In the last few months I’ve been scanning the bible for links between humanity and the creation and the relationship between the gospel and the complete re-creation of all things. Here’s an interesting little insight I came across in Genesis 6 and 7 this morning.
Notice that God gets ticked with the wickedness and rebellion of humans – so what does he do? Well he drowns almost the entire animal and bird population! Yes he drowns the people too – but we expected that. The poor animals go to Davey Jones’ locker because of man’s rebellion. Seems that somehow the fate of the natural world is intrinsically tied to the relationship between people and God. And so when God rescues Noah and his family animals get rescued too – now you might argue that God only rescues the animals because Noah and his family won’t last for very long in a world with out animal life. But then you come to Paul in Romans 8:19
“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
Humanity getting rescued leads to the liberation, ultimately, of the entire creation – that seems to be the biblical pattern. The crux question though for us then is: How does this affect the rescued Christian’s relationship to the natural creation?
Steve, some beautiful thoughts right there man. Perhaps there’s something to be said for the ‘green’ Christians after all.
Some thoughts along a similar line:
-Two of Adams responsibilities were to do with the rest of creation…
- John 3:16 says God so loves the COSMOS,that he gave… always found that interesting…
-Lastly it seems revelation says the new Jerusalem comes down here, rather than us going up.
I hope that all of creation is involved in God’s redemptive plans, i’m rather fond of some of our earth.
That tricky little word in John 3:16 has seen enough ink spilt over it to last a life time.
Adam- and by extension all humans- are given dominion over the natural world. At first glance one might think that means dominion as we usually picture it in the secular sense: the ruler laying down his absolute will and all that. But I think that if we consider what rulership, dominion, and such mean in light of Christ and His inversion of our attitudes to authority and leadership, it puts an entirely different spin on our ‘dominion’ over the natural world.
Also, if we love our neighbor we will not pollute his water or poison his air; and if we are even half-way following the Gospel our consumption levels will be greatly reduced. So even if we didn’t have any other reason to worry about the natural world, those two would be enough to make us ‘green’ Christians- though, I might add, without justifying holding a gun to our neighbor’s head to make him equally ‘green’ in his consumption patterns and such…