The only hope for nature is for fallen humanity to be restored in Jesus.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28)”

“ … in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning… (Romans 8:22)”

“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” This feminist slogan captures the frustration women feel by the abject failure of men. Feminists are right. Men have failed miserably.

However, people who rightly react to the glaring failures of men are misguided if they think women would do better. ‘Misrule’ and ‘mismanagement’ is a failure on the part of both men and women. If the earth could speak it would groan under the weight of both men and women. Men can’t rule and women can’t rule either. The human being is unable to govern herself let alone the planet.

Even David Attenborough, with all the best intentions and insight will inevitably be part of the problem and not the solution. True, if we all followed what he says the planet would be better off but it would still groan under our weight, our pollution, political strife, gender-based violence and economic oppression.

The Bible teaches that ‘man’ means both male and female. Both male and female are the image of God and together their role is to govern the earth. The world sees this as a terrible idea because the world only sees ‘man’ in ‘his’ fallen state. In seeing this, the world is right. ‘Man’ is not in the state that God made them. The Bible teaches that humanity is fallen.

God put male and female as His ‘under-rulers’ of this planet and because they have alienated themselves from God, ‘dominion’ has degenerated into self-serving domination, and loving care has been twisted into selfish destruction. There is no better explanation for the way one ‘species’ dominates and destroys every other species and even itself. No ‘nature-is-all-there-is’ philosophy can explain gender-based violence. There is no hope for ‘man’ in ‘man’ just as there is no hope for the earth in humanity.

No one can deny that the fate of nature is tied up with the fate of humanity – just as the Bible teaches. This is why world leaders are desperately trying to save nature. We ‘rule’ over nature whether we like it or not.

Biblical Christians also see our brokenness but we also see solid grounds for hope. Creation will be set free from bondage to corruption when humanity is set free from our bondage to corruption. When humanity recovers its true identity as the image of God then, as rulers of this planet, the earth itself will be free to flourish and bask under the selfless care of male and female together.

But hope that isn’t grounded in reality is wishful thinking. The Truth is that God sent Another Man to do what every human being has failed to do. Jesus Christ walked on this planet and did what we can’t do. He submitted Himself to corruption by dying for us and physically rose again, triumphing over the ‘laws of nature’, thereby inaugurating a brand new creation.