The Real Matrix

No, not that one. 

Time. Time is the real matrix.

Matrix, from the scholarly bastion of a Google search: “an environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure.”

Time is the matrix God created inside of which humanity could develop and come to know Him. Even more than that, it is the matrix we need in order to interact with God.

I heard someone recently talking about how God is outside of time–which is true–but regarding this universe He created, the first thing He did in creating the cosmos was to enter into time.

Without God subjecting Himself to the matrix of time, we could not have interacted with Him, because as such He would be absent from us.

The matrix of time. The matrix of Mary’s flesh. The matrix of His own flesh, and the passing of 30+ years. The matrix of human temptations, hunger, thirst, joy, and suffering. The unchangeable One took the changeable humanity upon Himself in order to change our destiny.

God made a universe so He could enter into His own creation, first as the One over us, then as the One who served us as a slave, even to the point of death… even death for our sin against Him.

And now, for all the passing time of eternity, God will accompany us in the matrix of time, never leaving or transcending away into His own private heaven. We are eternally bound to His loving being… that is, those who are re-born in Christ Jesus.

I would not want to be a human eternally bound to Him in time, yet under His wrath. Won’t you flee to His mercy today? Romans 1-3 is a good place to start.

Thanks for reading,

Justin

Folded into the Cosmic Blanket: Poem

Where you going? she chirps from the kitchen.

Out for a walk. Want to come? We strap on our sneaks…

The inside walls of our home have grown stale, set,

Like slightly lemon Jello with pieces of fruit stuck inside,

Mouthing horror in their paralyzed, lemony static… yet

The walls outside go for a few billion light years, and we haven’t seen them all yet.

Maybe the outside walls just curve around eternally back to the center, like a big

Little doughnut: packed with sugar, fat, jelly, quasars, nebulae – delicious

Outer-space loveliness overblanketing our broad, echo-less planet.

We’re looking up as we walk out of town, into the verdant chest of America’s farmland,

Seeing the way the mesmerizing moonlight strokes gently the navel of the valley below.

We catch, or are maybe caught by the edge of a cornfield:

The low, early ears listen with us to the diamond box, booming from above –

As some raccoon-wizard stops to wonder at the bi-ped monsters tromping through his territory.

The second book of Revelation, written first, lays open around us; we’re in it, we’re a chapter of it, we’re reading ourselves and reading you as you read us, and the cosmos burns brightly as a sun…

Melting the Jello in the fridge back home.

Credit: Eric Hines from Universe Today

 

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Thanks for reading (us),

-Justin

 

 

Depression vs. the Cosmic Glories

If you’re suffering from any level or any frequency of depression, please hear me. You are not your depression, and your feelings are not an accurate gauge of truth. What do I mean? While you are sunken down in the dark green sea of sadness, the glory of the cosmos remains in motion around you. This world, and the universe inside of which it is hung, are beautiful and majestic… FOR YOU. In what way? So that you may take it in, breathe it in, feel the “bigness” outside of you, and feel the glory of the creation surrounding you, enfolding you, nurturing you.

That’s the way God made things. The earth itself is a miracle of beauty and power – a spinning ball of fiery rock with a living skin that grows food, animals, and splendid forests, which clean our atmosphere. I mean, WOW. We live in a world of staggering wonder!

And for you and me, people who sometimes feel the weight of sadness and human sin – the world was built in order to comfort and soothe us. Would you do something for me the next time you feel depressed? Will you try taking a long-ish walk out somewhere as far from city lights as possible? Just find a road or a forest where you can walk, breathe in deeply, and maybe even talk quietly with God.

Look around you at the little things: the plants, the birds, the shapes of the stones and pebbles around your feet. Notice the big things: the clouds, the trees, the streams or river. Take them in and ponder the glories around you. Then notice the macro-world. You stand on an enormous planet, covered in waterfalls, Chinese people, zebras, glaciers, oceans, mountains, cities… but all of this enormity swallowed up by the true size of a universe around us filled with trillions of stars and galaxies, swirling in obedience to the word of Jesus Christ.

