Biblical cosmology is the study of the origin, structure, and purpose of creation. Biblical cosmology gives us the ‘Big Picture’ of things. And, I would like to convince you just how practical big-picture thinking really is. Biblical cosmology gives us God’s glory story—answering the question: why is there a cosmos with people and angels in it? God’s glory story is designed to stagger you, to move you to awe. . .because you were created for this glory. That means if you attempt to slog along in your Christian walk, just grinding out duty and ‘thou shalt nots’, you will feel like you are wearing a yoke. But, when you are feeding on divine glory, it makes obedience easy. Lord willing, I want to make a case in this article that biblical cosmology is an ‘observatory’ for God’s glory.
God’s story is the story of reality itself, and it His ‘glory story’ because His story reveals His perfections, excellence, and majesty—all of the ‘beams’ of His glory ultimately shine through in His story. God’s story is filled with key players, we humans whom He has designated: ‘the image and likeness of God’—the creatures He has made for Himself. Human history is ‘His Story’ because the history of our planet is the backdrop, or stage so to speak of redemptive history.
The revelation of God’s story begins in the book of Genesis. God filled the creation with the endless wonder of marvelous design and beauty—from molecular structure, to distant galaxies that dwarf our own solar system. He created plants, animals, fragrant flowers, delicious fruits, bubbling clear springs, crystal gardens, the songs of birds, and interwoven eco-systems. His final act of creating was to form man and woman and to place them in a garden paradise.
God also formed another kind of creature, not made in His image, but also glorious; He created the angels. These ‘spirit beings’ have no corporeal existence (no physical bodies), yet, are mighty in beauty, power, and glory. They were made to serve a different function than human beings. As guardians of God’s glory and order, they serve Him in worship and oversight—carrying out His will. But, the highest of these spirit beings defected from God (Is 14; Ez 28). Lucifer rebelled against God, corrupted himself, and became God’s archenemy.
God allowed this fallen angel to tempt and test our first parents with a lie. For, without a test, man’s character, service, and worship are not confirmed (as in a free and committed choice). EX. It is interesting, in my missions work in the country of Nepal, my contact pastor has arranged over 20 marriages between believers. But, even in these arranged marriages, the potential bride always has the option of declining the young man’s offer of marriage. Her decision to love this man ‘until death’ involves her decision being confirmed in a choice.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent’s temptations were insinuations attacking the very integrity God’s Word. (Read Genesis 3:1-5.) Like the offer of the ‘red pill’ in the movie, The Matrix, the evil one had devised his own ‘red pill’ by which he proposed an alternate story to God’s revealed Word (but ingesting the serpent’s story resulted in blindness, not sight). The evil one sought to persuade our first parents that his fictitious story was ‘reality’ and God’s story was not. In the serpent’s narrative, eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would supposedly open Adam’s and Eve’s eyes to reality. Partake, promises Lucifer, and you will find out what is really going on!
The dialog the devil set up in the Garden is cast in language which suggests that God is withholding something good from our first parents. But the facts are the God placed the first couple in a paradise, a setting of incredible bounty. ‘The facts be damned’ hisses the serpent; as he casts suspicion upon God’s character. And, at the same time, he describes sin as a forbidden treat, something that will make our first parents happy, even though prohibited by our Creator by threat of death. Adam’s test was in a context of paradise, with every need met, with the endowment of strength (with the ability to resist temptation), and with the surroundings of endless beauty and stimuli. By contrast, Christ Jesus, the last Adam, faced His testing in a wilderness, with real deprivation, hunger, opposition, and bodily weakness.
In the Garden of Eden, the evil one sought to make the forbidden fruit attractive by means of an alternate story—a story where God was the oppressor, and Lucifer, was the deliverer from that oppression. The devil depicts God as punitive, stingy, miserly—and, so personally threatened by human potential that He makes idle threats of death as the punishment for eating the fruit.
Thus, the serpent plays the role of a liberator and a guru, “Not only will eating the fruit not result in death, it will actually be your entrance into knowledge, freedom, and liberty from God’s dominion over you.” “Be done with divine’s control over you through His idle threats meant to scare you!” “You will not die if you eat, but the very opposite will take place; you will enter your pathway of equality with God—you will be able to transcend your creaturehood, and take charge of your own lives.” “Isn’t it time you decide good and evil, and right and wrong for yourselves—and no longer live under someone’s thumb?” This is the inner sentiment of every person who does not fear God.
