Reading that title, most will assume there’s something I need to apologize for. Yes, the common meaning of “apology’ is admitting a wrong doing and confessing it to one who was offended. While for sure there are many times I need to do that, I’m here using it in the classic Greek sense: to defend a position: the core Christian belief that Jesus and God are the same.
[Artwork source].

Consider this position in reading today’s Scripture:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing (Isaiah 40:25-26).

Now take that passage and replace “Holy One” with “Jesus.” If Jesus is God in the flesh, He is here saying that no one is His equal—and that He created the cosmos. The implication of this to mankind is huge. First, consider this question: Is Jesus the only way to peace with God? The answer to that question is in rephrasing it: Is God the only way to peace with God? Of course. There could be no other way.

Hubble telescope photo

Many non-Christians often feel offended by this affirmation. The offense, however, is not, as many suppose, the claim that “my religion is superior to your religion (or lack of religion).” The offense is even greater—the offense of the Gospel, in fact. If Jesus is indeed the Creator of the cosmos, faith in any other religion or god is simply meaningless. But the “good news” (the meaning of “gospel”) is that Jesus has made peace with Him possible by bearing the penalty of our sin on the cross.  No one needs to be offended by the claim that “Jesus is the only way.” It’s the most joyful claim ever made! It’s the fulfillment of the hope of every person—that our greater Creator is also our Savior.

The truth of this was stated elegantly by William Emmanuel Booth Clibborn (1893-1969) who was the grandson of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. In 1921 he wrote the words to “Down From His Glory.” These powerful lyrics became even more intense when he adapted them to the tune of Edwardo Di Capua’s famous “O Sole Mio.” Catch the grandeur of this truth in this YouTube presentation as you contemplate this foundational Christian belief in Clibborn’s lyrics:

Down from His glory,
Ever living story,
My God and Savior came,
And Jesus was His Name.
Born in a manger,
To His own a stranger,
A Man of sorrows, tears and agony.

Refrain:

O how I love Him! How I adore Him!
My breath, my sunshine, my all in all.
The great Creator became my Savior,
And all God’s fullness dwelleth in Him.
What condescension,
Bringing us redemption;
That in the dead of night,
Not one faint hope in sight,
God, gracious, tender,
Laid aside His splendor,
Stooping to woo, to win, to save my soul

This is indeed the greatest wonder of creation—the very one on which this website is based.

One of the reasons that C. S. Lewis continues to be a best-selling author long after his death is that much of what he wrote gains even more significance as the decades advance.  My primary hardback copy of Mere Christianity, for instance, has been referenced so often some of its pages maintain their integrity only with the help of Scotch tape.  Recently I was again looking up what Lewis said about the importance of human freedom and the fact that sinful man often uses his freedom for selfish personal gain, and hence causes real harm to be done to others and to the earth.  Here is what Lewis said about such freedom” (from chapter 3, “The Shocking Alternative”):

Of course God knew what would happen if [his "higher creatures"] used their freedom the wrong way: apparently he thought it worth the risk. . . .  If God thinks that this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will—that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of really great importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings—then we may take it it’s worth paying. [Emphasis mine]

This is important in reference to the commonly heard statement on talk radio that the earth is too big and complex for people to cause significant environmental damage to it or threaten its God-designed ecosystems.  To be blunt, that’s a foolish statement.  The reality is that God made people to be stewards of His creation.  To do that, we have been given powers and mental capacities that are virtually godlike—the point the psalmist David makes: “[The Lord] made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (Psa. 8:5).

National Geographic photo

If we have the creativity and power to make bombs sufficient enough to blow the living world to bits in mere hours, we need to acknowledge that through our oft ill-considered technology and extensive abuse of the material world over the centuries we also have the power to do extreme harm to the functions of God’s good earth. [The irony of the Chernobyl disaster is that while the fallout "dead zone" around it may be permanently lost to human habitation, wildlife is returning and coping well with high doses of radiation.  Our technological carelessness has created an unintentional sanctuary for them.]

Some time back I made reference to the book by John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, in which he states his belief that Genesis 1 is really not about the creation of the material world, but about God’s taking the material world (which was already made) and making it to function.