And then notice… that the same Creator who made each detail of the universe from the smallest to the greatest, has not forgotten you. He, in fact, became a man – a hu-man like you and me. He entered into our experience of joy, of eating dinner with Mom and Dad, of learning to read and write, of making friends and losing them, of feeling sorrows and grief, of being a human creature. God became human in order to relate to you and me. He did so out of love and for His fame and glory in the world.

Think of it! The Creator, who was never created, entered into the world to join with us in our human life, to feel our feelings, but even more so, to take our guilt and sin upon Himself when He died on the cross. Somehow, in His perfect way, Jesus became our sin – He became the curse that is on humanity, and He died under the penalty that curse brings. He died for you. The very One who holds together the entire universe died on a Roman death cross to pay our sin debts to God FOR US. He built the universe to wow us, but He died FOR US. He proved His identity once and for all by coming back from the dead, and He lives today forever. Reigning. Loving. Creating and ruling over the world. He sees your pain.

I invite you to look outside of yourself. Into and past the horizon in the sky. Into and past the stars and galaxies. Know you are not alone or unknown. He forgives sinners and makes them His kids. Trust in the Lord Jesus today, for all your needs. You may struggle with depression all your life, but when you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ and confessed to Him your sinfulness, He washes you and forgives you completely. Believe it, and seek Him for a healing of your broken heart. No matter what you feel, the truth is that God so loved the world, that He gave His unique Son – that all those believing in Him would not perish, but have eternal life… and that eternal life is free from all tears and sorrow!

Be sure to click on the “Questions and Comments” page at the top of Interpreting the Cosmos if you have any feedback, or want to ask for prayer for anything.

Grace in Christ,

-Adam

Earth: the Cosmic Gloryground of God

I use Twitter as my only internet social network (less baggage than the others). Recently I saw as evangelist Ray Comfort tweeted a pro-life statement concerning the personhood of the unborn. In reply, a guy called @JimtheAtheist called Ray a “s***stain” and derided him as a fool. I then began to converse with Jim, touching on a number of different subjects surrounding belief and worldview over the course of at least a week. Jim’s very telling final comment in our exchange is here:

See that? It seems he is not so much an atheist, but more of an anti-theist. Jim seems to interpret the cosmos as a universe which could have been created by someone, but if that someone does not fit his idea of what a good God should be like, if He doesn’t speak as Jim feels He should speak, then Jim, (and in extension what seems to be many anti-theists on the march these days), rejects the God of the Bible as the true and rightful ruler of the cosmos and spends his life trying to get others to do the same.

Now I am not trying to pick on Jim for personal reasons – as a matter of fact I appreciate that he is passionate about his worldview. One thing which stinks like 9-day-dead raccoon on a country road is an apathetic, non-thinking person who blows in the wind of what other people tell them to think and do. So Jim gets the badge of honor for at least having a worldview, and for attempting to persuade others to think like he does.

On the other hand, the anti-theists among us are like passionate gnats beating their heads against Mt Everest. The frantic drive to dethrone the Lord of the cosmos will be as successful as an Eskimo selling ice, or even worse. The never-ending conversation between Christians and anti-Christians in the ultimate sense doesn’t matter: in this conflict, either the Bible is truly God’s Word and to believe otherwise is suicide, or there is no God and we will return to the unfeeling dust of the cosmos in a few years, consciousness eternally ceased.

What you or I believe does not change the reality and truth under which we live, whatever that reality may be.

Yet what each of us believes does matter – and it matters forever.

This is the interpretation of the cosmos as we look through the lens of the Bible. So let’s look through the lens of God’s Word to see how God sees you.

Although you are only a speck of cosmic dust, you’ve been created in the image of God and therefore have profound, magnificent dignity as a person. The implications are far-reaching! That means that the most mentally-disabled child who cannot ever work a day in his little life, who offers nothing to his parents and who can only take from society is as valuable as Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, or Mother Theresa.

