SOMEONE once said to me, "You can't find
anything about the second advent of Christ in nature, can
you?"
Oh, but that is exactly what you do find
in nature. The second advent of Christ is, as Tennyson put
it, the
"... one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."
The second advent of Christ is the aim,
the purpose, the pivot of every process of nature. Christ
said that He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
His first and His second advents are the two halves of that
whole; the first is not complete without the second; the
second is not possible without the first. At His first
advent the Saviour came seeking; at His second He comes
saving. At His first advent He paid the penalty for our
sins, thereby offering us His sufficient salvation. The
whole period of the probation of mankind is filled with His
seeking for those who will accept His offer. But the time is
soon coming when He will consummate His offered salvation
into His achieved salvation. No longer then will we look
forward in hope to a time when death is no more, but that
future becomes the Now. Hope becomes reality.
Every element and process of spiritual
experience is focused toward that epoch of absolute harmony
with God, when there will be no more tears, sorrow, crying,
pain, or death. And, to repeat, every process of nature is
focused toward that same epoch. That is, the processes of
nature are processes of life, not death. It may seem that
death reigns throughout nature; but it is always death in
hope. "In sure and certain hope of the resurrection," says
the minister beside the open grave of Cod's saints. "In sure
and certain hope of the resurrection," says the seed as it
dies in the furrow, the salmon that perishes after spawning,
the caterpillar that falls asleep in the pupa, the leaves
that flutter down in the autumn, and every life that dies
that another might live. The fact that it is not their own
resurrection but others' life they serve through death does
not destroy the fact that, in spite of all present defects,
nature looks forward, "in hope."
The hope that runs throughout creation is
one of the most profound and moving aspects of nature.
Nature did not sin. Nature's king did, and his kingdom fell
with him. Not only did Adam pass on to his sons a nature
tainted with tendencies to sin and containing even in birth
the seeds of death; but from the moment of man's
disobedience the lower world of his dominion became infected
with decay and death. Can we now imagine a fraction of the
grief Adam and Eve must have felt when the goodly trees
first shed their leaves and the gentle creatures began to
bite and devour one another? Utter despair would have seized
on them had it not been for those words, "Cursed is the
ground for thy sake." The death that we now see reigning in
nature is not a penalty for sin, for the lower creation did
not sin. But an innocent creation was subjected to death for
our sake, to contribute to our salvation.
There is much more meaning in Genesis
3:17 than that labor was given to the human race to be a
physical blessing, curbing indolence and providing healthful
and gainful occupation. There is the highest spiritual
meaning bound up in those words -"for thy sake." Genesis
3:17 interpreted by Paul in Romans 8:16-25 shines with the
glory of the approaching second advent:
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and
joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him,
that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that
the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For
the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made
subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who
hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know
that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also,
which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit,
the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but
hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why
doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not,
then do we with patience wait for it."
That the race might look forward "in
hope" to the time of its complete restoration, nature has
suffered. A just, loving, and merciful God subjected all
nature to decay and death that His own children, made in His
image, might love Him instead of His works, might worship
the Creator instead of the creature, and might look forward
to when Jesus will return to restore all things. Let not the
earth be too fair, lest we become satisfied with sin.
The sinning civilizations of the past
turned earth's richest fields into deserts. The devilish
destructiveness of the present age is fast doing the same
with the rest of the earth. But when the river of life again
flows throughout the new earth from Christ's throne in the
New Jerusalem, there will be no deserts. Every pang of pain
felt in all animate nature now is a groan of longing for
that time. The sinless creatures that die by rod and hook or
bullet under a Satan-inspired counterfeit idea of pleasure,
in their death throes cry to God to hasten the time when we
will be redeemed and they can be set free from subjection to
our death. All nature, Paul says, waits and longs for us to
hasten our preparation so Christ can return. What are we
doing to hasten that hope for our sake—and nature's?
