Carried Over: Creation Care in Light of the New Earth

This planet won’t be destroyed but healed. Our creation care efforts now will be carried over into God’s promised new earth forever.

The Destruction Myth

One of the greatest impediments to Christian participation in creation care is the notion that the world is going to be destroyed in a massive conflagration. This idea was popularised by Darby and Schofield’s premillennial dispensationalism, based on a misinterpretation of 2 Peter 3, which on closer examination, actually teaches no such thing. Regrettably the idea persists, especially amongst American evangelicals, reinforced by pundits such as Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye and David Jeremiah.

It is an erroneous notion, akin to a doctor prescribing death as the cure for a patient’s longstanding disease. The problem is not the material. The problem is what has happened to the material. It has been blighted by sin and evil. The solution is therefore to deal with what has blighted it, and that indeed is what God will do. He will purify and refine the whole universe. When Paul speaks of liberation and redemption in Romans 8:18-25, it is the present cosmos that he is referring to.

Creation Healed, Not Discarded

That is why biblical images of the promised “new earth” (Isaiah 66:22; 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21: 1) have a remarkable resemblance to the earth as we know it – only vastly better. Through the cross, God “reconciled all things to himself” (Colossians 3:20). Salvation is creation healed – all of it, otherwise Satan wins. The end result will be a new creation, which commenced in the past (with the resurrection of Christ), continues in the present, and will culminate in the future. Some have called this “the earthing of heaven.”

Should We Just “Let Go and Let God”?

What, then, of our current efforts to care for a creation in crisis, desperately in need of repair and restoration? Are they a waste of time? Should we just sit back and allow things to take their course until God finally intervenes to return everything to the original blueprint? Should we simply “let go and let God”?

I believe not. Just as God invites us to cooperate with him in saving people, he likewise seeks our participation in saving nature. And just as what we invest in the lives of people will count for eternity, so what we do for nature will also be carried over into the new order. Our care for creation will have beneficial effects in the here and now, but those effects will be preserved in the new creation which God will one day bring to its full realisation.

Continuity Between This Age and the Next

For me, one of the most exciting concepts to entertain and ponder is the fact of continuity between this age and the next, and between this earth and the new earth. The New Testament contains metaphors which suggest that what believers do in this life will have consequences for the life to come – figures like sowing and reaping, grain and ear, ripening and harvest.

Paul teaches that a person may build on the foundation of faith in Christ with lasting materials like gold, silver, or precious stones, so that in the consummation his or her work may survive and he/she may receive a reward (I Corinthians 3:10–15). The book of Revelation speaks about deeds which shall follow those who have died in the Lord (14:13). The continuity between what is done for Christ now and what we shall enjoy in the hereafter is often expressed in terms of reward or joy (Matthew 25: 21,23; I Corinthians 3:14).

It is clear from passages of this sort that what Christians do for the kingdom of God in this life is also of significance and value for the world to come. This truth is extremely important. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we may not just write off the present earth as a total loss, or rejoice in its deterioration. We must indeed be working for a better world now, and our efforts to bring the kingdom of Christ into fuller manifestation will never be cancelled, negated, or rendered void.

Working for a Better World Now

We are not oiling the wheels of a machine that is about to fall over a cliff.

We are not restoring a great painting that’s about to be thrown in the fire.

We are not planting roses in a garden about to be dug up for a construction site.

We are accomplishing something which will become, in due course, part of God’s dream, a renewed universe (Revelation 21:5).

The Value of Non-Christian Environmental Efforts

Does this apply to the environmental care exercised by non-Christians? Undoubtedly it does. We cannot designate their efforts as valueless because they have not been undertaken by believers and have not been consciously dedicated to the glory of God. Christians who take this attitude fail to appreciate the working of God’s common grace in this present world, whereby even unregenerate people are enabled to make valuable contributions to the divine agenda.

Since God is in control and Christ’s sovereign power is so great that he can rule in the midst of even his enemies, I am firmly persuaded that products and outcomes furnished by unbelievers may yet be found on the new earth. God can cause those who do not know him to make contributions which serve his purposes. The powers awakened by the resurrection of Jesus Christ are active in the world today! The tension between the already and the not yet implies that we must not despise what God’s Spirit has enabled unregenerate men and women to achieve, but evaluate all of it in the light of God’s Word.

Building Materials for the New Earth

The bottom line is that anything humans do that is in line with God’s saving agenda has everlasting significance. As we live on this earth, we are preparing for life on God’s new earth. Through our mahi, ministry and mission the building materials for that new earth are now being gathered. Only eternity will reveal the full significance of what has been done in the service of Christ, and that applies to creation care as much as any other endeavour.

The promise of I Corinthians 15:58 is that

“nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (NLT).

The Message renders it:

“Nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.”

Other translations say that it’s never “in vain.” What a hugely encouraging assurance!

Tomorrow morning, get up and go and look out your window. The promised new creation is the transfiguration of (not the doing away with) what you are looking at! Where you are is where hope is coming! May God bless and empower you in all your efforts to bring it about!

Carried Over: Why Your Creation Care Isn’t Wasted