learning from Romans
Lauren Merritt, via the apostle Paul and his letter to the Christians in Rome, helps us continue to understand why caring for creation and God's creatures is a biblically faithful proposition ...
A good Christian friend of mine once threw a soda can out the window of my moving car. I slammed on the breaks and drove ¼ mile in reverse for him to pick it up. Incredulous, I asked why he would do that. He replied with a laugh (a nervous one I think, being thrown off by my rather abrupt and unexpected reaction to his using the beach as a trash can), “Just speeding up the rapture.”
I see. The logic is simple and appealing: The world is going to end, so why care? Far too many Christians hold this apathetic view. Why engage in a losing battle? Even more, God will purposefully destroy the earth on a last day, so by contributing to the desolation now, we’re actually working to further God’s plan! When we live to bring about ruin, God gets a leg up on his last days of destruction, and we get to live in mindless wastefulness.
Win–win.
Initially, that does make a sort of sense. But a dangerous echo of Romans 6 resonated in my mind.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes the Christian faith and salvation. In chapter 5 he explains how we have life and salvation in Christ as a free gift from God. Through the death of Christ, we have been given a free righteousness apart from our own works.
The first thing Paul writes after this glorious declaration, knowing the mind of sinful men, is a rhetorical question: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (6:1, all passages NIV)
Since we know we are justified before God, shall we sin without concern? In fact, Paul anticipated that some might think they could even be providing God more opportunities to show grace! God gets to be graceful, we get to be selfish.
Win–win.
“By no means!” is this the calling on our life, Paul writes. “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (6:2)
Paul makes clear that we have been united with Christ through faith. Christ died on the cross, bearing all the penalty for the sin of mankind (and you and me in particular), and was raised again, irrevocably conquering the power of sin and death. Likewise, we who are united to Christ have been crucified! The deadly chains which bound us to sin have been broken, our old self has died, and a new self has risen in the power of Christ – and we are free. But, Paul writes, we are free for a purpose: we are dead to sin and alive to God. Not alive to ourselves to pursue our passions, but alive to God to present ourselves for his service.
We cannot go on sinning. God did not save us to let us fall back into our old chains, but to live a full life in His service.
Before becoming Christians, we suffered as slaves of sin. Now, saved, we still bear much of the burden of a sinful world – a world characterized by sin and destruction, and waste and selfishness and sensuality. We wait eagerly for our final adoption as children of God, when our hope will come to fruition (Romans 8:23).
Creation also groans for its salvation and waits on God:
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. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:19-22)
Christian and creation are alike in desire for God and in hope for restoration. Christian and creation together are subject to a futile and temporary, pain-filled world because of sin. Christian and creation together will one day be set free from the bondage of sin.
Shall we go on destroying the earth since we know it will be restored? By no means! That makes no more sense than, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” God did not save us to leave us in sin, but to free us for his glory and his purpose. Nor did he give us an earth that displays his glory so that we can tear it down, but rather to magnify himself.
Oh, how arrogant we are to think that the entire world was created simply so that we could live in it! What a pitiful and limited view of God’s creative powers. God created the world primarily for his glory – not our use. It was never destined to be a mere product in our hands to dirty and throw away.
How glorious is creation? Glorious enough to reveal the nature of God to all the world:
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20).
Every mountain, blade of grass, speck of dirt, animal, plant, mineral displays the glory of God, wrought by his own hand in exactly the way he wanted. His very nature is imprinted in the earth, which speaks to us without words.
As we have temporary bodies that are nonetheless temples of God (1 Cor 6:19-20), so is creation temporary, and yet the grandest temple of God, day and night declaring his glory. We do not tear down our bodies for the mere sake of their mortality, nor shall we destroy the earth because one day it will be gone.
How can we who share a fate with the earth – who suffer and groan with it, who eagerly wait for God alongside it, who with it claim our existence in him, by him and for him – how can we continue to live in animosity, apathy, or destruction toward it?
Amen ...
(Many thanks to Lauren for sharing "The Christian and Creation - Learning from Romans," originally posted on her blog The Christian and Creation ~ Glorifying the Creator; Lauren has recently been running an excellent series on eating humanely, and launched a new Facebook page for her blog as well. All Bible passages English Standard Version; photos copyright Karen Keczmerski & Evgeniy Meyke/123rf.com)
June 9, 2010
Reader Comments (4)
Lauren, Thorough, eloquent and inspiring. Thanks. Denise LaChance
This is wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing this!
Thank you for the warm response to Lauren's post, Denise and Lois, I appreciate her contributions to our blog very much as well - Ben
Thank you so much. Thanks for posting this Ben.