Job 12:8

In verse 6 Job challenged the main position that his friends had taken. They said that God always rewards the godly with prosperity on earth, and brings disaster down on the wicked. He said it was not so. There were cases when robbers prospered, and men who provoked God were safe. As proof he pointed to what anyone can see in the lower creation — beasts, birds and fishes. He was pointing, we suppose, to the disorder that man's sin has brought in even there. The weaker meet disaster and destruction from the stronger, and all of this happens by God's permission.

The whole creation — the lower creation of God on the earth — is a proof that things are not yet according to God. Do they not prey on one another? Do not the great swallow up the small? And is not man the great dealer of death to beasts and birds and fishes, and everything else, for his own pleasure? I do not mean merely for food, but to please himself at all costs. In short, it is not merely what the Lord allows, but man makes it serve his lusts, his luxury, everything except God.

Scripture being witness, however, nature does teach. "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." (Rom. 1:20.) "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." (Ps. 19:1.) The work must declare the Craftsman. And the Worker, we are assured, is He who is called the "Word of God" because He is the Revealer. (John 1:1-3.) So creation must be part of this revelation.

Now, if this is true, as it surely is, the continuity of Nature and Revelation is assured. It does not mean, as one writer suggests, that the book of nature is the simpler to read, the surer to follow, and therefore the more authoritative. The opposite is true. For if nature teaches by parable, no parable is the first authority on doctrine. Its importance is still hard to exaggerate. But it leaves Scripture as the one place where God speaks to us "face to face."

Creation — in earth and air and sea — will confirm him in witnessing that God is everywhere and does everything. His conclusion from this, however, leads him dangerously near charging God with being the author of evil. If he means only that God is all-powerful, everyone would agree at once. But the words that follow show his gloomy mind and distorted view dwelling on the dark side of nature. It is in this that his danger lies.

Man's sin has not only brought ruin on himself. It has spoiled his home and dragged down all the creatures that depend on him... God made man, unlike angels, the centre of a system of things. The whole of this lower creation either suffers or rejoices with its head. This is its time of suffering. "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now" (Rom. 8:22)... When Christ comes, bringing with Him the whole glorified family of God, creation will be set free. Its bondage to corruption will give way to the freedom of the glory of the children of God.