The role of humanity in Creation

What role does humanity play within Creation?

Are we more significant than the rest of the created order or are we on the same level with the rest?

During a prayer of confession a decade ago at a presbytery meeting, we were led in a confession of the sin of being human-centric. And in a recent sermon, the preacher said there are only two levels to creation: the Creator and the created.

I get the point of the prayer and the preachment. A thoughtless focus on human wants, needs, and desires at the cost of the rest of Creation has led us to the precipice for Creation as the result of our consumption and/or our warfare. Our consumption has led us to toxic pollution, rainforest devastation, climate change, and species extinction. Our warfare has led us to the brink of nuclear destruction.Unleashed and unhinged humanity is a threat to life on this planet. And so we turn to the stars and invent a multiverse to come up with backups that don’t exist.

I get it. We’re a problem when it comes to Creation. We have much to repent of.

But that doesn’t change our significant role within the Creation. Rather, it emphasizes it. Biblically, we are unique and emphatically so. There isn’t just the Creator and the Creation. There is a hierarchy within the Creation and ours is both an elevated status and an elevated role.

How do the Scriptures communicate our elevated status?

1. Only humanity was created in the image and likeness of God. We’ll look at the associated role that comes with being the image of God later. But no rock, tree, or creature is image of God. We alone claim that significance.
2. Only humanity is handmade by God with his own breath breathed into us to give us life. Yes, Psalm 104 notes that it is God’s Spirit which gives life to all creatures. But Genesis 2 tells the story of humanity alone as crafted and breathed upon by God. Sure, we’re made of clay which ties us to the earth. We are ashes to ashes and dust to dust. We return to the soil we’re made from. But we’re made. We are God’s workmanship in a unique way that the rest of Creation cannot claim.
3. Jesus became human. He did not become a plant or a handful of salt or an egret. This elevates and dignifies humanity above all the rest of Creation.
4. Humanity is a little lower than the angels, according to Psalm 8. The wonderful psalm both establishes humanity as unique within Creation while demoting us in the hierarchy below the heavenly host.
5. The Scriptures are God’s Word to us, written by human hands and for human minds. No other part of Creation gets the Scriptures. God speaks to us uniquely. And God speaks through us uniquely.
6. The Decalogue orders our relationships with God and one another. Other aspects of Creation are included within the Ten — we’re not to make images of of creatures to worship them; we’re to make sure to include other creatures in Sabbath rest; we’re not to steal the stuff of Creation belonging to other humans; and we’re not to covet the stuff of Creation belonging to other humans — but it’s always in a subservient role to humanity. In each of these case, the rest of Creation is a mistaken object of worship, a servant that can be exploited, or a possession that can be stolen or coveted.
7. Only humanity can speak our worship. Psalm 19 glories in the sun but notes that the praise of Creation is voiceless and only humanity can voice Creation’s praise. This leads to our unique role within Creation as its priest. The angels praise. Humans praise. The rest of Creation only gets its praise voiced by us.
8. Human redemption is the goal of salvation. The rest of Creation benefits from our salvation but is not included in it. The cross has a man on it. Jesus is “God for man and man for God.”
9. Only humanity is held accountable for our actions. The killing done by animals is not counted as murder. A hurricane does not sin by collapsing a house and neither does a falling branch that maims a little child. God’s moral law only applies to humanity. But we restrain the rest of Creation “red in tooth and claw” so that it does not kill as often or as wantonly.
10. It is a human who names the animals not the other way around. Naming is an act of definition and authority. It establishes relationships. And we are the ones who establish and maintain the relationship.
11. In God’s creation-spanning covenant after the Flood, it is the blood of humans God requires a penalty for. The blood of animals can be spilled for food. But spilling human blood is a direct offense to God.
12. The heavenly multitudes gathered in the throne room of God in the Revelation are humans. Yes, the four living creatures represent the rest of Creation. But the New Jerusalem is a human city and it comes down to earth so God’s presence can be with humanity. Again, the rest of Creation benefits, but the primary focus is on the divine-human relationship.
13. While we have fanciful stories like that of St. Francis preaching a sermon to a bunch of sparrows, the Gospel is for humanity. God’s great redemption story features humans from Abraham on and is focused on humanity. Yes, one of the relationships to be repaired is that of humans with creation, but all of the other relationships Genesis 3-11 lays out as broken by sin are human-divine and human-human relationships.

Our role within Creation has several features:

1. We are to rule over and take care of Creation. When I take good care of my dog, he becomes less like a beast and more like a human. If I were to be more beastial myself, so would my dog be as well.
2. We are to fill the earth with other image-of-God humans. This isn’t because the more the merrier, but because wherever we go we take the image of God with us and fill the earth with the praises of our Lord.
3. Likewise, we are to voice Creation’s voiceless praise. We are to be its priests and choir.
4. We are to till the earth to make it productive. There is goodness in wild things, but there is a unique goodness to cultivated things.
5. We are to protect and repair what is broken in Creation.
6. We are to name and give meaning to Creation.

Human sin causes all kinds of problems within and for Creation. Our arrogance is problematic and we’ve been brazen in our treatment of Creation, acting as if it’s ours to abuse and that there will be no consequences for our mistreatment of what rightly belongs to God alone. Until the Industrial Revolution, we didn’t have much ability to damage Creation beyond what it could repair itself. But now we are actively killing life on our planet. There is so much the Scriptures have to teach us that could set right our relationship with Creation. But one thing the Scriptures do no do is treat us as mere equals with the rest of Creation. No. Ours is an exalted role and with it comes an exalted responsibility. Without rule, there is no responsibility.

We are in charge. But we’re in charge of something belonging to God. And he will hold us responsible for how well we treat what he created and loves so much.