God brought all the wild animals and the birds of the sky "to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name," Genesis 2.18 NIV.
Putty points out the significance of God inviting a human to do the naming here at the end of the second three days of creation, the days which filled up the structures created to support life. No small privilege! No small task either.
But even given this esteemed position, we see in Genesis 2 man's failure. Temptation comes. Disobedience follows. The beautiful world created for the creatures made in God's image is ruined by those very same creatures and sin enters the story.
Then Putty makes an interesting comparison. Just as darkness and chaos had been the originating state in the natural order (Genesis 1.2), so darkness and chaos return in the spiritual order with human sin. And just as the natural realm needed God's light and order, so now the question becomes how God will bring light and order to the spiritual darkness, the fractured image that brings death, war, poverty, and the struggle to remain faithful to God.
Answer: Jesus. In the fullness of time Jesus comes and God begins to re-institute the creation process as he again separates and calls out his kingdom. And he again invites us to join him. As we are made new creations through Christ, we can begin to redemptively change the world.
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