When I visited Indonesia this past year, I spent time in Jakarta, a city of 27 million. As I traveled the downtown, I noticed that many of those conducting traffic at the street corners were wearing white surgical masks. They weren’t trying to hide their identities. They were simply protecting their health. A sickly brown haze hangs over the city of Jakarta. The motorcycles and the little orange three—wheeled vehicles that crowd the streets puff black smoke whenever they accelerate from a traffic stop. Anyone who spends their day standing out on a street corner needs a way to filter out the smog.
Of course, Jakarta isn’t the only great city that deals with such problems. I’ve flown into North American cities where the smog appears as a low—hanging gray cloud. Everywhere people ask questions about what we’re doing to our environment. The debate over carbon emissions and global warming is in the news almost nightly. And that’s hardly the only talking point when it comes to the environment. What about the garbage we throw into our lakes, rivers, and seas? What about the trash that overflows our landfills? The average American is generating three and a half pounds of garbage a day—over half a ton a year! To hold all that trash, you’d need a pit the size of a football field dug a hundred miles deep!
We’re starting to ask some hard questions about the kind of world we’re leaving to our kids and grandkids. For centuries, the earth was considered to hold a boundless source of resources that could be reaped—even plundered—— with little thought to long—term effects. Rivers were used as sewage dumps. Ore was torn out of hillsides with little concern for scars that were left behind. Rain forests were cleared to provide short—term acreage for crops. The earth was used—and abused. Why care for the earth when there seemed to be so much of everything? There was always fresh water to be had somewhere. More farmland was always available where forests hadn’t yet been cleared.
Today we know better. The earth seems smaller than before. What we do to our planet does matter. Sewage doesn’t just mar the beauty of rivers. Sewage kills them. Rainforests slashed and burned do not revitalize themselves. There is an end to tillable land, and drinkable water and clean air. How do we handle these issues? We look to our scientists and environmentalists to lead the way!
But how about religion? Could religion hold answers to our world’s ecological crisis? Some think so. Back in 1983, plans were made to drill into the side of the Hawaiian volcano, Kilauea. And why drill a hole in a volcano? In order to tap into the mountain’s geothermal energy. For most folk, this was an encouraging experiment in alternative energy. But to others, it was nothing less than a sacrilege, a brewing spiritual crisis. For you see, there are those who think Kilauea is more than a volcano. Kilauea is a goddess, who goes by the name, Pele. Said one member of the Pele Defense Fund: “They are punching holes in what we consider her body. She has eaten 58 houses already. She’s causing people to be sick. She’s mad.“
Of course, this seems all rather far—fetched to most of us. But there are New Agers who think such a belief holds the answer to our environmental problems. The earth, they say, is a goddess. The earth on which we live is divine. Some even say we should claim back the ancient pagan name of the goddess Gaia. Gaia has been wounded by the disrespect shown her by modern civilization, and she is now exacting her revenge—writes Ryan and Travis in their book, The Wellness Workbook, “The recent upsurge of volcanic action, earthquakes, and unusual weather patterns may well be messages from Gaia, calling us to pay attention to her needs. If we continue to ignore her communications, there may be even harsher outbursts as Gaia is forced to take more drastic action to regain balance.“ This is a literal return to the worship of ‘Mother Earth.“ This is environmentalism turned into a religion.
But what does the Bible say about the world in which we live? Does it make sense to worship this earth as though it were a god? Let’s go back to the beginning. Let’s explore the very first chapter of the book of Genesis. And discover what light the Bible sheds on these issues.
TAKING ON THE CREATION MYTHS
Here’s the opening verse of Genesis 1: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth . . .“ How interesting. According to Genesis 1, the earth isn’t a god. Rather, it was created by God. The universe is creation—God’s creation.
You know, I have often heard people say that this passage from Genesis should be read MYTHICALLY. Genesis 1 is MYTH, they say. They say that every nation in the ancient world had its myths about how things came to be. And this is Israel’s version.
But the truth is, myth is precisely what this passage is NOT! Genesis 1 is ANTI—MYTH. Indeed, one of the reasons this chapter is placed here at the very beginning of Genesis is to take on the creation myths of the nations around Israel.
