man in our image..and let them have dominion..." God created a corporate man to exercise His dominion (Gen. 1:26-28). The word dominion includes more than just authority. Dominion means having authority to rule and to form a kingdom. Dominion means having a kingdom as a sphere in which to exercise authority. If I have authority, but no sphere over which to rule, I have no dominion. God said, "Let man have dominion." Man was given dominion over all things. Keep the words image and dominion in mind and underline them in your Bible.
Very few Christians pay attention to the word dominion when they read Genesis 1. We need to consider the words image and dominion a little more. An image is an expression. God created man in His image with the intention that man might express Him. The invisible God desires to be expressed. He needs an expression. Dominion means kingdom, authority. Man was made in God's image to express God and was given authority to represent God and to have dominion. We are God's expression and we are God's representative. The young people especially need to lay hold of these two words with these two basic revelations: image and dominion. The purpose of God's restoration and further creation was twofold: to have a corporate man to express God and to have a corporate man to exercise His dominion.