Why did Noah need to carry animals in the ark? (Other than the fact that God told him to, of course.) Or to look at it another way, why did all the animals have to die? If God flooded the earth in order to punish sinful humanity, why kill the animals, who by their nature can do neither good nor evil?
One answer is that in order to kill every human -- other than the eight on the ark -- God needed to flood the entire world, leaving no hiding place, and to keep it flooded for some time to ensure that no one hiding in an air pocket in a cave somewhere made it through. If there were no places like that where a human could hide, it's a pretty safe bet that there were no secret animal hiding places either.
That's an explanation of why the animals died, but not why they had to die. After all, it's not as if God is incapable of tactical strikes. There was no need to take out the entire animal kingdom just to get one species.
I don't believe, though, that all things bright and beautiful -- or dull and ugly, for that matter -- were just collateral damage. After all, creation is tied to the state of mankind. When he was in communion with God, nature was in communion with man and with itself. When man fell, creation fell. When death came to afflict man, it came to afflict all of creation. And when redeemed mankind in Christ is made new, all nature, all creation, all the universe will be redeemed and made new as well.
Now go back to the story of Noah. It is essentially the story of a tiny remnant carried through tribulation and death by a merciful God. A tiny remnant of humanity ... and of the rest of creation. As man goes, so goes the world.
It's just a thought, of course ... what do y'all think?
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