Fittingly, the last function mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis is the human function—because mankind, the only creature made in God’s image, is the apex of His creation with the privilege and power to “rule” and “subdue” (1:26-31). Secular environmentalists and humanists don’t like to hear that—since they claim that such man-centeredness (anthropomorphism) is what has endangered the planet.  Yet the biblical fact remains.  Walton comments on humankind’s functions (pp 68-69):

All of the rest of creation functions in relationship to humankind, and humankind serves the rest of creation as God’s vice regent.  Among the many things that the image of God may signify and imply, one of them, and probably the main one, is that people are delegated a godlike role (function) in the world where He places them. It has already been mentioned that whereas in the rest of the ancient world creation was set up to serve the gods, a theocentric view, in Genesis, creation is not setup for the benefit of God but for the benefit of humanity—an anthropocentric view.  Thus we can say that humanity is the climax of the creation account.

Another contrast between Genesis and the rest of the ancient Near East is that in the ancient Near East people are created to serve the gods by supplying their needs.  That is, the role of people is to bring all of creation to deity—the focus is from inside creation out to the gods.  In Genesis people represent God to the rest of the creation.

We need to think long and hard about the fact that we “represent God to the rest of the creation.”  By our careless, hasty, and self-centered consumption of the fruit of the creation, we have now come to the point of destroying the fruitfulness of the creation—the “real harm” that Lewis says mankind is free enough to cause.  We, followers of Jesus included, have not been doing a very good job in our responsibility to represent God to the rest of creation.  Hence the creation suffers and “waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:19).

I used to think that all of this would happen only at the return of Christ.  But if we are children of God now, there is no reason that we cannot begin to act like children of God now in our relationship to the creation.  That’s why Francis Schaeffer believed that we need to be engaged now in helping to bring about a “substantial healing” of all the rifts created by the Fall—which, of course, will not be complete until Jesus comes.  Even if one does not accept Schaeffer’s belief, we do understand from Scripture that if we know what is right to do and don’t do it, we are acting sinfully.  Caring for creation, to the glory of our Creator, is and always has been one of our key functions.

KEY SCRIPTURE:
What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved (Romans 8:18-24 NLT).

I’m sure you’ve been mesmerized as I have been by the perfect butterfly, the perfect sunset, the perfect mountain lake, the perfect tree, or the perfect flower.  The beauty of nature’s perfection sometimes grips my soul to the extent that tears well up in my eyes.

George MacDonald, the Nineteenth Century writer and scholar who inspired C. S. Lewis apparently shared my feeling:

[Flowers] come from the same Heart as man himself, and are sent to be His companions and ministers.  There is something divinely magical, because profoundly human, in them.  Our feeling for many of them doubtless comes from certain associations of childhood.  But how did they get hold of us even in childhood?  Why do they enter our souls at all? It is because the flowers are joyous, inarticulate children, come with vague messages from the Father of all.  If I confess that what they say to me sometimes makes me weep, how can I call my feeling for them anything but love?

The psalmist in the great meditative hymn Psalm 119 reflects further on the source and perfection of the natural world:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. . . . To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless (119:89-91, 96).

There are a couple statements in that Psalm that are mind-bending: First, that “all things serve” the Creator.  When we stand amazed in the presence of natural beauty, if our souls are attuned to the Great Soul, we will see that these glories are made more beautiful in that they are serving the Creator by doing the work He made them for.  That’s one reason we  should treat the creation with utmost care.

But consider this even more remarkable truth:  The writer of the psalm says “to all perfection I see a limit”!  How can there be a limit to perfection? The answer is in the next phrase:  “[The Lord's] commands are boundless.”  I believe the implication is that the Creator delights to take us from perfections we’re familiar with to never ending new perfections.  Our creativeness is limited.  His is not.

What joy there will be in the coming restoration of all things after the purging of the earth.  We will never cease to be amazed at God’s handiwork.  The beauty, grandeur, and glory we see in His creation today is only a foretaste of what’s to come.  We have Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, and Trout Unlimited, but God has perfections unlimited!  His “website” is the cosmos: this one and the one coming, which will be even more perfect.

The day I saw my physician’s assistant was an awesome Indian Summer day. While sitting in the examination room, I took the liberty of lifting the closed blinds to look down into the blazing branches of a sugar maple that had a height exceeding that of the three-floor clinic. Almost immediately I saw a couple tiny kinglets really busy combing the branches for bugs (I could not see the male close-up so don’t know if they were golden-crowned or ruby crowned). Again I wondered just how much such creatures of God are regaled by the creation’s beauty.  I know they were looking for food, but were they also being delighted by the glory of the day—reveling in the freedom of being able to do the work God gave them to do?  Somehow I think they were, my believing that all created things in their own nature respond to their Creator.