Let me give you a taste of pagan mythology when it comes to the origin of the earth. In the writings of Babylonia, you will find the Babylonian creation myth. You meet Apsu, the goddess of fresh water, Tiamat, the goddess of the sea, and Mummu, the god of mist. You also meet Marduk, who slays the sea goddess Tiamat. With one half of her body, he forms the sky and with the other half of her body he forms the earth. Then you learn of Kingu, the husband of Tiamat, who also is slain. From his blood is formed men and women, are who assigned the role of performing meaningful tasks for the gods.
Now THAT, my friends, is myth! Earth, sky, sea—everything is deified. The world itself becomes alive with the gods and goddesses who do battle against each other—often to the great injury of humankind.
Or check out Germanic creation stories. Germanic paganism reports that the giant Ymir was murdered by Odin and his brothers. From his corpse the world was made. The sea is made of his blood and the sky is made from his skull. The world has this gruesome beginning, born of battles among the gods. This is the stuff of myth!
But now read again the first chapter of Genesis 1. Listen to how factual and down—to—earth is the Bible’s message: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.“
In the first chapter of Genesis, there is not many gods but one.
In the first chapter of Genesis, the sea is not a god or goddess, but simply a bodyof water, filled with fish.
In the first chapter of Genesis, the sun, moon, and stars are not deities that influence the course of human life—no basis for astrology here—but merely lights so that we can figure out when it’s time to get up and time to go to bed, when it’s time to plant the fields and time to reap the harvest.
No, the first chapter of Genesis is not mythology. Instead, the opening verses of Genesis take on the paganisms of the ancient world—and that opening chapter takes on all the recycled pagan cosmologies of today. Listen, says Genesis. The world is NOT divine. The universe is not ultimate. It’s not eternal. No, the cosmos is CREATION. The God that we are dealing with in Scripture is the Creator—the Maker of heaven and earth!
GLORY, GLORY ALL AROUND
Now, if the world is God’s creation, then it shouldn’t surprise us that God, as it were, has left his fingerprints over his world. We shouldn’t be surprised that there are signs in the creation of God’s glory and majesty. Even though the world is fallen—read chapter 3 of Genesis sometime to learn how that happened—we can still expect to see signs of God’s greatness in the world he made—evidence of his signature, so to speak.
Do you remember the first video games that hit the market? The first video game ever marketed was Pong. It allowed you to play ping pong on your television screen. That game was soon followed by a game system called Atari. Atari initially marketed four games. One of them was entitled Adventure. In the game there was a castle with different rooms, different keys, and hidden doorways.
I’ve been told that in that game, there was a particular place in the castle where you could find a small dot too small to be noticed as anything significant for the game itself. But if you took hold of that dot, and moved it to the opening screen, you’d enter a hidden room. The room had nothing to do with playing the game. It just contained a rainbow, and the name of the person who invented the game. Hidden in the game was the signature of the game’s designer.
God has done something similar in his creation. He’s hidden his signature, but in ways much more obvious than just some little speck on a computer screen.
Psalm 19 tells us:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
The skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Psalm 19 tells us that the world displays the divine glory. When did you have a sense of that glory? For this Psalm doesn’t merely make a theological claim—it’s calling us to a spiritual experience.
I remember visiting the Canadian Rockies some years ago. I was on a peninsula, in Waterton National Park. I was looking over Waterton Lake as the sun set on the magnificent peaks in the distance. A string quartet was playing classical music near where we were sitting. And as the sun went down over the hills, I had this powerful sense of glory. Not just the glory of the snowcapped mountains towering over me. Not just the glory of the Bach concerto that was playing behind me. No, my sense of glory was deeper than that. It moved beyond the creation to the Creator. I tasted the glory and majesty of God! I wasn’t just experiencing nature. I was experiencing creation. A creation that everywhere speaks the glory of its Creator. A creation that itself sings the praise of the one who called it into being.
Paul writes in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made . . .“
Yes, since the creation of the world, God’s kingship has been on display. Look again at the language of Genesis 1, and you will discover that it takes the form of a series of royal decrees! “And God said . . .“ The King speaks with royal authority, and the world is formed. God commands and the stuff of creation responds to his bidding. As King, he exercises his royal right to name the day and night, the sky, the land, the seas.
