31 January  2016

The Corruption of Creation

Is. 5:1-13 Ps. 8

Gal. 1:5-10 Lk. 10:13-16

Verse for meditation: "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes" (LK. 10:13).

Man who has been created by God is clothed with glory and honor. God made him the steward of His creation (Ps. 8:5,6). After creating man, God informed his duties also very clearly to him. But he followed a life of dereliction of duty and lived in violence and corruption (Gen. 6:11,12). Then God decided to destroy the earth and ordered Noah to build the ark (Gen 6,7,8,9). Sin is violating the divine purpose for man. The grace that is given through Jesus Christ is the only way to come out of such a fall that happened to those who violate the purpose of God. The book of Genesis chapter three talks about sin and its consequences to say that all have sinned. The fall of creation was so great to say to the extent that ‘there is no one who do good not even one’. St. Augustine has said, “Man becomes sinner not because he is committing sin, but because he is a sinner committing sin”. What he meant was that man has the inborn tendency to commit sin. The Bible teaches us that God’s quality of long suffering has been explicitly revealed through his nature of forgiveness which is expressed in his son Jesus Christ. This is the greatest hope of creation.   

1. The parable of the wild – vine (Is. 5:1-13).

The parable found in Is. 5:1-13 is an apt example for explaining the fall of man. God was waiting to see good fruit. But it yielded evil and unjust fruit. “Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine” (Is. 5:11). This is his vision of the society. The main aim for us is to yield good fruit (Lk. 13:6-9, Matt. 7:16-23; Jn. 15:16; Mk. 11: 12-14).

2.  A call for repentance (1 Cor. 1:10-18, Eph. 3:1-7)

Jesus taught that the places like Korazin, Bethsaida and Sidon should repent where a lot of miracles have happened (Matt. 11:20-24). John the Baptist preached to produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matt. 3:8). Following this, Jesus and the apostles taught the same thing. Repentance is the turning of the fallen creation back to God. Life needs to be transformed. The prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament also preached ‘repentance’. 

3.  Come back to the Gospel of Christ (Gal. 1:5-10) 

Paul has used the phrase ‘another’ or ‘different’ in many places – different Gospel, another Christ, different spirit (2 Cor. 11:4). Todays Christianity also reveals these traits. People are following another Christ who is not in the Gospels or another Gospel that is not found in the New Testament. Unless we come back to ‘the Christ of the gospels and his message’, there is no freedom to the creation which is under the corruption of sin.