Bible Studies
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE As A Member OR Visitor
Message Writer
Hire Writer
Report Article
“That the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21)
In the beginning, all of God’s creation was living within His will according to His purpose. There was a rule of love, unity in purpose, and peace throughout creation. Yet because God is love and shows unconditional love toward His creation and particularly to the crown of His creation man, He created man with free will. I believe that God did not want mankind to be robotic or programmed as the rest of His creation. He wanted a man created in His image to return the love He has shown Him back unto His self. What is love if it is programmed or forced? How could mankind desire to love God without the choice to do so? It puzzles me that we love our parents because they have given us life, supported us through our childhood, and released us to live as our own in this life. Yet we forsake to show a heart of love towards the Creator who created us in love that we could have the free will to reject Him who has given us all and His very best.
As we visited before but will revisit, the creation around us has also suffered because man fell to sin. I have heard questions as to why all of God’s creation must suffer from the sins of mankind. The plants and animals of God’s creation cannot help but remain in the will and purpose of their Creator. Humanity was given the privilege of free will. All is a creation of God as in the beginning, and there was only God. The point is that of all creation, only man, the crown of God’s creation, has the responsibility of dominion. Mankind’s dominion was not an afterthought of God but the plan of God at the beginning. “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)
Satan had been cast out of Heaven and fell to earth, which was now his kingdom. At the end of God’s creative work, humanity was formed and became a living being. I can imagine that Satan must have thought he was to have the rule over man, that humanity would be his to have dominion over. It was not the purpose of God that any of His creation was to be ruled by Satan. Satan had a third of the angels in his charge, but God’s purpose was never to allow a man to fall into Satan’s influence. Satan, the prideful fallen angel, could not bear that humanity was now given dominion over what he considered his, as wrong as that belief was. Satan fell from the grace of God because he thought of himself as a god. Satan pictured himself like the Most High and desired to be worshiped as a god. This was the sin of Satan, self-pride. God hates pride as King Solomon wrote, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.” (Proverbs 8:13)
The only way that Satan can hurt God is to rob the spirits of men from God. If Satan could fracture God’s creation with a free-willed man breaking the trust and committing disobedience towards God’s Word, then that unrighteous act would separate man from his Creator. Satan went to the Garden of Eden to deceive man with reason by rationalizing the truth that God had spoken to Adam. Satan tempted man with the same error that Satan himself fell to, self-pride. Satan believed he, a creature himself, could be the Most High God, and he tempted Eve that she and Adam could be God by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve ate from the tree, and its forbidden fruit and sin entered God’s creation. As a result, creation was fractured.
Nothing is unseen by God, and God confronted Satan, confronted mankind, and all the earth suffered because sin had entered the world and broke the harmony of God’s very good work. “The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; ... Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field.” (Genesis 3:14, 17-18)
What was at the beginning was wholesome and very good now had been fractured by sin. The world now would learn the effects of sin, the pain and suffering, the meaninglessness, and the world would now suffer death. All of God’s creation is now under the sentence of death because sin had entered the world. The perfection of man has now been degraded, and the degradation of man has degraded nature. As man suffers because of his sin, nature suffers with him. If it were not for God’s salvation plan through Jesus Christ, all would be hopeless, and hopelessness offers no meaning to life.
From the Apostle’s letter to the Romans, in our text today, Paul tells us that God’s story is far from over. As mankind fell to sin and fractured the world, mankind’s redemption will also restore creation to God’s plan and purpose. I believe that God’s creation, in some unexplainable way, knows that man’s redemption will mend the fracture that all suffer. There is a connection between the sons of God and God’s creation. Sin brought suffering to creation, and man’s redemption will restore the order of God’s creation. We lack the fullness of ability to imagine how a perfect creation was before sin, but when Christ appears, we will be as He is, and the perfect order of God will be restored. “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2)
God is love, and just as importantly, God is just. Disobedience to the order of God, which caused sin to enter creation, came with the consequences of God’s warning. When sinfulness happened, God did not subject His creation to decay and frustration because of any pettiness or a heart of revenge. God was acting in hope and looking forward to when the curses that sin caused could be reversed. If God did hold hope for His creation, He could have just destroyed it, as He wanted in the days of Noah. (Genesis 6) When the curse came, it was never the intention of God that the effects should last eternally. God never wanted creation to experience futility and death, and He never intended for the corruption to last forever. Jesus sacrificed Himself for man’s redemption that all of God’s creation could also be relieved of the curse sin inflicted.
Righteousness is the longing that the Christian believers have to return to their Savior, Jesus Christ. The faithful sons of God will be revealed in God’s glory for them. Glorification is the longing that creation has when God’s sons are revealed, creation will also be set free from its bondage to sin. Jesus is the just and the justifier, and all suffering will end when all have been made righteous. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
This is the purpose of God’s redemptive plan, and when it has come to fruition at the end of earthly affairs, the righteous will receive the reward of the new heavens and the new earth. “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:13) For the sons of God, that is the goal of Jesus’s path leading us onward. Our Heavenly Home with our Heavenly Father. This is the vision that the Apostle John saw with his own eyes. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.” (Revelation 21:1)
Thomas N Kirkpatrick
First Baptist Church of Durant, December 11, 2018
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE AS A MEMBER OR VISITOR
This article has been read 86 times < Previous | Next >
Free Reprints
Main Site Articles
Most Read Articles
Highly Acclaimed Challenge Articles.
New Release Christian Books for Free for a Simple Review.
NEW - Surprise Me With an Article - Click here for a random URL
God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38
LEARN & TRUST JESUS HERE
FaithWriters offers Christian reading material for Christian readers. We offer Christian articles, Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, Christian Bible studies, Christian poems, Christian articles for sale, free use Christian articles, Christian living articles, New Covenant Christian Bible Studies, Christian magazine articles and new Christian articles. We write for Jesus about God, the Bible, salvation, prayer and the word of God.