Like
all subjects the Bible has something to say regarding the topic of the “city.” My introduction identifies several of the major Biblical texts that touch on this issue but before I dive into those I must start with the cultural mandate which God gave to the very first human beings in The Garden of Eden. From that starting place I will take a big picture look at the Biblical language regarding the city, address the issue of the affects of the Fall on the city, and develop a general Biblical theology of the City itself. God’s Word is our foundation for all ministry, and therefore it is paramount that we begin this discussion in that guide book.
The Garden of Eden and the Proto-City Idea
The Book of Genesis begins with the creation of the universe, the world, and particularly of man by God. In all His creative work the creation of man and woman is the climax and God follows their creation with a direct command. The specific command and its context is found in Genesis 1, there we read:
Genesis 1:26-28 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and 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.”
God creates the land, animals, and plants for man and tells man to fill the earth and subdue it. In Genesis 2:15 we read that God put man in the Garden to “work and keep it.” So, in one real sense God created man to work and build up civilization and culture. The whole idea of civilization is really, as Timothy Keller writes, “to draw out the resources of creation (of the natural order and of the human soul).”[1] When God commanded Adam to work and keep the Garden, and to multiply and fill the earth, He was expecting Adam to create culture and build a city. This appears to be the initial plan of God: that The Garden of Eden was to be the foundation for a godly city, where men would worship and fellowship with God.
Though this was to be the original design of creation we all know how the story goes: Adam and Eve directly disobeyed God and ruined any hope for that godly city to be created and sustained. God cast them out of the Garden of Eden and from then on there was to be a tension between the City of God and the City of Man, it begins, however, with a tension between the city of man and a semi-nomadic life.
[1] Timothy Keller, “A Biblical Theology of the City.” Online at www.theresurgence.com
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