Romans 8:20-21
“For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
Not everything that happens in the natural world is nice. Not every animal is fluffy and cute. There are organisms that bring disease, as well as parasites that eat an animal from the inside, as well as pain and suffering inflicted by predatory animals. Even your warm, purring pet cat causes untold suffering to the small animals with which it plays before killing them. Foxes, with adorable faces and gorgeous bushy tails, cause damage to your chickens, sometimes killing them all without even attempting to eat a single bird.
It was the poet Tennyson, in his massive work In Memoriam, who wrote:
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed
Such matters inspire outbursts from skeptics, beginning their complaints with the phrase: “How could a God of love…?” Those same skeptics want God, whom they don’t believe in, to be both loving and just, but never at the same time. Yet, when the human race consisted of just two people, they were warned of the consequences of breaking God’s law but chose to do so anyway with the result that “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:22).
I have seen people crying over nature documentaries. Nature’s cruelty is the result of human sin. It was not created that way, and one day it will not be that way.
Prayer: Nothing takes You by surprise, our Lord and Sovereign King. Thank You that, through the death of Your Son on the cross, You have redeemed the earth to Yourself, for the honor of Your Name. Amen.
Author: Paul F. Taylor
Ref: Tennyson, A. (1850), In Memoriam A.H.H., < http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/718/ >, accessed 8/29/2019, stanza 56. Image: CC BY-SA 4.0 International.
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