Signposts and Stumbling Blocks

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? – Job 38:31

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.  – Romans 1:18-20

Recently I was on a site and someone posted a Scripture quote in a comment.  Another person immediately pounced on the quote and launched into a tirade about the falseness of Christianity.  The argument was that all this mythology about Jesus and the disciples was really just a reflection of the Zodiac, meaning, I suppose, by implication, that Christianity is no more valid than astrology.  I admit that I get bored with these kinds of things pretty quickly so I did not read all the way through the paragraph. 

You don’t get any more staid and reserved than the late Dr. D. James Kennedy who served as pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church for decades.  He wore the robes and spoke in elegant, sonorous tones.  He had a full alphabet after his name with all of his legitimate, earned, and advanced degrees.  He also had a teaching that focused on finding Christ in the Zodiac.  Though certainly no friend of astrology, Dr. Kennedy sought to point out that God, as Paul said, had made the truth plain to all throughout history.  No one, from the most ignorant, superstitious cave-dweller to the most brilliant, highly educated scientist can miss the patterns that exist.  They can attribute them to wrong causes, to be sure, but no one has ever been able to miss the signposts.      

Whether it is the constellations that cross the night sky or the mythologies that illuminate dark minds, humans are always looking for patterns.  Hunters spot game in the randomness of limbs, leaves, briars and brambles by looking for an ear or a shining eye or a horizontal line.  Scientists formulate physical laws by sorting out the patterns, repetitions and frequencies from the chaos of existence. 

The Pleiades are a random grouping of distance stars, themselves separated by unimaginable distances, but we see a pattern in them, and they do tell us of the seasons and sharpness of our vision.  The constellations are like landmarks in time that help us find order and direction.  Imagine if the stars were all perfectly, evenly distributed, all the same size and color.  Imagine that we had no wandering neighbors to catch the interest of a shepherd in the field by night.  If we had no constellations and clusters, would our imaginations have ever soared to seek truth? 

People who do not know what they are looking for in the woods will walk right past an animal that is, to a practiced eye, in plain sight.  The same is true of scientific truth.  Why do dogs seem to hate mailmen?  (“Scream all you want, small mailman.”)  We don’t have a mailman that comes to the house, but I do get frequent visits from the UPS truck.  My dog begins to bark frantically as soon as she catches sight of a UPS truck, even if it only passes by on the lane on the way to a neighbor’s house.  Why?  Because she barks and the intruder leaves.   She can’t possibly know that the UPS man is only going to be there until he can hand me whatever it is that is being delivered.  As far as she is concerned, it is threatening barking that protects and preserves the peace and sanctity of her territory from these brown-truck invaders.

Even a dog can perceive that a pattern exists, that life is hardly random and without direction.  We know that the Scorpion does not chase Orion from the sky, but Orion’s movements did help humanity begin to discover the strange truths cloaked in the depths of time and space.  Revelation of God must come in its fullness by the Word.  The Word was spoken in the beginning and all came into being by Him.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17).  If the very stars were formed by Christ and are even now sustained by Him, are we surprised that the stars themselves speak of Him?  If He raised man from the dust and formed us in His image, are we shocked that we see His face darkly in Adonis or Osiris or a hundred other myths of a hundred other tribes?  He has been with us all along.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. – Hebrews 1:1-2

All in All

For He has put everything under His feet. But when He says “everything” is put under Him, it is obvious that He who puts everything under Him is the exception. And when everything is subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all. – 1 Corinthians 15:27-28

That’s a lot of third person singular pronouns to figure out, but look at the very last phrase that God may be all in all. Let’s go back a few chapters in this same book: [Y]et for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him (1 Corinthians 8:6). All things are from God and all of it comes through Christ Jesus. There’s no pantheism in this statement since God is not the universe, rather the universe is that secondary reality that came from Him. We are included in that, not as an accident or afterthought but as co-creators. He is the Vine; we are the branches. Though the life comes through the Vine, fruit is borne only on the branch. We are of Him, as is everything from archangels to atomic particles. We begin to realize that everything is from the One, of the One and through the One.

I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in Me through their message. May they all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so that the world may believe You have sent Me (John 17:20-21).

An illusion is something that appears real and is not, yet the illusion must be created from something that is real. An illusionist using smoke and mirrors fools us. We do not see the mirrors only the illusion they create; the mirrors are real. We see the multiplicity of physical existence; the unity of the Spirit is real.

As we often say, though, we don’t like to even use the word illusion since it connotes our material existence being something we might safely ignore or manipulate. This is not the case, so we say rather that the universe is derived, and material existence is a secondary reality, a function of the primary reality. Anaxagoras said, “Appearances are a glimpse of what is hidden.” Again the material world differs from a magician’s effort in that there is no intent to deceive us. We can know something about the primary reality by studying the secondary. There are correlations between the surface and the depths. Yet we cannot know it fully apart from revelation. God has been gracious to reveal Himself to us at various times and in various ways – most completely in the Incarnation of the Son (Hebrews 1:1-2).

We can know that we have a purpose, that history has a direction, a point to which it sprirals. We can know that we are at peace with God. We can know that we are one with the Creator of all that exists. We can know death is not an end but a transition. There are things we have to resist, and things we have to embrace. We should not resist in a way that further mires us in the quicksand of delusion; we should not embrace in a way that is clinging and anchors us in the material.