Day 1 of 7
And God Saw That It Was Good
The intrinsic value of the non-human world
Scripture Readings
Today's Reading
Read Genesis 1:1-25,31 — the creation account. Pay attention to the refrain: "And God saw that it was good." Notice that this declaration comes on each day of creation — light, sea, land, vegetation, sun and moon, fish and birds, animals — before humans are even created.
Then read Psalm 19:1-6: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge."
Reflection
The Bible's first chapter establishes something that much of the church has forgotten: the natural world has value to God independent of its usefulness to human beings.
Six times in Genesis 1, God surveys what he has made and declares it good. Light is good. The separation of land and sea is good. Vegetation is good. The sun and moon are good. Fish and birds are good. Land animals are good. And then, after creating humans, God surveys the whole and declares it "very good." The goodness of creation is not contingent on human existence. It precedes it.
This is a theological claim with enormous implications. If creation is good because God made it and delights in it, then destroying creation is not merely imprudent — it is an offense against the Creator. You do not trash an artist's masterpiece and expect the artist to be indifferent.
Francis Schaeffer, the influential evangelical thinker, made this argument forcefully in 1970 — well before environmentalism became a politically charged issue. He wrote: "Christians who believe the Bible should be the most concerned about the environment. God made the world. He made it good. He loves it. If we believe that, we should be willing to fight for it." Schaeffer was not a liberal. He was a conservative evangelical who saw creation care as a direct implication of biblical theology. The earth belongs to God. We have no right to destroy what belongs to him.
Psalm 19 adds another dimension. Creation is not merely good — it is communicative. "The heavens declare the glory of God." The natural world is a kind of speech, a continuous revelation of God's power, beauty, and character. When a species goes extinct, a voice in that chorus is silenced. When an ecosystem is destroyed, a page of God's self-revelation is torn out.
C.S. Lewis captured this beautifully: "Nature is not merely a stage on which the human drama is played out. It is itself part of the play — God's poetry, God's art, God's own self-expression." If Lewis is right, then the Christian posture toward nature should be something like reverence — not worship, but the profound respect you owe to something that bears the fingerprints of the God you love.
Going Deeper
Many Christians have been taught to view the natural world primarily as a backdrop for the human story — raw material for human use. Genesis 1 challenges this view. Before God created Adam, he had already spent five days building, shaping, and delighting in a world he called good. The earth is not scenery. It is God's beloved creation. How does this change the way you look at the world outside your window?
Key Quotes
“Christians who believe the Bible should be the most concerned about the environment. God made the world. He made it good. He loves it. If we believe that, we should be willing to fight for it.”
“Nature is not merely a stage on which the human drama is played out. It is itself part of the play — God's poetry, God's art, God's own self-expression.”
Prayer Focus
Step outside if you can. Look at the sky, a tree, or a bird. Thank God for the goodness of creation — not as a resource for you but as an expression of his character.
Meditation
God declared creation 'good' before humans existed. What does this tell you about the value of the natural world apart from its usefulness to people?
Question for Discussion
Genesis 1 declares creation 'good' six times and 'very good' once — before any mention of creation's usefulness to humanity. If the natural world has intrinsic value to God, how should that shape the way Christians think about environmental destruction, species extinction, and habitat loss?