There are few doctrines of the Reformed faith that are more beautiful, more comforting, more central to God’s glory, more governing in God’s counsel, and more far-reaching in implications than the doctrine of God’s covenant. We are absolutely privileged to have been given such an understanding of God’s covenant within himself and applied to his elect people in Jesus Christ. We stand in awe of a God who has such perfect fellowship among his three persons and are unable to comprehend such selfless love within the Trinity. We delight in the truth that God has extended that covenant fellowship to us and our children, who of ourselves have no right to know such a righteous and holy God.

But an oft-forgotten and glorious aspect of God’s covenant is his covenant with the creation. Scripture speaks of a real covenant between God and the creation he originally formed “good” in the beginning. This covenant is everlasting and involves the promise of redemption when Jesus Christ comes again. Even now, Jesus Christ is the head of this covenant and rules the creation in this covenant for his glory and works all things for the saving of the subjects in this covenant.

I give a few passages from scripture that speak of the covenant of God with the creation. Genesis 9:9–10 says, 

9. And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 

10. And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

Hosea 2:18 also speaks of this covenant: “In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.” 

One last passage I give now is Colossians 1:19–20: 

19. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; 

20. And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

Since God’s creation is often at the center of what we teach, we have a great opportunity for developing the truth of God’s covenant with his creation. We teach God’s order and immutability in the creation as we instruct regarding the laws and processes of math. We teach God’s rule and providence in the creation in biology, chemistry, physics, geology, and astronomy. We teach God’s loveliness and glory in the creation when we teach art and music. We teach all aspects of God’s creation as we read about it in literature and as we learn language. We teach God’s sovereignty over and care for the creation in geography, history, and current events. Much of the education of our children involves looking upon the “most elegant book” of the creation through the eyes of scripture (see Belgic Confession 2 in Confessions and Church Order, 24).

The world would oppose this and teach about the creation from man’s perspective: what he perceives and what he finds with blind eyes. Inevitably, he will lie about the creation and lie about the God of the creation. He will not teach God as the God of the creation, and he will not teach Christ as the ruler and head of the creation. We who have been given eyes to see, freely of God’s grace, must teach the truth of God’s creation. Because of the power of the Holy Spirit in and through us, we must use scripture’s teaching about the creation before we begin diving into its study. And what we see from God’s word is that the creation that declares the glory of his almighty name and shouts God’s glory throughout all of history is sick with a dreadful disease.

This sickness of the creation is seen everywhere we look; we cannot avoid it. Even as we search the highest mountains and the lowest valleys, the largest celestial bodies and the smallest molecules and microorganisms, the sickness is there. In fact, this sickness is so obvious that even natural, unbelieving man can see it. God makes sure that all men see this sickness. Unbelieving man, due to his insatiable pride, believes that he can fix it. Man actually thinks he can remove the sickness of God’s creation by spending millions of dollars in conservation efforts, forcing his hands into dying populations of animals and “saving” them, being more cautious with the use of nonrenewable resources, leaving alone giant areas of land so they cannot be ruined by man’s industrialism, pumping less CO2 into the creation, and a myriad of other efforts.

Now I will say what unbelieving man will not hear, indeed, what man will hate. These efforts will not work. They cannot work. They may make the earth more aesthetically pleasing to man’s eyes, but all that these efforts will accomplish is a mere cosmetic makeover. Man cannot save the creation, just as man cannot save himself. Man’s chance of saving this creation is as great as man’s chance of rescuing himself of his own sin and sinful nature: zero. The man who claims he can save himself by his own work and his own efforts puts himself on an absolutely hopeless excursion. So it is with the man or group of men who claim that by their own work and efforts the creation can be saved. It is futile and foolish and unimaginably proud. We ought not instruct our children that these efforts will save the creation or fix its problems; we ought to point out the world’s folly and pride in all of these efforts. Must we then abandon our care of the creation and abuse it to fulfill all our sinful lusts? God forbid! God has a covenant with this creation! We must only recognize the utter foolishness of believing that man has any chance of saving this creation that is so dreadfully sick.

