An Holistic Salvation; or, “Where Are All The Christian Tree-Huggers?”
Col 1:15-22 July 24, 2005
Intro:
It is nine days ago, 4:30 – am. I wake up, hearing the rain falling outside my window, and I remember where I am – out on a floating fishing lodge on the Pacific Ocean, the west side of Vancouver island. It sounds like my brother is still asleep on the other side of the room, but I know the generator is going to come on in just a moment, and it will be time to get up. Time to go fishing…
For the past four days I have been unavailable. I left my cell phone in Edmonton, knowing it wasn’t going to work on the ocean. The satellite phone on the lodge is for emergencies only. No TV. No newspapers. No internet. And, praise God, no email. The lodge is by no means rustic – very comfortable, excellent food and hospitality, and best of all, away. Away from the noise. Away from the city. Away from the lights, the 24hr convenience stores and corresponding culture of availability, and away from the routine and demands.
Some of the most techno-addicted among us might be thinking – “oh!! how did you ever survive?? Weren’t you bored???”
No – because when it was finally still, finally silent, finally out from underneath all the stuff of life, I rediscovered creation. When the artificial noise stops, we can hear the natural sounds – water gently lapping against the shore, bald eagles calling to one another, the wind rustling through the leaves. Absolutely beautiful.
To answer the question everyone asks, yes we did catch a little something on our fishing trip…
Spending time in the middle of God’s wild creation gets a pastor thinking: what is our Christian responsibility for our world?
Instead of the Science…
I am not going to take time to dive into the scientific discussion about the current state of our planet – global warming, pollution and over-population, melting ice caps, etc… – except to say this. Experts all agree that our actions as people are having a very large, very rapid impact on this planet. Our climate is changing, and our actions are very directly responsible. And so there are significant efforts underway to deal with this rapid change, for example the Kyoto Protocol, the recycling movement, and Canada’s “One Tonne Challenge”. The evidence is scientific and anecdotal – our fishing guide had been guiding and fishing for more than 30years, and at one point was telling us about a guy he guided 14 years ago who caught a 64lb chinook salmon; he ended the story by saying, “that’ll probably never happen again – the genetics are all gone now.” As Christians, what do we believe about creation and the place and role of humanity? The answer might surprise you…
Creation Needs Salvation Too …
To begin to answer, lets back all the way up to the theology we find in the garden of Eden. When sin enters the world through the disobedience of man, the result is three specific curses: one on the serpent, one on the woman, and one on creation. Listen to Gen 3:17-19: “17And to Adam (God) said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit I told you not to eat, I have placed a curse on the ground. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. 18It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. 19All your life you will sweat to produce food, until your dying day. Then you will return to the ground from which you came. For you were made from dust, and to the dust you will return."”
The result of sin was disaster – not just for humanity, but for all of creation.
This theme continues in the New Testament, and if you take the time to notice it, it is far more prevalent than you would initially expect. Most notably is Rom 8:18-23: “18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
The point that Paul is making is that creation needs salvation too. God’s created world needs to be “liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” The salvation that we have through Jesus is not just for humanity, but rather for all of the created order. All of the consequences of original sin, including the consequences on creation, are redeemed by the cross. Jesus’ death and resurrection does not just save souls from hell, but rather it restores a broken universe which includes nature.
You are probably not yet convinced. Sounds too different from what we have always heard, doesn’t it? Consider, then, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…”. Not “God so loved humanity”, it is bigger than that. If you still are not convinced, consider, then, Colossians 1:15-21: “15Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before God made anything at all and is supreme over all creation.16Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see--kings, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him. 17He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together.”
That is all good so far, reaffirming our doctrine of creation and Jesus’ role in as the agent of creation and the sustainer of creation. But Paul doesn’t stop there – his theology extends into redemption as we read on –
“18Christ is the head of the church, which is his body. He is the first of all who will rise from the dead, so he is first in everything. 19For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. 21This includes you who were once so far away from God.”
In a passage on “creation”, verse 20 is striking. Jesus death on the cross brings peace, not just between us and God, but between God and all His created order. “God reconciled everything.” “(God) made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross.” Oh, and almost “by the way”, Paul says this includes us (vs 21).
