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 111 - Look and Look Again: Sacred Seeing in a Superficial World
Have you ever considered how profoundly your eyes shape your spiritual life? Far beyond mere physical vision, your eyes function as gateways that determine what enters your inner world and ultimately forms who you become.
The podcast begins with Jesus's striking metaphor: "Your eye is the lamp of your body." This isn't poetic flourish—it's a profound reality that what we choose to look at literally fills our body with either light or darkness. Our eyes regulate what enters our minds and hearts, and Scripture takes this gateway function seriously. As Paul Washer wisely noted, "To know the state of your heart, I only need to see what you look at."
We explore how the Bible instructs us to manage our vision through fascinating passages about eyelids as gatekeepers and the discipline of maintaining focused sight. Just as a driver tends to steer toward what they're looking at (even when trying to avoid it), our spiritual trajectory follows our gaze. The conversation delves into how God himself sees us—his eyes examining the righteous with care while being "too holy to look at sin." This divine perspective transforms how we understand both being seen by God and how we should see others.
The most powerful insight emerges when we consider that everything visible in our present world is temporary. Scripture urges us to "fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen," training our vision to perceive beyond surface appearances to eternal realities. Like Jesus, who endured suffering by focusing on "the joy set before him," we can navigate our present challenges by looking toward what is permanent rather than what is passing away.
What might change if you became more intentional about what captures your attention today? Try making a covenant with your eyes, like Job did, and experience how transformed vision leads to transformed living.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization and we're continuing our theology of the body. But we're still on the head, the human head, and the how to think about that and understand the different components of our body according to the Bible, and we're going to now think about our eyes. The Bible and we're going to now think about our eyes and eyes and eyesight is an enormously important part of the body, of reality, even of the life, of God himself sees, and the eye of the Lord being upon us for good or ill is quite important. But just the Bible itself opens with the day one is light shining and overcoming the darkness, and the father commands christ to shine as the light of the cosmos and he does that and darkness is not able to resist or comprehend him and this uncreated light of god, and then this distinction made between light and darkness, day and night, and all of this is serious work, the yes and the no of that serious work of day one, of creation. But it's all to do with light and darkness and Jesus himself, as we'll see very much, uh addresses our sight in terms of light and darkness. So the way and the way our eyes work is important. It's uh like a get.
Speaker 1:Our eye with eyelids is a gateway that allows light into our body, and for a long time I suffered with a condition of iritis, which is a kind of autoimmune problem where the iris of the eye becomes inflamed and sticks to the cornea so that it cannot open and close properly. And the experience of light and bright light, and how sensitive we can be to that, and particularly if our eye is unable to control that light, and the idea of a light that is unapproachable, so bright that it's unbearable to those who are accustomed to darkness, and just the way how darkness was so much more comfortable to me than light while I suffered this condition condition and it took me into deep meditation about this and how this is more than just a physical matter and why our eyes are constructed as they are to regulate the entrance of light and all that is contained within light and so on. But let's get to the scriptures. Luke 11, verse 34,. Jesus says your eye is the lamp of your body. Just stop on that phrase for a second, because sometimes commentators on this I've read them over the years are so ridiculous that I've literally been helpless with laughter reading them, that they have imagined that because I'll read the whole thing Luke 11, 34. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light, but when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. So what Jesus is saying is he's considering the interior of our body almost as a room into which light shines and comes through our eyes, which of course, that is exactly what does happen. The light comes into our body through our eyes. Our eyes are the gateway that allow light into our body and then our body can receive that light and process the information that's contained within that light and our brains act upon that and so on. But because it says your eyes the lamp of your bodies, there were commentators that I read that imagined that it was a light shining out of our bodies like a lamp that's facing outwards, and they were sort of perplexed why Jesus would imagine our eyes are a lamp that shines out and that you can have a body that's full of light that shines out through your eyes and illumines the world ahead of you. Or if you don't have light within you, then there's just darkness and the lamps shining forward of your eyes don't illuminate things. They thought he was talking like that, and some of the things I've read about that are so hilarious. And it does show how these things are hidden from the wise and the learned. I mean, even a child can understand what Jesus is saying.
