Animals are important to the biblical story and the history of mankind. They are noted as the property of God. In pre-technology days they meant the difference between prehistoric and historic advancement for humanity. It would be difficult to recover the full story of our debt to animals. Before the Europeans touched the western hemisphere after Columbus, the native peoples we identify as Indians did not have draft animals like horses. Those helpful animals were introduced very early in the movement of the white race westward. The Indians took easily to the horse, as a working animal and mount for transportation. It may be difficult for modern Americans to think of Indians without the horse. Without the horse the Indian was limited in agriculture, social identity, and imagination for better things. Indian life was a hard life, and sometimes overcome by nature. The introduction of the horse changed life and expectations for native people in the Americas. Without the horse natives had no defense against their white intruders.
Scripture makes clear that animals are created for the benefit of mankind, an analogy of mankind created for the pleasure of God. (Note how Isaiah used the analogy in his writing – Isaiah 63:13-14.) The problem for us is that we have developed a love for some animals, and respect for species, to the degree that we have raised the animal to a status sometimes against the creative purpose. Some animals receive costly attention in life, expensive funerals, and various benefits that may imply they have heavenly existence. That view is a misreading of passages in Scripture. The important Scripture relates to the meaning of redemption and salvation. Nothing of earth will be a part of the heavenly context except for those human beings who request God, in the name of Christ, for their redemption and inclusion. For animals to be admitted to eternity would provide animals with a higher status than humans, in that they could gain admission without knowledge of the plan of salvation and duty as represented in Scripture. Again, from Isaiah: I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind. (Isaiah 65:17 KJV)
One often hears rationalizations about this or that in the context of common grace, the gifts of God to all persons on earth with rights to contexts they create, or find for themselves. There are animal rights, but that does not include immortality. Some persons may not be warm to these issues. That preference right is permitted to us, but it can be contrary to Scripture. The issues are sometimes examined in natural terms, but there is paradox. Human rights, humanly initiated, may not be related to Christian morals. To accommodate the paradox, mankind is made in free agency. We can relate natural creation to divine objectives. Common grace and divine grace do exist together. One comes by birth. The other comes by redemption. We may not warm to the plan, but teaching of Scripture is at stake. We may not take this and drop that as though the Bible is a smorgasbord, where we pick up as we go along, taking the preference and leaving the undesired. The comedian said: You pay for what you pick up along the way – at the other end.
Mankind needs to sense the exclusivity of the salvation of Jesus Christ. Not only is it the way of salvation, but Scripture affirms it as the only way. Christians must accept any accusation of bigotry, of arrogance, of whatever negative may be leveled at them. We find assurance in Christ. The only earthly identity related to it is the human soul (being). Nothing else from our loved planet is included. To include more is to misunderstand, perhaps distort, the biblical meaning of Christ’s offering to justify persons. The Christian needs humility, sometimes to tears, in this affirmation. That which may be valuable to me may mean nothing to God. That is the way of it. I am old, and have had a full life. I sit in an office in my home doing what I most want to do: communicate to family, friends, inquirers and students. All things are surrendered, even though I value much my work of the decades, my children and their families – even the things, the critters we encountered in our lives. The time is present when all that matters is the invitation to the hope of Christ, with the care and blessing of those I love – with praying to God for the care of all earth’s persons. This is the best for me with no ill will toward even those who might make me, in their minds, an enemy. God will be just in all he permits. I am content. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020