Notice the shift. Here in Colossians, we are part of a much larger salvation, a salvation that extends to all of creation. This is maybe a little hard for us to hear, since we like to be at the center of everything. And there is no doubt that we have a special place in God’s heart. But it is not an exclusive place. The salvation that comes from Jesus is more holistic than that.
Oops…
This does sound kind of radical. If true, how could we have missed it for so long? Let me quote from a theologian named Howard Snyder, (presentation at the “Conference on Creation-care June 28-30, 2004) “Today we look back at the Protestants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and ask, Why did they not have a sense of the Christian global missionary mandate? Or we look back at Christian slaveholders in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and ask, How could they not see that slavery was incompatible with the gospel? What did they think they were doing?
Our grandchildren, as they wrestle with ecological issues, will look back on this generation and ask: Why could they not see the Christian responsibility for earth stewardship? Why did they wait so long? What did they think they were doing when they failed to defend the forests and the seas and to protect earth’s endangered species? Did they not understand what they were doing to their own descendants?
We today are the generation that must rediscover and proclaim creation care as part of the gospel, part of the mission of God.
We hope that our children and grandchildren will know and serve Jesus Christ, and we hope also that they will inherit a world that is not choked and poisoned by pollution or made scarcely habitable by environmental disasters. If that is our hope, the time for action is now. We should treat future generations the way we would want to be treated.”
A Bigger Gospel:
Let me return to my original question: As Christians, what is our responsibility for creation. Put another way, where are all the Christian Tree Huggers?
Let me answer by way of analogy. Let us imagine that I enjoyed my fishing trip so much that I decided to go back for 6 months. Take Thomas, and Joanne, and just leave for 6 months. Well, I’d need to make arrangements for my house here, so let’s imagine that I invited (Alex Wiens) to move in, and live in my house. I’d give him the keys, I’d leave him the password to my bank account so he could pay my bills, and sign a bunch of blank cheques so that he would be able to care for my “world”. What would I expect from Alex? I would certainly expect him to use my house, eat the food so it wouldn’t go to waste, drive my car and change its oil, watch my TV, use my computer (and feel free to update it for me while I’m gone Alex…). I might even ask him to check my email and pass along anything that was really urgent through some pre-arranged fashion. If he broke something by accident, I’d expect it to be fixed.
In a very real way, God has left us in charge of creation. Taken on a global scale, we are not being very good caretakers. It is more like we have moved in, and trashed God’s house. We’ve busted holes, depleted the bank account, driven the car like a maniac, smashed the TV, used the computer to download pornography, all without regard for the true owner.
Instead of being part of the redemption of creation which we read about in Col 1, it is more like we have exploited it, trashed a good gift, and abused that which we have been entrusted. And in doing so, we have been very wrong.
We are part of a bigger gospel, which is good news to all of creation, not just all of humanity. That same theologian I quoted earlier offers 5 fundamental reasons and motivations for why we should care for creation. Please excuse the brevity…
1. Creation care for God’s sake.
The earth is the Lord’s; He has entrusted its care to us as stewards. Our acts of environmental stewardship are actually acts of worship.
2. Creation care for our own sake-for human well-being.
We sometimes forget that we are completely dependant on our planet – for food, for water, for air. If we abuse it, we hurt ourselves.
3. Creation care for creation’s sake.
God loves this world, and this world exists to glorify God and reveal God to us. God instilled life into plants and animals, and God then breathed something more into humankind so that we might care for and be good stewards of this creation. Jesus told us that God sees and cares for and feeds the birds of the air, and He clothes the lilies of the fields. Since God cares for creation, so should we.
4. Creation care for the sake of mission.
Let me quote directly: “The argument here is both theological and strategic. Theological, because a fully biblical view of mission will necessarily include the dimension of creation care. But also strategic and pragmatic, because a holistic theology and practice of mission that incorporates creation care is much more persuasive. Do we want people of all nations and cultures to come to faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world? Then we should proclaim and demonstrate that Jesus is the renewer of the whole creation, the whole face of the earth. Salvation is that big. This is a grander portrayal of Christ than we sometimes present. It both honors our Savior and makes the gospel more persuasive and attractive when we present a gospel of total healing-the healing of creation; the restoration of all things. This is truly the whole gospel for the whole world.”
