After Adam and Eve sin God tells Adam that because of his sin the ground is cursed. From then on man’s labor would be full of toil, he will have to deal with thorns and thistles, as he eats plants from the field. Man enters into a miserable plight.
Yet later on there is an intriguing declaration by Lamech, Noah’s Father. He says Noah will save man from the curse of the ground.
Genesis 5:28-29
When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.”
Afterwards, after the worldwide flood, where God judges the earth by destroying it, God says the ground will no longer be cursed.
Genesis 8:21
And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
Some take this to mean that God will no longer flood the world, but in light of Lamech’s words earlier it seems the original curse of the ground is in view. Previously God cursed the ground, now after decreating the world by flooding it all, and recreating it, God says he will never again (or no longer) curse the ground. So one could say the curse of the ground has been lifted in some way.
While this may be the case we have to consider that thorns and thistles still come up from the ground, as we see throughout the scriptures (the Lord Jesus wore a crown of thorns). The ground after Noah bears wonderful fruit, yet the ground still bears thorns. Let us explore this in our blog today.
From the beginning man and the ground are connected. God makes man from the ground. And man does the same things the ground does, he bears fruit for example.
Later Paul says that creation, the ground and all, groans. He then connects the groaning of creation with the groaning of the saints:
Romans 8:22-23
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
The current state of creation bears some similarity to the state of the believer. It seems the ground follows the same trajectory as man. Man is born under a curse of death. He is in his sins and will die physically, and then also die spiritually, eternally separated from God and eternally tormented. Yet God saves all who believe in Jesus through the work of Christ on the cross. He recreates these humans. Their old self dies and their new self is raised to new life. In Christ the believers are a new creation:
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
This new creation has already happened. The believer is created anew. Yet the believer still holds onto a sinful flesh. They are still burdened in this life. So Paul says:
Romans 7:24
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Though the believer is a new creation, he still retains the body of death. The old body with its thorns and thistles remains. Yet the newly created believer is not only thorns and thistles, he also bears fruit.
Romans 7:4
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
The earth is like man in these things. It is first under a curse. And that curse is miserable. Lamech laments greatly about the toil the curse has brought to man. A kind of lament we no longer see again after Noah. Then the earth is recreated. Like man, it is a new creation. A worldwide flood destroys what was old and God brings about something new. Immediately after this recreation the earth bears fruit:
Genesis 9:20
Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.
After the flood Noah began to be a man of the soil. This is striking because the ground was previously cursed by God[1]. To be a man of that ground is to toil by the sweat of your brow and to lament like Lamech did. Yet here there is no lament. There is a seeming ease to planting and getting fruit from the Earth, that was not there previously. The earth is newly created.
Yet the earth can still bear thorns and thistles. Like the newly created man it bears fruit, alongside thorns and thistles. And it groans for the day when it will be completely changed and there will no longer be any thorns.
So in the end man will be glorified, with no thorns and thistles, glorious and righteous. And in the end there will be a new earth, also without thorns and thistles. This earth will pass away and a new one will come:
Revelation 21:1
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
So now as Christians we live in an Earth that matches the life of the saint. It is no longer under the fullness of the curse brought about by Adam’s sin. Yet it still carries the body of that curse, groaning to be set free. It bears wonderful and beautiful fruit. It has gardens as beautiful as Eden. Yet it bears thorns too, until the day when our Lord comes and makes all things new.
[1] This note on Noah was gleaned from Keith Wrassman’s blog “Is The Ground Still Cursed Today? Part 2”. Though I disagree with his conclusion that there is no remnant of the curse on the ground.
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