God wanted change in the world and he proves it by making the world dark and empty and shapeless and then illuminating, filling, and shaping it.

God’s work is unique but it is a foundation, not a capstone.  Even his work is not a complete filling.  He tells the birds and fishes, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth” (Genesis 1.22).  So we know he only made a small population of both and wanted them to work at making more until the ocean and sky were properly utilized.

This is a hint of what is to come.  On the sixth day God makes humanity and here again they are to change the world further than God has done. “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” (Genesis 1.28).

So humanity is to change the world not only by filling it, but also by taming it. God has made the world wild in some way and humanity is to domesticate it in some way. While all the world is God’s, some of it is meant to be conformed to other parts of it.

Humans do this in God’s image.  They are God’s representatives and under-rulers. They are his ambassadors who change the world in a way that reflects how God changed the world, bringing light, order, and fullness. The world is meant to be humanified and thus brought into a more accurate reflection of God.

So before sin and death, there is already a mediatorial kingdom.  Later there will be a redemptive mandate to this kingdom, but it will follow the track God already put down for a transformative mandate.  Humanity is to rule and grow as God’s kingdom.