God’s Sensitivity to Creation
You will rightly say to yourselves, what right does Peter have to say anything about this? We don’t see him helping in the community garden, and his own garden looks rather untended! And this is true. perhaps I learned my failings when Mrs Yang, Kevin’s mother, came to live with us. She had grown up and lived all her life in an apartment in a large industrial city in China, apart from during the cultural revolution when she was sent into the countryside to experience peasant labour. But when she arrived in New Zealand she took over my backyard, and slowly converted it all into garden, and my current priority is to tidy it up before she returns in October. Meanwhile the weeds are restoring the ozone layer, I guess. But there is something special about restoring one’s sense of connection with the land, as I from a country area ought to know. (I did get third prize for my home garden in primary school.)
We well know the Matthew passage which shows Jesus’ deep awareness of the delights and beauties of creation, the lilies, the grass, and its sense of the significance of nature in its significance. But I want to put this in a wider frame, of God’s purposes in creation, and its ultimate future. Because to understand the distinctives of the Christian approach we need to explore this.
God’s Covenant with the Earth
We need to begin in Genesis, because unless we understand God our creator, we cannot fully appreciate our God as redeemer. But I want to take this exploration a little further to discover that God has a covenant relationship with the earth.
It could be that there was a covenant with the earth in Genesis 1-5, but it is not named as such except by implication in Genesis 6:18 (if the verb means “re-establish”). There were principles laid down of how God would interact with creation seen in Genesis 1 (image of God; humans as reflecting God’s behaviour in the world, and children and as regents; be fruitful and multiply; a responsibility for creation, ) Humans had moral autonomy, There is a pattern of rest and renewal in the Sabbath provision, there is the task of naming the animals. The Garden of Eden is part of the divine plan. Dumbrell talks of “the garden in Eden as a sanctuary and Adam as a priest worshiping there.” To quote Gentry and Wellum,
As servant king and son of God, mankind will mediate God’s rule to the creation in the context of a covenant relationship with God on the one hand and the earth on the other.
And then comes the decision to flood the earth. In Genesis 6:18 we read: “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.” So when Noah comes out of the ark, Noah’s covenant is a renewal of the covenant with Adam and humanity. The flood is like the beginning of a new creation.
We only read a small part of the covenant story. It starts in Genesis 8:20, when Noah left the ark and made a sacrifice of some of the surviving animals.
And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.
Then came the passage we read about the calling of Noah and family to be fruitful and multiply. And then came the promise of the rainbow:
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
The Old Testament retells ancient stories with a different flavour. Archaeologists have recovered the Gilgamesh story Utnapishtim or the Atrahasis Epic. In each of these creation and flood are told as a result of scraps among the gods. Not one of them talks of the one God committing himself to the earth
Notice the promise in 8:22: As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22 – the nature of the seasonal rhythms reflects God’s order. The humans had rescued these animals and now they need to play a part in the survival of humanity.
The key is covenant. Recall that the New Testament should be translated “New Covenant” for it is a binding agreement between God and the redeemed. But before it lies the covenant with Israel, with Abraham and with Moses, the Old Covenant with its conditions of obedience and land and blessing. Often we forget that there is another covenant before that, one with far wider implications, because it embraces all of humanity, and indeed all of creation. So this is an exceptionally important covenant, for these are the terms upon which God now relates to the world. And regardless or not of whether you regard the flood as literal or as an allegory, the principles are stark and distinctive. They are especially distinctive if you compare them with the other cultures of the ancient world. And they are quite distinctive if you compare them with current culture.
Now the vision does not set earth against humanity. “Be fruitful and multiply” means that we have a relationship with the earth.
This is by no means a perfect world. This is a world after a devastating flood. Yet God renews his blessings in a realistic way. In 1:28 the same promise of be fruitful and multiply appeared. But things will have to be different. We cannot go back to Eden. There is no Edenic innocence. Humans will exploit. “the fear and dread of you’ is recognised. The mode has changed. The focus is on the animals and birds, and the creepers and fish. So this goes back to the shape of creation in 1:6-8. So this covers creation days five and six. Recall the different atmosphere of Gen 2, and the hope that the wolf will dwell with the lamb and a little child will lead them. On the other hand the “subdue” and “rule” of 1:28 is gone.
V 3 there is a reminder of the original provision of vegetation for food in Genesis 2. But now in this imperfect world, animals will be killed and eaten.
The animals in the ark were clean as suitable for sacrifice, or unclean, unsuitable. But there are no eating laws as such until Sinai – and these laws were abolished in Jesus.
On the other hand Cain was a farmer, Abel was a shepherd, Noah and his sons were hunters. But there is still a restriction.
