As much as I am captivated by nature, it never fulfills me. Though I find delight in the natural world, I’m also filled at times with sadness—a spiritual sadness caused by a lingering sense that something is missing—something is wrong. Our material world ultimately does not satisfy my soul, which feels trapped within it.
The material realm in which we live and move and have our being has a veil that stands between it and the Glory that transcends it. The veil consists of these elements: Lost access to Eden and the intimacy Adam had with the Creator, original sin that has warped our perceptions, spiritual dark forces that have bound the majority of mankind, and the curse that God placed on the earth to discipline us for our rebellion.
Further, I’m saddened by the realization that those who have not been born from above are incapable of perceiving the things revealed to the spirits of followers of Christ by the Holy Spirit.
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14).
And still beyond that is the action of God to eventually blind those who deliberately reject their inborn knowledge of Him:
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21).
Hence when unbelievers adamantly claim to see no evidence of God in the natural world, they are speaking the truth. For followers of Christ to argue with them is fruitless. By God’s grace, through the Spirit and the Word, we are able to discern truth about the realms beyond the material that unbelievers are not able to discern. However, since God “is not willing that any should perish,” unbelievers can, by exercising faith, be given the grace to see what they could not previously see—which should motivate us in our evangelism.
We can’t forget, though, that even believers are still operating under the same clouds that obscure what our souls long for—lost access to paradise, the sin nature, the spiritual forces of darkness, and God’s curse on the earth. In addition, we are still confined, in this life, to the realm of the material. This will not always be the case, however. We will one day obtain an incorruptible body just like that of Jesus Christ, which will be capable of moving about freely in and between both the spiritual and the material realms. In the days after Jesus arose from the grave, dozens, if not hundreds, of witnesses, saw Jesus in such a body. [Read 1 Corinthians 15:35ff.]
But until then “we see through a glass darkly.” Hence we know that we’re missing or are not seeing clearly many aspects of reality that will one day make us complete. So when we experience our present natural world, we have a degree of sadness and a longing for Eden. Paul expresses it profoundly:
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons 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 glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:19-28). [emphasis mine.]
So there’s a universal groan that’s more felt than heard throughout the cosmos: a groaning non-human creation, a groaning body of believers, and a groaning Holy Spirit that labor for and long for the restoration of Paradise—the coming Kingdom of Peace when the spiritual and material realms will again be one. So, oft sad soul, be encouraged, and let your heart sing in anticipation with Isaac Watts:
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
Keep in mind while celebrating the first advent of Christ by singing “Joy To the World” that it is a hymn about the wonderful coming second advent when all the groaning will cease.
See you outdoors!
Dean
November 12th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Quite interesting words here, Dean. Not sure if material can be deemed nonspiritual, or that maybe what we’re talking about is the longing for heaven and earth to become one in Jesus in the new creation to come. But I may be misunderstanding.
At any rate what you write here is important for me to consider, and rings true, really. So many interesting thoughts in this post.
Interesting to have a deep inward joy and a deep inward sadness at the same time, as we view nature/creation.
November 12th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Dean, how do you like the way The Message (Navpress) renders Rom. 8: verses 19 and following: The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs.
No matter which translation or paraphrase, it seems they all talk about the pains of the natural world not because of nature’s problems but because of the fall of man, and God has put nature “on hold” until our final redemption.
As wonderful as the natural world is now, especially when we get off the beaten path and back into where we haven’t messed up too much, can you imagine what is ahead for the created world, and what kind of delight it will be to experience nature at that time?
People talk about being buried with some treasure or trinket in their casket, and of course there is no need for that, but how about a backpack and hiking stick (just in case)!!!
November 16th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Hi, Dean,
I think the evidence the earth provides can either draw one to God or can help one resist God and move farther away from Him (Romans 1:18-32; Isaiah 6:10, etc.).
Experts in testing teach that a good problem has a bimodal distribution of scores. That it, most examinees either score low or high, but not right around the pass-fail mark. The intent of the problem is to separate the “sheep from the goats,” those who are qualified in the particular subject matter dealt with by the problem from those who are not. A unimodal statistical distribution of scores, with a hump near the pass-fail mark, indicates that the discrimination provided by the problem is fuzzy and such problems are often discarded when scoring exams.
It is my belief that God is doing the same thing with the universe. He created it as Genesis says, but with features built in that can be taken as evidence of His creative power or as evidence that He doesn’t exist. I think He wants to make sure that folks who are not saved are not able to argue at the judgment of the great white throne that they were “almost” anything. He wants the record to be clear with the “fence” swept clear so that nobody can sit on it. That’s why, in Romans 1:24, He “lets go” and
allows people to go off into postasy. This applies also to Isaiah 6:10 and
similar verses that show that God prevents certain persons from hearing or seeing the truth. I think that this occurs, though, only after such persons reject the draw from God to hear or see the truth.