I am the most ignorant of men; I do not have a man’s understanding. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. . . . If you have played the fool and exalted yourself, or if you have planned evil, clap your hand over your mouth! (Proverbs 30:1-2, 32).

Then Job answered the LORD : I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more. . . . I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, “Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?” Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, “Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.” My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes (Job 40:4-5; 42:1-6)

One of the joys of studying Scripture is that there’s always something new to learn. Recently I saw Proverbs 30 again—for the first time. What struck me as I read it was how much the chapter seems to be a shortened version of the book of Job—only in reverse. Agur, the writer, begins by confessing his ignorance and then points to wonders of the creation as being proof of how little knowledge he has, eventually saying that those who exalt themselves as knowledgeable about the creation should clap their hands over their mouths.

Job, on the other hand, begins, along with his friends, to chatter about how much they know about the ways God works and why He does what He does. Only when God confronts him and points out the humanly incomprehensible miracles of the creation does he see how he needs, frankly, to shut up (put his hand over his mouth). Agur begins by saying that the majesty of creation—even the commonest of creatures of his region, like the ant, the hyrax, the locust, and the lizard—inspire such awe and wonder that we ought to be compelled to worship the Creator of them all—in part by admitting we don’t have all the answers.

Agur’s humble position reminds me of the comment made by Jack Thomas, former director of the US Forest Service, who was asked to give some definitive conclusion about the forest ecosystem. His answer is a classic: “The ecosystem is not only more complex than we think; it is more complex than we can think.” What did Jack, Job, and Agur hold in common? They all came to be taught by the creation itself that we hardly have an inkling of the complexities of the creation.

If you’ve been visiting this website for a while, you likely understand that this has become a hobby horse of mine: I’m not at all thrilled by so-called creation science and its preachers. The reason? Once you tie the meaning of the Genesis account of creation to science, be it “creation science” or “evolutionary science,” you are saddling the Creator of the universe with puny human conclusions. With a nod to Jack Thomas, I say, “not only is the Genesis account of creation more complex than we think; it is more complex than we can think.”

Why does the earth and the cosmos look like they are virtually endless and ageless? The Bible gives us the answer—in Romans 1:20. Man is “without excuse” in denying the existence of the Creator because the created things demonstrate “His eternal power.”  Space and time show themselves endless and ageless to us because God’s power is beyond space and time. So I’m no longer going to debate, like Job’s friends, about what the science of origins, Christian or not, is supposed to prove. I’m going to start where Agur started: confess my ignorance right up front and then go out to simply take delight in ants, grasshoppers, lizards, and lions.

Don’t you wonder what God thinks about the time, money, and energy we spend on the creation-evolution debate—and the time, money, and energy we don’t spend on the stewardship of His creation—or simply just loving and enjoying it?

The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world (Rev. 13:5-8).

This will be the last commentary in my series on questions Christians commonly ask about environmental issues.  With global environmental crises increasing rapidly, it’s almost certain that many Christians are asking this question:

Question: Couldn’t global concern about the environment lead eventually to a one-world government?

Answer: Christians understand that it is God who ultimately establishes and topples governments. And from biblical prophecy many also understand that a one-world government will indeed come about—first, negatively, under the Antichrist and then, positively, under the reigning Messiah. Further we know that under Christ the creation, which now “groans” beneath the burden of human sin, will be restored to grandeur even greater than its former state (Rom. 8:18-23). The paradise our souls long to regain will one day become a wonderful reality. Whatever we do today to care for creation is but a rehearsal for that coming kingdom we petition for in “The Lord’s Prayer.” Mankind’s present attempts to deal with global environmental problems are only marginally related to that prophetic future.

N.T. Wright in his powerful book, “Surprised By Hope” reminds us of the significance of our present behavior to our future hope:

What you do in the Lord is not in vain.  You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire.  You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site.  You are—strange though it may seem, almost as hard as to believe as the resurrection itself—accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world.  Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of His creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or walk; every act of care and nurture, comfort and support for one’s fellow human beings and, for that matter, one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world—all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.

