Is the present nature of man and the animals really “natural?” That is to say, are the ways mankind and animals behave today (as they have for the past almost 6,000 years) really their nature as God originally made or created them?
As for mankind, many people understand that God made our first parents (Adam and Eve) “good-natured.” Genesis 1:26-31 says that, after God had Made man on the sixth day of that creation week, God declared the man he had made as “very good!” Genesis 2 and 3, however, go on to tell the story about how a “serpent” talked to the woman (Eve) and deceived her into believing that the God who made them was “unfairly” forbidding her and her husband from eating the fruit of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” That they would not die from eating that fruit, but that they would become like God, knowing good and evil (3:4-5). [See: “Your Eyes Will Be Opened!”]
When confronted by God about what they had done, Adam and Eve did not openly confess their part in the wrongdoing. Instead, Adam blamed his wife Eve – and indirectly blamed God for giving her to him. Eve blamed not herself or her husband, but that “serpent,” which was the “medium” through which Satan the devil spoke (2 Corinthians 11:3; Revelation 12:9). As a result, God banished or expelled the couple from the wonderful Garden of Eden, to live a life of misery and suffering. [See: “The Flaming Sword East of Eden.“] God also cursed the serpent Satan, who has since led mankind astray from God’s path.
From that time forward, Adam and Eve produced progeny that brought mostly sorrow and suffering upon themselves. Our first parents gave birth to history’s first human murderer – Cain, who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy and anger (Genesis 4:1-12). By the time of their great-great-great-great-grandson Noah, mankind had turned so wicked and evil that the whole earth was “filled with violence” (Genesis 6:13). This would possibly had obliterated and made extinct both man and beast. God sent a flood throughout the earth that destroyed all of mankind and air-breathing animals, except righteous Noah and his family of eight persons and the animals inside the ark which God told Noah to make. Thus the human “species” was preserved, as were the animal species, to later repopulate the earth.
The next centuries and millennia, however, did not bring about a peaceful and happy civilization to Noah’s succeeding [but failing!] descendants – including all of us who are alive in this our 21st century. In fact, Jesus described our times today to be “as in the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:37). Violence would again saturate the earth in such a way that “…unless those days were shortened, no flesh [both human and animal] would be saved [alive]” (Matthew 24:22). [See: “Will our Earth Disintegrate – Ever?” and “The Next Chapter of History.”]
The nature of animals
What about the animals? Genesis 1:20-25 affirms that God created the land and aquatic animals as “good.” They did not have the wild and ferocious nature that we find many animals to have today. Adam didn’t have a hard time naming all of the animals (Genesis 2:19), because they were tame and harmless – didn’t bite or claw at him. Eve was not startled or frightened to see and hear a serpent talking to her!
We can well imagine that, since the curse fell on mankind, the rest of the created order also turned violent, along with mankind. As human society became “dog-eat-dog” in men’s dealings with one another, so it has become with the animal world or “kingdom.” When watching today’s television programs about wildlife, I can’t help cringing when I see an animal (like a lion) chasing after a hapless antelope, taking it down, tearing it to pieces, and feasting on its flesh and entrails. As a biology student, I had assumed that the “pyramid of life” is God’s design for the natural order. That “pyramid” has the “lower” forms of animal life in greater numbers as the “prey” or food for the less numerous “higher” forms of life as the “predators.” This was not God’s design! It is the lifestyle of Satan, the great Destroyer. It is only by God’s permission that this has been happening. God is in full control!
Human nature changed
We can thank God that He has not left us mankind to our own devices, or else we would become extinct! He has designed or purposed to call a few individuals initially to a different – a Godly – way of life. He has “elected” or chosen (“hand-picked,” if you will) a few people to become the “first fruits” of His saving work. He started with the nation Israel, but the people of Israel (except for a very few) followed the evil way of all mankind instead.
God then sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to start a new human society – His Church, beginning with the children of Israel and later including “Gentiles” or non-Israelites. Through His sacrifice at Calvary, Christ offered a way for men to be forgiven of their sins, receive His Holy Spirit and the power to become children of God! To have the same righteous, holy nature as God has.
When Christ returns to earth to claim dominion (Kingship) over all the nations, His Church will become immortal and divine as God is, and will share rule in that kingdom. Together they will work to bring more children into God’s family through the surviving mortals all through the 1,000 years of Christ’s reign, and beyond. [See: “This Is Not the Only Day of Salvation.”]
Isaiah 11:9 describes the success of that work of re-educating mankind (with Satan then bound and locked up in an abyss), as the earth being “full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.”
And animal nature too
Verses 6-9 describes the amazing, miraculous transformation of the nature of animals as it was at the Garden of Eden:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand to the viper’s hole. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.
Isaiah 65:25 echoes the amazing change in the biology (digestive system) and eating habits of presently devouring animals!
Indeed, there will be a great “restitution” (or restoration) of all things (Acts 3:21) as it was “In the beginning…” – in the Garden of Eden. [See: “The Next Chapter of History,” Is Mankind Inherently Evil? World Peace – At Last! and When He Rules the World. Also see: https://www.herbert-armstrong.org, click ENTER HERE, select “Books & Booklets” and scroll down to the booklets titled “HUMAN NATURE —Did God Create It? and “The Wonderful World Tomorrow – What It Will Be Like.”]
As, in a few days, the Church of God commemorates Christ’s Passover sacrifice and God’s delivering them from their spiritual bondage to sin, their spiritual “Egypt,” may you find added meaning through this article!
Pedro R. Meléndez, Jr.
19042024