5. Creation care for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
I do not blame my son Thomas’ asthma on the environment, but I do know first-hand the fear and helplessness of watching someone you love, someone very helpless, struggle for breath. I don’t want to hand-off a world that I have been part of abusing to Thomas’ generation, and the generation after that, knowing that my actions have multiplied those problems and put other innocent people in that same situation, when it could have been avoided.
Conclusion:
I want to refer you to two additional resources. Very helpful to me was an evangelical Christian website called creationcare.org, which I recommend highly. The second resource I found on that website, called “An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation”, which has been signed by a large number of influential evangelical Christian leaders. It is available on the back table as well as on the website.
Last year we offered a 2nd Hour elective where people of all ages came to paint and discover the beauty of God’s creation in a way that impacted their heart and enabled them to respond in worship. Last week I heard a mom talk about how her young son had come away from that option week by week and was transformed in how he looked at the world around him. He learned to see God in what had been created – he eagerly looked for the beauty in the flowers, and in the world around him – and he discovered God in a deeper way through that.
It is not a far leap to see that child growing up with a love and respect and desire to care for creation the way Scripture intends us to. My hope is that each of us will likewise live as good stewards of the world that God has entrusted to our care, doing our part individually, as families, and as responsible citizens of our world.
On the Care of Creation
An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation
The Earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof - Psalm 24:1
As followers of Jesus Christ, committed to the full authority of the Scriptures, and aware of the ways we have degraded creation, we believe that biblical faith is essential to the solution of our ecological problems.
Because we worship and honor the Creator, we seek to cherish and care for the creation.
Because we have sinned, we have failed in our stewardship of creation. Therefore we repent of the way we have polluted, distorted, or destroyed so much of the Creator’s work.
Because in Christ God has healed our alienation from God and extended to us the first fruits of the reconciliation of all things, we commit ourselves to working in the power of the Holy Spirit to share the Good News of Christ in word and deed, to work for the reconciliation of all people in Christ, and to extend Christ’s healing to suffering creation.
Because we await the time when even the groaning creation will be restored to wholeness, we commit ourselves to work vigorously to protect and heal that creation for the honor and glory of the Creator---whom we know dimly through creation, but meet fully through Scripture and in Christ. We and our children face a growing crisis in the health of the creation in which we are embedded, and through which, by God’s grace, we are sustained. Yet we continue to degrade that creation.
These degradations of creation can be summed up as 1) land degradation; 2) deforestation; 3) species extinction; 4) water degradation; 5) global toxification; 6) the alteration of atmosphere; 7) human and cultural degradation.
Many of these degradations are signs that we are pressing against the finite limits God has set for creation. With continued population growth, these degradations will become more severe. Our responsibility is not only to bear and nurture children, but to nurture their home on earth. We respect the institution of marriage as the way God has given to insure thoughtful procreation of children and their nurture to the glory of God.
We recognize that human poverty is both a cause and a consequence of environmental degradation.
Many concerned people, convinced that environmental problems are more spiritual than technological, are exploring the world’s ideologies and religions in search of non-Christian spiritual resources for the healing of the earth. As followers of Jesus Christ, we believe that the Bible calls us to respond in four ways:
First, God calls us to confess and repent of attitudes which devalue creation, and which twist or ignore biblical revelation to support our misuse of it. Forgetting that "the earth is the Lord’s," we have often simply used creation and forgotten our responsibility to care for it.
Second, our actions and attitudes toward the earth need to proceed from the center of our faith, and be rooted in the fullness of God’s revelation in Christ and the Scriptures. We resist both ideologies which would presume the Gospel has nothing to do with the care of non-human creation and also ideologies which would reduce the Gospel to nothing more than the care of that creation.
Third, we seek carefully to learn all that the Bible tells us about the Creator, creation, and the human task. In our life and words we declare that full good news for all creation which is still waiting "with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God," (Rom. 8:19).
Fourth, we seek to understand what creation reveals about God’s divinity, sustaining presence, and everlasting power, and what creation teaches us of its God-given order and the principles by which it works.
Thus we call on all those who are committed to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to affirm the following principles of biblical faith, and to seek ways of living out these principles in our personal lives, our churches, and society.