Because of His valuing of each person, we have inherent dignity. Being created in the image of God is an astonishing honor! It is unique to the human race! When the question of life on other planets comes up, I have no problem believing that there are mind-blowing types of plants and animals scattered around the cosmos on gorgeous planets of teal, green, blue, and purple. Yet the Bible seems to show that the earth is the one and only place in all the unfathomable reaches of the universe which has been set apart as special. It is the stage of God’s redemptive history.

It is indeed the stage where God placed the human race who bears His image – the showpiece of the cosmos!

Privileged, unique, wonderful earth...

But above and beyond all of that, the earth is the place where God the Son poured out His eternal, unspeakable glories and willingly became flesh… even to become a peasant baby born in an animal stable. The eternal Jesus became human, was born of the Virgin Mary, grew up, and walked on this planet. But even beyond that honor, this planet had the blood of the God-Man Jesus shed upon it. He willingly became man, and willingly laid down His pure, perfect life on a Roman death cross in order to pay for the sins of His people. To begin to describe this glory, or further, the glory of His rising from the dead 3 days later, would be to pretend that words can capture infinity.

And yet I write. I write for each of us to spiritually feed and be filled upon the glorious truth of the Bible. The Creator of the cosmos has given us the Word which interprets His cosmos, and which reveals His intimate, personal work among humanity to redeem us from our rebellion against Him.

This Word reveals that Jesus is the Creator of the cosmos, and has become the re-creator of the new humanity in Him. The Bible clearly explains how sin has separated us from Him, and darkened the minds of those who have not trusted in Jesus for their reconciliation to God. He has spoken by His Holy Spirit through the pens of men to reveal a perfect record of His creation and redemption of fallen mankind.

For our friends like @Jimtheatheist, there is absolutely nothing about this which makes sense, or which sounds like salvation. It sounds like nonsense and ridiculousness. Yet the wildest thing is that we are all @Jimtheatheist. He is no worse than me – we are equally fallen and wretched at birth. None of us earns the right to enjoy and have fellowship with the Lord of the cosmos, yet we who are in Christ are better off because of the atonement of Christ Jesus on our behalf, and the application of it to our life by His Holy Spirit. The record of my sin is wiped away – I am a friend of God because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The antitheists would have many contradicting arguments, yet no matter what they say, the Bible is precious because it is God’s Word, and especially because it reveals Jesus. The Bible interprets the cosmos because it was inspired word by word by the Creator of the cosmos. His focus is Jesus, and humanity being gathered together to Him, some for redemption and eternal life, and some for judgment and eternal punishment. If your interpretation of the cosmos leads you away from this central, absolute truth, then I beg you to test your conclusions in the light of God’s truth – His Word the Bible.

If your life does not center on Jesus; His eternal nature as the 2^nd Person of the Triune God, His true humanity as the Messiah/Christ of Israel, His perfect atonement for the sin of all who will trust in Him, His resurrection from the dead for our justification, and His eternal place of glory, reigning as King of the cosmos… then it is time to check your heart and life in submission to Him.

In my future posts, I will get into greater detail about the good news in the Bible – its focus on Jesus; His remarkable, unique life, and His historical truth claims which rocked the world down to our day… always with a reminder of how we should then live and interpret the cosmos.

Thanks for reading,

-Justin

Are You a Radical Bible Skeptic?

Here’s a question you might ask yourself: how much evidence would be enough to satisfy me in demonstrating the Bible as inerrant and perfect in its historicity, and that it is the unique Word of God? Many scholars and ordinary people seem to be demanding, without saying it out loud, that we would need to see recorded footage of the historical events in order to believe the Bible as history. This underlying assumption belies an extreme skepticism which, in order to be consistent, would have to question whether George Washington was really the President of the United States. Is this a description of you? This thinking masquerades as “intellectualism” but is actually shown to be a hard-core presupposed assumption that there can be nothing supernatural in this here cosmos.

Is that you? Do you scoff at the miraculous parting of the Red Sea because “things like that don’t happen”?

