In reading my last blog post, a dear friend suggested that I could have included the impact of the fall on creation itself in disasters. He’s right, and so that’s where I’ll go in this blog.
The opening chapters of Genesis give us the framework for the rest of the Biblical story. Creation is good, and very good when God creates His image-bearers. Creation, from the first, is tied to us, God’s caretakers of our creation home. Everything in our story changed when we (not just Eve) listened to the Enemy. We rebelled, and from that moment creation continued to suffer along with us. Read, afresh, Genesis 3:17-19
…“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.” (NIV)
The land was cursed/changed, with corruption and death entering. The story quickly goes downhill, including the suffering of nature. With sin, disasters started to come into our home, culminating with the flood, which was God’s cleansing of our world. In this downward slide, God’s grace was never absent. Our original parents were given clothing, Cain was protected, and Noah found grace. God didn’t give up on His creation and moved toward a future that would bring about a new creation. The call of Abraham is not just a past moment, but a moment of promise for all nations and the earth itself.
One son of Abraham was the Son of God, and through His death and resurrection the promised new creation began. We live in the time between the first coming of the Messiah, Jesus, and His return. In Romans 8, Paul reflected on creation in this “between time.”
Romans 8: 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
We were, are now, and will always be linked with creation. We wait for a new heaven, and a new earth.
2 Corinthians 5:16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
We groan for the new creation, but now live where disasters still come. In this time, we should reclaim our creation calling. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15 NIV). We should be stewards and healers of the world. Ecology is a Christian calling, not a partisan calling. We should encourage farmlands which produce healthy foods; forests which reduce carbons in the atmosphere; and oceans free of plastic. We live now in light of what will be, when our Lord returns.
Tim Kelley