God’s Purpose for Us in Creation | With Jonathan Moo

Transcript

Jonathan Moo:

The Bible has much to tell us about our potential insignificance, as well as about the fact that we simply belong to the community of the rest of creation. Well, it starts right at the beginning, where human beings are created alongside other creatures, on the sixth day, as one land animal among other land animals we might say. In Genesis two, as dust of the Earth. We’re earthly creatures embedded in the life of this creation, according to scripture. The prophets would tell us we are but a passing wind that’s here today and gone tomorrow. Our fundamental text, in Genesis onwards, tell us we’re a part of this spirit. We’re a part of this creation. We’re creatures, not the creator.

And yet, of course, those same texts remind us that God, because of God’s grace and purposes, has called us into a particular role in and for this creation, described as rule over other creatures in Genesis one, a rule that should reflect God’s rule, which is a rule of love and of care. The God who keeps us, the God whose rule is revealed in Jesus Christ as the king who gives up his life on behalf of those over whom he rules. And it’s described in Genesis two, human beings put in the garden to work it and to keep it, or as we might even translate to Hebrew, there to serve and protect. Just as the way in which God keeps us, so we keep the Earth that has been entrusted to us. So the significance of our role there, right from the beginning, suggests that God has a purpose for us in creation. And that purpose is one of development of good work, but of preservation, of care, of love, of reflecting God’s purposes for creation as we reflect God’s image to those over whom he’s placed us.