If you are a hard-line skeptic, then I suppose even if I could show you film footage of Jesus rising from the dead, that you would object that it was a re-enactment and a hoax. Therefore, I am mainly speaking to those of you who have an open mind to think critically and honestly about the evidence and beauty of the historical and theological records in the Bible. Once the prejudices one is holding have been challenged and discarded, there opens up a cosmic vision of glory and beauty and pleasure which would be impossible for the hardcore skeptic.

So let’s interpret the nature of the Bible… One of the more fascinating ways to check the history of the Bible is to study archaeological finds from the Middle East. A good sampling of sources claim that there are more than 25,000 archaeological finds which confirm just the Old Testament history. Keep in mind that the great majority of the Bible is narrative which can be placed in an historical setting – a specific location, people, and set of events. This opens it up to being scrutinized for accuracy against the archaeological record, (and by the way is a very bold move if you are trying to create a fictional story as if it were true) . You would think that if the biblical authors were making it all up as myth, that there would be scads of digging which would turn up the truth of the matters and overturn the Bible as a reliable history of the cosmos.

Yet that doesn’t happen.

Infamous 19th century atheist skeptic Sir William Ramsay decided to once for all prove the Bible wrong by attacking the book of Luke, archaeologically. His forays into the Middle East and ancient Greek world turned him into a Bible believing Christian after every archaeological study he attempted proved Luke to have been accurate to the greatest detail.

As an example, the Book of Mormon on the other hand is filled with faulty history, even claiming that the Native Americans are the descendents of the Israelite Jews. The Quran also shows itself to be definitively human as the author did not even know what the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was, over 500 years after the completion of the New Testament; claiming that the Trinity according to Christians was Father, Son, and Mary. If the God of the Quran truly was God, then do you think he would know what Christians had believed and preached for hundreds of years?

With all of our archaeological work, we continue to find evidence corroborating the biblical record. 40+ authors writing over the course of 1,500+ years starting almost 4,000 years ago, and their witness is found to be accurate and true. Wow! I love the Bible and its unified, glorious interpretation of the cosmos. Have you looked through it by faith? Or are you continuing to presume that for the Bible to be truly God’s Word, it would have to be truly simple, non-supernatural, and filled with video recordings of the events it depicts?

Besides all of the exciting physical, historical evidence for the biblical record, there is the overriding power of its composition. If and because it is the true, unique Word from the unique God, it is therefore able to transform people as they read it and believe it. This is the witness of God’s Spirit.

In my next post, I will begin to commend the Bible to you as not only the supreme lens through which to interpret the cosmos in general, but the only true and undefiled lens through which to interpret your own self. When you see yourself through the lens of God’s Word, you can also see the beauty and glory of the entire story of redemption, and how it applies to you. I hope you are hungry for delicious, fulfilling truth.

Thanks for reading,

-Justin

The Bible is the Best Telescope

It is the most important conclusion you will ever draw – is the Bible truly God’s Word – and is its testimony about Jesus true? I contend that one cannot know the purpose of the cosmos without it, and therefore one cannot enjoy the pleasures of the cosmos without looking through this unique, supernatural lens.

The Bible says that the reason people do not believe in its divine origin is because of our sin nature, inherited from Adam. If you think that is circular logic, I challenge you to read on with an open mind and be ready to think deeply and to allow the searchlight of God’s truth to pierce the innermost parts of your heart and mind. If I am wrong, you have lost nothing by being open-minded.

The Bible claims to be not just a cosmic lens, but the ultimate cosmic lens. The claim is that humanity is like a bunch of car accident victims with amnesia who walk around looking at the cosmos asking “who am I?”

“Where did I come from?”

“Who are my mommy and daddy?”

“Why do I do the things I do?”

To get the answers to our deepest questions, we need one who was there at the beginning to tell us the narrative of history, because we have forgotten ourselves, and we have forgotten our Maker. We need the direct story from the mouth of the One who spoke it all into existence. We need a supernatural, inspired word from the omniscient Creator.

The claim of the Bible is that when one humbly looks through its lens, the cosmos as a whole is translated and finds proper unity and purpose. Mighty mysteries are solved. Through the lens of the Bible the world of men which each day seems so chaotic and filled with random evil is seen as a perfectly governed realm which has been created to serve and magnify the Creator.

