THE EARTH IS THE LORD`S
(L.F
Schulze)
Sing: Ps. 24:1 and 5 (English version)
Text: Ps.24:1,2.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Since December rain has drenched large parts of our country. The surface of the earth is clothed in a lush green. Shrubs and trees flourish, and the wild animals can eat and drink their fill. Together with the refreshing rains the floods of the past weeks have forced our attention away from the usual politics and sport to look at, and to think about our earth.
Thinking about the earth leads us to the jubilant tones of Psalm 24:
The earth is the Lord’s!
David probably composed the song
of praise when the ark of the covenant was taken from the house of Obed-edom to
its abode in
But who is this triumphant and exultant King of glory? Who is this Lord, strong and mighty, this Lord of hosts? He is not simply the ‘national’ God of Israel, his chosen people. He is not a God among the gods of the nations. He is the only God, the owner of the earth and the fullness thereof. To him belong the world and all the creatures who dwell therein (verse 1)
Why?
Because he has founded the earth upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers (verse 2). He has caused by his word that the dry land should emerge from the seas and serve as a habitat for birds, land animals and man. The Lord of hosts is the Creator.
The earth is the Lord’s!
In giving the reason for this fact, the Psalm refers back to the creative word of Genesis 1:9-10:
And God said: “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”. And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Thus the exultant tones of the opening verses of Psalm 24 has brought us back to Genesis 1. Being referred back to the creation narrative, let us page through some biblical passages which reveal some aspects of the deep meaning of the first verses of this Psalm.
The verses following Genesis 1:9-10 give us already an impression of a bountiful earth. In verses 11 and 12 we read:
And God said: “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth”. And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Towards the end of chapter 1 we read that, having created man in his image, God gave to him plants with seed and fruit trees as food and all green vegetation to the animals and birds (verses 29-30).
The impression of a luxurious,
bountiful earth is underlined by what is written in Genesis 2:8-9, viz. that
“the Lord God planted a garden in
Commenting on Genesis 1:28-30 Calvin stresses the abundance of Gods provision.
For the words of God are to this effect: ‘Behold, I have prepared food for thee before thou wast formed; acknowledge me, therefore, as thy Father, who have so diligently provided for thee when thou wast not yet created. Moreover, my solicitude for thee has proceeded still further; it was thy business to nurture the things provided to thee, but I have taken even this charge also upon myself. Wherefore, although thou art, in a sense, constituted the father of the earthly family, it is not for thee to be over-anxious about the sustenance of animals.
Adam did not have to exert himself, to toil and sweat to create a garden. A garden was given to him, and, upon the creative word of God, the earth produced spontaneously an abundance of food. A modern Dutch biologist (Diemer) strikingly draws the position of the first man: Adam’s work was a pleasure for nature obeyed him.
Alas, this bountiful earth is no longer accessible to us. Genesis 3 confronts us with
The disobedience of Adam had a profound effect on the earth itself:
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife … cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground …” (Gen. 3:17-19a).
Instead of producing plants with seeds and fruit trees, the earth now produced weeds, thorns and thistles. Adam’s joyful work became a toil, a frustrating, laborious, monotonous exhausting struggle to gain from an in obedient, obstinate earth his livelihood.
This is the earth we know so well. The barren earth with its scarcity and hunger, needing fertilizers and pesticides; the earth with its deserts, its droughts and its floods, as we have experienced. Mercifully God, in his covenant with Noah, has ordained still an order in nature – a time for sowing and reaping (Gen. 8:22). But this order is no more harmonious. The animals that had come to Adam to be named, have turned wild. To Noah it was said: “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered” (Gen. 9:2).
Our world is an unnatural world. When a man mourns or hungers, said Calvin, it happens against the intention of God.
But God did not abandon his creation in its sorry state, nor did he revoke his intention. This becomes clear when we turn to the New Testament, specifically to the first chapter of Mark, where we see a mystery.
3 The hidden revelation
God
indeed upheld his aim with creation.
For see, he sent the Son of man, the second Adam, confronting us with what Adam
had to be but was not, and what we should be but are not. His first official
task after baptism was to resist Satan and conquer him. This he did, but he did
so, not in a garden but in the barren earth of the Judean desert. In the lush
In the garden the animals came to Adam to be named. In the wilderness the wild beasts, fearing man, came to the second Adam. God’s re-creation of the earth has started. Meanwhile this prophecy of restoration was hidden from the eyes of men. The only witnesses of the triumph of the King of Peace were angels and … wild beasts!
Mark pinpoints the center of redemptive history. From this point we can look back and see how God promised his covenant people a land of milk and honey – on this very barren earth. And we can look forward and hear Christ’s tempering of the curse when he said: “Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (Matt. 6:31).
These buds announcing the springtime of recreation were already glimpsed through the shadows of the Old Testament and became clearly visible with the appearance of Christ. However, even while the people of God have a foretaste of earthly blessings, these buds are not confined to the faithful but are a promise that encloses the whole of creation. Since the coming of Christ the barren earth has become the waiting earth, groaning under the curse. This is explained to us in a profound passage in Romans 8:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God … because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now… (vs.19, 21,22).
The groaning creation is not
dying, but groans like a woman in labor – eagerly awaiting the appearance of a
new life. For Christ has solemnly promised the “rebirth of the cosmos” in
the coming messianic age (Math.
Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Rev.22:1-2).
Symbolic language? Yes, indeed.
But note that it is the language of Genesis, meaning that the end will be like
the beginning, yes, even more glorious than
The earth is the Lord’s!
Let us acknowledge him as
Creator and sustainer of all. Let us glorify the King of glory to whom belongs
the fullness of the earth, by preaching his gospel diligently, by giving back to
him a small part of that which he gives to us (spiritually and materially).
Above all we must serve him and one another with all our gifts, caring for the
destitute, educating the young to find their way on this barren earth. Note: educating
the young, for church and school are twins since the beginning of
Christianity. Fulfill your calling by proclaiming the