This alternate story told by Lucifer was the first exercise in relativism— instead of truth being universal because of God’s authority standing behind it, ‘truth’ became relative to the individual. THE LIE: “After all, why can’t we decide which view of life suits us best by having more than one story to choose from?” “Isn’t that freedom—to choose which story seems best to us?” “Isn’t it oppressive to have just one story to be received unconditionally.” Eve reaches for the fruit in an act which smacks of empiricism—in other words, she places Lucifer and God on the same level. And, rather than placing her faith in God’s infallible Word, she puts herself in the driver’s seat as the final arbiter of truth. She will ‘run her own test’—if she eats and becomes a god, fine, if she dies, it was worth the risk.
My friends, God’s story is the story of reality. He created the characters in His story—people and angels. He formed the cosmos out of nothing—He is the Author of life. He stamped human DNA on lifeless dust and breathed the breath of life into it. The definition of reality comes from God alone. It cannot come from inside the universe any more than a bug in a jar can explain the boy holding the jar. God is Creator, Owner, Ruler, Sustainer, and Definer of what He has made—these elements are central to His glory story. He is the fixed authoritative point of reference for all reality.
Lucifer’s alternate story drove an immense wedge into the heart of man. The ‘wedge’ had a corrupting effect upon man’s intellect. It opened up a gash, or chasm in man’s perception. As if peering through a distorting lens (like carnival house of mirrors), man no longer saw God’s glory and human good operating together. After the fall into sin, the divine glory and human good were regarded as antithetical. That was the effect of the lie. Man trusted himself and became suspicious of God. Man’s fallen intellect reasoned as follows: since God’s glory is hostile to man’s highest good, then man has every right (even a duty) to choose autonomy, to break free from this ‘untrustworthy’ God whose glory opposes and best man’s interests and potential (that’s the essence of the unregenerate mind).
Now, as a result of rebellion, this present world is filled with darkened souls who regard the depraved human condition as ‘normal’. By contrast, those who have received the gospel light of the knowledge of God believe God’s testimony about man—that the human condition is the love of darkness (Jn 3:19-21). Christ-followers understand that sin and death came into the world as a tragic intrusion. This present world is not normal! Man’s willful breaking fellowship with God broke mankind, and broke the world. Understanding this primeval defection from God is a vital part of God’s plot—man’s revolt was the misuse of liberty and freedom, and the overt rejection of his created purpose to reflect, know, obey, enjoy, worship and serve his great God.
Our Creator made us in His image and likeness, the evil one sought to deface that image by leading man into rebellion, transgression, and idolatry. The evil one waged war against God by seeking to pervert the image of God through the worship of the creature and the creation, Romans 1:25). God’s glory story is about the rescue of man who had sinned against his Maker and had marooned himself in an impossible dead-end of guilt, condemnation, bondage and alienation. God’s plot is about the reclamation of His image—thus, the reclamation of His glory in the recovery of His own image.
As rebels and transgressors, our restoration to our created purpose must involve the restoration of the glory of God to us which we forfeited by our sin (Rom 3:23). Thus, to be recovered by Christ, our Rescuer, is to be endowed again with the ability to behold, love, reflect, and live for God’s glory as our cause. This is the recovery of our created purpose! God, in reclaiming His image in us, is glorified as we recover our relationship to His glory (2 Cor 3:18; 4:6).
But, God does not seek to reclaim His image and glory in us by means of an executive pronouncement: “Let there be. .” that would not fully reveal His perfections His divinely ordained reclamation campaign requires a fully qualified rescuer who has the power and ability to repair what is broken. 2000 years ago, the Son of God entered a cursed and fallen world in order to make that repair. He came as an infant, born into the world as we are. He did not come in blazing glory, but humbly, as a suffering servant (Is 53:3; Lu 2:7; Gal 4:4-5).
In order to make the repair, He had to undergo what He referred to as a ‘baptism’, but this was His submersion into divine wrath (Jn 12:49-53). His obedience to the Father took Him all the way to death on a Roman cross (Phil 2:5-8). His perfect life, His atoning sacrifice, His identity as Son of God and Son of man means He is perfectly and uniquely qualified to accomplish our rescue. How wonderful is our Rescuer—He is both sacrifice and High Priest (Heb 9:14).
The laying down of His life—purchased His ‘equipment’ to save to the uttermost (Heb 7:25). And His ‘equipment’ to rescue and save, is His glory (‘equipment’ is a good word, J. Edwards). He came to seek and to save that which was lost (Lu 19:10). He will save all those given to Him by the Father; they will trust Him and entrust themselves to Him (Jn 6:39; 17:1-2). At the apex of God’s story is the paradox of the cross. Marvel of marvels, the weakness, shame, injustice, ignominy, bloody death, and resurrection of our Lord is the means by which members of Adam’s fallen race are recovered. Since our Lord is our suffering Substitute, Christ’s Person and work is the ‘sphere’ in which our dead souls are vivified and raised up in salvation (Col 2:10-14). All of our Rescuer’s work is vicarious—accomplished in our place—His death is our death to sin; His resurrection is our resurrection to newness of life (Rom 6:4-10).
