Biblical Thinking - Part IV

The Need for Biblical Thinking---Part Four

(Note: This is the fourth and last commentary in a series on the need for Biblical thinking. Next week there will be no commentary, as I will be in Nebraska on a scouting trip along the Oregon Trail, doing on-site research for our fourth Crimson Cross Adventure Series book for young teenagers: Kate Winfield on the Oregon Trail, which will be written this summer. Then, on June 28 my commentary will be on how you can help to get the truth about American history out to today's young people.)

(The following paragraph is continued from last week's commentary):

So, even someone who does not believe that God exists is no more free to take his life in his hands and do away with it than I am. Nor is it Biblically permissible for me to assist any one else in playing God in his own life by helping that person kill himself. Not only is that a refusal to submit to God's authority about the times and seasons of one's life, and therefore rebellion against God, but it is also an act of enthroning despair and rejecting the redemptive love and power of God. Both the doctrine of the image of God and the doctrine of redemption forbid assisted suicide and euthanasia.

There is one more issue to which I want to briefly apply Biblical thinking in this particular commentary, and that is the matter of the environment, or how we should think about our relationship with the creation. Like a crying baby, whose screams for attention grow louder with every passing moment, there are several factors which are combining to increasingly push this into the public consciousness. First, the rising industrial economies of India, and especially China, are causing pollution nightmares. Second, the continual media blitz over global warming, in spite of the fact that there is no scientific consensus whatsoever about the actual causes of global warming or how dangerous it truly is, has finally warn down even the Bush Adminstration to the point that it is now politically correct to get VERY WORRIED about it. Third, the rise of radical environmentalism---the most extreme example of which is the eco-terrorists' physical attacks on housing developments, SUV dealerships, laboratories that do research on animals, etc.---all in the name of "saving the earth," reveals that there are some very nasty crazies out there who think that trees and plants and animals are more important than people. In the limited space of this commentary I can only suggest some parameters for a Biblical approach to environmentalism, but I am pleased to see more and more Christians and Christian organizations (including churches) addressing the issue with books, speeches, college courses, and programs of action---all of which tells me that we are finally responding to a very real need.

Again, as I have already pointed out in this series of commentaries, a critical Christian doctrine necessary for a balanced Biblical approach to public policy issues is the teaching that man is made in the image of God. That is no less true for environmentalism.

Biblically speaking, the place to begin coming to grips with man's relationship with the creation is Genesis, Chapter One: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth'. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, '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.' And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food' (Verses 26-28). The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15). Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.' Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him (Genesis 2:18-20).

First and foremost: God is not one with the creation. He is not part of the trees or flowers---He has a completely separate identity and existence apart from what He has made. Pantheism is a huge lie. Earth is not your mother, or my mother, or anyone else's mother! God is our Mother and Father, and we are not to worship any part of the creation, or exalt any of it to co-equal status with God.

On the other hand, the creation has no life in and of itself; it has no life apart from God, its Creator. Were He to withdraw His Spirit from the creation life would not just keep on as before. The result would be death. Colossians 1:17: "In Him all things hold together." And Acts 17:28: "In Him we live and move and have our being." God literally holds the universe together by His hand.

Further, man is the only part of the creation made in the image of God, which means, among other things, that only man is capable of moral thought and action, reflecting the nature of our Creator. Genesis 1:27 indicates that man is to rule over the creation---the animals and the plants are not equal to human beings, nor do they have the same value or worth. They are subordinate to us. God brings the newly created animals to Adam, and instructs Adam to name them (Genesis 2:19). Adam gives the animals their identity, an obvious indication of his superiority to them, and his authority and rule over them.

God's commands to our first ancestors are to "fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over every living thing (on it)." So, there is a definite hierarchy here---God the Creator, then man, then the rest of the creation. This is a clear refutation of the Professor Peter Singer attitude of "a dog is a rat is a pig is a boy"---claiming that animals are of as much value as people.

Another Scripture passage that reveals in an interesting way the authority of man over the creation is Romans 8:19-21: "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 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." The Bible tells us that sin entered the world through Adam's sin, and that the creation fell into corruption because its steward, Adam, sinned against the Creator. Verse 21 above says that when the children of God come into their full glory, the creation itself will be set free from corruption. God promises us a new earth at that time (Revelation 21:1). The obvious point is that the creation is subordinate to man (because man is its steward and caretaker), and waiting for man's full freedom from corruption before it can obtain its own!

However, our authority in the creation is not absolute---we cannot do as we please with the earth. The first chapter of Genesis clearly teaches that human beings are in a moral relationship to our Creator, and God has placed limits on our dominion over the earth. Just because He has told us to subdue the creation and take dominion over it does not give us the right to exploit or pillage or rape or destroy it. Psalm 24:1 says: "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein." It belongs to Him, and He hasn't relinquished ownership of it to us.

And, let me parenthetically insert here that He hasn't given it over into the hands of the Devil, either! I am reminded of a conversation I had with a Christian lady at the gym where I work out. I was talking with her about the responsibility of Christians to engage the culture, and to try and "salt and light" it with Biblical standards and influence, to which she objected with the statement that my injunction seemed pointless to her because "the world is in the Devil's hands." Whoa! Hold it right there! There are far too many Christians today who think that way. What an incredibly defeatist attitude! That doesn't square too well with Jesus' admonition to "occupy until I come." Besides, it isn't at all Scriptural. The earth is still "the Lord's, and the fullness thereof."

And, He has called us to be stewards of the creation, tasked with the moral responsibility of taking care of it in accountability to Him. We exercise a delegated authority, which means that we are answerable to our Creator about what we do with the earth He has given us.

Christians have to come to understand that sharing the reality of Jesus Christ and God's redemptive love with people can go hand in hand with exercising Christian stewardship toward the creation. Recently, Christianity Today magazine ran an article about the "greening" of Christian colleges, and their increased involvement with environmental issues, both in and out of the classroom. On a study-abroad program in Nicaragua while at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, Yuri Semenyuk witnessed a protest by banana plantation workers over their exposure to the chemicals used to ready bananas for export to the U.S. According to the article, the workers had permanent damage from chemical burns, and their children had suffered birth defects. There was no environmental stewardship being exercised here, rather it was the exact opposite. Christians must be fully committed to changing these kinds of horrors, because practices like this fall under the category of raping and polluting the environment, with its accompanying deadly effect on human beings.

There are smaller and less dramatic ways for all of us to become actively involved in what we might call "creation care." Because of the horrible drought conditions in sub-Sahara Africa and other places in the world, the lack of fresh, clean water is a growing global health crisis. Anything that any of us can do to help World Vision, World Relief, or any of the other mission organizations provide wells and clean water is a wonderful example of caring for the creation, as well as caring for people.

And, every time we conserve energy we are exercising good stewardship---even little things like turning out lights and not letting the water run. Growing gardens on the roofs of city skyscrapers and high-rise condo buildings; creating public parks and gardens in abandoned lots---making things green. It all helps!

Copyright, 2007, Peter J. Marshall. All rights reserved.

This Article was published on 06/15/2007 and filed in Peter Marshall Columns and