The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 54 - The Divine Language: Unveiling the Transformative Power of Words and Eternal Communication
Can words truly shape our reality? Discover how simple phrases, from marriage vows to declarations of love, wield the power to transform lives. This episode takes you on a journey through the biblical and theological significance of spoken words, starting with Proverbs 18:21 and insights from John Gill. We highlight the divine intention behind human communication, tracing it back to the story of Adam and Eve. As we reflect on the power of our speech, we uncover its profound impact on our relationships, our lives, and even divine judgment.
Explore the divine connection between language and existence in our thoughtful discussion. We delve into the eternal communication within the Trinity, illustrating how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit engage in meaningful discourse. By examining Jesus Christ as the eternal Word, we see how His powerful word sustains the universe and allows humanity to participate in the divine nature. This episode underscores how our language mirrors the perfect communication of the divine, emphasizing the significance of speech, praise, and worship in our spiritual journey. Join us for a deeper understanding of the sacred origin and transformative power of language.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. As we continue to look at language and we've been thinking about the power of even just simple everyday language and words and how words do things, change things, bring about genuine reality. So it's not like this has become like a truism. This is something that's often pointed out nowadays, but I know 30 or 40 years ago it was considered quite a big insight the way that words do things. So think about simple words that bring about real change, that do things. So in a marriage ceremony, will you take this person to be your lawful wedded husband or wife, so on? And then the answer is, uh, I will in. Well, in america it's I will uh in. In england we say I do, do you do this? And we answer I do, and then when we say the word I do or I will uh that, then that that situation become, becomes real. You are then married. Or if you say I resign when you're in a job, saying those words brings about that situation where you have resigned now because you've uttered those words. Or if you say this means war, then war begins.
Speaker 1:If you say to someone I love you, that those words are not merely descriptive of something, they bring about a situation. They bring about a relationship. Or if we say to someone you are forgiven and they've asked us for forgiveness, and then we say those words you are forgiven, then they are. That's what the situation is. Or say parents might say to a child we never really wanted you. Those are not merely words. To say such a thing to a child changes that child in a way forever that such words could never be undone. They could never be forgotten. They have such an impact If we say to someone you are ugly and fat, so powerful a vision is that. So powerful a vision is that particularly if it was said repeatedly, but even just once, brings about change. Or we say you can do it. To say that to somebody can enable them to do something that they didn't think they could do. Or just simply we support you. Tremendously powerful words that change reality. You are free. The words like that you are free can set somebody free in various cultural and historical contexts. You are free. Words can accomplish so much and change our lives so deeply. There are so many examples of this and we just want to reflect on that. Words, then, are not like alongside reality, that they create reality, change us, bring about new relationships in so many ways.
Speaker 1:Here's a quotation from a guy called Patrick Ruffus from his book the Name of the Wind, and I like this. It just says words, he says, are pale shadows of forgotten names. And then he says, as names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. That's true. Like the right words said or the wrong words said, there's nobody immune to them.
Speaker 1:And whether we think of words in written or spoken form, we need to meditate on that high priority given to words that we saw in Proverbs 18, 21. The tongue can bring death or life. Those who love to talk will reap the consequences. And then, meditating on that, the really great Bible scholar called John Gill. He's. He's from the sort of 18th century and brilliant Bible commentator in many ways. Sometimes he's a little bit over reliantliant on what he calls rabbinical commentaries and that's a weakness of his and it undermines him sometimes, but overall, his tremendous ability to take Jesus seriously and to handle the Bible the way the Bible handles the Bible. There are very, very few Bible scholars throughout all of history who are quite as good as John Gill. Anyway, this is what he says when he's meditating on Proverbs 18, 21. Death and life this is quotation from him.
