Mark's thoughts: Easter and Earth Day

 

This year, Easter (April 20) and Earth Day (April 22) fall in the same week.  Earth Day was founded in 1970, and is an occasion that emphasizes environmental protection of the planet.  This juxtaposition leads us to consider what the celebration of Earth Day gets right and what it gets wrong about God’s creation. 

 

Scripture teaches us that God made this creation and considered it to be very good (Genesis 1:31).  We learn that after God created man as male and female, he blessed them and said, “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).

 

We receive more details about the creation of man in Genesis chapter two.  There we read that God planted a garden in Eden (Genesis 2:8). After God created Adam, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).  Genesis chapters 1-2 teach us that God made creation for man’s use.  It also teaches us that God has given man stewardship over creation.

 

In Genesis chapter three we learn about the Fall as sin enters into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve.  This sin brings harm upon creation itself as God says, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field” (Genesis 3:17-18).  It is this sin that brings death to the animals of creation.

 

The celebration of Earth Day does emphasize the goodness of God’s creation, and it leads us to consider how man is carrying out his stewardship of that creation.  We will want to act in ways that “keep the garden” and seek to maintain its goodness.

 

However, the celebration of Earth Day is often driven by several ideas that are contrary to the revelation of God’s Word.  The first is the manner in which Earth Day considers creation apart from God the Creator.  Instead, it divinizes creation as God is collapsed into creation.  There is a long history of treating creation as a Mother goddess.  The United Nations has declared that April 22 is “International Mother Earth Day” and we are told on Earth Day to “Love your Mother.” 

 

In contrast, Scripture teaches us that there is a sharp distinction between God and creation.  God and creation are separate from one another because God is the Creator, and creation has been made by him.  God says in Isaiah, “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing” (Isaiah 40:25-26). Scripture avoids female language for God that would lead us to identify God and creation with one another. 

 

The second is the way in which Earth Day treats man as if he is simply part of creation. He is just one element in “the circle of life.” Man does not have greater worth and value, and the needs of creation are accorded equal importance.

 

However, only man has been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  He is the crown of God’s creation, and God has placed man as his representative in the midst of creation.  He is to subdue and have dominion over it (Genesis 1:28).  Creation is there for man to use, and the First Article of the Creed teaches that as he uses creation, God’s continuing act of creation provides for man.  Man is the steward of creation as he “keeps the garden,” and in a fallen world there will always be a tension in deciding what constitutes use or abuse. But man is over creation in biblical thought, and not just one equal part of it.

 

Finally, much of the thought surrounding Earth Day treats man as if he is the greatest threat to creation.  It is as if creation would be perfectly fine apart from the presence of man.  Yet creation itself is in fact a place of chaos, and not a place of balance. It is a world that is red in tooth and claw.

 

Scripture teaches that creation itself has been impacted by sin.  It bears the harm of the curse, and it is no longer “very good” as God intended it.  Paul told the Romans: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Roman 8:20-22).

 

Paul went on to connect what will happen to creation, with what will happen to us. He states, “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). The redemption of our bodies will take place in the resurrection of the dead.  The apostle describes the Spirit as the “firstfruits” because the presence of the Spirit in us now means that our bodies will be raised.  Paul had just said, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).

 

In Scripture, resurrection is a Last Day event.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter was the beginning of the Last Day.  Paul told the Corinthians: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).

 

The Lord Jesus will raise and transform our bodies when he returns in glory (Philippians 3:20). He will also renew creation and make it very good once again.  He will free it from the “slavery of corruption” so that it too shares in “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).  Scripture refers to this as the “new heavens and new earth” (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1). Freed from sin, creation will again be what God intends.