Man cannot save the creation because he cannot deal with the root of creation’s sickness. The creation is not simply sick; it is cursed. The creation that God created good and perfect fell under the curse of God. This curse of the creation occurred at the fall of man in the garden as Adam rebelled against the one who had given him perfection, the only good God of heaven and earth, the one with whom Adam had beautiful fellowship every day. Adam knew the consequences for this sin, and he sinned anyway. He died, and the rest of the human race died with him, just as God had promised. But man was not by himself in having to suffer the dreadful effects of the fall. The entire creation God had made fell with man. The creation fell far from its former glory, just as man did.

Think about how far man fell by remembering his former glory before the fall. Man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27) and therefore had perfect knowledge of God, perfect righteousness, and perfect holiness. Adam enjoyed perfect communion with his creator and with his wife, Eve, whom God had made from Adam’s rib. Adam loved God as God loved himself, knew God like God knew himself, thought God’s thoughts after him, and functioned perfectly in the work God had given him to do. Man knew exactly how to care for the creation as God himself would care for it. Man knew the names of every animal (2:19). This does not mean that whatever Adam called the animal, God let the name stick. No, this means that Adam knew God so well that when Adam named each animal, Adam knew the mind of God about that specific creature. He knew the exact purpose of that creature in the creation, the function it would have, and the way in which God would be glorified by it. And out of that knowledge Adam named the animals.

Man went from this high and glorious position to being completely stripped of the image of God. This means that in himself man could have no true knowledge of God, no righteousness, and no holiness. Man’s relationships were filled with sin: man had no love for God, no communion with God, no joy in the work given to him by God. Man could look around the creation all he wanted, and he could never see anything beyond what his senses told him. He saw no greater purpose in the things of creation beyond what utility they provided for him. God was so far from his thoughts that where man once knew the names that God himself spoke about the creatures, after the fall man imagined names for the creatures based upon what he alone could see. Yes, even the naming system man has invented for animals, plants, rocks, stars, etc. is a direct result of man’s rebellion and total rejection of God! Let us remind our children of that as they learn the names and how to name these things. How far man has fallen from his created state!

This fall of man is comparable to the fall suffered by the creation. Perhaps we do not dwell on that too often. I certainly did not before giving it some serious thought. Yes, the creation is beautiful! The creation declares God’s glory and shows his power, order, sovereignty, justice, and faithfulness and the headship of Jesus Christ! The creation is a magnificent work of God, created by the Word, Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ. The creation shows man his own nothingness as he looks upon creation’s detail, vastness, strength, and diversity. Let us thank and praise God for this creation as we gaze and meditate upon his wondrous works! But even this beautiful creation we live in now is a fallen, cursed image of the creation originally made by God. The fall was absolutely devastating on the creation. And the Bible gives us hints as to what exactly this fall of the creation involved.

The prophets in the Old Testament often used the state of the creation in the garden of Eden to contrast what the creation would look like after some terrible judgment of God. In Joel 2:3 we read, “A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.” This picture is also used in the prophets to show how the creation would look after God restored the land of Israel. In Ezekiel 36:35 we read, “They shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden.” We read a similar pattern in Isaiah 51:3: “The Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.” From these passages we can surmise that all barrenness, droughts, famines, and other such plagues are part of the curse on the creation.

We also know from scripture that there was no death before the fall. Man’s sin brought not only spiritual death to all mankind but physical death into all the world. God told Adam after the fall, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19). In that same curse God proclaimed about the ground that “thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee” (v. 18), resulting in the choking out and, ultimately, the death of plants. Before the fall all beasts, fowl, and creeping things would eat “every green herb for meat” (1:30) and would not consume one another. They would be free to eat without inflicting death. Now death is a prominent part of the curse of the creation. However, death is not natural, as unbelieving scientists would suppose; death is a most unnatural part of the creation. God created the creation lively with all sorts of life, and now every living thing is dying and must end its life in death.

We read more about the state of the creation after the fall in Genesis 6:11–13, when God pronounced his righteous judgment before sending the flood. In verse 12 we read, “God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt.” What a contrast from when God looked upon the earth in Genesis 1 and saw that the creation was good! Now the creation is corrupt. Surely, this judgment involves wicked men and women, for by that point in history God only had eight elect souls in Jesus Christ to save from the judgment of the flood. But remember that God destroyed the whole earth with the flood, not simply all men. God said in Genesis 6:13, “The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” God would destroy the earth in the flood! And in verse 7, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” Again, the entire creation would fall under this righteous judgment of God. From the reference to violence in verses 11–12, I conclude that all causes of death, destruction, and violence came into the creation as a result of the fall.

