The Sixth Day Part 3 - Plants for Food for All
Notes
Transcript
Handout
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. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.
In this sermon, we will cover the implication of plants as food for all, which was the original order before the fall of humanity created disorder. We do not have a lot of information on this order of creation, but a lot on the current disorder.
We know three things from Scripture about the original created order.
First, we know that all humans and animals ate plants for food, which the current passage states clearly.
Second, we know that death entered the world through Adam’s sin of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God made that very clear in Genesis 2:16-17 and Romans 5:12.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Therefore, before the fall, there was no death, neither human nor animal death. It can be deduced from Genesis 3:21 that the first animal death was brought about by God to make clothes for Adam and Eve to cover their shame. This foreshadowed Christ death, who paid for the sins of the whole world to save humanity and creation from eternal death. The author of Hebrews says it well in Hebrews 2:14-15
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
Third, we know that the original order will be reestablished. It started with Christ's death and resurrection and ends with his Second Coming. God makes this very clear in Isaiah 11:6-9; Romans 8:18-23; and 1 Corinthians 15:20-26.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 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. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
God has not chosen to reveal a lot of details about the ecological systems of the original created order, nor about the future created order. This leaves us with conundrums and mysteries.
One of the most obvious conundrums is ecological balance. In a system of no human or animal death, how does the ecosystem balance?
We have no point of reference in the current systems for this. Yet one possibility is that, when the mandate of filling the earth was fulfilled, animals and humans stopped reproducing.
Another conundrum that I often ponder is that the design of prey and predatory animals supports an ecology of death. It seems that they were made for that purpose.
Take the baleen whales that lunge-feed on krill, phytoplankton, zooplankton, copepods, and small schooling fish. How did the whale make sure all they gulped down was phytoplankton, especially since the other animals feed on phytoplankton also? The answer is, I don’t know.
In my wrestling with this, I am confident that God reordered creation after the fall to support an ecology that has death and entropy as an essential part of its ecosystem.
I do look forward to the restoration of the created order, where we will spend an eternity enjoying God in the new heaven and new earth. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
You might be thinking, “So what? How does this help me?”
It helps in two ways:
First, it reminds us all that things are not how they should be. This is important to remember as we all strive in a broken world with broken bodies. I have this underlying expectation that things in my life should not be broken. Since I have this expectation, I know many of you have it as well.
The average American spends $16,500.00 on health care per year. We want to be healthy; some of that is within our control, and some of that is not.
The challenge for us is not to make health an idol. Health becomes an idol if we are only satisfied in our relationship with God when we are healthy. When we are not healthy, then we are frustrated/angry with God because he can make us healthy and is choosing not to.
Is your health an idol?
Second, it reminds us that God is working the redemption of our bodies and of the whole cosmos. In his time he will make all things right. We are to trust him in the process, especially when it does not make any sense to us.
Do you trust God in the process he is working in you?
Church, may we never forget that God is working and coming to make all things right. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
