The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation

Episode 91 - Cosmic Majesty, Human Significance: A Divine Perspective

• Paul

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Our latest episode dives into the expansive relationship between God's creation and our role within it, offering a refreshing perspective on what it means to have significance in a vast universe. 

- Exploring the cosmic scope of creation and our humility 
- Understanding the Kingdom of God as a personal and living reality 
- Demystifying the human tendency towards abstract interpretations of God 
- Recognising the importance of personal connection to the divine 
- Challenging the feeling of insignificance and affirming our centrality in God's plan 
- Embracing our transformative potential in the light of divine love 

**Join us as we explore how your life matters in the grand narrative of God's Kingdom!**


The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Speaker 1:

Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. And we're bringing to a conclusion our meditation on the Kingdom of God, the Empire of the Heavens. And we ended last time getting a flavor of the sense of how peripheral from one perspective, how peripheral from one perspective, planet Earth might seem in comparison to the divine throne room in the highest heaven, the third heaven. And there is a good way that that should condition our thinking and living so that we are humbled and we do not think too highly of ourselves. And we're going to read from Isaiah 40 to get a flavor of that. But that has to be very carefully maintained, because the Bible does not do what a kind of human religion does that just kind of asserts a God, a humanly invented or imagined God, who is just utterly transcendent and distant and cold. So human thinking, in religion, humans tend to imagine gods that are either one extreme or the other extreme. So one extreme is to have gods that are like superhumans, so they're basically just like humans but more powerful. And so we might think of the Greek gods, the Roman gods, norse gods, egyptian gods, whatever, hindu gods, whatever. They're kind of very limited and all in a way, I was going to say very human, but sometimes they're less than human in the morality and and so on, but they're very much on the same plane of existence as human beings, but like higher up but on a continuum. So, um, almost they fit very well with comics like DC, marvel and so on Comics, because you have these sort of kind of cosmic beings or things, but they're really just very powerful examples kind of of human-like characters. So that's one thing and we can dismiss that and attack that and say, oh, these gods are not worthy of true worship, and there's plenty of that. But there's over, on the other extreme, there's another way of humanly imagined religion, and this comes back.

Speaker 1:

Really the kind of ultimate example of this is Plotinus. He's in the early church and he's a Neoplatonist and he's a pagan but he's clearly kind of somewhat influenced by Christian thought. But I was always told, oh, this guy is very, he was like a pagan thinker who was synthesizing Christian theology with Neoplatonism. But when I read him, I was, I couldn't find anything Christian in him at all. Really he was frighteningly alien to me and just made me feel sick in my stomach reading his stuff.

Speaker 1:

Because what he seems to have done is as part of that reaction against the human-like gods that Plato and Aristotle are kind of trying to react against that and they invent an idea of the divine that's very dissimilar to that and they have an idea of divinity that's kind of the opposite of humanity, an idea of divinity that's kind of the opposite of humanity. What Plotinus does is really like refines that to an extreme and his divinity is just called the one, the one. He doesn't even really refer to this divinity thing as God, he just calls it the one. And this one thing is beyond personality, has everything in itself and all power and knowledge are kind of contained in it. And, uh, the one. And there's this kind of utterly transcendent, impersonal, uh one that is the underlying unity of everything, and so on. So out of that tradition there's this idea that we can work out what the ultimate transcendent God is like just by thinking about it and just by going. Well, we know something about what power is like. Let us extrapolate out to the maximum kind of understanding of power that we can, and true divinity is that.

Speaker 1:

And then some would go, oh, but even that's not enough, so let's go uh, we don't, we can't even imagine what ultimate power is like. So we'll just say the ultimate god is so powerful that we can't even describe the power of that ultimate one divinity thing. And so we'll just say, well, he isn't weak, but we can't positively state what he's like, because we'll try and say, oh, we've imagined the ultimate power that we can but imagine if he's even more powerful than that and that he's beyond our description. So all we can say is that he isn't weak, but we can't positively state it because he's so different to us, so transcendent, so extremely different and alien to us. So that was a way of using human imagination and human reason to kind of say well, we can come up with a God, we can find out about God just by thinking about it.