The curse upon the creation is quite a substantial curse. Really, it is shocking how vastly different the world of today is from the world before the fall. Everything that brings death, violence, disease, and suffering into the creation entered the creation after the fall. The death of animals and plants from diseases, sickness, and old age came into the creation only after the fall. Animals’ attacking and viciously butchering other animals, even on microscopic scales, came only after the fall. The most brutal and terrifying creatures we now know on land and in the sea once lived peaceably with all living things. Organisms that once had no desire to eat flesh now are what we call parasites that slowly eat away their hosts. Creeping things and birds that once fed on the fruits of plants now scavenge and feast upon the dead bodies of animals. Viruses and bacteria that bring disease and death to millions of organisms entered the world after the fall. Horrible birth defects and mutations in species of animals are further results of the curse after the fall.

All that the world calls “natural disasters” that bring death and destruction are part of the curse of God upon the creation. Since the fall the creation is full of volcanic eruptions that melt and burn miles of land and cover hundreds of miles in suffocating ash. There are hurricanes that ravage ocean life and life on land, causing billions of dollars in damages and killing creatures of all types and sizes. We see tornadoes that cut down mighty trees and destroy habitations of animals. We feel earthquakes that rip open chasms in the earth and shake the foundations of tectonic plates. Fires devour once lush, green forests and leave them barren and charred. Droughts and famines bring extreme hunger and thirst to entire countries, drying up and killing all plant life and forcing animals to face either extinction or mass migration.

Even as the search of the elegant book takes us into outer space, we see clearly the effects of the curse upon outer space. Comets and asteroids torpedo toward moons and planets, peppering their surfaces and bringing the devastation of the outer layers. Stars die violently by collapsing in on themselves or by exploding into supernovas. Black holes devour entire planets and stars, growing larger and more ominous. Celestial bodies collide into one another in spectacular bursts of light and energy. Even in the hidden corners of the universe, unbeknownst to feebleminded man, the curse due for man’s sin is present.

We are given the awesome calling to teach these aspects of the creation diligently to our children. Let us pay careful attention to the word diligently. What is not diligent is teaching these results of God’s curse upon the creation as the world would teach them. The world would say that these are natural laws that are simply part of nature, as they always have been. They are a normal part of this universe, as “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation,” 2 Peter 3:4 says, explaining man’s ignorance concerning these things. The world would claim that man certainly is not at fault for these accidents and random encounters. Man attempts to fool himself and God.

Antithetically to this, we teach that these events—famines, diseases, fires, earthquakes, death, violence and butchering, eating of flesh, and all the rest—are sovereignly controlled by God. And God not only controls them all, but he also shows us over and over again by the devastation, havoc, stirring up, and indiscriminate death that they bring that the creation is cursed. This is not how God originally made all things; and man is responsible for all of these events by his wicked rebellion against the all-good creator. Man is reminded time and time again of his own fall into sin, and of his continuing sin, for which God cursed all things that he may reconcile them to himself in Jesus Christ.

Let us point to the curse as we study the creation. This is not pleasing to our natures. We want to fix on the positive, and we do this to avoid putting the blame on mankind for the suffering under which the creation constantly groans and travails (Rom. 8:22). But it is necessary to point to the curse. Remember, God made a covenant with the creation, as he did with us. God will redeem this present world (after it is purged with fire [2 Pet. 3:7]). God will keep his promises to his creation, originally made good. And pointing to the curse that the creation bears, we point our students to the only hope of redeeming the creation. This hope is not man, no matter how sophisticated the efforts man puts forth. Man is not the hope of the creation; man has really become the bane of the creation as he bears the blame for its suffering. No, the creation’s only hope is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, by which he reconciled to himself all things in heaven and earth (Col. 1:20). The creation’s only hope is our only hope, and that is glorious! Just as God will fulfill his promises to his creation in Jesus Christ, so God fulfills his promises to all of his elect sheep by their great shepherd.