The text of Genesis 1, quite specifically connects existing as God’s image-bearers with the dominion humans possess in creation. After affirming his intention to make humans in his image, God addresses both the man and woman saying: “. . . have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Because God created humans in his image they share in God’s dominion over the primal creation and in his complete freedom. This freedom exists in two horizons: coram Deo (before the face of God) and coram mundo (before the face of the world).
Coram Deo, although primal humans are free from the law in the manner that Christians would later be free from the law in Christ, such freedom does not mean arbitrary or destructive lawlessness. As the Formula of Concord correctly asserts, the law is God’s eternal will for his creation (lex aeterna) both before and after the Fall. Nevertheless, in the state of integrity, God made human beings in the divine image. Therefore, human creatures wholly desired to perform the law. The law was not contrary to their desires and therefore they did not need to place their desires in subordination to the law since their wills exactly mirrored God’s law. Rules are only positive demands when they are not followed or if we do not desire to follow them. If my expectation is for my children to clean their room, and they do it habitually on their own, then there is no reason to make it a family rule that children must clean their rooms each week. Moreover, when children spontaneously clean their rooms, they are simply doing what they desire and are not subjecting their will to any higher authority than what they naturally desire. In this scenario, they would clean their rooms out of perfect freedom, because in cleaning they would simply be doing what they wanted to do without any external authority telling them they must or coercing them to do so.
Because humans share in God’s dominion and are free from the condemnation of the law in the primal state, they also possess a share in God’s rest as exemplified by the primal Sabbath. Freedom from the law and its condemnation means rest from its demands relentlessly pressing down on humanity and demanding a response. In the primal week, much as in the work of Christ, work led to rest and rest enabled work. Regarding the primal week, God’s work in creation actualized the seventh day of rest. Because God completed his works he could rest and bid his people enter into that rest. Although a literal day in the primal week, the Sabbath as described by Genesis also has a typological meaning as the text itself indicates. Genesis 2 gives the Sabbath has no boundaries since the language of evening and morning is intentionally missing, unlike with the other days. Hence, the Sabbath becomes emblematic of the rest that the people of God enter into. Christians enter this rest when they receive by grace all that God has given them (Heb. 4), namely, the whole of creation along with God’s own self-donating presence with them. This is true in the old creation within the narrative of the seven days. However, it is also true in the new creation when Christ’s work gives rest to the conscience of Christians suffering under sin and the condemnation of the law: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).
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