The cosmos, in all its beauty, wildness, and life-giving bounty, is the work of our personal and loving Creator.
Our creating God is prior to and other than creation, yet intimately involved with it, upholding each thing in its freedom, and all things in relationships of intricate complexity. God is transcendent, while lovingly sustaining each creature; and immanent, while wholly other than creation and not to be confused with it.
God the Creator is relational in very nature, revealed as three persons in One. Likewise, the creation which God intended is a symphony of individual creatures in harmonious relationship.
The Creator’s concern is for all creatures. God declares all creation "good" (Gen. 1:31); promises care in a covenant with all creatures (Gen. 9:9-17); delights in creatures which have no human apparent usefulness (Job 39-41); and wills, in Christ, "to reconcile all things to himself" (Col.1:20).
Men, women, and children, have a unique responsibility to the Creator; at the same time we are creatures, shaped by the same processes and embedded in the same systems of physical, chemical, and biological interconnections which sustain other creatures.
Men, women, and children, created in God’s image, also have a unique responsibility for creation. Our actions should both sustain creation’s fruitfulness and preserve creation’s powerful testimony to its Creator.
Our God-given , stewardly talents have often been warped from their intended purpose: that we know, name, keep and delight in God’s creatures; that we nourish civilization in love, creativity and obedience to God; and that we offer creation and civilization back in praise to the Creator. We have ignored our creaturely limits and have used the earth with greed, rather than care.
The earthly result of human sin has been a perverted stewardship, a patchwork of garden and wasteland in which the waste is increasing. "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land...Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away" (Hosea 4:1,3). Thus, one consequence of our misuse of the earth is an unjust denial of God’s created bounty to other human beings, both now and in the future.
God’s purpose in Christ is to heal and bring to wholeness not only persons but the entire created order. "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross" (Col. 1:19-20).
In Jesus Christ, believers are forgiven, transformed and brought into God’s kingdom. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation" (II Cor. 5:17). The presence of the kingdom of God is marked not only by renewed fellowship with God, but also by renewed harmony and justice between people, and by renewed harmony and justice between people and the rest of the created world. "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands" (Isa. 55:12).
We believe that in Christ there is hope, not only for men, women and children, but also for the rest of creation which is suffering from the consequences of human sin.
Therefore we call upon all Christians to reaffirm that all creation is God’s; that God created it good; and that God is renewing it in Christ.
We encourage deeper reflection on the substantial biblical and theological teaching which speaks of God’s work of redemption in terms of the renewal and completion of God’s purpose in creation.
We seek a deeper reflection on the wonders of God’s creation and the principles by which creation works. We also urge a careful consideration of how our corporate and individual actions respect and comply with God’s ordinances for creation.
We encourage Christians to incorporate the extravagant creativity of God into their lives by increasing the nurturing role of beauty and the arts in their personal, ecclesiastical, and social patterns.
We urge individual Christians and churches to be centers of creation’s care and renewal, both delighting in creation as God’s gift, and enjoying it as God’s provision, in ways which sustain and heal the damaged fabric of the creation which God has entrusted to us.
We recall Jesus’ words that our lives do not consist in the abundance of our possessions, and therefore we urge followers of Jesus to resist the allure of wastefulness and overconsumption by making personal lifestyle choices that express humility, forbearance, self restraint and frugality.
We call on all Christians to work for godly, just, and sustainable economies which reflect God’s sovereign economy and enable men, women and children to flourish along with all the diversity of creation. We recognize that poverty forces people to degrade creation in order to survive; therefore we support the development of just, free economies which empower the poor and create abundance without diminishing creation’s bounty.
We commit ourselves to work for responsible public policies which embody the principles of biblical stewardship of creation.
We invite Christians--individuals, congregations and organizations--to join with us in this evangelical declaration on the environment, becoming a covenant people in an ever-widening circle of biblical care for creation.
We call upon Christians to listen to and work with all those who are concerned about the healing of creation, with an eagerness both to learn from them and also to share with them our conviction that the God whom all people sense in creation (Acts 17:27) is known fully only in the Word made flesh in Christ the living God who made and sustains all things.
We make this declaration knowing that until Christ returns to reconcile all things, we are called to be faithful stewards of God’s good garden, our earthly home.