When His Person and work are revealed to the sinner by the Spirit of God, the soul is flooded with the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). The innate darkness in the soul by reason of the devil’s alternate story is evicted. In a moment of time, by the ‘sight’ of this glory, a person comes to know God. For, the Person of Christ and His cross-work reveal the saving knowledge of God (Rom 3:24-26). To know God is to worship, love, obey and serve Him without constraint or pressure. To know God is to possess eternal life (Jn 17:3).
The remarkable plotline of God’s story is that the depth of the brokenness of the world’s inhabitants is answered by the uniqueness of Jesus.i God is jealous of His own image in man, an image created to reflect the rays of His moral majesty. In fact, our creational identity as the image of God says a great deal about who we are, and our purpose, and meaning. (ii)
The rescue of Adam’s race is about the formation of a ‘new humanity’ built upon, rescued by, and represented by the ‘last Adam’, Christ Jesus. Oh, to realize that God has not desisted from His original purpose of making man in His image and likeness—but now He is making men and women in His image by making them new creatures in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). Prior to Christ’s incarnation, the perfect image of God had not been on earth for more than 4 millennia (not since unfallen Adam and Eve) (Col 1:15). Now those rescued by Christ make up a new humanity, complete in Christ, their Head (Col 2:10). Christ, our Rescuer is the destroyer of Lucifer’s deeds and story (Jn 8:32; 1 Jn 3:8). By this destruction of sin, Christ delivers His people (Eph 2:7; 5;8; Heb 2:14-18; Rev 1:5-6).
God’s generous, self-giving nature, His propensity to share Himself is fully expressed in the giving of His Son (Jn 3:16). God gives Himself by the giving of His Son in order that the rescued creature become like his Rescuer (like Christ). How remarkable, so perfectly effectual is Christ’s work, that the believing lawbreaker is adopted into God’s forever family by the Lawgiver Himself—all because of the merits of the Rescuer. Adam’s one deed plunged the race into darkness, death, and decay. Christ’s ‘one act’ of obedience at Calvary brought life and immortality to light (1 Cor 15:21; 2 Tim 1:9-10). “So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:17-19).
God’s story does not terminate upon what we are rescued from, but rather what we are rescued to (or unto). For with the matchless gift of Christ, our Rescuer, comes the matchless gift of being made like Him (Rom 8:29; 2 Thess 2:13-14). That divine promise of being conformed to Christ is necessary for us to fully recover our created purpose. For, conformity to Christ ultimately enables us to enjoy God in His presence perfectly, to worship God flawlessly, and to serve God superbly.
The application of our message this evening is about finding your story in God’s story. As we are seeing, God’s story does not belong in some upper story ethereal category, His story encompasses the cosmos and its origin, history, and destiny. Biblical cosmology anchors God’s redemptive plot to the creation and to time-space history. If you do away with biblical cosmology, you are left with Christianity as an upper story spiritual philosophy severed from the cosmos itself. This is how the Gnostics thought; they couldn’t cope with Jesus’ physicality, His real human nature. But, what does the Bible say? If sinners are to be redeemed, then Christ Jesus, our Representative must suffer in a real human nature (Phil 2:5-11). And He must obey on our behalf in a real human nature. And, if the creation was cursed because of the rebellion of a real man, Adam, then the creation can only be restored and delivered from its curse by the obedience of a real man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Sinners can only become right with God and ultimately rule with Christ if they are severed from the rotten stock of Adam and joined to the righteous root of Christ (Titus 3:5).
The restoration of the image of God in us is actually joined to the restoration of the entire cosmos itself. This astonishing climax of God’s story is made possible because our Rescuer did His work as ‘the last Adam’—as our representative and substitute. He reversed the ruin caused by the first Adam. Christ’s resurrection is the Father’s stamp of approval of our Rescuer’s work on our behalf. And, Christ’s resurrection is the promise and warranty of a New Heavens and a New Earth (2 Pet 3:10-13).
These spiritual realities which make up the major beats of God’s story are beyond the comprehension of the natural man who is still in darkness (1 Cor 2:14). And regarding our natural blindness, due to our natural state of darkness in Adam, we cannot possibly diagnose our condition on our own. We are just too familiar and comfortable with our habitual law-breaking to be shocked by it. But, Christ the rescuer has a solution; He sends the Holy Spirit to lay our hearts bare. The Spirit exposes the plague of sin that is attached to the inner man. The Spirit is sent to establish a guilty verdict of condemnation so that the descendants of Adam will see the beauty of, and need for the Rescuer.