Speaker 1:

Actually, in that tradition they also kind of believed that they could work out what everything was just by thinking about it. You know horses, trees, flowers, stars, everything could be. You could know what it was just by thinking about it. And actually that led to enormous problems much later, because when you get the scientific revolution in the 16th century and you've got someone like Francis Bacon, a kind of Christian scientist, philosopher, thinker, and his point is well, hang on, you can't know what things are just by having to think about them. What you've got to do is investigate them and experiment and find out what is it really like? Don't make up your mind in advance just by imagining things or thinking about it. You need to go out and actually investigate and examine and experiment and allow your thinking to be completely corrected by what it actually is, what the concrete reality of the thing rather than what you imagine it to be. Anyway, that's a whole other thing to think about.

Speaker 1:

But what we go back and say, ok, so what pagan thought did, coming from Plato, aristotle tradition and really that Neo-Platonism that's there in the well, third century, fourth century, that sort of time, that sort of time you get this pagan tradition of a humanly invented definition of divinity. And it's powered by this kind of belief that if we imagine the greatest, what we think of as the greatest in power, the greatest in knowledge, the greatest in presence, the greatest in whatever, and then we extrapolate that out as far as we can, and then some would even go this extra step and say, but even when we get to the extremes of what we can imagine, we should always say but this, this divinity, this that we're imagining, is even more than that, and so we can. We have to kind of say, well, how much knowledge does he have, or it have, or whatever. Well, we will try to describe the infinite amount that we can, and then we may have to just say, well, we can't positively state it. We'll just have to say this one thing this divine ultimate isn't ignorant, you know, let's state it negatively because we just don't know, we can't imagine Whatever it is. It's beyond our imagination, and so, can you see, it's a way of saying, look, we don't need Jesus to define divinity, we don't need God to reveal himself. We don't need that.

Speaker 1:

The God of the Bible is about saying you don't know what I'm like. I must, must, reveal myself. I'm going to confront you in words and actions, and what I am father, son and spirit is, uh, will is utterly different, and that your human wisdom comes up with god's little superhumans or extreme transcendent things, whatever. But that is not at all like. You know that the living God will seem foolish to those that believe in this kind of philosophy of transcendence. The living God seems foolish to them, and I found that to be the case all the way through my life.

Speaker 1:

When you take the Bible seriously and think about this God and say, look, jesus defines divinity, not this wisdom of the Neoplatonists or whatever. Whatever tradition it is the people who believe in that tradition, the Neoplatonists, the classical theists, theist, whatever they tend to go no, that is foolish. You can't say god dies. You can't say like, uh, you can't right, uh, really believe that that is the trend that god walking around on earth and fully experiencing human life, or you can't have that. Or the way that God acts throughout the Old Testament, where the angel of the Lord is sent to find things out and do things and whatever. You can't. That's foolish. That's foolish. You've got. That doesn't make sense. You've got to believe that what the reality of God is is really like this utterly transcendent one, and the language of the Bible is like, not as God really is. That is just a way of presenting God in order for, like children to cope with.

Speaker 1:

But we who are the real thinkers, the real philosophers, we know the reality of God that isn't like the God revealed in Jesus, that we know that God is something much greater than that. So they believe that they can come up with a God greater than the surface appearance of the Bible kind of thing. I hope that makes sense. So now, why have we said all that? So what we're saying is yeah, you can, it is possible to take paganism in one direction and think of lots of little gods that are just kind of superhuman things, and many of us are used to seeing the foolishness of that. But I think we also need to be aware that there's a different kind of foolishness. That just um is another pagan thing to say well, uh, to go, well, not. Of course it's silly to have little gods.

