“I have not yet been able to put your environmental concern into my view of eschatology [the "end times"].”
So said a good friend. He comes from the same Dispensationalist background I come from. I appreciate his candor. I know what he means: Since the earth will “wear out like a garment” (Heb. 1:11); since some of it will “melt” (2 Pet. 3:12); since Jesus will return for us; since our future home will be heaven; since man is most important to God, why should we care about the state of the earth?
My answer has to be this: We have have been looking at the wrong end of the Bible to understand our relationship to the creation. We need to look at the beginning. While how creation happened is constantly debated in Christian circles, there is seldom an argument about the early mandates found in the first two chapters of Genesis about how we use and relate to the creation: the dominion mandate in 1:28 and the marriage mandate in 2:24. Sandwiched between those two, however, is the stewardship mandate in 2:15. We seldom question the dominion mandate or the marriage mandate. But I don’t think we do well with the stewardship mandate.
Here we are told that man and woman were put into the Garden to cultivate it and to take care of it. The full sense of those infinitives in the Hebrew includes being a husbandman, or steward, of it—a task that means putting a hedge around it, protecting it, serving it, preserving it, and saving it. I feel that this command is often the forgotten mandate. If we had been heeding this divine requirement as enthusiastically as we do the dominion mandate, I think things would be significantly different—at least in the Christian community today.
So why should we care about the state of the earth?
1) We should care because it is the obedient thing to do. Nowhere in Scripture do I see that the original mandates have been rescinded. Although our dominion is often abused because of the Fall, the dominion mandate remains our ideal. Although our marriages suffer because of sin, the marriage mandate remains our ideal. Although the task of stewardship is difficult in the presence of evil and because of the curse, the creation care mandate remains our ideal. We indeed glorify God in our obedience to all three mandates.
2) We should care because it is the loving thing to do. In Psalm 145 we have this revealing verse: “The Lord is righteous in all His ways and loving toward all He has made” (Psa. 145:17). That verse follows right after the one that says God opens His hand and satisfies “the desires of every living thing.” At the very least we can understand from these verses that if God is righteous and loving toward all He has made, we can attempt to be the same. As Francis Schaeffer reminded us, “If we love the Lover, we will love that the Lover has made.” Further, when we care properly for the earth, we also demonstrate love for our neighbor and for ourselves—so that all aspects of the Great Commandment can be carried out.
Certainly there are many unanswered questions about the future state of the earth, the material final state of the believer, and the nature of heaven. Nonetheless, it is clear to me that Jesus’ promise of future bliss must never be an excuse for present carelessness regarding His creation. If the atoning sacrifice of the second Adam is going to result in the reconciliation of all things ruined by the sin of the first Adam (Col. 1:20); if all of creation is on tiptoe groaning for the day when it will be released from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:20-22 Phillips); if Isaiah’s Messianic peaceable kingdom is yet to come, how can I be less than a loving and careful steward of God’s creation handiwork.
So since we are no doubt closer in time to the restoration than we are to the time of the curse, our outlook should be that of Isaac Watts who wrote of the coming return of Earth’s true King,
Joy to the world! The Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing. . . .
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
See you outdoors!
Dean
November 16th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Dean -
Excellent post. I agree with it, but have two tiny caveats:
I would add more emphasis to the fact that, since Jesus considered the second greatest commandment to be “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), we must care for the environment. If you love your neighbors, you won’t pollute the air they breath or the water they drink. You won’t force their children to live in poverty because you’ve trashed their land and used all the resources.
I also see no reason at all to state that “we are no doubt closer in time to the restoration than we are to the time of the curse”. How could we even know that? I believe that the restoration is an ongoing process, not a one-time event, but I don’t think we know whether it will be complete next week in or ten million years. Too much bad behavior by Christians over the last two thousand years has been justified by the idea that Jesus was going to be back any minute now, so nobody needs to consider the long term. Let’s leave the timing of the restoration to God, and start living in the most loving fashion we can right now.
Again, these are fairly minor nits - overall I think that this was an excellent post. Thanks for sharing it!
-Tyson
November 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Tyson,
You might appreciate the words of N. T. Wright:
“When God saves people in this life, by working through his Spirit to bring them to faith and by leading them to follow Jesus in discipleship, prayer, holiness, hope, and love, such people are designed—it isn’t too strong a word—to be a sign and foretaste of what God wants to do for the entire cosmos. What’s more, such people are not just to be a sign and foretaste of that ultimate salvation; they are to be a part of the means by which God makes this happen in both the present and the future. That is what Paul insists on when he says that the whole creation is waiting with eager longing not just for its own redemption, its liberation from corruption and decay, but for God’s children to be revealed: in other words for the unveiling of those redeemed humans through whose stewardship creation will at last be brought back into that wise order for which it was made. And since Paul makes it quite clear that those who believe in Jesus Christ, who are incorporated into Him through baptism, are already God’s children, are already themselves saved, this stewardship cannot be something to be postponed for the ultimate future. It must begin here and now.”
