Photo by Thomas Oxford on Unsplash
I love being outdoors! When I see the word “mansion” in John 14:2, I don’t think of a stately brick house with a wrought-iron gate and gardens; I think of a tent with a comfy mattress that I can move when I’d like a change of scenery. It has a huge hole at the top so I can see the stars at night, and windows all around so I can hear the birds at sunrise. I know King James and company translated it “mansion”, but the word, really, means any kind of abode. So if I have a say in its design, I’ll take a tent, please.
Chances are if you’re reading this you’re familiar with the account of creation: how God made a dwelling place for man and asked him to take care of it. We haven’t done a very good job. When Adam and Eve sinned, they weren’t the only ones to suffer. The earth was introduced to death, and it’s been dying ever since.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Romans 8:22)
Did you know the earth has a voice? We may not hear it crying out, but we can see what it’s saying. The earth is wearing out. God made man earth’s steward, so earth is affected by man’s curse. In return, man is affected by the earth’s decay. It’s one of those “what goes around comes around” things. Man’s sin affects his habitat.
Long before National Geographic, Isaiah said it was so:
The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish with the earth. The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. (Isaiah 24:4–6a NIV)
That’s a sobering thought for someone like me. Nature unspoiled makes me happy, but coal-fired plants keep me warm. So far be it from me to entertain a discussion about which should trump what. I just know where it’s all headed. The Bible tells me so: The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The Lord has spoken this word. (Isaiah 24:3 NIV)
If you’ve spent much time in Isaiah, you’ve learned that as earth’s beauty is erased, man’s joy will be extinguished. The songs of the world will be stilled. No music from man; no music from nature. No bird songs, no babbling brooks. No more wine. Lots of fear. Nothing like the garden God made for man. Nothing like the Messianic kingdom He’s promised.
A world without joy is a world without life, and its only salvation is for God to start again.
And He will. As with all God says, there is no prophecy without a promise.
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create…” (Isaiah 65:17–18a NIV)
As one who considers creation the glory of God revealed, I think of these verses almost daily. Most often it’s when I see some amazing thing that God has made, but sometimes it’s when I see something man has destroyed. For me, these verses are both a reminder and a promise. So…
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:18–21)
The earth will share in man’s glory.
Creation is waiting eagerly. See, the earth can’t be changed without its caretakers being changed. The earth can’t be free if man is not.
But oh, the good news!
2 Corinthians 3:17–18 NIV:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
The earth and I wait in expectation.
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