Episode 31 - Exploring the Universe through Science, the Tabernacle Model, and Newton's Divinely Inspired Wisdom

Are you ready to embark on a profound journey of worship through science?
Allow your understanding of the universe is about to be reshaped as we illuminate its deep connection with the eternal life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In our exploration, we dissect the meaning behind the tabernacle, a celestial model representing the harmony of heaven and earth, and its implications on the divine plan of creation. Life's challenges are distortions of this divine perfection. Prepare to discover the innate beauty and goodness of the universe, all underpinned by the eternal truths of God.

In our pursuit of universal understanding, we unpack how science plays a pivotal role in Christianity. How does Church serve as the boundary between heaven and earth? And where does unity in Christ figure into all this?
We discuss the wisdom of Isaac Newton, a renowned scientist whose faith in the comprehensibility of the universe and the divine design of the human body came from a profound appreciation of the Bible as the Word of God.

Get ready for a mind-expanding exploration of the universe designed to comprehend the mind of God.

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

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Well, welcome to the next of our Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization Podcasts, and we're about to start on a whole new series looking at the subject of science, and it's something that we'll look at in different forms, in different ways in the coming months and weeks, if the living God allows us to do that. But we'll begin by looking at some of the foundational issues or the big perspective that we need to have to approach this subject of science. Science the word science means knowledge, and all knowledge is founded on the knowledge of God. All science is founded on the science of God. The very fact that there is a universe that is real, rational and reliable is founded on the eternal life of the Father, son and Holy Spirit. The fact that we are made in the image of this God, with minds that can make sense of the entire heavens and earth, with bodies that are capable of experiencing and experimenting, with hearts that are passionate to understand far beyond ourselves. All of this is founded on the existence of this living God. But how can there be a science of God, how can there be knowledge of God at all? How can we ever discover or imagine the living God in whom we live and move and have our being. Human beings have created all kinds of idols with their hands and, worse, often, with their minds, whether crass wooden statues or sophisticated intellectual abstractions. Through his grace and kindness, the living God has spoken and put an end to all speculation.

Speaker 1: 3:00

The eternal Son was sent from the Father to redeem his people from slavery In Egypt, and he brought the ancient church to worship this living God at Mount Sinai. There, the Son taught them how to think of God. He gave them a model of God, the heavens and the earth, and it was the tabernacle with its furniture. The tabernacle was a building that represented the whole creation, both the heavens and the earth. The most basic foundational truth about the reality, reliability and rationality of the heavens and the earth was given to humanity in that tabernacle model. By that model, we are assured that, as confusing and vast as the universe seems to be, yet it is all capable of being represented in a simple model, that basic rules and explanations can genuinely grasp the whole of it, that both the heavens and the earth are made of the same sort of material. In other words, the heavens are not eternal or spiritual or angelic or divine. Without the tabernacle model of the heavens and the earth, it's doubtful that we could ever have imagined something like the scientific project at all. It's inconceivable for human beings to have that kind of integrated rationality, that is of a cosmic scale, without the tabernacle at the centre of church life.

Speaker 1: 5:17

However, before that building was made, the ancient church first made three pieces of furniture. Well, they were instructed to make first of all three pieces of furniture the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the Father in Heaven. The Table of the Presence, which represented God, the Son, as bread as well, and then the Oil Lamp, which represented the Holy Spirit. Before the foundation of the universe, the one living God lived in perfect unity and joy. Before the universe, the eternal Son eternally expressed and obeyed His Father's will in joy and power through the Holy Spirit for infinite ages. And that's what's being shown in the fact of making those three pieces of furniture before making a model of the universe. It's the crucial foundation for everything in all creation.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Before any creature existed, the life and the mind of the Father had already been perfectly and fully expressed by His Son in the power of the Spirit. Even the infinite life of God had been comprehensively understood by the Word of God, the Eternal Lord Jesus, every idea or category of life and thought had been stored up, expressed, perfected in Christ, in the eternal life of God. Maths, language, philosophy, music, science, history, technology, art, law, theology, every other field of life and study was already all it could ever be in God, the Son in all eternity, from all eternity. Just allow that to sink in for a minute, to chew on that, meditate on it. The infinite life of God had already been comprehensively understood by God the Son. He is the eternal image of this invisible God, the perfect expression of the Father in the power of the Spirit, and everything that, all the things we think about in maths and art and language and science, and everything already perfectly expressed and comprehended in Him eternally. Therefore, when the Father created the heavens and the earth through the Son in the power of the Spirit, the deep truth, order and life of the creation was founded on that eternal life of God. Language was given to Adam and Eve from the beginning. Order, number and structure was written into the cosmos. Music was played as creation was formed. Beauty was graciously shared with the heavens and the earth. Purpose and meaning was breathed into every particle and every moment.

