Genesis 1:31 (NIV): God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning–the sixth day.
Many people look at the world today, at all of the brokenness, and hurt, and suffering, and pain, at natural disasters, and disease, and death, and they wonder how God could possibly look at all of that and call His creation “very good.” But that is like someone looking at the Venus de Milo, and wondering why anyone would make a sculpture of a beautiful woman with no arms and a chipped up face! Obviously when the sculpture was newly created it was completely intact. Over time decay, and possibly vandalism, caused the damage that is seen today. The original artist created a masterpiece that was damaged after the fact.
It is exactly the same with God’s creation. When He finished creating everything, it was all perfect. It was a world where life flourished, and where there was no death, no disease, and no natural disasters. (It is hard for people today to picture a world like that, but that is only because they only know the broken product, not the original article.) The man and his wife that God created were perfect, too. Far from savage brutes, they were the pinnacle of God’s creative powers, made in His own image and likeness, intelligent, creative, strong, and stately. And they also had two things that no other creature possessed: an immortal soul, and unfettered free will. That gave them the ability to choose to obey or disobey God’s commands, as well as moral responsibility for their choices.
God made the man and the woman lords over the earth and all of its creatures (Genesis 1:26), placed them in an ideal environment in the garden, and gave them access to a huge variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains for food, and even access to the Tree of Life itself. There was only one restriction: they were not allowed to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were instead to submit to God, to seek Him for any knowledge they might want or need.
God allowed them to be tested by the serpent, and they failed the test, doing profound damage to their souls in the process – the very thing that God had warned them would happen beforehand. And, because they were lords of the earth, their sin had far-reaching consequences for the entire world. Death and decay began to mar God’s once perfect creation. And ever since that first step away from obedience, the world has suffered the aftershocks of mankind’s sinful, broken spirit.
So when people look at the world, and when they see its brokenness, and the pain and suffering that mar the spectacular beauty that is still evident everywhere, they must realize that what they are seeing are the traces of the original very good creation, broken and marred by the sin of mankind.
Father, there really is a lot of beauty still in our world; beauty that shines brightly even through all of the brokenness. It takes our breath away to see the waterfalls, the mountains, the canyons, the huge variety of wildlife, even the sunrises and sunsets. How much more spectacular it must have all been at creation’s first blush, when Adam and Eve woke on their first morning! Lord, I know that a big part of Your plan in sending Jesus is to reshape the whole world, freeing it from its bondage to decay as You remake people through the power of salvation and sanctification (cf. Romans 8:19-25). Help all of Your people to so submit to Your remaking, reshaping power that the world is continually remade through us wherever we are. Amen.