So no wonder in response to that greatness, we praise God! Check out the psalms and discover how much the psalms celebrate God’s creation glory! As we read in Psalm 104:
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
Lord, my God, you are very great;
You are clothed with splendor and majesty.
He wraps himself in light as with a garment;
He stretches out the heavens like a tent
And lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters …
He sets the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
Understanding the cosmos as creation calls our attention from the mere grandeur of nature to the very grandeur of God.
THE CREATOR WHO IS THE REDEEMER
But creation tells us more than God is great, especially when we ask the simple question, “Why did God make it all? Why did God create the world? He didn’t have to, you know. God has fullness of life in himself. All glory and goodness reside in him. In the triune God there is an eternity of fellowship that exists among Father, Son and Spirit. There is nothing missing from God. There is nothing that forced God to create the universe.
So why did God do it? Well, not merely to display his power, but to demonstrate his love. Scripture tells us that at the core of God’s being is love. At the heart of God is a love that moves beyond itself. It is that love that led God to birth his creation—and then delight in all that he made!
And now we begin to understand why the story of creation is the preface to the story of redemption. The Bible’s message is that the same God who is our Creator is also our Redeemer! God made this world! And when his world got off track because of the sin of our first parents, when our world spun off course on a trajectory that pointed to death and destruction, God remained true to himself. He could have declared this world to have become so much rubbish. He could have declared it was destined for the garbage heap of history. But he didn’t. He undertook to make things right. The God of love demonstrated his love in a way that stuns us. He sent his Son, the Son who is the very mediator of creation, to renew and restore. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him, should not perish but have eternal life.“ He sent his Son to bring men and women back into a relationship with their Creator——and to break the stranglehold of evil upon this world. So that one day upon Christ’s return all will be made new. We will look around us and see a new heaven and new earth, where all that pollutes this world is washed away. God’s redemptive plan is so great that it holds the whole cosmos in its scope.
ON TRACK WITH CREATION
But only if we take seriously the Christ through whom all things are made—only if we by faith come into a relationship of trust and obedience with him——will we put the world in which we live into perspective. We’ll stop acting as though the world can be treated as worthless. And we’ll stop believing the world is divine. We’ll understand that the world is God’s creation.
When we know Jesus Christ, the One through whom the world was made; we can tap his power to live in this world as God intended us to. We’ll discover that we’ve received a divine mandate to care for this world on God’s behalf. Genesis 1 tells us: “Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.“
Ruling over the earth has too often been taken to mean we can abuse the earth any way we want. Subduing the earth has too often been understood to mean we need not care how many species around us go extinct. Or how high the mercury levels rises in our lakes and streams.
But this ruling and subduing doesn’t make us dictators. It makes us stewards. A steward doesn’t own what he cares for. A steward cares on behalf of another. This world is and will always remain God’s. It will always belong to the Creator. But we are earth’s stewards, charged to give an account to God of the way we care for this planet. We are earth—keepers, who help intensify the song of praise that creation sings. We are stewards, called to bring forth from creation its full possibilities and potential.
I am reminded of that when I go out and work in my garden. As I turned over the soil this spring, as I spread mulch, as I added flowers to the beds, I was reminded in a very literal way of who I am. I am an earth—keeper. I am God’s steward. And what I do on a small scale in my backyard garden, we together are called to do on a scale that is as wide as this world.
Do you care about this planet? Then you need to meet its Creator. And you need to meet his Son—who can empower you through his Spirit to fulfill your calling to care for his creation.
Robert Heerspink
Rev. Robert Heerspink is a native of west Michigan. He completed his undergraduate studies at Calvin College and holds the degrees of Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Calvin Theological Seminary. He has also received a Doctor of Ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Bob was ordained a minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church of North America in 1979, and has 26 years of parish experience, having served four churches throughout west Michigan. He was appointed the Director of The Back to God Hour in 2006. Bob has written several resources related to congregational stewardship, including the book, Becoming a Firstfruits Congregation. He is a regular contributor to TODAY, the monthly devotional of The Back to God Hour. Bob is married to Edith (Miedema) and they have three children. His hobbies include reading fictional and historical works, watersports, and occassional golfing.
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