Speaker 1: 9:32

So, after making these three foundational pieces of furniture, then the ancient church built the tabernacle, the model of the universe, and placed the furniture within. And to begin with, that building of the tabernacle that represented the heavens and the earth, the whole of reality, earth and the three heavens, all of that represented by the tabernacle. To begin with, that building was undivided. It wasn't two rooms, it was just one room. If you see the sequence of how things are built first the three pieces of furniture and time to meditate on them, then a single room that represents the heavens and the earth, undivided, showing that in the original divine plan of creation there was to be no division between heaven and earth. And that's vital to remember, because the problems and frustrations we find in every area of life and thought are corruptions of the original gift of creation.

Speaker 1: 10:56

The heavens and the earth were declared to be very good, founded on the eternal fountain of life and truth and beauty and goodness that is the life of God, flowing from the Father, the source of the divine life, through the Son, by the power of the Spirit. So, just as Jesus is the eternal expression of all that the Father is and thinks and wills, so in the creation of the heavens and the earth, it is Jesus, god, the Son, the eternal Son, who holds it all together. He is the light of the world, the one who gives logic, purpose, structure, meaning to everything. He is the great high priest of all creation. He alone is the mediator between God and humanity, between the creator and the creature. The infinite life of God is comprehended and expressed only in God. The Son and so created life was given a genuine experience of the unity and variety of the eternal life of God through Jesus, by the power of the Spirit and then in the construction of the tabernacle. In the next phase of that construction process, a curtain was placed in the tabernacle to divide it into two rooms a smaller inner room representing the highest heaven, and the outer room representing earthen. Well, the ark was placed in the inner room, showing that the Father has established his throne in the highest heaven. The table of the presence and the oil lamp were placed in the outer room to show that the Father has sent his Son and his Spirit to redeem his people and renew the world.

Speaker 1: 13:35

So, even when we are sent into exile, two persons of the Trinity, two of the underlying realities of the living God, come with us into exile, but we cannot see God, the Father. He is, at least at the moment. In this time of crisis, this present darkness, this passing age, we cannot see God, the Father, and we experience alienation from the life of God, from the fountain of deity, and the curse of vanity is on the creation. The bondage of death and decay hangs heavy over everything Lost in the darkness, exiled from the fountain of divine life. On this side of the curtain, nothing really makes sense to us anymore. We can see the order, the beauty, the life, the unity, the variety of created existence, but we cannot hold it all together anymore. In opposition to the great High Priest, our minds are darkened, our desires are deceitful and our emotions are chaotic. With hard hearts and closed minds, we suppress the truth around us and invent all kinds of idols to try to take the place of the great High Priest, who alone can give us life and light.

Speaker 1: 15:40

So life under the curtain is a life of darkness, death and decay. It's an existence of confusion, chaos and crisis. Yet the Father still sent his Son, filled with the Spirit, to carry on as the great High Priest over all creation. Jesus is the Christ, the man filled with limitless life, still holding everything together. He came to join our fallen life under the curtain. From his bleeding side he is one flesh and one bone with his bride, church, and by his death and resurrection he has ascended up to the highest heaven, still joined to us. Yes, even now, as we live under the curtain, our life is hid with Christ in God, on that other side of the curtain, in the heavenly realms, in the creation, as it is supposed to be, where the will of the Father is already done. When we join church by trusting Jesus, by being baptized into his body and having fellowship with him in bread and wine, when we do that and become part of church, we start to live on both sides of the curtain, still torn and tempted in this passing age, but also joining in the worship of the heavens, longing for the curtain to be torn down.

Speaker 1: 17:53

And with that in mind, we just note that one final piece of furniture that was also placed in the tabernacle, the altar of incense, which represents church, and this was placed right against the curtain, in the very centre of the other three pieces of furniture. So if you can imagine the Ark of the Covenant in the highest heaven in that inner room, and then the table and the oil lamp in the outer room and they sort of form a triangle. Right at the centre of that triangle is this table or this altar of incense, which would be right against the curtain, right adjacent to the curtain, in the very middle. And so church is at the very heart of the life of God, right on the boundary between heaven and earth, at the very centre of the universe. And so and we've not forgotten that, the issue here is science, how to have knowledge of the universe, genuine knowledge. So, if that is true, well, it is true that church is situated on the very boundary of heaven and earth, contained within the life of the Trinity, and, as Hebrew says, that altar of incense belongs to the inner room, belongs to the fountain of life, that is, the father, the control centre of the universe.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Because all that is true, as church we really can begin to make sense of everything. In Jesus, the great high priest, we teach his word and sing psalms to one another, renewing our minds as we begin to think like him. We put off the old, futile, foolish life and we put on his new life of logic and light, and so the creation begins to make sense again and we begin to see how music, maths, language, science, art, history, everything holds together in Jesus. And yet we look forward. Of course it's not as if that is everything and we can see the meaning and purpose and logic of all things instantly and everything is completely clear to us. No, we look forward to the day when our great high priest will return from the highest heaven and turd down the curtain. Just as Christ will be married to his bride, so heaven and earth will be joined together on that great day of God.

