What God Says About Being Mean To Animals
Question from a reader:
We've been having an statement about animals, and whether they are capable of praising God. What do you think?
Respond from Randy Alcorn:
The following is excerpted from my bookHeaven.
Throughout Scripture nosotros read that animals praise God. I don't know exactly how animals praise God, but our inability to understand it shouldn't continue us from believing it.
Consider the psalms. Psalm 148 commands all of creation to praise the Lord, including the animals: "Wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations, you lot princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, erstwhile men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his proper noun lone is exalted; his splendor is in a higher place the earth and the heavens" (vv. x-xiii). If in some sense fallen animals, shadows of what they once were, can praise God on this fallen Earth, how much more should nosotros look them to practise so on the New Earth? "Let everything that has jiff praise the Lord" (Psalm 150:6). Since animals are said to accept breath, they are included amidst those directed to praise God.
Passages in Revelation also indicate that the animals will praise their creator: "So I heard every animate being in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the ocean, and all that is in them, singing: 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and award and glory and ability, for ever and ever!'" (Revelation 5:thirteen). What are these "creatures" said to practice? To sing praises to God in worship. If "every brute in sky and on earth" includes animals, then animals praise God.
The most striking example of animals praising God in Heaven is oft overlooked considering of discussion pick in our Bible translations. We're told eight times in Revelation of "living creatures" in the intermediate Sky: "Day and night they never stop saying: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.'... The living creatures requite celebrity, honor and cheers to him who sits on the throne" (Revelation 4:viii-9).
The word translated "living creatures" is zoon. Throughout most of the New Testament the word is translated "animal" and is used to signal animals sacrificed in the temple and wild, irrational animals (Hebrews thirteen:11; 2 Peter 2:12; Jude 1:10). In the Old Testament, the Septuagint used zoon to translate the Hebrew words for animals, including the "living creatures" of the sea (Genesis ane:21; Ezekiel 47:nine). In extrabiblical writings, zoon unremarkably referred to ordinary animals and was used of the Egyptians' divine animals and the mythological bird chosen the Phoenix (1 Clement 25:2-3 ane Clement 25:2-3 ). In virtually every case inside and outside of Scripture, this discussion means not a person, non an angel, but an brute. The Male monarch James version translates zoon "beasts" in Revelation, just the negative connotations of that word led subsequent translators to settle on "living creatures." The most natural translation would be but "animals." That give-and-take would likely have been chosen by translators if it didn't audio so foreign for readers to envision talking animals praising God around his throne! The "living creatures" expect like a lion, ox, a homo, and an eagle (Revelation 4:vii Revelation iv:7 ). They announced to be the same creatures of Ezekiel 1:five-14 and Ezekiel x:ten-14, also called the cherubim, who are distinguished from angels (Revelation 15:vii). The cherubim are kickoff mentioned in Genesis three:24, equally Eden'due south guardians. Their images were carved out of gold and placed on the Ark of the Covenant, indicating their closeness to God.
Somehow we have failed to grasp that the "living creatures" who cry out "Holy, holy, holy," are animals—living, breathing, intelligent and articulate animals who dwell in God's presence, worshiping and praising him. They are greater than the animals nosotros know, and they preexisted the animals we know. Mayhap they're the prototype creatures of Sky after whom God designed World's animals. Simply even though they're highly intelligent and expressive, they're however animals; that's what Scripture calls them.
When we grasp these passages, we'll see the error of the statement, "Clearly animals do not fit into the main purpose of heaven, which is the articulation of God'south praise." 1 On the contrary, the primary beings shown articulating God's praise in Heaven, along with angels and humans (the elders), are animals!
1 John Gilmore, Probing Heaven (Grand Rapids: Bakery, 1991), 132.
Photo byRod Long onUnsplash
Source: https://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/18/are-animals-capable-praising-god/
Posted by: carmichaelwassix.blogspot.com
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