That is the logic of the mission of God.  God’s recreation of His wonderful world, which began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God’s people live in the risen Christ and in the power of His Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted.  It will last all the way into God’s new world.  In fact, it will be enhanced there .

Regarding the increasing number of environmental crises worldwide, we need to keep in mind that God’s creation has no political boundaries. Harmful emissions from America’s smokestacks drift into Canada’s forests. Deforestation in the mountains of Nepal affects the delta of the Ganges in Bangladesh. Timber cutting in America’s Pacific Northwest affects rain and snowfall in the Rockies. Pollution of the Danube or the Rhine impacts life in every European nation the rivers touch. Increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in every nation affect the atmosphere of the entire globe.

Responsible attempts to deal with these problems are clearly sanctioned by Scripture as part of our stewardship requirement. One thing is absolutely certain: Carrying out God’s stewardship obligation will not bring about the reign of the Antichrist. It is disobedience and rebellion against God that will culminate in that first godless, one-world government (which looks ominously close). Environmental crises like global climate change, fisheries collapse, deforestation, and pollution may indeed help compel unbelievers to yield their governance and their wills to a Godless world leader who promises false security. The more Christians act like Christians, the less likely it is that unbelievers would look for such a one-world leader.

Could it not be possible that it’s not only the sin of unbelievers, but also the failure of believers to act as believers should that will hasten the coming reign of the Antichrist? But in God’s Kingdom that is to come (the one we anticipate in singing our “Doxology”), followers of Christ will have a restored earth to celebrate and care for—in the process of worshiping the true, loving, righteous, and final one-world Governor: Messiah Jesus.

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King (Matthew 5:33-35).

Friday I used this passage from the Sermon on the Mount to show that Jesus reiterates the prophet Isaiah’s words (chapter 66).  I’m not a theologian, so I can’t tell you all the nuances of Jesus using these same words, and most of the commentaries I have read simply explain the main point of the message: just be honest and keep your word.  You do not need to make an oath on anything if you tell the truth and honor your promises.

That’s obviously a critical admonition for us all.  But in reference to the purpose of this Wonder of Creation site, something else really jumped out at me: As Isaiah states, the heavens and the earth—the entire cosmos—is the work of God’s “hands.”  And Jerusalem is as well.  Jerusalem was chosen by David (obviously through God’s direction), and it became the city of his throne built by human hands.  Psalm 48, written by “the sons of Korah,” used the same expression that Jesus used: it is “the city the Great King”—foretelling the time in the future when the New Jerusalem, made by God’s hands, descends to the earth and serves as “the throne of God and the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1).

A major point, then—and one the church seems to have often missed—is that the material heavens and earth and coming New Jerusalem are all of sacred significance.  Consider some meanings of “sacred” from Dictionary.com:  Sacred: 1. devoted or dedicated to a deity or to some religious purpose; consecrated. 2. entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity or divine things; holy. 3. pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to secular  or profane); 4. regarded with reverence; 5. secured against violation and infringement; 6. properly immune from violence, interference, etc.

John Muir left the formal church primarily because of his super-pious father, who knew the Scriptures backward and forward but was abusive and spiritually shallow.  But Muir kept his faith in God the Creator and perhaps sensed the sacred in the cosmos more than anyone else.  And it was primarily because of Muir that American political leaders had the foresight to preserve some of the nation’s most awe-inspiring wonders.  The great national parks indeed offer us the opportunity to sense the sacred in God’s good creation, but even a nearby meadow, woodlot, pond, seashore beach, or marsh left to pretty much function naturally gives evidence of His eternal power and divine nature.