Speaker 1: 21:17

But now already we begin to see something of the potential of the universe of art, maths, science, language, history. But then we will see how they can truly flourish without the bondage of death or decay, or sorrow or sin. Now our works always have the stain of selfishness and sin cast over them and the shadow of death is never far away. We can only do a little bit, comprehend a little bit. When we can all be united together forever by our heads, the great high priest, the chief musician, the commander of the host, the divine bridegroom, when he unites us all together with his resurrection life in a united universe where there is no barrier, no curtain, then we will all be shown how to use our gifts of the spirit to the full in harmony with one another for the long term, with all the variety that he gives and the unity that only he can bring. Then we will see what the infinite life of God might really look like when expressed in creatures who are fully joined to the eternal sun, body, soul, spirit for all eternity. Then the adventure of humanity can really begin. Just as he has known and expressed that infinite divine life from all eternity, so as the great high priest joined to us, he will show his church how to live that and express it forever and ever.

Speaker 1: 23:35

So, with all that background in mind, we begin to understand science. What is this about? Why is it so powerful, this Christian project of knowledge of the creation? Well, ephesians, chapter 1, verse 22, tells us that Jesus fills everything in every way. This is true of the scientific ideal of trying to understand the heavens and the earth. Science is the quest for knowledge and understanding of the earth and the heavens. As we've said, the word science is from this Latin word, schientia, which means knowledge.

Speaker 1: 24:39

I like these quotations, and I've got loads of them for the subject of science. I'm going to start with three little quotations from Sir Isaac Newton, who I might do a whole episode on him. He's a complicated figure but he's primarily a theologian. When you know him really, as he understood himself, he's primarily a theologian, secondarily a kind of mathematician or scientist. That, for him, was his side hustle. His main thing is theological understanding. But he's known generally in popular culture as because in our age maths and science are considered far superior to theology.

Speaker 1: 25:33

In a post enlightenment age, theology is considered to be just a matter of opinion. Really, it's, it's, it's it's got. No, it's not, it's not something to be taken seriously, it's something like well, yeah, you know, if you want to believe that, that's fine, that's your personal opinion, but facts, facts, that's maths and science and so on. So Sir Isaac Newton, classified as a mathematician or scientist, makes him taken, if any is taken seriously in society. But if he was understood to be a theologian he wouldn't be taken seriously.

Speaker 1: 26:12

And I remember there was that famous example of this when Richard Dawkins was in a discussion at a dinner at Oxford University and one of the scientists said was recognizing that they had come to, they were arriving at, obviously the limits of what was what they could explain with scientific method, that, or least they felt that, and they sort of gestured towards a clergy person, a theologian, and just said oh well, at this point we must defer to you. And then sort of this idea that theology had a sort of higher level of competence. And Richard Dawkins was outraged by this is if, as if any serious knowledge could be obtained from a theologian. And he said you may as well ask the caretaker or or the cook, or the chef or or the gardener, like, what possible value is there in consulting a theologian for actual knowledge? I always remember that story because it was just spectacularly illustrative of a post Enlightenment worldview. Anyway, we digress.

Speaker 1: 27:31

The point is Isaac Newton, his three quotations from him. He said God created everything by number, weight and measure. Again, the reason that's helpful is just that sense of his total conviction that the universe can be comprehended with the tools given to us. Again here's another one, and like this one, isaac Newton said, in the absence of any other proof, the thumb, like on a human hand, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence. And again, the cities. He's noticing the sheer design, functionality and wonder of the human thumb is caught up into into kind of worship over that.

Speaker 1: 28:27

And then here's the third one which, again fascinating in terms of and were how he sees himself, how we saw himself and what he thought was worth consulting in order to be a great scientist. He said this I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the word of God written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily. Isaac Newton said that, and again, where we'll come more to that later, let's carry. Look, science is founded on the radical truths that the physical world is real, reliable and rational, that the human body and the human mind are also real, reliable and rational, and that the world and the human mind are so designed for one another that these tiny creatures on planet Earth can genuinely come to understand the mind of the living God, displayed and written into his creation. Well, that's enough for us for this introductory time. There's lots to get into in our next session.