Speaker 1:

We can work out and imagine and invent a supreme, transcendent God who is the exact opposite of the little gods. And we can define divinity, again without reference to Jesus, without reference to the Father, without reference to the Spirit, without reference to the Scriptures, just by our own imagination, just by philosophy. And I've met people who even claim to be Christian who just overtly and confidently say, yes, it is possible to define divinity without reference to Jesus or the Bible, but that what the Bible does and what Jesus does is improve on that or is like that, like just pagan reason can do the foundations and the ground floor of the building of divinity, but the Bible and Jesus, that's the second floor of it. And so I've literally I know most people who are listening to this will go no, no, that is obviously ridiculous. No one would say that. No, no, honestly, I absolutely promise you.

Speaker 1:

It's surprisingly common to think that pagan thoughts can lay the foundation of the knowledge of God. And that's what has been done, that simply projecting this utterly extreme, transcendent one can feel quite exhilarating and in Islam there's lots of that A kind of I've heard it called a theological vertigo, where you think your way up into an extreme height and then you get this exhilarating feeling of vertigo intellectual or theological or even kind of a spiritual vertigo that you've built up this divine concept so high that you get a kind of thrill from it. In your spirit, in your mind You're like, oh, wow, what a massive concept. And there's a feeling of almost existential vertigo that you've built up this notion of God so high so that you genuinely have an emotional feeling about it. And you get that in Islam. You get that in some forms of Christianity, where it doesn't have to be about Jesus, it's just about such a high, a high in inverted commas. Imagine imagination of transcendence, and you can.

Speaker 1:

It's easy to think ah, now that feeling of theological or existential vertigo. That is real worship, but it isn't. It occurs in pagan thinkers and pagan religion. It's just this. It's a kind of just a psychological effect. It's not true worship. True worship must be the real and living God, focused by the Spirit through the Son towards the Father, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven and all of that. True worship is defined in the scriptures. It's not a mere psychological feeling of transcendent vertigo or something.

Speaker 1:

So the reason we want to warn against that is focusing on this pagan transcendent divinity easily becomes a substitute for true theology, true worship Easily and I've encountered it many times in theological books from all the way through church history, but not so much the early church but you do come across this thing where people substitute an abstract, humanly invented conception of divinity that gives this sign of existential vertigo and they'll settle for that, rather than the true and living God who is so much different and richer and more wonderful, more awesome than that kind of, I feel, a very shriveled and two-dimensional pagan deity, conventional, uh, pagan deity. And I I say all that by way of introducing isaiah 40 from verse 12, because in isaiah 40, verse 12, this illustrates exactly the point we're making that you, the, the real and living god has real transcendence, high and above the world and, and we get that feeling of our smallness in, in in relation to this divine empire of the living god. And yet there's this twist in it all that so just when plotinus is sort of going, oh okay, your living god is a bit like the one I invented, then you suddenly discover in the reading, not at all like Plotinus' feeble, two-dimensional, abstract, transcendent thing. So let's enjoy it. Isaiah 40, we'll start from verses 12 to 17,. Then we'll just catch our breath for a moment and then read on later in Isaiah 40.

Speaker 1:

So, isaiah 40, from verse 12, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who can fathom the spirit of the Lord or who can instruct the Lord as his counsellor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? Surely, the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They are regarded as dust, dust on the scales. He weighs the islands or the continents as though they less than nothing. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name, wow, okay.

Speaker 1:

So there's plenty of things there that emphasize that extreme transcendence. There's also things that don't quite fit with the Plotinus thing, because this emphasis on the spirit of the Lord, emphasis on the spirit of the Lord, or the idea that this living God is worshipped through sacrifice and offerings and things, I mean, plotinus doesn't have any of that sort of thing, but we get the flavour of it. This is like a view of. We feel maybe a little bit of that vertigo sense of where you're almost looking down on the whole of the earth from the perspective of the highest heaven and all the nations, all the continents just weigh nothing. They have no substance compared to this mighty substance of the heavenly throne room. Okay, okay.

