These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.  Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.  

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:1-5).

Not too long ago I finished reading a book that I feel is monumental in its significance: The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John H. Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College.  Its implications, if widely accepted, will go a long way toward defusing the creation controversy—something that RBC has also been striving to do for a number of years [see our booklet "The Genesis Account of Creation: Defusing the Controversy" ].

Because it is such a hot button issue in the church—and even outside the church—we have chosen to leave that controversy for other forums and not deal with it on this site.  The reason is that the issue of interpreting the Genesis account of creation has a tendency to completely take over a conversation and invariable creates more heat than light.  Further, we want Wonder of Creation to center on celebrating and being good stewards of the creation instead of debating about what God did to give it to us and exactly how He did it (as if we actually could know that!)

I’m mentioning the IVP book for the prime purpose of sharing what John Walton says is the implication of his study.  In short, what Walton has concluded is that Genesis one is really not about the creation of the material cosmos.  His extensive study of the ancient world at the time when Genesis was written, a study benefitted by more and more ancient documents from Old Testament times becoming available, has convinced him that the first chapters of the Bible are part of a “temple [or tabernacle] inauguration” ceremony similar to those found in other ancient accounts of origins—only it is the one true account about the work of the one true God [See the shema in Deuteronomy 6:4ff] that sets itself in contrast to the polytheistic religions surrounding Israel.

Walton’s belief is that the first chapter of Genesis one is actually about God’s making His world to function, and not about His creating its material elements.  So the first verse of the Bible is really saying, “In the beginning, God caused His creation to function.”  The material cosmos is already made, and God is now making it all to work perfectly according to His purposes and by His design.  All other ancient cosmologies are centered on the same thing: how God made everything to work [which according to the Bible was "very good," an expression that means everything is functioning just right].  And now that everything in the cosmos is working and the Creator’s chief earthly functionaries, man and woman, are set to their work as temple attendants, He is ready to enter and reign in His cosmic temple.  That happens on day seven and continues to happen as God maintains and sustains the universe—His sacred place.  Walton’s elaboration is at the heart of what this website is all about:

Once we turn our thinking away from the “natural world” to “cosmic temple” our perspective about the world around us is revolutionized.  It is difficult to think of the “natural world” as sacred (because we just designated it “natural”).  When the cosmos is viewed in secular terms, it is hard to persuade people to respect it unless they can be convinced that it is in their own best interests to do so.  If it is secular, it is easy to think of it only as a resource to be exploited.  We even refer to “natural” resources.

But when we adopt the biblical perspective of the cosmic temple, it is no longer possible to look at the world (or space) in secular terms.  It is not ours to exploit.  We do not have natural resources; we have sacred resources.  Obviously this view is far removed from a view that sees nature as divine: As sacred space the cosmos is His place.  It is therefore not His person.  The cosmos is His place, and our privileged place in it is His gift to us.  The blessing He granted was that He gave us the permission and the ability to subdue and rule.  We are stewards.

At the same time we recognize that the most important feature of sacred space is found in what it is by definition: the place of God’s presence.  The cosmic temple idea recognizes that God is here and that all of this is His.  It is this theology that becomes the basis for our respect of our world and the ecological sensitivity we ought to nurture.

Whether or not Genesis 1-2 are about the inauguration of the earth as God’s material temple, we do know, according to Genesis 2:15 that we are to “take care of it,” and we know according to Psalm 145 that it showcases our Creator’s majesty and that He has compassion on it.  Hence the Gulf oil spill disaster is not merely a human tragedy taking the lives of creatures made in His image, nor is it merely an economic calamity: it should be a cause of human grief and shame—in that we have once again profaned the handiwork of God and have also needlessly destroyed the lives of non-human creatures upon which He has compassion.

That’s one reason the prophecy of Revelation 11:18 sobers me: ^“The nations were angry; and your wrath has come.  The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great—and for destroying those who destroy the earth.” None of us knows all the implications of that passage, but for sure we know that mankind’s destroying of the earth will be severely judged.
[LA Times photo: source]

Read “The Cry of the Oil-soaked Pelican” in Christianity Today.