Today, millions of human beings live in mental, spiritual, and physical bondage. Their number increases fearfully every day. As never before in history, insidious forces seek to degrade human dignity. Untold millions of men and women are held in these invisible chains, bound by fear and various evil habits which torment their lives and by awful diseases which crush them.
In primitive lands, all manner of base superstitions enslave the individual. Day and night he is frightened by witchcraft and unseen enemies. In modern society, it is oppressions and depressions which torment millions of men and women. The question naturally arises, Why? Why is mankind enmeshed in this awful bondage? To find an answer, we must go directly to the account of the creation of man recorded in the Word of God.
How was man created? For what purpose? Genesis 1:27,28 provides the answer:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion ... over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Here God revealed that man was a created being, made in His image and after His likeness. God's love toward Adam is indicated in these words: God blessed them. His best wishes were indicated when He said, Be fruitful, and multiply. Adam's position on this earth was forever settled when God said, Subdue it: and have dominion... over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. This was man's beginning and his position with God.
With such an illustrious beginning— demonstrating lordship over the entire Garden of Eden, possessing credentials of rulership from the Most High—how could man have fallen into the quagmire of degradation, into slavery to Satan?
Man lost his freedom willfully and deliberately. Through his fall, he caused the entire world to fall with him. On the same day Adam transgressed against God, he died spiritually. Fear was born in his heart. He hid himself from God among the trees because he was afraid. That day physical mortification began, and Adam started to die. The spirit of Adam fell and he was separated from God, the Great Spirit. The highest part of his complex being had lost dominion. He was now wearing the devil's chains of slavery. What a change! With great dignity Adam had worn God's vested authority. Just as fish were created to swim, dogs were made to hunt, worms were made to crawl, so man was made to rule.
Man either has dominion or is under domination. He cannot be neutral. Man was created to be dominated by no force except the Divine. He was created to be a conqueror over any power of influence before him.
When God saw the terrible collapse of man, He immediately set about to redeem man from his fallen state, to restore man's dominion which was lost because of sin. He accomplished this in one master stroke by giving His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to bring man back into a place of divine dominion.
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