V4 flesh with the life is flesh with blood. Out of respect for life, we do not eat the blood. We respect the creation. So there is a requirement for animals to treat other animals with respect, and for humans to treat others with respect. So animals that kill a human must account for this. The killing of another is significant. Protecting life is critical. It also maybe means {“every moving thing that lives?} not eating animals that have died of natural causes.
There is here a reference to Cain killing Abel, and the vital importance of honouring life. There is also a covenant with all the animals that took refuge in the ark.
Here a profound argument for the sanctity of life.
This is the same principle of halal killing, and this was maintained in Acts 15.
V 6 Here is the image of God again spelled out.
We are fallen human beings. (As is also evident in 5:1-2) Recall the verse just before this chapter: I will never again curse the ground because of humans, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. Genesis 8:21
But we bear the image of God. Here is the comment of an early Protestant preacher:
“A very awful thought, to consider that man, even as he is man, while he was in innocency, or in apostasy, is still the image of God, and therefore, must be inviolable, not to be touched beyond his rules, who reserves to himself still, the dominion over lives, as being the God of our lives, so as to kill or to make alive, either immediately, or mediately, by his own authority in men, but not otherwise.” (John Howe, God’s Creation of Man in Five Lectures)
There must be an accounting for human life. Note the reference is to “your brother” (in the Hebrew). V7 We are intended to reproduce and this is God’s will. There will be joy in doing this.
What is God’s side of this deal? There will be a contract which God will make with the earth. It is not just made with humans. Remember the birds flying around looking for somewhere to perch during the flood. We are not the whole of creation. Remember the call to stewardship in 2:15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. The covenant is perpetual. It is unconditional. It is made before Noah is called to say yes. It is a royal grant. Unlike in Gen1-2, women are not mentioned in the blessing. Some parallels with Gen 1-2, and Moses in Sinai Ex 24:4-18.
The world is provisional and unsatisfactory. And yet it is a world where God’s grace operates. So we should never think of the world as something bad, nor think of flesh as inherently evil or the physical as in competition with the spiritual. For over it hangs the rainbow. There doubtless had been rainbows before, but now it has a new meaning. When the rainbow comes, the rainclouds are heavy, but the heavier they are, the brighter and more colourful the rainbow. All the rainbow requires is a break in the clouds, a glimpse of light from the sun, and then the promise is restored.
V 11 The promise is that there will be no subsequent huge flood. But there can be smaller floods and other troubling and difficult events.
V 12 the sign of the covenant. It is the bow. The bow ties but the bow I also used for armour. Hanging up the bow means the cessation of warfare. God is not at war with us. The passage is not saying there were no rainbows before this. But the rainbow is universal. The whole world experiences it. The covenant is not exclusive. Note that there was a rainbow around the throne in Rev 4:6-7. This is my father’s world. There are the moments when we will be fearful when the clouds and storms and in a strange way it is the reminded to God. God sees the rainbow! This is an anthropomorphism. But it says that although this is not a perfect world, God has set up limits to the destructive forces in it.
Recall George Matheson, blind man, “The love that will not let me go” talks of “I trace the rainbow through the rain, and know the promise is not vain, that morn shall fearless be”.
Luther said: We, too, need this comfort today, in order that despite a great variety of stormy weather we may have no doubt that the sluice gates of the heavens and the fountains of the deep have been closed by the Word of God.’ (in NAC)
The rainbow is seen by God and God gives it meaning. Humans have not imposed any conditions on God. Noah came out of the ark dripping and weak. God did not need Noah. But God graciously offers a promise. No human has a right to God’s continued mercy, but God pledges himself in love to continue human life and to bless humanity. It is a rain-bow. God’s battle-axe has been hung up. And God shows pure beauty as the display of his goodness. God will seek a basis for the redemption of humanity. Notice that the passage is full of anthropomorphisms – God heard, God saw, God smelt (8:21). So it is no iron natural law, it is God’s personal act. Noah as the second Adam.
Typically, this has been read as a covenant with humanity, and certainly in 6:18 and 8:22-23, this is God’s promise, but now it is broadened to the whole of creation. So it echoes the story of creation in Genesis 1, and the prohibitions of Genesis 2. So it is a kind of re-creation. It is a commitment to all life on earth (v17).
Covenant signs are part of every covenant. There are other signs of different covenants. Circumcision for Jews, Baptism for Christians. But this is a covenant with all the earth so all the earth sees the rainbow. [Recall, Abraham, Sinai, David, but each covenant points towards Jesus.] But this sign requires nothing from us.
Note the perfect tense in v17. God has set this up and his word has declared it so God will not renege. It is a covenant with all flesh.
“The condition of humanity after the cataclysmic judgment remains the same as it was before; the judgment has not altered or changed the condition of the human heart. The implication is that God would be completely justified in wiping out every generation of humanity by means of a great judgment. There is only one reason why he does not do so: because of his own grace and mercy toward us. The earth is maintained and preserved in spite of the human situation. Thus the covenant made with Noah creates a firm stage of history where God can work out his plan for rescuing his fallen world.”