Speaker 1:

Now, when pagans get that sort of mindset, it makes them feel worthless and meaningless and there's a like the pagan mind has a tendency to say go outside, look up at the heavens and contemplate all the millions of galaxies and things and think, wow, we are nothing, life is meaningless, the universe is empty of meaning, purpose. I'm depressed. It makes them feel depressed. You get that in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a lot. But a lot of science fiction has this implied idea that because the universe is very big, therefore we have no meaning and no worth. We have no meaning and no worth. But that's entirely wrong.

Speaker 1:

So there, isaiah 40, we're to appreciate not so much the scale of the universe but, if you notice, it's to appreciate the scale of the Father, son and Holy Spirit. It's the Father who administers the whole creation through his Son, by the power of the Spirit. And we are to go, wow, who is this, this living God really focusing on Christ there? Who is this who in his hand can contain like the whole of the universe in his hand? And you're to imagine that, like what sort of a figure is this? That the entire universe with all the millions of galaxies can sort of sit on the palm of his hand? And you're to be not intimidated so much by the size of the universe but but the size of this living god. And then, having done that, got this sense of the scale, how tiny earth is compared to the second heaven and then the scale of the third heaven, but more so by this cosmic, divine emperor who can hold it all in the palm of his hand, but that perspective of the eternal Lord Christ reigning over such an impossibly vast heavens.

Speaker 1:

What we learn in Isaiah 40 is it gets switched around and the entire mood and emphasis changes, because it is earth, planet earth, earth and human beings and church on earth that receives all his attention and compassion. And all that mighty power of a of this divine, cosmic emperor who can hold the whole universe in his hands, all all that power and ability is turned towards us. And so if we carry on the meditation with Christ at the center and the Bible fueling it, we don't end up feeling, wow, how insignificant and worthless we are. We rather go. We're just left stunned with a different kind of theological, existential vertigo, the vertigo of how amazing it is if we trust Christ, if we're seated with him, if we're joined to him, if we follow him. Wow, wow, all the power and grandeur and glory of the cosmic divine emperor is for us, to help us and to carry us, and what a destiny is before us if we are joined to him. So let's go on Isaiah, chapter 40 from verse 27. And it's really challenging us.

Speaker 1:

Don't think you are little, don't think your way is not taken seriously, don't think your life is ignored by the highest heaven, by this Lord who carries the entire cosmos in the palm of his hand. You might think, oh well, if that's the case, if he is so vast, so large, so powerful and the universe is so huge, anyway my way, my life has no significance. He's not interested in me and my life, surely? And then Isaiah 40 from verse 27 switches that and say no, no, no, no, no. That is not at all the way to think. You need to flip that around and say this living god, this cosmic divine emperor, is not at all like plotinus's weird divinity who is self-obsessed or anything like that, that the living god is father, son and spirit and has actually taken us seriously and the entire sense. In a way, we're not at the periphery of creation. We as church, as those who trust him and follow him, are at the very centre of the universe, at the centre of everything that this cosmic living God is doing. So look, isaiah 40, verse 27,.

Speaker 1:

Why do you complain, jacob? Why do you say Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord. My cause is disregarded by my God. Don't you know? Haven't you heard?

Speaker 1:

The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. There it is. The energy of the divine emperor is turned to planet earth and to humanity, and that energy, the very power and presence of the spirit who anoints him, can be given to us, tiny human beings on distant planet earth. Why? To enable us to soar and run and walk. We were created to rule over the earth as a small image of him ruling over the whole heavens. We are a microcosm of the divine empire on earth. Why? Well, it's as if the Earth is a tester area for us to be sorted before we can share in his cosmic reign.