[From Surprised By Hope by N. T. Wright: HarperOne, 2008, p. 200]
November 17th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Dean -
I love N.T. Wright, but haven’t read that one yet. I’ll have to put it on the list. Great quote.
-Tyson
November 20th, 2008 at 10:54 am
A little surprised that you say:
there is seldom an argument about the early mandates found in the first two chapters of Genesis about how we use and relate to the creation: the dominion mandate in 1:28 and the marriage mandate in 2:24.
As, in the circles I move in, these two mandates are the subject of huge debate
I am interested that you call Gen 2:15 ‘the Stewardship mandate’, as it doesn’t mention the word at all. It reads:
Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
I have always seen this as part of the dominion mandate. But then, I have always seen what you call ‘the marriage mandate’ as part of the dominion mnadate as well. Perhaps a post on these three mandates, as you see them?
November 20th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
To Von1:
My point, perhaps not clearly made, is that Christians generally believe in and practice dominion over the created things as both a right and mandate from Genesis 1.
Further, we believe in the ideal of marriage as between one man and one woman for life as mandated in Genesis 2 along with our mandate to multiply in chapter 1
Those two are sometimes called the cultural mandate. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of summarizing it:
“The cultural mandate or creation mandate is a doctrine among some evangelical Christians which teaches that the Christian faith provides principles that are applicable not only to be to one’s personal life and the life of the church, but also to the structures and governance of society, which if appropriately comprehended can assist Christians to thereby “redeem the culture” for the good of all. It is summarized by Nancy Pearcey in her book ‘Total Truth’:
‘In Genesis, God gives what we might call the first job description: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” The first phrase, “be fruitful and multiply” means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, “subdue the earth,” means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music. This passage is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations—nothing less.’”
The stewardship mandate is implicit within the cultural mandate simply because we are stewards of God’s creation, not its owners. “The earth is the Lord’s,” not ours.
When the two infinitives in Genesis 2:15 (”to dress” and “to keep”)are considered with all their implications and connotations, we understand that Adam’s job was to cultivate, husband, care for, guard, save, protect, and serve the Garden—which can be extrapolated to describe how we are to have dominion over the earth. This is what I term the “stewardship mandate,” which, of course, is further informed by the rest of Scripture.
So my point is that our pastors and theologians have not done a very good job teaching and admonishing us about our duty to care for creation–thereby making it seem that the stewardship responsibility was somehow manufactured by ungodly environmentalists, and not found in Scripture.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
and serve the Garden
???
This might be taken a bit wrongly.
Rom 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Are we ever really called to ’serve’ the creation? My wife ‘dresses and keeps’ our garden that it might serve us, not the other way around.
I haven’t met any (in the circles I move) who disagree that we are stewards. They would disagree more with you on the point of the stewardship; its focus as it were. That the point of the stewardship was not for the sake of the earth itself, but its creator. And the role of the stewardship was focused on the people the creation was meant to serve, not vice versa.
I’m a little unclear, are you agreeing or disagreeing with Nancy Pearcey? Are you saying she left something out?
November 21st, 2008 at 11:40 am
To Von1:
“Serving” the Garden—and by extension the earth—would be in the same vein as Jesus who came as the Servant-King. Or similarly, those of us as parents who though being in authority and the “responsible” ones nonetheless spend most of our years serving our children.
“Serving” in the context of Romans 1:25 would be entirely different: serving as one would serve an idol. In other words, worshiping it.
The two terms in Genesis 2:15 are the Hebrew words “abad” and “shamar.” “Abad” is used in the OT some 10 times as “cultivate, till or ‘dress.’” It is used 200 times to speak of some sort of service.
“Shamar” is the word “keep” in the familiar Aaronic blessing:
Numbers 6:22-26: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them: “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”
“Shamar” is used multiple times in the OT as a word for protection. It is used 42 times in the sense of attending and caring.”
So my conclusion is that these two words in this key verse provide a mandate for us to be the responsible and servant species regarding the earth. And certainly all to the glory of God.
Yes, the debate will always come in at the point of putting the mandate into practice. But my guess is that fishing out the oceans; polluting water, soil, and air; wasting soil; hoarding; and so on and so forth would not be considered good stewardship of God’s gift of a good earth.
I think that Nancy Pearcey’s summary of the cultural mandate is fine. One could add stewardship to the cultural mandate or let it stand as a separate mandate. Regardless, it is still our duty to understand what human work—and play—is doing to the earth and change any behavior that is threatens the integrity of the earth’s ecosystems.