Most importantly, the Bible is all about one central figure, Jesus. The point of all of history and the Scriptures is to reveal Him as the axis upon which the cosmos turns, and the Originator of human history. What you believe about Him is more important than anything else you could ever ponder. This is why your conclusion about the Bible is all-important – it claims that your beliefs about Jesus will determine how you live, and how you are ultimately judged by God. Hebrews 1:3b says “[Jesus] upholds all things by the word of His power.” That means He is God. Believe it or not, that’s the claim.

We have to look at the transcendent glory of the Bible to understand its true nature. The interwoven meta-narrative of the Bible tells of its genius. I have seen the screeds of the critics as they pick apart individual passages and stand as judges over the Bible. Many naysayers gleefully find the culturally strange and macabre parts of the Bible and because of that declare it all to be a fairy-tale, all the while not seeming to consider that it is the story of humanity, which is strange and macabre. “Missing the woods for the trees” would be an understatement here.

When one begins to see by faith through the lens of the Scriptures, written over the course of 1,500+ years, penned by more than 40 different authors from across the spectrum of humanity, and to behold the unity, clarity, and literary masterpiece in our hands, then one begins to draw near to the Author behind the authors. Each passage from Genesis to Revelation is a signpost pointing us to Jesus Christ the glorious Master of the cosmos.

How do we begin to trace out the evidence for all of this? We look at internal consistency: Same God, same attributes from Old to New Testaments. Things written in the Old Testament are echoed in the New, and things revealed in the New were hinted at in the Old. Keep in mind, 40+ authors over 1,500+ years, all writing about the same God, all saying the same things about humanity… but most importantly, all testifying to Jesus either directly or indirectly. Items of seeming discrepancy remain on the surface, but with careful study are seen as the different shaped cogs and gears within the same machine, working together to produce a unified story.

Within the big-picture of consistency and uniformity concerning the message and object of the Bible, there are literally hundreds and thousands of explicit or implicit claims that it is God who is speaking. On its face this proves nothing, but again I exhort you to consider the astonishing fact of many different, dissonant authors claiming the exact same thing on numerous items of discussion. Try getting 40 – 50 people in the same room from even the same time period to all agree completely on anything, let alone the subject of religion and identity of God… good luck.

Democats over Republipups!

Next post I will discuss some of the stunning external evidences which support the historicity of the Bible.

Thanks for reading,

-Justin

Is the Bible a Good Cosmic Lens?

Let's take a closer look

If the Bible is truly the unique and only Word from the unique and only God, then there should be a blog post about it.

Best selling book of all-time, preserved in remarkable fashion, loved by billions, hated by billions, sadly unknown to millions, claiming to be the sole infallible revelation of the sole, reigning, eternal God of the cosmos. Is it a good lens through which to see ourselves and to accurately interpret the cosmos? If it is truly the unique Word of God who is omniscient, then of course it is the lens through which we ought to look to see our world and universe.

Mocked, ridiculed, torn apart by critics, misinterpreted by wild-eyed zealots and politicians, scorned by the elite of the world, scoffed at by many of all classes, embraced to the death by believers, banned by the Roman Catholic Church of the middle-ages, burned by Muslims and Hindus, prohibited by Communists, patronized by the self-righteous and religious, outright dismissed by atheists and the indifferent, and generally controversial to the human race. There is nothing else like it.

So, what is the Bible? Basically, a library… of sorts.It is a collection of the specific, directly inspired, perfectly recorded words which God intended to be written. It stands above any other literature as the sole infallible (can’t be wrong), inerrant (whatever it addresses is perfectly accurate), and sufficient (has every necessary answer for life and godliness) book of absolute truth. There is nothing else like it.

You see, the Bible is different from other religious texts because it was written over 1,500+ years by at least 40 authors. Books like the Qur’an and Book of Mormon were written within the lifetime of one person, dictated or written by them, and which are obviously dependent on human understanding, as there are simple, basic flaws in them concerning history and archaeology (they are not inerrant).

