The fulfillment of God's intention in giving man dominion involves Christ as the Head and the church, including all the saints, as the Body. The fulfillment of God's intention is not only with the Head, but also with the Body. The gates of Hades cannot prevail against the church (Matt. 16:18). The Bible does not say the gates of Hades (meaning the power of Satan) cannot prevail against the saints. They can prevail against the saints if the saints are separate or individualistic. You need to be built into the church. The Body which is built up with Christ can never be defeated by Satan. Satan can never prevail against the builded church.
The saints have been given authority to bind the enemy (Matt. 16:19; 18:18). The word in Matthew 16:19 was spoken to Peter; the word in Matthew 18:18 was spoken to every believer. The Catholic Church claims that Peter had the authority to represent Christ. They base this on Matthew 16:19. However, we must tell them that we also have Matthew 18:18. Not only has Peter been given authority to bind and loose, but we also. Every believer has been given the authority to bind and to loose. Today, the church with all the saints has the authority to bind and loose. Many times, we should not simply pray; we should bind and loose.
Romans 16:20 says, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Paul said, "soon." I don't know how Paul felt when he said this nineteen hundred years ago. It may seem to us that a long time has passed. But, we believe, it has not been too long. Shortly, Satan will be crushed. The word crush not only means to bruise or break, but also to subdue. Satan must be under our feet. In your home life Satan must be under your feet. In your married life Satan must be under your feet. In your church life Satan must be under your feet. You have to tell him, "Satan, your position is under my feet." Here and now Satan must be under our feet.
Second Corinthians 10:3-5 and Ephesians 6:11-13 tell us that we must fight against the enemy. We not only fight, we wrestle. Wrestling is more difficult than fighting. We must wrestle with the evil powers in the air.
The overcoming saints will have authority over the nations (Rev. 2:26-27) and in the millennium they will be kings reigning with Christ over the whole earth (Rev. 20:4, 6). By that time, God will fully have His dominion on this earth. That will be the fulfillment of what God desired to have in Genesis 1.
Eventually, all the saints will reign as kings over the earth for eternity in the New Jerusalem. At that time, Satan, the evil angels in the air, and the sea with all the demons will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10, 13-14; Matt. 25:41). All the pollution will be cleared away. The air, the water, and the earth have been polluted. When eternity comes, all the pollution will disappear. Everything will be clear, and God's dominion will be there. God's authority will be exercised on the earth. In that realm and in that sphere God's image will be fully expressed and God's glory will be fully manifested. That will be the eternal kingdom, the dominion of God.
Genesis 1 is a nursery. All the seeds of the truth were sown there. We have seen that the word light was sown in Genesis 1 and developed through all the Bible until Revelation 22 where there is no need for the sun, the moon, or any lamp. God Himself is the light. Likewise, the word image first appears in Genesis 1 and is developed throughout the entire Bible until we see the New Jerusalem bearing the image of God, expressing God. In the same principle, the word dominion also needs the whole Bible to explain it. We go from the single word dominion in Genesis 1 to Revelation 22:5 where we see that all the saints will reign with God for eternity. That will be the ultimate fulfillment of God's dominion.
Man was made in God's image to express God and was given God's dominion to represent God and to deal with His enemy. Today, the church is the great part of the second man. The church's responsibility and duty is positively to express God and negatively to subdue God's enemy. This is our duty. We must bear this responsibility.