I close with a reverie of John Muir’s as a motivation for us to wonder even today in the glory of God’s “footstool”:

The forests seem kindly familiar, and the lands and meadows and glad singing streams.  I should like to dwell with them forever.  Here with bread and water I should be content.  Even if not allowed to roam and climb, tethered to a stake or tree in some meadow or grove, even then I should be content forever.  Bathed in such beauty, watching the expressions ever varying on the faces of the mountains, watching the stars, which here have a glory that the lowlander never dreams of, watching the circling seasons, listening to the songs of the waters and winds and birds would be endless pleasure.  And what glorious cloudlands I should see, storms and calms—a new heaven and a new earth every day, aye and new inhabitants.  And how many visitors I should have. I feel sure I should not have one dull moment.  And why should this appear so extravagant?  It is common sense, a sign of health—genuine, natural, all-awake health.  One would be at an endless Godful play, and what speeches and music and acting and scenery and lights!—sun, moon, stars, auroras.  Creation just beginning, the morning stars “still singing together and all the children of God shouting for joy.” [From My First Summer In the Sierra]

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm (Psalm 33:6-9)

I have good Christian friends who are young-earth creationists, old-earth creationists, creation scientists, intelligent-design creationists, evolutionary creationists, and theistic evolutionists. I don’t have any friends who are atheistic evolutionists—primarily because both at work and at leisure I’m surrounded by followers of Christ.  But, to be frank, I have to confess that after following the creation-evolution debate for more than forty years, I’ve come to believe that those who look at life’s origin according to Genesis mostly as a question of science are belittling Scripture.

Let me explain.  By “belittling” I’m referring to the word’s original connotation: “to regard or portray as less impressive or important than appearances indicate.” In other words, trying to squeeze into human categories and understanding what is outside of human comprehension.  I don’t believe that anything in God’s creation can be made to fit perfectly into any human categories. Genesis is one of the world’s grandest statements of truth—with meaning and implications that we can only begin to grasp.  Science philosopher Michael Polanyi expressed it like this:

The book of Genesis and its great pictorial illustrations, like the frescoes of Michelangelo, remain a far more intelligent account of the nature and origin of the universe than the representation of the world as a chance collocation of atoms.  .  .  .  The scientific picture denies any meaning to the world, and indeed ignores all our most vital experience of this world. The assumption that the world has some meaning which is linked to our own calling as the only morally responsible beings in the world is an important example of the supernatural aspect of experience which Christian interpretations of the universe explore and develop. [My emphasis -DO]

I feel that “creation science” often belittles God’s Word and “secular science” belittles God’s world.  Typically those who say that special creation alone gave origin to life and those who say that evolutionary processes alone gave origin to life seem to imply that they have some comprehensive explanation of the origin of life.  They don’t.  Nor do you or I.  Life is so awesome and its origin so beyond our ken that our primary response to it should be worship (what Paul was surely implying when he said that the natural world reveals the Creator’s eternal power and divinity in Romans 1:20).

These conclusions of mine (simple, incomplete, and non-comprehensive as they must remain) have caused me to be fascinated with the studies of John H. Walton both in his book The Lost World of Genesis One and his study of the entire first book of the Bible The NIV Application Commentary on Genesis.  One of his most significant conclusions is that the Genesis account of creation is part of a temple ceremony and that its purpose, in part, was to proclaim to nations surrounding Israel and especially to the children of Israel that there is only one true God and that the earth is His temple.  So Walton would go beyond John Calvin who saw the earth as “the theater of God’s glory” and say that the earth is “the temple of God’s glory.”

This emphasis, then, has significant implications regarding the theme and purpose of this Website: celebrating the wonder of creation.  A theater is a place where you go to observe, and its elements are mundane.  The observer has no responsibilities in a theater but perhaps to applaud.  A temple, on the other hand, is a place where you go to worship, and its elements are sacred.  In a temple you are a participant and have responsibilities.  In the next few posts I would like to explore the implications of seeing the cosmos as God’s temple.