Speaker 1:He's talking about how you use your eye, how you look what you look at, how you look what you look at. If your eye is good, if what it looks at is good or how we look at the world is good, then that is good. Then there's light. But if our eye is bad, if what it gazes at is bad and how our eyes look at the world is bad, then there is no light. So the image is then of the eye allowing light into us or not, and in that context he's talking about how we live, how we interact, how we handle the world, how we look I don't want to run ahead too much so the eye lets in light or shuts out light, because the idea is there's already darkness caught sort of within us, within us, but there is light that can be let in and we can use our eyes to let light in. But if we do not do that, then our whole inner world, our whole physical body is filled with darkness and we need to be sort of those who see the right way, use our eyes in the right way to let light in. And then we ourselves, by the way we live, become kind of sources of light that proclaim light and share light so that others can observe us and see us, the church, the way we live as church, and then they can receive light and allow light inside them. So the eye allows light in the way we live as church, can become sources of light, something to be seen, so that people can observe us and light will come into them. So light and darkness, the way we look at the world around us, it affects our whole body. That's what Jesus is saying.
Speaker 1:And our eye controls what we see and how we see it. It determines our eyes, determine our perception of the world around us and the people we meet. How do we view them? What do we stir at, what do we observe? So if we were to do a monitor what our eyes are looking at while we're awake throughout the day, are looking at while we're awake throughout the day, what would we discover that our eyes have dwelt on and stirred at. That's an enormously important kind of inventory to take on? What do we stir at? What are our eyes transfixed by?
Speaker 1:I think it was Paul Washer, the sort of evangelist Bible teacher. He said to know the state of your heart, I only need to see what you look at. I remember hearing that some years ago, and, yeah, that's right. To know the state of our heart, we only need to observe, to see what we look at, and the Bible has a lot to say about what we look at and how we do that. Now, because of this, each eye has its own gatekeeper, and that, though, eyelid, eyelid. So eyelids in the bible, uh, are important because they monitor. They are this what light we allow in, what visuals we allow in? We can close our eyes to shut out things that we don't want to see or we should not see. We can monitor and regulate what we allow in.
Speaker 1:In Proverbs 4, verses 25 to 27, it's as if our eyelids keep our eye, monitor our eyes, and our eyes kind of, must look straight ahead, neither turning to the right or the left. We mustn't be distracted by sights that are going to take us off course. So Proverbs 4, 25 to 27 says let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left. Keep your foot from evil so you can see there. The idea is don't? There are many things that will appear to left and right of us that may seem fascinating, urgent, they may seem important, and then we turn to look at that and as we turn to look at it, so we are directed to that, into that direction. Look at it, so we are directed to that, into that direction. There's lots of studies about that, that even if we're looking at something wanting to avoid it, the mere fact of looking at it draws us towards it. It happens with driving that you can look at, you can be focusing on something that you don't want to hit, but the mere fact of gazing at it means you kind of steer towards it. There's studies about that. So the idea then is the scripture saying your eyesight needs to be regulated. Keep your eyes fixed on what you need to look at and don't be easily distracted by sights to either side.
Speaker 1:Psalm 11, verse 4, is interesting because it's the Lord judges or tests us with his eyelids. It says well in the English version I have in front of me. It said the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord is on his heavenly throne. He observes everyone on earth. His eyes examine them or his eyes test them, but literally it's his eyelids, and it's as if he looks at us or closes his eyes to us. And we want, it's as if we want the Lord to be looking at us, turn towards us, examining us. But if we are doing what is wrong, he closes his eyes. And the fact that he closes his eyes towards us is a judgment. He cannot look at us. His eyes are too holy to even look at sin iniquity, says the scriptures. His eyes are too holy to do that. So there's this idea, then, that if the Lord cannot look at us, he closes his eyelids closed towards us. That is a judgment against us. It's a statement about the mess we are in the Lord, psalm 11, verse 4,.
Speaker 1:The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion. On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur. A scorching wind will be their lot. For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice. And then it ends with this statement the upright or the righteous will see his face. So that concept, then, of seeing. He looks at the righteous because they are right with him. He wants to look at them, he wants to pay attention to them and care for them, count the hers on their head, see their paths, direct their course, see what's ahead of them and prepare for that, and so on. The wicked he cannot look at them and, in fact, the strength of judgment he wishes to destroy them. He hates them. So, either righteous or wicked, and the strength of reaction, either way, there's no sort of neutral ground. He either opens his eyes towards us as righteous or he closes his eyes towards us and hates us. But the righteous can look forward to seeing the face of the father. So it's a fascinating, uh way in which the eyes, and what, what is, look, even the lord, how he looks.
Speaker 1:This thing about how we must control our eyes and learn to make these judgments with our eyelids. The fact we've got this built-in mechanism for regulating what we see and we can quickly close our eyes and not see something is important because we have a phrase, don't we? Seeing is believing, and that isn't totally true, is it? But it's got a lot of strength and truth in it, because we do have a very strong tendency to believe in trust in what we look at, what we gaze at, what we give our eyes to, and the light that pours into us from what we're looking at captivates us, and that's that point about the Proverbs. What are we looking at? Are we looking at what will take us forward to the destination that's ahead of us, or are we distracted by side sights? Because seeing is believing.