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds, wind and weather that obey him, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children. Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven! (Psalm 148:7-13).

Musing thus, I was almost irritated that the PA didn’t make me wait more than ten minutes! When she came in, she noted that I was actually using the windows for their real purpose—looking outside. So we got to talking about the outdoors, and I told her about my work at RBC Ministries as a nature writer and about our aim to help parents and grandparents get the kids outdoors. Having five kids in her blended family, she commented on how hard it was to get them away from the TV and toys. “But,” she, said, “I’m the family outdoor Nazi. When I’m home they go out!” “Good for you,” I remarked.

I believe it’s a good goal to work at having our kids or grandkids experience the outdoors almost every day of the year. The weather outside may even be “frightful” but the kids can find it delightful. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” stays these parents and caregivers from getting their kids outdoors at least once each day! That doesn’t mean just running them from the house to the car. It means getting out and deliberately examining what’s happening in the creation. It’s important to make our children or grandchildren aware of what’s going on in the natural world every day: windy or calm, sunny or cloudy, wet or dry, hot or cold, humid or arid, where the sun and moon are, what the birds are doing, what the natural sounds and scents are. Be bold, dress the kids appropriately, and go out and experience rain, fog, snow—even blizzard-force winds (dressed for it and close to safety, of course). Sometimes in the winter, I get my warmest gear on and go sit outside in a powerful snowstorm for as long as I can take it just to feel its power and awesome glory. John Muir did this in a Sierra windstorm—trying to get the feel for what a tree experiences in a windstorm:

From a sketch by John Muir

 After cautiously casting about, I made choice of the tallest of a group of Douglas [firs] that were growing close together like a tuft of grass, no one of which seemed likely to fall unless all the rest fell with it. Though comparatively young, they were about 100 feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one, and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed.

In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to thirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried—bent almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows—without breaking a fiber. I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excited forest from my superb outlook.

Our “Wonder Kids” page is dedicated to helping parents, grandparents, and other child care-givers ideas, links, and inspiration to get the kids outdoors.  Also in the right sidebar you will find these links to material for children: Last Child in the Woods, National Wildlife Federation Site for Kids, Children and Nature Network. Check these out; then get out there with the kids.  If there are no children in your home, go out there yourself and be a kid again!

I love just about anything scientific: ornithology, zoology, botany, meteorology, astronomy.  When I go outside, I hardly know what to look at: the birds, the clouds, the animals, the trees, or the night sky! Many Christians, however, have a bad attitude about science.  They think that because so many outspoken scientists are atheists, science must somehow lead to disbelief in God.  Not so.  In fact, the Apostle Paul points out that the natural world (the domain of scientific research) is itself evidence for the existence of God (Rom 1:21).

I’ve found that three R’s help me keep my biblical focus about the natural world: regard, respect, relationship.

Regard: The Bible tells us that God attends the death of a sparrow. Think of that! If the great Originator of the sparrow also attends its death, how can we care less? Most of the species extinctions mankind has witnessed are the result of our failure to give attention to what God gives His attention to.  Learning to love what the Creator loves can only increase the intensity of our spiritual experiences.  Think of all the biblical stories where people met God in the wilderness.  Could it be that we often miss the voice of God because we are regarding only human entertainments and artifacts?

Respect: George MacDonald, 19th century Christian author whose writing inspired C. S. Lewis, had a reverent respect for the natural world.  He wrote, “The flowers are joyous, inarticulate children, come with vague messages from the Father of all.  If I confess that what they say to me sometimes makes me weep, how can I call my feeling for them anything but love?” The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made (Psalm 145:9).

Relationship: Evangelical theologian John Stott was an avid birder who motivated the founder of A Rocha, a Christian conservation agency.  He wrote, “Christian people should surely have been in the vanguard of the movement for environmental responsibility, because of our doctrines of creation and stewardship.  Did God make the world? Does He sustain it? Has He committed its resources to our care? His personal concern for His own creation should be sufficient to inspire us to be equally concerned.”

Our relationship to the natural world is that of steward—the one who is responsible to care for what God has made. Homo sapiens is the only responsible species. How responsible have we been?