This is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that He may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised long ago through His holy prophets (Acts 3:18-21).

In [Jesus Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ (Ephesians 1:7-10).

Years ago I saw a placard that really made me chuckle: “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s hard to keep in mind that your original purpose was to clear the swamp!” Day-to-day routines with all their details will often keep us from thinking not only about our temporary purposes but our permanent purposes as well.

The permanent purpose of the follower of Christ is related to the fundamental biblical/Christian worldview regarding material existence.  True Christianity holds that there are two realms: the supernatural (spiritual, metaphysical) and the natural (material, physical).  The supernatural world in the form of God (who is Spirit) is eternally existent.  By His Word God formed the natural world, which exists for His pleasure and according to His will and would cease to exist at the word of His command.

This natural world has been graced by the material form of God in Jesus who came to the earth the first time in order to redeem fallen mankind, the one creature made in the likeness of God, but fallen in sin.  After making atonement for our sin, Jesus, the Son ascended to be with God the Father.  But He will come again to fully restore, refresh, and reunify the earth.  This is necessary because God cursed the earth in order to discipline sinful humanity [see passages above]. Further, the earth has been unwisely damaged by the hand of sinful man.  As a result, at the consummation of all things those who have destroyed the earth will themselves be destroyed (Revelation 11:18).  From this we can know that God holds the earth dear.

The triune God loves the material world that He made (all Persons of the Trinity intimately involved in its creation and its continuation).  And Jesus, who in a transformed material body ascended to heaven, will come again in His material body.  When He does He will bring heaven to earth, and those who have placed their trust in Him will attain their own transformed (incorruptible) material bodies and live a material life on an earth that will once again provide perpetual existence in part because access to the Tree of Life, which access was denied at the time of the curse, will again be available to us (Revelation 2:7 and 22:1-3). So God is not concerned only about our spiritual natures; He’s also concerned about our material natures.

What does this mean to those who consider the Bible to be God’s Word and are committed to Christ, the living Word?  I believe that we will honor the natural, material creation as a precious gift out of which we are made and of which we will continue to be made perpetually.  We will not accept New Age and neo-pagan views that advocate the worship of the creation and deny the personhood of God, our Maker and Sustainer.  Nor will we accept the Platonic and Eastern religious views that consider the material world as something negative that needs to be escaped from.

And we will continue to learn from it and about it, because in so doing we gain more understanding about the eternal creative power, divine nature, intelligence, and loving and sustaining influence of Christ the Creator.

“Our God is an awesome God”—and His creation is an awesome creation.

[Photos: Desert wildflowers I photographed last week.  Click on the photos to see them in larger size.  Then click on the return arrow  -DO]