Speaker 1:What we see, what we look at, what we gaze at, shapes our beliefs, determines what we trust in. We have that phrase about what we look to. I mean, someone recently said to me I'm looking to my pension for security, and it's that striking phrase. What we look to is for security, for comfort. We look to things as idols, idols really, to worship them.
Speaker 1:What we look at we is is very much to do with what we worship, if we choose to look at what is good and right, beautiful, proper, uh, or how we look at it, because there are things in life that are ugly to look at, but we look at them, perhaps with love, compassion, care. So it's what we look at, together with how we look at the world. If we do that, the light coming into us fills us with light. But if what we look at and how we look at it is evil, selfish, earthly, then there is no light coming into us. There's like a sense in which visual information comes in but there's no illumination of us within. We're filled with darkness Precisely because we believe what we see, what we look at, what we gaze at, what we give our attention to, that's what we believe. That determines who we are, what we believe, what we value.
Speaker 1:And so God has given us two eyes and again, this is really important feature of thinking about the human body what do we have two of and what does that tell us? Two eyes? We should look and look again at what we see. Look, look again. It's like the hearing that we notice. We have two ears because we listen, but then are we really hearing? We see, but are we perceiving? Do we see what's really there? As in when it's coming to pick Saul as king, and so on, when it's coming to pick Saul as king, and so on, there's that wonderful verse that human beings look superficially and make judgments, but the Lord looks deeper. He looks at the heart, at what's really going on, and that also prophecy about Jesus. He'll grow up and make judgments not according to just as his physical eyes see, but he'll judge correctly, beyond superficial sight. And so we have two eyes to remind us look, look again, control, govern, have self-control over sight and look carefully.
Speaker 1:Consider Job made a covenant with his eyes because he knew that the Lord, god, had his eye on Job. So Job 31, verses 1 to 4, it's all worth reading. Job 31, verses 1 to 4. It's all worth reading. But he says I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. And then he goes on to say does the Lord not see my ways and count my every step? So that very much sense of the eye of the Lord being upon him. And he's a righteous man, so he's aware that the Lord is looking at him, which is both wonderful, because it's like he counts my steps, he takes me seriously, he's looking after me. But he also does see my ways and I want to live before him in a way that is worthy of having his eye upon me, because it, you know, it's not that we earn the blessing of his eye being upon us is we are righteous by trusting in Jesus. He makes us right, and yet we want to live in a manner that corresponds to that, worthy of that, we're conscious of it. And so Job says he sees my ways and therefore I you know I take my way seriously. I've made an agreement with my eyes this is how I'm going to use my eyes and this is what I'm not going to use my eyes for. And the Lord has given us these eyes.
Speaker 1:And then it's interesting to look in the Bible, what we are told to look at and what we are told not to look at. That in itself is a great study. Look at the birds, look at the trees, look at the stars, look at people, all these things. But what do we not look at? Well, we do not look lustfully, we do not look greedily, and so on. Now, the eyes of the Lord, that doesn't. That can quite specifically refer to the Holy Spirit, actually the eyes of the Lord constantly searching the world, looking for those who are looking for him.
Speaker 1:2 Chronicles 16, verse 9,. The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. The eyes of the lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. This idea, then, that the lord is looking for those who are serious about him, who want to do business with him. He's looking for that, and I find that a huge encouragement that it is when, when we start to look for him, he's already looking for us. He's already looking for us. It's not as if the owner we cannot go looking for him. Where would we begin to go? How would we do that? He's already looking for us.
Speaker 1:Proverbs 15, verse 3,. The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. That idea, then, of the eyes of the Lord being upon us. When a teacher wants to keep a student or a child under control, she might say I have my eye on you. Or, on the other hand, when we want a friend to look after and care for somebody we ask say, we might say can you keep an eye on them? All these ways in which having an eye on it can be a matter of judgment or compassion, or both be a matter of judgment or compassion or both. And so we live with this knowledge that the eyes of the lord are on us, seeking for those who are seeking him is the eyes of the lord can be upon us with anger because he's like I cannot look at that anymore. For those who reject him will, for those who will not trust in him, or for those that that do trust in him. He looks on them with love and care and discipline, and that's something we can think about also.
Speaker 1:So our eyes, though yes, we look, but we can be deceived because we can so easily look only at the surface. Just because we've seen something doesn't mean we've perceived it. We learn to focus properly, and I quite enjoy optical illusion things because I like the way in which we can look at something and we're sure it's one thing and then we realize it's not that at all, it's something else, and that sense of the way in which our eyes can deceive us. And I like that because I like seeing examples of that, because I take it to be this constant warning Be careful how you look, how the Lord has created us in this way that we need to be careful, focus properly.
