Friday, July 30, 2010

Creation longs for the Salvation of Man

[11] Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, [12] saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" [13] And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" [14] And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped. Rev. 5:11-14 (ESV)

All of creation worships Jesus, the Lamb who was slain. What is even crazier is the reason they worship him. He saves man! All of creation is looking for the redemption of man. The whole creation looks to man. Man reigns, man rules over creation. In the garden man was given dominion over the earth, the crown of his creation. When we fell creation fell. When we are restored, creation is restored.
It seems odd to me in today’s world of animal rights activism and environmentalism that man some how innately knows that something separates man from creation. We talk of nature as if we are not really apart of it. We talk of it as if our doings in the world are somehow unnatural. When man builds a dam it is different than a beaver building a dam. When man builds a city it is different that ants building a colony. When man runs a dairy it is different than ants grazing aphids on my roses. And there it is. They are my roses. It is my land. My eight year old son, knows that he reigns over creation, as he claims ownership of a Ball Python. We reign. And we know it.
The position is untenable from an evolutionary point of view. I’ve heard vegetarians complain that we have not evolved to the point where we don’t need to eat meat. I am left thinking who are you to say which way is better for us to evolve? But it hints to an innate understanding that God created us to reign over creation, that God gave man a responsibility towards creation.
Today I think so many are lost because there has been a massive divorce from the land. Urbanization has taken on proportions never before seen in the west, and even when you travel through a country you go from city to city observing the land through panes of glass, rarely stopping to see anything. The raising of livestock and the care for the land that goes with it are not understood, and increasingly being commercialized.
Perhaps there are the weekend forays into “wilderness” experienced by the back packer, or even the hunter. But the intimacy with the land seems to be lost, perhaps nothing better than a conjugal visit, after which we return to our cells of drywall and vinyl siding. And there is a longing for more. A longing we think can be filled with five acres and a McMansion, perhaps a horse or two.
But the real loss of harmony between man and creation came with the loss of innocence and the fall into sin. Creation longs for the restoration of this harmony even more than the Sierra Club. So creation worships and sings praises to the lamb who has made that restoration possible. Yes. True harmony between man and nature will never be restored until both man and nature worship the creator. Creation knows who to worship. But man worshiping the creation exacerbates the problem and further perpetuates the problem. But the lamb has made possible, peace between man and God, and harmony between man and the rest of creation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"But the intimacy with the land seems to be lost, perhaps nothing better than a conjugal visit, after which we return to our cells of drywall and vinyl siding. And there is a longing for more."

Great post. Thank you.

Bror Erickson said...

Thanks Gary. I was wondering if anyone would comment on that line.