New Creation (15th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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In Romans 5:12-19, St. Paul explained how Adam’s first disobedience created a stain of sin which affects all of humanity, leading to our spiritual weakness and concupiscence (See: The Sin of Adam). Later on, in this Sunday’s epistle reading, he then explains how Adam’s sin does not just affect the human race, but all of creation as well.

We see hints of this in Genesis 3 already, where God tells Adam that from henceforth he will have to toil by the sweat of his brow for his daily food. Also, now that humanity is subject to concupiscence, the original mandate to have dominion over creation (Genesis 1:26-28) is warped as well. Rather than being responsible stewards, we become plunderers and polluters of the earth. Finally, even apart from human intervention, the earth becomes plagued by all sorts of natural disasters, which are signs of creation’s subjection into futility, and its groaning for freedom from bondage to the effects of sin.

Fortunately, it will not always be this way. Paul also tells us that someday, creation will be freed from its present bondage. The disasters we see everyday will one day cease, and the damage the earth has sustained will be repaired. This will happen in the New Heavens and the New Earth, which is described for us as a restoration of paradise conditions (in an even greater form) in Revelation 21-22. On that day, we will live upon the New Earth without sorrow, fear or death.

Until then, we continue to travail on the earth in its current form, with all its brokenness. As stewards of the earth, we ought to strive to prevent any further damage to the earth, and undo any damage that has already been wrought in the past. However, we do this while also recognizing that ultimate restoration will not come until the Second Coming.

J. Luis Dizon