A Tortured Earth Awaits Its Liberation

by John Comer

God has set in motion an ecology where human life, and all life forms, interact with him and with each other in a changing, often dangerous environment upon a tortured earth.

The cottontail rabbit burrows its home in a Kansas wheat field and all seems secure. The tall, ripening wheat shields it from hawks hungrily circling overhead. The nearby farm pond and green pasture promise easy living. But suddenly there is a loud roar and horrible vibration as long rotating blades cut everything to pieces and huge tires easily crush everything beneath them as the farmer operates his combine, bringing in his wheat harvest.

On the slope of Mauna Loa on the big island of Hawaii, Kilauea erupts and a river of molten lava makes its path to the sea, searing and engulfing everything in its path. In Arizona, Interstate 40 passes through an old lava flow where motorists are made to wonder what the world might have been like when these streams of now solid rock were flowing, glowing liquid. Meanwhile in Italy, farmers work the rich volcanic soil, which in the distant past had its origins in an explosion of fire and devastation.

God has directly caused some upheavals. What a different environment Adam and Eve found as, driven from the garden, they stepped onto ground that bore the curse of God. He sent the flood upon Noah’s generation. He rained burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah and apparently changed that geography permanently.

It is not to be ignored that these actions of God were triggered by spiritual and moral human failure. When humans disrupt their relationship with God, this creates the most basic of ecological breakdowns. Paul wrote in Romans 8 about the very creation “groaning” in pain as it awaits its liberation and share of glory with the children of God. Sin even upsets nature.

Peter wrote of “the day of the Lord” (2 Peter 3) when the heavens will disappear with a roar, destroyed by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?” he asks us. (We want to be people who practice good spiritual ecology, people with a right relationship with God.) “We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteous righteousness.” God will liberate creation from its bondage, and his people will find their redemption as he restores disrupted relationships.

Our God is the ultimate ecologist.