Speaker 1:Now, death and life are in the power of the tongue. Of witnesses, according to the testimony they bear. Of judges, according to the sentence they pass. Of teachers, according to the doctrine they preach. Of all men who, by their well or ill speaking, bring death or life to themselves and others. Some, by their tongues, by the too free use of their tongues or falsehood they utter, they are the cause of death to themselves and others. And some, by their silence or by their prudent speech and prevalent intercession, they secure or obtain life for themselves and others. Yes, and judgment at the last day will proceed according to a man's words, as Jesus says in Matthew 12, 37, by your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned. So the tongue is the instrument either of a great deal of good or of a great deal of evil. Well, that's John Gill, and there's huge wisdom and truth in what he says there. And then, particularly just being aware of how Jesus says it's by our words, in the end, we shall be justified, and do you think, justified, made right before God, and by our words will be condemned. Everything salvation, damnation depends on our.
Speaker 1:Adam and Eve could talk as soon as they were created. Let that sink in for a moment. It's an easily overlooked feature of the creation of Adam and Eve. But they are not created as sort of wordless grunt with wordless grunts and that they have to slowly develop language for themselves. No, as soon as they are created, adam and Eve can talk and hear language. They can understand language spoken to them and they can speak it. The Lord God didn't wait for them to invent language. He created them with language already built into them. Hardwired into the human system is language. We might have a chance to notice how that is understood, even by quite secular researchers about language and human life. That is noticed. It's hardwired into us.
Speaker 1:So Adam and Eve, humanity, shared God's ability to speak from the very first day of existence. God, the living God, wanted to talk to them. The Lord God wanted to tell them about the world and himself and himself. This living God wanted human beings to share life with each other by talking, hearing him, speaking to him, talking to one another, listening to one another. All of that is built in immediately. So language is God's gift to us, according to the scriptures to connect us to each other. But also this gift of language to us connects us with the world around us.
Speaker 1:Until we are named, we are cut off from life. When someone speaks our name, then we are recognized and included, and so much to say about that that if we are not named, we are not present and we have no life. That fact of people speaking to us, naming us, is what incorporates us into life of that is built on this fact that we were designed and created to live as church. We were created to live as one body, sharing all of life together, helping one another, encouraging one another, challenging one another, working together to grow more and more into the fullness of God's own life.
Speaker 1:Language makes all this possible, and when a person is deaf or mute, we create new forms of language to make sure that we can still communicate. We overcome all kinds of obstacles to everyday speech to include everybody in language, everybody in language. But all of this is built on this idea that language is prior to human existence and prior to even cosmic existence, and that's what we will move on to and think about now, because that's been sitting there the whole time. In everything we've said about language that's been sitting there the whole time. In everything we've said about language, we're thinking about the eternal language of the living God. So this living God, who is this society, family of three? This God used words to set out truth and meaning before the universe began. So this is important for us to grasp that the living God did not begin to use language simply because of us, simply because of us, as if, for example, we invented language. So God accommodates himself to fit in with this language stuff that we've come up with, but that God inherently doesn't bother with language.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've heard people, even people who were quite theologically responsible, genuinely believe that within God there is no language at all. I mean, I remember one theologian I was sat outside just near to St Paul's Cathedral in London and this is going back probably 30 years. I won't name him because he's somewhat famous, but he genuinely was saying that within God there are not three separate consciousnesses or minds or whatever, but that there's just this single mind and consciousness that requires no communication. No, like the three persons Father, son and Spirit. Really, he was saying, when you get down to it, they share a single mind so that there's no need for them to communicate with one another, speak to one another, have any kind of discourse or dialogue with each other, and he was really insistent on that, really insistent on that, and it's I mean, I did just gently ask, even 30 years ago, um, could.
Speaker 1:Is there any biblical basis for saying that, given that the the bible really does seem to repetitively frequently describe intra-trrinitarian dialogue and conversation? So we have to say that, according to the biblical revelation, the living God used words to set out truth and meaning before the universe began. And even though, like, let that sink in, even the very best human writers and speakers have only been using words for really a few years. And you know, after 20, 30, 40, 50 years of careful use of words and improving our skill at writing and speaking, we can become what we feel reasonably good at using language, quite skillful at using language, but we really, you know, maybe 50 years of meaningfully skillfully using language. But the living God Father language and words to speak to one another. So imagine what just you know the skill of language use within the Trinity, reduce within the Trinity. So, before the universe began, the Father was planning and choosing all his purposes, but the Bible asserts that this was all done with his word and that, in other words, it wasn't done wordlessly, intuitively sort of, but done with word, a logic, an order.