The Bible, on the other hand, is a composition of daunting proportion. It was begun around 4,000 years ago and completed around 2,000 years ago. Its 66 parts/books/letters were written by men who lived in all different places such as Israel, Greece, Italy, modern day Turkey, modern day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and possibly other places. The writers were diverse as well: kings, peasants, farmers, court officials, fishermen, lawyers, doctors, and the list goes on. The focus of each letter could range from a short “hello/exhortation” to a small group of Christians, (3 John), all the way up to an enormous book of songs for a nation to use for 1,000+ years – (Psalms). There is narrative history, poetry, law code, and apocalyptic visions. There is material which would be too gruesome for even an “R” rating at the movie theaters, and yet it is a true and unvarnished look at human history and the redemptive actions of the one true Lord of the cosmos. There is really nothing even close to it.

The one and only...

Let’s be sure that no matter what our conclusion about the Bible, that it is informed, carefully researched, and honest. I have much to learn, yet have been convinced beyond description of the Bible’s perfection as the revelation of the Creator. Though I yearn for the same conviction to visit each of you, I understand it ultimately takes a work of the Holy Spirit to convince someone of what the Bible truly is. I don’t have that power, which actually frees me to speak without needing to bring negatively slanted coercion. Let’s seek the truth!

I will post some more on the Bible in general, and then in future posts move into topics like prophecy, internal and external evidences, etc. I hope you’re hungry to learn and think critically.

Thanks for reading,

-Justin

Reading the Evening Cosmos

The cosmos (universe) is interpreted by 2 avenues: natural (general) revelation and spiritual (special) revelation.

Natural revelation comes as we perceive outer space, our solar system, our planet, and our human society – visible relationships of matter, energy, and people (more or less). For instance, when we look at the order and beauty of the stars, galaxies, and of our biological planet, we logically deduce an origin to these things. We know that we are looking at the effect, so therefore there has to be a cause. Strictly from a natural revelation, we understand somehow, something, or someone had to have begun the cosmos, for matter and energy do not arise spontaneously (as a law of physics).

Spiritual revelation comes by some intelligence other than human which is “above,” transcendent, and outside of our 4 (or so)-dimensional existence, yet is imminent in that “it” or “they” can communicate to us. This concept should not be as controversial as it is, because truly there is no law of logic which is violated to posit a being or beings which are in another form besides matter and physical energy but who are sentient and may willingly engage humanity and be engaged by humanity. Before we ever come to the Bible, or any other mode of receiving spiritual revelation, we can logically understand the possibility and probability of there being a God, and/or other spiritual beings who influence our human society, and who must in some sense have something to do with the origin of the created, or if you like, extant, visible cosmos.

Now because I am not a philosophy student, I have not formally studied epistemology, and I do not pretend to have a scholarly understanding of the various debates concerning these things, I will therefore have to ride the horses of other men from this point. I am openly, honestly revealing to you that I am assuming the detailed, satisfactory explanation of all things epistemological in going forth from my Christian/theist point of view, worldview, and indeed my interpretation of the cosmos. Yet don’t make the mistake of thinking that because I am not schooled in these subjects that therefore I cannot have valid arguments and observations.

For instance, let’s take a person who has never heard of San Francisco and place him on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge during a very heavy fog. He would not be able to see San Francisco or even the entire bridge to the other side, so it would seem he was standing on a road which ends in the cloud just a couple hundred feet out. Yet logically he could deduce that the bridge does connect to the earth on the other side because it stands firm, there are cars coming and going across it, and because bridges are generally built to connect 2 sides of a waterway.

This is the analogy of a half-breed intellectual like me, and probably you if you’re an average kind of person. We only have part of the learning necessary to be called an expert; we are in middle school trying to write a doctoral dissertation. We’re staring into a heavy fog – but everything sensible tells us how that bridge connects. We’re hard-wired with the logic and reasoning which connects the bridge in our mind to the city on the other side. This is how we conceptualize the connection between our physical cosmos and the true nature of the whole. We know there is “more than meets the eye.” We “feel” the reality of a higher control room where decisions are being made which affect us and our world – but those feelings are validated by logic. There is something totally wild about the reality that we are here, alive, parked on a blue and green beach ball 93,000,000 miles from a furnace which is made of its own fuel and is itself a micro speck compared to the space between trillions and trillions of its cousins scattered immeasurably far into the mysterious reaches of space. We stand on the end of the bridge staring into the fog, but everything logical demands we connect the bridge to the other side.