Speaker 1:What we see and how we see it fills our lives, and if we only look at the things that are immediately around us in a superficial way, immediately around us in a superficial way, only looking at what is seen, that will destroy us, because everything around us in the superficial sense, is temporary. Everything that we can see now around us is passing away. It doesn't last jesus draws great attention to this. It decays, it can be stolen. We ourselves are only very temporary in this mortal life.
Speaker 1:And 2 corinthians 4, verse 18, says we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal. Well, how can we look at things that are unseen? Are they absolutely unseeable? So there are no conditions at all in which these in 2 corinthians 4 it jesus, is currently unseen to us. He is in the highest heaven, but he's not absolutely unseen. Neither is the father. We will see the father and the son. There is a day of their appearing. We were we and it's saying we.
Speaker 1:We know what is going to appear, we know what will be seen when, the, when the kind of uncreated light is switched on and everything is revealed and seen for what it really is. We want to see in that way now. We want to see everything now, in that light of heaven, of the return of Jesus, of the day of his appearing. If everything we see is going to be laid bare on the day of justice. Well then, everything looks different, very different. It looks different when we look at it in the light of his appearing, when we know that our house, our possessions, our town, our nation, even the stars in the heavens, are passing away.
Speaker 1:Then we can see through the myths and illusions of this present darkness. And that's such an important fact. Can we see through the myths and illusions of the present darkness as we look out at the world? We need to remember that these eyes will see the majestic Lord Jesus on the day of his wrath and justice. On the day of his wrath and justice, every eye, we're told, will see him, and he is, and always has been, the visible form of the invisible God. And we, kind of most Christians throughout history, have wanted to focus on this idea of the Jesus being making visible the invisible, because it's saying something about sight and appearances and what is the destination of the universe. And every eye will see him.
Speaker 1:Revelation 1, verse 7. Look, he is coming with the clouds. I like that phrase. Look, he is coming with the clouds, as if it is so real that you could almost see this happening Now if you look properly, look properly at the clouds. Look properly at reality and you will see that. Look, he is coming with the clouds. Look properly at reality and you will see that he look, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples on earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be, amen. Wow, what a powerful vision to control our looking. And it is important to look in that way because our eyes are never satisfied by seeing the things in this world, in this passing age.
Speaker 1:Ecclesiastes 1, verse 8, the eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear is full of hearing. So the eyes now, unless we train them to see properly, look at things in the right way, in the light of Christ's appearing, the day of God. Look at things. That way the I can be controlled, disciplined, taking us forward, because the sights and images that seem so fascinating and fulfilling in the moment cannot deliver what they promise. They are illusions, they are empty promises, appearance without substance. And if we think we are wise in our own eyes, we are fools, says the Bible. Do you see a man? Proverbs 26, verse 12, do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There's more hope for a fool than for him.
Speaker 1:So that idea, idea like it's as if a person can look at himself in the mirror and go and even declare to himself you're wise, you're clever, you're amazing, and the bible's like, wow, that isn't the way to look at yourself. You're supposed to look at yourself, um, as someone who needs wisdom, to call out to him to open our eyes. Open my eyes, lord, that I may see wonderful things in your word. It's as if I know myself to be blind. That's the beginning of wisdom. I can't see properly. Open my eyes that I can see properly. Give me control over my sight. Teach me to look properly. Give me control over my sight. Teach me to look properly, and I love Hebrews 12, verse 1.
Speaker 1:Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. So again, that idea that he'd set himself determinately, set his sight upon something that was ahead, that couldn't be seen in a superficial sense, but he knew it to be real. And because he did that, he was able to get through the cross, endure it, scorn its shame and arrive at the joy ahead. And so we fix our eyes on Jesus, look at him and learn to look at people and the world the way he does and did, way he does and did. And just remember that Jesus had and still has got eyes human eyes, just like us, though he still has those eyes in the highest heaven. And with human eyes he looks at his father's face. One of us, one of us human beings, already gazes at the father's face and he sees all the angels and all the nations under his rule.
Speaker 1:Jesus looks with human eyes, with our eyes, and sees what is good. He sees what is bad. He is the eyewitness who always looks properly. He always looked up to his father in heaven so he wouldn't be trapped by the wrong things. Psalm 25, verse 15,. My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare, as he sees things as they should be seen, and he sees them with human eyes. And think of that. There are a pair of human eyes in the highest heaven. That already. So we'll end with Revelation 1, verse 14. Fire.