I don't know to whom that is known as the creation Psalm ...
Again, this is only saying something about the extent of your study. There are a number of Christian scholars and theologians who understand and have articulated the parallels between Psalm 104 and Genesis 1; just one example is Derek Kidner,
Psalms 73-150, Tyndale Old Testament Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973); see also
Schrock 2011a and
2011b.
... but it is more accurately the Sovereignty of God Psalm or the Psalm of the Sovereign Governor Over His Creation.
Such is your own counter-claim. I have no idea what it's worth, but okay.
In it we also see sinners who will be consumed from the earth. Were there sinners at creation?
So, either it's only about Genesis 1 or it's not about Genesis 1 at all? That is a false dilemma I don't accept. I agree this is a meditation on God's glory and a hymn of praise, but it's definitely structured on the creation account of Genesis 1 (Ps 104:1-2a, cf. Gen 1:3-5; Ps 104:2b-4, cf. Gen 1:6-8; Ps 104:5-9, cf. Gen 1:9-10; etc.).
If that is so, let's see it.
For example, Psalm 104:21, "The lions roar for prey, seeking their food from God." If you want to say this verse is post-fall, you need to be able to show where in the preceding verses the psalm moves from creation to describing the postlapsarian world. Verse 24 feels like a natural shift, but for you it would have to be prior to verse 21.
As Lee Irons explained (
2000),
Commenting on the fourth day of creation, Psalm 104:19 describes the divine establishment of the sun and the moon to govern the seasons. This poetic meditation then goes beyond the Genesis account and explains that God appointed the day/night cycle so that the beasts of the forest might prowl about at night and hunt for their prey. After a successful night of hunting, when the sun rises the next morning the lions withdraw and lie down in their dens. This timing is perfect, for when the carnivorous hunting beasts are asleep during the daytime, man can go about his daytime labors in safety until evening. ... Notice that the lions "seek their food from God," and that God gives them "their food in due season," opening his hand to "satisfy them with good." In an earlier treatment of this subject, I wrote: "Such provision is a testament to the goodness of the Creator in caring for His creation … There is no suggestion in this text that we are to view the provision of prey for carnivorous beasts as anything but a blessing from the hand of a good Creator. It is certainly not pictured as an abnormality resulting from the entrance of sin into the world."
(The source of that latter quote is Lee Irons and Meredith G. Kline, "The Framework View," in
The Genesis Debate: Three Views on the Days of Creation, ed. David Hagopian (Mission Viejo, CA: Crux Press, 2001), pp. 217-256, 279.)
Here is why Romans 5:12 and other verses that say the same thing do not mention animals and plants but only men: Because plants and animals are not being redeemed and they have no sin; only mankind needs redemption, and the entire Bible is about the redemption of man, not plants and animals. In other words, plants and animals are not the subject of the Bible.
We agree that animals do not need redeeming because they don't sin, either in Adam or in themselves. Why is Romans 5 only about humans? Because it's only humans that have this covenant relationship with God through a federal head that he appointed—which, for those in the Reformed camp, reaches back to before creation and the
pactum salutis hinted at in scriptures—and therefore it is only humans that sin and need redeeming.
Now, apply this consistently. What is the cause of this death? According to Paul here in Romans 5 and elsewhere, death is the result of sin. That is why death spread to all people, because all sinned—first in Adam and also in themselves. You want to say that death also spread to all animals, but that clearly does violence to our text here which explicitly says that death spread to all people, the only creatures who sin, the thing that results in this death.
Contained in all of this is a layered question for you. If you believe that
(1) death here is defined biologically, and
(2) death is the result of sin, and
(3) animals do not sin (neither in Adam nor in themselves), and
(4) animals were created immortal,
then why did death spread to animals? Please provide a biblical case for this, as well as points 1 and 4.
Romans 8 does make a direct unequivocal statement about all of creation, that it is also groaning because of our sin, awaiting the fulness of our redemption. What do you suppose it is groaning about, ...?
And we both know that nothing there is being said about animal death. If you want to equate creation groaning with animals dying, you have some exegetical heavy lifting to do.
I also wonder if you're aware of the Old Testament references Paul is drawing from here (i.e., Isaiah). An understanding of that provides answers to all those questions you were asking about futility, bondage of decay, groaning, how our resurrection affects creation and so on. For more information, see Meredith G. Kline, "Death, Leviathan, and the Martyrs: Isaiah 24:1-27:1," in
A Tribute to Gleason Archer, ed. Ronald F. Youngblood (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986); see also Kline,
Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2000), pp. 54-56.
That is a different topic.
On the contrary, it is fundamentally crucial to this topic. Everyone seems to be talking past each other precisely because nobody has checked to see if you're all talking about the same thing or if that's even what Paul meant. If he was not talking about death in biological terms but rather theological, then the discussion is more silly than ever.
I have not cited Romans 5 but Romans 8:19-24 (unless I made a typo and I am not going to go look).
You implicitly referred to it when you said, "As we are told that death entered our world because of sin ..." (
June 25, 2023). And that, of course, is exactly how Paul began Romans 5:12, "So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, ..."
If you didn't mean to reference Romans 5, the reader could be forgiven for thinking you did.
I am not trying to prove my case.
Don't get too hung up on that word. (I should know better than to use a highly charged word. I'm sorry.) All I meant to say is that Romans 5 and 8 "do not make the case" that you are trying to argue for.
. I simply have a view of the situation and present from scripture what causes me to view it that way.