Of course there is a God.

Why hadn’t I thought of that?

And if He, (allowing my presuppositional slip to show), was able to create this cosmos, these people, those flowers, bugs, trees, sky, ocean, etc with order, design, beauty, and predictable, testable laws of consistency… then He must be able to communicate with us.

What would this communication be like? I submit to you all, as so many of my forefathers of the faith have done, that the Bible containing 66 books of Old and New Testament writings is the unique, divine, perfect revelation of that Creator God. The One who is able to breathe the cosmos into existence by sheer fiat is also able and has spoken clearly, logically, and completely to us in His Word the Bible. This we will explore and test on Interpreting the Cosmos. The Bible is the Rosetta Stone to the cosmos. It is the revelation of the Artist and Designer, it is the literature of God, and it alone is in this category.

In a beautiful circle of glory, the Bible points back to the physical cosmos as the “partner in preaching” to the written Word. The physical universe screams out the glories of the eternal, infinite God, and the Bible is where He reveals Himself personally. As a result, His plan and purpose in creating this cosmos is first vaguely imagined by us as we behold the mind-blowing universe, and then confirmed in detail through the redemptive history of the Old and New Testaments.

If this is true, then through this lens of Scripture we ought to be able to understand the cosmos in a consistent, logical way. It may throw people off that the Bible is at once a word-for-word divine revelation and yet a thoroughly human document. The marks and signature of humanity is woven throughout its pages, yet the humanity which wrote claims hundreds if not thousands of times to be the instrument of a speaking, personal God. If the Bible is the breathed-out Word of the only true God, then what it says will be supernatural, super-human, and super-amazing to all who will look into it with childlike eyes.

Won’t you look and be amazed? Let’s interpret the cosmos.

Thanks for reading,

-Adam

Designed to Interpret the Cosmos

Let’s interpret the cosmos. We’ll look through our telescopes into the vast reaches of space and do some exploring. Let’s draw some conclusions from the visible jewel box above and around us. How about we become children again, and allow the nature of the soul within us to begin to bubble with joy at the sight of BIG things. Let’s interpret the world around us, and do our best to make sense of it using the best tools available.

First of all, what’s the reason for interpreting the cosmos? The answer is in the question: because we have reason. Us human beings aren’t like the beasts who see the world but cannot interpret what they see – we have that unique, divine spark which causes self-awareness, wonder, and the desire to worship someone or something. We have reasoning, but when the animals look around at their world, they think “hungry-eat,” or “urge-mate,” or even “seek community,” but they don’t ask questions about their origin (Kung-Fu Panda aside).

Daddy?

Yet it is we humans who automatically do the work of reasoning when we look out into space, around our planet, or at each other. We don’t have to be but a few years old to begin wondering about who put the sun, moon, stars, or our family in place. Why? David well noted in Psalm 19:1

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (ESV)

That’s why. The New Adam Translation reads it: “The universe screams out loud the magnificent genius of God, and the entire cosmos preaches his brilliant design.” It is the same God who painted the universe with endless mystery and enormity who also designed our brain to take it in, but more importantly, our heart which beats to His rhythm. We cannot look into the mind-bending glory of a neighboring galaxy without the echo of worship in the chambers of our heart.

In short, we are bound to interpret the cosmos. We are built to believe in something and someone bigger and more ancient than ourselves. We are designed to understand that something, or someone had to have been “there” before everything else was. My delight and joy – my favorite hobby is to stoke that God-breathed imagination in each of you, and to join you in the resultant exultation of the Creator as we discover facets of His wisdom whose depths reach into the light enveloped eternity in which only infinite Being may stand.

Thanks for reading,

-Adam