(NOTE: My introductory statements are not an invitation to make WOC a platform for the creation-evolution debate, which I feel is terribly disruptive in the church.  Those discussions can better take place at venues dedicated to that one issue.  If you’re interested in reading my concerns about that debate, you might want to read the RBC Discovery Series booklet on it: “The Genesis Account of Creation: Diffusing the Controversy.”)

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”  Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:6-9).

Through several years in the mid-eighties I was director of communication for Bibles for India (now Mission India).  One of our projects was to develop a seminar on the “New Age Movement” (NAM) that was sweeping through the West at that time.  We called the seminar “The New Age of Paganism.”  We were especially concerned about the friendly but false face the NAM was giving to Eastern religions and philosophy and the faulty judgments New Age adherents were making about Christianity.  We concluded that the “new age” was simply the “old lie” that people could be gods.

Here’s a good overview of the NAM from Wikipedia:

The New Age Movement is a spiritual and quasi-religious Western movement that developed in the latter half of the twentieth century. Its central precepts revolve around “drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational psychology, holistic health, parapsychology, consciousness research and quantum physics“ in order to create “a spirituality without borders or confining dogmas” that is inclusive and pluralistic. Another of its primary traits is holding to “a holistic worldview,” thereby emphasizing that the Mind, Body and Spirit are interrelated and that there is a form of Oneness and unity throughout the universe. It further attempts to create “a worldview that includes both science and spirituality” and thereby embraces a number of forms of science and pseudo-science.

That’s an excellent summary of what we were dealing with then—and the entire global community continues to deal with today.  Our judgment was that the NAM was creating a popular alternative to Christianity based on both a misunderstanding of Christianity and of Eastern religion/philosophy.  We saw that people were rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ by denying human sinfulness and the need of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for sin and by actually claiming that each person was God in the flesh (via Oneness or Monism).  And the NAM was also making inroads with the big nature agencies like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society because of its earth-friendly nature and earth-deifying modes of worship—one of the reasons, of course, that conservative Christians rejected both the NAM and active caring for the creation.  And that turned out to be another of our acts of “throwing out of the baby with the bathwater.” (New Age images sources A and B)

In my research for the seminar I discovered a troubling thing about the church.  Much of the appeal of the NAM was directly related to characteristics which were missing in the church and should have been there: understanding the holistic union of mind, body, and spirit; recognizing the need to care for the earth; staying aware of new scientific discoveries and conclusions; valuing personal relationships; and grasping the need for community—community that included the natural world that surrounds us.  It was these lapses in Christianity that Francis Schaeffer said would make pantheism the religion of the Environmental Movement (saying it a good ten years before the NAM burst on the scene).  He was right.

There’s a lot of truth in the New Age Movement—which reminds us that the most important ingredient in deception is the truth it contains.  Satan’s favorite color is not black; it’s off-white.  His Infernal Majesty delights in seeing people come close to Christ but still miss Him.  I’m of the opinion that cults and false religions often have their appeal because they offer something that’s missing in the Christian faith.  The NAM draws in some of its adherents by respecting the Mind of the universe (the one we call God), offering warm and caring personal relationships, centering on the spiritual side of human nature, seeing the importance of caring for creation, “reducing, recycling, and reusing,” celebrating the wonder and mystery of creation while keeping up with scientific findings, praising the virtues of simple living, rejecting the idea that material wealth is what creates happiness, and supporting community sponsored agriculture (CSAs).

Those are all good practices—even Christian practices, and the more we ignore them, the more we may drive people away from Jesus and from the church.  Give some thought this week to incorporating some of these into your own life—while centering on our Creator-Savior: Jesus Christ, the One, sadly, that New Age adherents reject—to their eternal peril.

[Read what Dr. Paul Brand believed about God's good earth in the RBC Ministries booklet of that title.  You can read it online or order a couple copies without cost.  Link: "God's Good Earth" ]

[Go to the ECHO website to see a model Christian agriculture research center, and read about a church that is doing a lot to care for creation and for people here. Read "A Call To a Simpler Life" by its pastor, Tri Robinson.]