There’s a strange irony in our time. We live in an age of deep moral concern, we rally to protect the environment, speak for the voiceless, to stand against injustice. And yet, perhaps the most ancient of injustices goes largely unspoken — the way we treat the very creatures that share this world with us.
It’s not a new issue. Scripture begins not with human civilization, but with creation itself — the forming of land and sea, the calling forth of life in all its variety.
“And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so. … And God saw that it was good.” (B’reishit 1:24–25)
Then comes the extraordinary next act:
“Let us make humankind in our image… and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (B’reishit 1:26)
Here, in the very first chapter of Torah, humanity receives its calling — not only to multiply, but to mirror. To mirror the Creator, whose image we bear, in how we relate to the world He made.
And so we ask: what kind of dominion reflects the face of God?
In the ancient pagan world, the gods were cruel and capricious — self-serving beings who demanded sacrifice and feared no moral consequence. To be “like the gods” meant to be powerful, not merciful.
But the God of Israel was different. The scandal of monotheism in the ancient world was that Israel’s King was also a Shepherd, a Creator who loved His creation, a Sovereign who stooped to serve.
The Psalmist declared,
Adonai is good to all; His mercy is over all His works.(Tehillim 145:9)
And from among the nations, Israel was chosen to reflect that mercy. Israel’s calling was not to power as the world understands it, but to priesthood — to bear witness to what it looks like when a people live under the reign of the true King. Israel was to exercise dominion through devotion, sovereignty through service.
Jon Levenson once described Israel’s vocation as an “aristocracy of humility” — a nation of priests and a kingdom of servants, chosen not for privilege but for purpose: to image the Creator in the world, and through their obedience and worship, to begin the renewal of humanity itself.
But Israel’s story, like humanity’s story, is full of struggle. The Torah, the prophets, and the writings all bear witness to the tension between calling and compromise, between dominion and devotion.
And then, in the fullness of time, Yeshua the Messiah entered that story. He did not come as a stranger to Israel, but as Israel’s greatest Son, the One who embodied her truest purpose. In Him, the vocation of Israel — to rule through service, to image God’s compassion, to reveal divine kingship through humility, came to life in human form.
When Yeshua became the incarnate presence of the Sovereign Ruler, He came not to abolish Israel’s calling, but to fulfill it — to live out the perfect obedience and mercy that Israel was always meant to display. He is the Servant-King of Isaiah, the faithful Israelite who brings light to the nations.
In Yeshua, we see the image of God restored, dominion turned into devotion, kingship expressed as compassion. He teaches us that to reign is to serve, to lead is to love, and to rule is to bless.
In B’reishit 2:15, humanity is placed in the garden “to till it and to keep it.” The Hebrew phrase is l’avdah ul’shomrah — literally, “to serve it and to guard it.” That word avodah — service, worship — reminds us that our relationship with creation is part of our worship of the Creator. To serve God rightly is to care for what He has made.
But what happens when kings forget to serve? What happens when those made in God’s image act more like the pagan gods of old — taking, consuming, exploiting, and justifying it all in the name of progress?
Across the modern world, we have built systems of astonishing efficiency — farms that produce unimaginable quantities of food, industries that feed billions. And yet, in the process, we have hidden from view the cost to the living creatures who sustain us. Animals bred and confined without light, treated not as fellow creatures of God but as raw material for profit.
The question is not whether we eat meat or abstain — it is whether we remember that every living thing belongs first to God, not to us. Our dominion was never meant to be a license for cruelty. It was meant to be a partnership in mercy.
And here is where it touches us most deeply:
when we harden our hearts toward the least of God’s creatures, it becomes easier to harden our hearts toward the least of His children.
When we grow indifferent to suffering in the world around us, we soon grow indifferent to suffering among our own kind.
Compassion is not a switch we can turn on and off; it is a way of being, learned in small acts of mercy. How we treat the smallest and most vulnerable of creation becomes the training ground for how we will treat one another.
The prophet Isaiah envisions a day when
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion and the yearling together,
and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6)
This is the vision of shalom that the Messiah brings — the restoration of harmony between heaven and earth, between humanity and creation. If that is the world Yeshua will establish in fullness, then those who belong to Him are called to begin living by its light even now.
To be “a new creation in Messiah” is to begin living toward that world — to let our appetites be governed by reverence, our power tempered by compassion, and our dominion transformed into devotion.
For in every act of kindness — to a person, to a creature, to the earth itself — we hold in our hands the mercy of our Creator. His purposes are life, not death, healing, not harm. His love does not stop with humanity but embraces all that He has made.
Perhaps the creatures around us — the ones who depend on our mercy — exist not only for our use but for our instruction. Perhaps they are God’s living parables of humility, calling us back to our first vocation: to serve and to keep, to bless and to protect, to reign as priests of creation rather than predators upon it.
And perhaps — if we are faithful — that same love that binds Creator and creature will one day fulfill its promise:
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)
The image of God is not seen in our power, but in our mercy. Dominion was never the right to rule as we please. It was the call to love as God loves — to rule as servants, and to serve as kings.
To walk in the image of the Creator is to walk in the footsteps of Messiah — Israel’s King and Israel’s greatest Son — the One who reigns through service, who restores all creation through love, and who teaches us that mercy toward the least of God’s creatures is the beginning of mercy toward all His children.