Summary of
Theologia Naturalis Redempta
(The Gospel of Redemption Traced through the Groaning Creation)

The poem presents the entire gospel story as it is silently preached by the created world itself, from Genesis to Revelation.

It begins before creation, with the eternal Word and Love already present, then shows how every element of nature was designed from the beginning to be a living parable of Christ and His redemptive work.

• Stars, leaves, and light bear the signature of the Lamb who was “slain from the foundation of the world.”
• Innocent lambs, barren fig trees, toil-free lilies, and fed ravens act as living sermons on sin, judgment, providence, and grace.
• The central agricultural images (sower and soils, wheat and tares, the single grain that dies to bear much fruit, the bleeding Vine and its pruning) retell the parable of the cross and resurrection: Christ’s death is the only way to abundant spiritual harvest.
• Storm and wave bowing to Jesus reveal His sovereign lordship even in the chaos introduced by the fall.
• Creation itself is then shown “groaning” under the curse, waiting with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God and the final liberation of nature at Christ’s return.
• The poem closes in the new creation: the curse reversed, the Tree of Life healing the nations, the river flowing from the throne, and God Himself as the light—no temple, no night, only the unveiled glory of the Lamb.

Thus nature is never a neutral backdrop; it is a book written by the same finger that wrote Scripture. From the first dawn to the final morning, every meadow, storm, seed, and star has been proclaiming one message: the dying and rising of the Word made flesh, the redemption accomplished and the creation made new through the blood of the eternal Lamb.

In short, the poem argues that if we have ears to hear and eyes to see, the whole groaning, glorious world is one long, unbroken sermon on the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ.

Before the worlds were framed, the Word was there,
And Love, unmade, breathed life through empty air.
The Spirit brooded o’er the formless deep
Till light, obedient, from the darkness leaped.
Each star a seal, each leaf a living line,
Proclaims the Lamb whose blood would write divine.

The lamb that frisks at dawn upon the lea
Already knows the Shepherd soon to be;
The fig-tree, cursed for barrenness, confesses
That fruitlessness invites the storm of curses.
Yet lilies, clothed in glory without toil,
Outshine the pomp of Solomon’s proud spoil.

Behold the ravens: neither barn nor field
Yet find their table by the Father filled;
The sower casts his seed on varied ground—
Some choked by thorns, some trampled, some profound;
But where the plow of grace has broken sod,
One grain, in dying, multiplies to God.

The wheat and tares in mingled beauty spring
Till angels reap with sickles of the King;
The grain of wheat must fall and lose its name
Lest it abide alone in barren shame.
From that small death the bread of heaven springs—
Five thousand fed, and twelve full baskets’ gleanings.

The Vine is bleeding on the terraced hill;
The branches that abide are pruned until
More excellent the clusters grow, and press
The wine of joy for heaven’s marriage-feast.
The waves that roared in fury cease to rave
And lay their heads, like children, at His feet to lave.

Creation groans beneath the ancient curse,
In travail waits the universe’s nurse;
The rocks stand ready, should our praise grow dumb,
To shout the triumph of the Age to come.
Yet soon the curse shall vanish like a scroll,
And morning break upon the ransomed whole.

Beneath the Tree whose leaves shall heal mankind
The river flows, no serpent now to bind;
No night shall fall, no temple need the sun,
For God Himself shall be their Light, the Lamb the throne.
All nature, once a parable of grace,
Shall see her Lord unveiled and face to face.

Thus from the first creation to the new
The Gospel shines the wounded landscape through:
Not writ in ink, nor graven upon stone,
But living in the flesh that veils the throne;
Beholds His glory, full of truth and grace—
The Word made flesh, who took our mortal place.

Amen.