In the first creation narrative, we see God’s delight in what is made. There are several things in this chapter that are worth taking note of because they encourage us towards what we are calling “creation care”.
Let’s notice the refrain of “it was good” and alongside those phrases like, “Let the water teem…” and “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas … on the earth”. What we take from these is that God delights in the abundance and variations and if God delights in that varied abundance, then we might do well to delight in it too. More: we honour God’s delight by seeking to guard and sustain that varied abundance. A further implication is that we diminish something that God values if we allow conditions that lead to extinctions and loss of thriving. This would be the reverse of glorifying God. Glorifying God would, by the implication of this chapter, involve working to sustain and renew the life of the earth.
It’s interesting to notice the structuring of the chapter in respect of what the content of each of the days of creation is. The first three days correspond to the second three: those first three days see the making of domains for each of the second three days respectively. There seems in this structuring to be an implicit recognition of the importance of habitat as well as inhabitants.
The Garden Mandate
“When no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground” (Genesis 2:15)
Eden (Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1472–1553), public domain
The words said to Adam have much to say to us about our human vocation in creation. In Genesis 2:15, we’re told that the Lord God placed the human in the garden to work it and keep it. This seems to be a human vocation that extends beyond the garden.
In deeper reflection of this verse, we might notice a few more things. For example, some commentators suggest the word “earthling” is a better translation than the English “human”. Used earlier in the chapter, the related word “adamah” is usually translated as “earth” or even “soil”. In verse 7, we see that this earthling figure is breathed into life from the shaped dust of the earth. This reminds us that we take our being from the same material as the planet we inhabit. We are kin to the rest of creation; our very molecules are shared with stars, seas and savannahs and all that lives from them. At the very least, caring for creation is by extension a form of self-interest!
We might also notice the phrase “work and keep” – or as some translations have it, “till and guard”. Underlying those various translations are Hebrew words translated in most other places in the Hebrew scriptures as “serve” and “guard” or “watch over” respectively. This conveys a sense like the fifth mark of mission which sums up a dimension of the Christian, indeed the human, vocation as to “Strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the Earth“.
Why care for creation? Because God loves it and calls us to care for it, attending to its flourishing and adding to its abundance – in that, we too flourish and enter into God’s delight.
The whole of creation eagerly awaits
“That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now;” (Romans 8:21-22)
God’s agenda for redemption is bigger than humankind.
Paul’s famous passage in Romans 8 about creation groaning is one of many passages in the New Testament to indicate the sense that salvation involves all of creation. Many Christian readers see in the passage an implication that somehow creation is impacted by human fallenness. And it is easy to elucidate that reading by considering the despoilation wrought by human greed, selfishness and lack of wisdom. Then it is important to notice that the passage shows God’s agenda for redemption is bigger than just humans. If we consider the insight that God is at work in the “here-and-now” pushing and pulling things towards New Creation (an insight which John’s Gospel encourages), then we can understand readily that our calling is to collaborate with God in the “first fruits” of what is to come – even in the non-human natural world. In a similar way to how we respond to the needs of the world through loving service and working for justice and healing, we respond to the groaning of the earth by joining God in working for its integrity and sustenance.
This passage talks about our bodies, and we recall that our bodies are made of the stuff of the wider creation. In this perspective, care for creation is related strongly to care for ourselves and for our neighbours. Pollution harms the very way that we are made, but caring for creation restores God’s intended goodness by nurturing our health and wellbeing.
There is a new creation
“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“Peace,” etching by the Australian artist William Strutt, 1896, public domain
Scripture sends the strong message that Christianity does not reject matter. In the book of Genesis, God declares over his creation that it is good. The very fact that God became human tells us that the earth is not incompatible with God but was created to readily accept God’s goodness and grace. And yet, 1 Corinthians 15:50 tells us that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable”. For things to find their place in God’s kingdom, what is required is God’s complete transformation of creation.
We read in 2 Corinthians that in Christ, all things are made new – a sure sign that creation is not only good for the “now”. The plan and purpose of non-human creatures is not found in our immediate use and consumption of it; rather, it is part of God’s plan for the renewal of all things. God requires our care for creation because its destiny is already decided – and that destiny is not ours to choose.
This is the first of four articles trying to answer the question, “Why care for creation.”
