Adam and the Animals

When God made Adam He placed him in the Garden of Eden and brought all the animals to him.  Adam named them and had the benefit of their company.  But that wasn’t enough. God saw that Adam, even with all the animals of the Garden, was alone. 

We live in an age where society practically worships animals.  We glibly say, “Dogs are people, too” or “Cats are people, too”.  That is attributing to them a far higher rank than God gave them.  Even in the unfallen state of creation there was a gap between man and beast.  I have a dog and two cats.  I am very fond of them.  On my desk is a picture of my dog, Molly, and it is in a frame that says, “I love my dog”.  I do, of course, love my dog.  You can read all about her in my book The Gospel According to Molly and in my twice weekly blog about her found on my website.  But as much as I love her, she is still a dog.

After Adam’s sin God tells us in Romans that man began to turn affection for the animals He had created into a foolish religious system.  Man began to worship the creature more than the Creator.  They made images of all manner of beasts.  Even the Israelites fell into that sin and made a golden calf while in the wilderness.  “There,” Aaron said, “is your god.”  In our society today there are many who take that statement quite literally.  In their thinking man is corrupt and animals are perfect.  Man should be, in their theology, subject to the needs of animals.  This is paganism pure and simple. 

God’s comment to Adam was that the creatures were to be subject to him.  When we reverse God’s truth on this point we lose our spiritual perspective of truth.  God created order and that order begins with Him.  He then passed authority to man over His creation.  To put animals above man is to usurp God’s authority in the first place.  That is the theology that Satan, in the form of the serpent, used to bring about man’s fall.  Eve believed that the creature, the serpent, was right and not God.  We must not join Eve in letting God’s order get out of order. It is not creation that we are to worship, but with all creation we are to give true worship to God.  Let us sing with David this song of worship from Psalm 8.

You made man to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; You have put all things under his feet: sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.  O LORD our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!

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