Speaker 1:So John 1, 1 to 4, explaining what's going on in Genesis, chapter 1, exegeting Genesis 1, if you will. John 1, 1 to 4 says In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, the word, all things were made. Without this word, nothing was made. That has been made in this word was life, and that life was the light of all humanity.
Speaker 1:So the word of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the perfect expression of all that the father is and all his plans, and we get that in hebrews, chapter 1, verse 3. He is the express image of the father's person, hupostasis, and he holds the whole creation together by his powerful word. All of that. Hebrews 1, verses 1 to 4. Similarly, this idea, then, that he, this word, is this expression of the Father's person, but that he also holds, sustains the whole universe by speech, by his word. That the word of God sustains, upholds, holds together, unifies the whole universe with his own speech, his own words. So, before human beings were made in the image of God, there was the eternal image of God, who is Jesus Christ, and he's described as the word of God, who upholds everything by his Word. So language was not invented by God to deal with his creation.
Speaker 1:Within the Trinity, there has always been language, been language. The gift of language to us is right at the heart of us, sharing in the divine nature. So to share in the divine nature, that is something experiential and overwhelming and beyond our ability to fully describe and so on, sure, but to participate in the divine nature, absolutely essential to that is speech, praise, worship, words, speaking. So Jesus is eternally this expression, verbal expression of God, the Father, the image of, of God, the Father, the image of. But we'll come to the image language in a future one, when we look at art more carefully. But here, rather than just the image, like visual art, the visual depiction, he is this word, like a spoken expression of the Father. So he is that eternally and he has been eternally listening to his Father and praising him. All of that is in the Bible, that's what he does. So the father has eternally been speaking to his son, expressing and delighting in his word. The son has eternally delighted to do his father's will and has eternally praised him for it and has eternally praised him for it.
Speaker 1:Therefore, the basic pattern of how we should relate to God is part of the very life of God in eternity that to participate in the divine nature. To participate in the divine nature. If within God there has been this obedient listening, faithful speaking, obedient listening, proper praise all that's been going on within the Trinity for all eternity, then when we participate in the divine nature, we are, we included within. That is faithful speaking, obedient listening, true worship. All of that is has been going on within the life of God for all eternity. And so as we learn to speak, and so as we learn to speak and listen correctly, we're participating in the kind of language life that has always existed within the life of God, relating to God, speaking God, speaking God, listening, using language towards God. All of that is eternally established within the Trinity, in the Son's relationship to his father by the spirit. So the expression of the father's design and will in word is an eternal, essential aspect of the life of God, aspect of the life of God and that needs to sink in that the idea that the Father expresses him his will in word eternally and that word responds to him with praise and worship eternally. All of that is so important, the idea that it's not as if the living God simply kind of merely feels or intuits or something, but eternally speaks and expresses truth. That's hugely important to grasp.
Speaker 1:That the pattern of all language is found within the Trinity.
Speaker 1:Let's put it as simply as that the pattern of all language is found in God. So Jesus is the archetypal word and all human language is ectypal, if I can use slightly technical language there. So in other words, jesus is the original word and our language is copied from him. Within God we have the archetype, the ruling pattern, the original kind of language and speech, and ours is ectypal, like copied out of that, patterned after it, after it. I'll just say it again Jesus is the archetypal word and all human language is supposed to be designed to be ectypal, in other words, language within the Trinity. When we're thinking that and thinking that seriously, we look at Jesus and see that he is the original word, the original language, or the father speaking to the son and the son listening, and all of this happening by the breath of God. That's the original of God, that's the original of language and then human language on earth is copied from that, patterned after it, and we want to approximate to the way language is done within the Trinity.