Speaker 1:

It's here is where the simple question is put to us who do you say that I am, or will you trust me? Will you follow me? And all we need to do is say yes, I trust you, help me. I want to follow you, lord, but I believe, help my unbelief or whatever. However we respond, we only need to do that. And then he says right, come with me into this never ending story of the cosmic empire and now let us play it out in realms, the full realms of the whole creation. So, in other words, our actions here and now are immensely significant and we are taken much more seriously than we take ourselves. The reasons why he does this, why does he treat us like this? Well, that is taking us beyond what we can do in this episode.

Speaker 1:

But we see the strange perspective of the kingdom and how alien it is, obviously to those who think of gods as merely superhumans who are less than creation, of gods as merely superhumans who are less than creation. But also it is. I feel that it's even, perhaps even more alien. Is Plotinus' view of a god who is kind of self-obsessed and doesn't live in, doesn't serve humanity, but has really no interest in humanity? Really, that kind of god is even more alien? I think no.

Speaker 1:

This living God, it takes us so seriously, so much so that the immortal, as Charles Wesley says in and Can it Be when he says "'Tis mystery all the immortal dies". The immortal dies For me, you know and why his opening line is can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood? How can it be he's really saying, how can I have gained benefit from the death of the immortal god? What kind of a god is this that does so much for me? And that's the breathtaking reality that only comes when we begin with jesus and and be and stick with the scriptures and we really agree. We have to kind of violently turn our back on either the little pagan gods or the abstract Plotinus style God. Those gods are just not worthy of our, of our love and worship. And knowing that he takes us so seriously is why sin.

Speaker 1:

Sin is taken so seriously in the Bible is why sin. Sin is taken so seriously in the Bible. But it's not. Sin is not taken seriously really when either we have those little gods or if we have a God that's so transcendent that he's really disconnected from us. Any of those things don't. Sin isn't taken seriously, and particularly in atheism, in an atheistic view of the world, if we think that the universe is meaningless, just meaningless, sin doesn't really exist anymore. It just becomes a matter of opinion.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's, that's maybe taken us into a different subject, so we'll end off this meditation on the kingdom of God now really with this thought that if we are to understand the business of the living God, the cosmic civilization, the kingdom of the heavens civilization, the kingdom of the heavens, we have to keep our attention always on the divine emperor, the Lord Jesus, the eternal son of the father, who is filled with the spirit without measure, always has been, always will be. You know, this fountain of the divine life that comes from the father through the son and then is shared with us also in this extraordinary way. But we, almost we have to keep our attention on him. If we try to conceive of a divinity in abstract, we just don't, we just are going off, we're walking away from Jesus. Or if we have our little, if we settle for that God or the God of Potinus, if we settle for some synthesis of that, we'll try to say, oh well, potinus had some good stuff, let's see if we can synthesize that into a Christian worldview. No, let's not do that, we're only polluting the pure water of Jesus Christ kind of thing. We just want Jesus, just give me Jesus. We just want Jesus, just give me Jesus, let us. Because as we focus on him and he and of course, with Jesus, is the Father and the Spirit.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes people say why do you only have Jesus? You've got to also have the Father and Spirit. Of course Jesus is the Son of the Father, filled with the Spirit without measure. We constantly emphasize that you cannot have Jesus on his own. Jesus is the Christ, the son of the father, filled with the spirit without measure.

Speaker 1:

We always emphasize that, that the living God is the father, son and Holy Spirit. That you know the Lord is a unity of them. Of course that's true, but we always must keep our attention fixed on that living God. That's true, but we always must keep our attention fixed on that living God. Let's not invent a concept of divinity that will always be rubbish. Let's accept the God who is really there and be prepared always to abandon our pitiful attempts to imagine him. And instead of trying to imagine him, let's accept him as he is and really have our minds and hearts expanded. But really we want this constant vision of what is this divine kingdom and how can we express that to others? That when we share the gospel, let's try to do that in the context of this cosmic, divine empire centered on the eternal son of the father, filled with the spirit.