There is the threat of fire in 2 Peter 3:5-13.
Revelation 8
You were probably surprised to hear the reading from the Revelation, but I included this so that we can see that although God promised to never again destroy the earth by flood, he did not promise to prevent humans damaging it profoundly.
The book of Revelation is full of startling imagery, and the seven trumpets in Revelation 8 very precisely tell us that the earth is profoundly affected by the evils upon earth. There are parallels in the seven seals (Rev 6-7) and the seven bowls in Rev 15-16. See the imagery of one third of the earth damaged. There is a striking parallel with the plagues of Egypt. 8:7 compare the plagues in Exodus 9:13-16, but made much worse by the blood from the sky.
8:6 trumpets signal divine action as trumpets signalled war. Portents of war. But note the devastation of plant life. Trees and grass far more essential than people realise.
There is also the “wormwood”, through which creation profoundly damaged. Wormwood comes from Jeremiah 23:15: “I am feeding this people with wormwood, and giving them poisonous water to drink” The seals fold into the trumpets etc. But they gradually intensify, the seals affect quarter of the earth (6:8); the trumpets a third, and the bowls have no limit.
One way to read the Book of Revelation is to see the potential for humans to bring destruction upon the earth, and that God in judgement protects some of the creation from these terrible events. We stop before the 5th trumpet when a plague of locusts turned into invading horses, or are they tanks?
Notice there is a moment of premonition before the trumpets sound. And notice that the prayers of the people of God for justice have their implications.
The implication is that there is a call for repentance.
But notice the silence in heaven – Jewish tradition that at the time of the incense offering (v2) the heavenly worshippers fall silent to hear the prayer from on earth. The pleas for help from the martyrs whom we heard in 6:10 had been martyred. And now God will serve out justice on the rebellious earthlings, and to bring a new reign of righteousness. For there lies ahead in the book a promise that earth and heaven will be renewed.
8:8 Second Trumpet: Is this a volcano. Compare the plague of blood (Ex 7:16-21).
8:10-11 Third trumpet: The contamination of the land – wormwood was a grey-leafed plant that contaminated water.
8:12 Fourth trumpet: damage to one third of the universe. Partial eclipses,
8:13 The eagle was the warning agent from God.
In 9:4 the grass and the trees are protected. This is damage to the parts that have been mis-managed by humans. Could we be seeing the forces of war and the damage they are doing?
Are these future or present judgements?
There is a sense that we recognise these. The first trumpet of fire and hail could be aerial bombings at the end of World War II, the poisoned water is the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in 1986.
Talk generally of Revelation through an environmental perspective: the sense of human misbehaviour and outrageous abuse of power, and the judgement of God seeks to respond to this. Michael Kiel, Apocalyptic Ecology (Liturgical Press, 2017). Talks about end-times in our DNA. Lyn White’s attack on Christianity. But Revelation is about the earth and its future. We see the death throes of an age. Annihilation and renewal are here. War and its impact on the earth. Sin’s destructive effect on the earth. But then the image of animal figures in heaven. Theocentric rather than biocentric or anthropocentric. Cosmology and eschatology.
Note that locusts told not to damage grass (Rev 9:4).
Reject the idea that the material creation was the product of the fall.
Greed and abuse of power are the causes of our ecological crisis.
For we are heading towards a new creation:
God has planned a new creation—a new heavens and a new earth. Unlike the first creation, where he first made the place and afterwards the people to live there, in the new creation he is first making the people and afterwards the place where they will live.
Our Life and Creation
But the critical call to us is to seek God with our whole heart and to open our eyes at the beauty he has planted all around us. And look at how he cares for the sparrows. This does not mean the sparrows do nothing; they are constantly pecking here there and everywhere in search of food. The wildflowers are what Jesus looks at. And yet this is a transitory beauty. We may see this as a call to do nothing – look at the birds – and indeed we may trust in God and God’s provision. But this is also our world intended to sustain us and it calls for our work and will reward us for what we do. You may have heard the story of the gardener in some very grand garden, who listens to people saying piously that God has made something very beautiful, to which he comments: “You should ‘ave seen this ‘ere garden when God had it all to ‘is self.”
There is a certain sense that we can do very little, which we modern people are reluctant to accept. – it is only when humans step in and their warfare defiles the opportunities of food that troubles ensue, although sadly sometimes long-term stripping of the earth means that people go hungry even where there is no war.
So let us trust in our maker and respect the earth that God has made. Jesus is not saying everything will work out perfectly, and in a world once again governed by competing empires, we can be aware of the challenge.
I think this is a call to everything we do that builds for hope and renewal, for recognition of beauty and to treat our earth with respect, and yet not an object of worship, but reserve this for God who was its creator and will be its redeemer