This same Spirit quickens whomever He will (new birth) (Jn 3:8), causing that man or woman to flee to Christ in moral trust and reliance (Jn 1:12; 6:37). Then, God’s Spirit comes to reside in that person—thus fulfilling God’s original vision or purpose to form an order of creatures in His image who would find their highest joy and purpose in serving as God’s sanctuary and dwelling place (Eph 2:19-22; 1 Pet 2:4-5).
My friends, God’s glory story (the drama of redemption) is not God trying to make the best of a bad situation. No, redemption in Christ is God glorifying His grace through the gospel (Eph 1:6ff.). This is God’s plan; it is His purpose of the ages. “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him” (Eph 3:8-12). God’s redemptive plot will reveal, and ultimately exhibit His divine perfections so that they are made sensible to the rational universe (to holy angels and redeemed men and women). We have a story to tell to the nations. God is putting His glory on display by reconciling sinners to Himself through His Son.
If you are joined to Christ, then God has called you to find ‘your story’ in ‘His story’. And here is God’s story: the two greatest gifts ever given in time and eternity are these: God’s gift of Christ to sinners, and God’s gift of the elect (the church) to Christ. The first gift is the giving of the Son, the second is the giving to the Son. The giving of these two gifts is at the heart of God’s glory story, or God’s plot. Every true believer, every saved man or woman has been drawn by God into His plot, His story. This is a matter of sovereign grace, for no one will come to the Father unless he or she is drawn by the Father (Mt 11:25-27; Jn 6:44). Being brought into God’s story or plot is all of grace; to have seen the glory of God in the face of Christ is to have been effectually invited into God’s plot (2 Cor 4:6).
Now, the giving of these two gifts: Christ for sinners, and the church to Christ, is the most clear revelation of who God is. For, in the giving of these gifts, and in the gifts themselves, we see God’s perfections and attributes revealed. The person who proclaims and teaches the gospel knows this to be true, and therefore commits him or herself to the great privilege of explaining how these gifts glorify God the Giver, and how these two gifts create a forever, immutable family—known as the ‘sons of God’ (Rom 8:21-23).
What does it mean to live in light of these two gifts; to have one’s life controlled by these two gifts? It means that you, having been brought into God’s plot, will find your story in God’s story. You will find your ultimate purpose and identity in God’s story. What you live for will be based firmly upon God’s redemptive plot—His story (2 Cor 4:16-18; Col 3:1-4ff.). Therefore, the cream of your time, talent, resources, desires, and affections will be plowed into God’s plot, His story. Your affections and spiritual sight will be clearly fixed upon God’s redemptive story. And, therefore, in possessing genuine, God-given faith, your story will issue forth in a lifestyle of righteousness, love, and service.
My friends, there are no sidelines in God’s plot—every man and every woman’s ‘story’ is being written day by day. What you believe, love, worship and serve is daily constructing your story. And, your story will someday be read publicly when God reveals ‘the secrets of men’s hearts’ (Rom 2:16). This issue of finding your story in God’s story is truly ‘for all the marbles’—in other words for eternity. When your story is read publicly on Judgment Day, what you have trusted, desired, and invested in will be revealed. What you have served and worshipped will be ineffably, inescapably manifested. It will be graphically demonstrated whether or not each person’s story was shaped by God’s glory story. It will be shown who lived by faith in the Word of God—whose heart proved (by grace) to be good, fruit-bearing soil (Mt 13:23).
Scripture commands us to test ourselves and examine ourselves to see if we truly be of the faith (2 Cor 13:5). It is vital to perform this test. Are we daily finding our purpose, comfort, and goal in God’s story? Are we consciously giving ourselves back to Christ daily, presenting ourselves to Him in response to the first gift—the gift of Christ to sinners. “. . .do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (Rom 6:11-13)? And, are we responding to the second gift, the gift of the Church to Christ by building up the Church, the Body of Christ through edification, and service? Are we yearning to see Christ formed in the members of His body—and taking action unto this end (Gal 4:19; Col 1:28-29)? Only if we are serving Christ by presenting ourselves back to Him and building up His body can we honestly say that we are finding our story in God’s story.
God’s story shows us that at the heart of the universe is infinite love—it is love perfectly expressed in these two glorious gifts God has given (Christ to sinners, and the church to Christ). To have tasted this divine love once, through the redemption that is in Christ is to taste that love forever (Eph 3:14-19). And to have tasted this love is to love the people of God, one’s ‘forever brethren’—those given to Christ—the glorious second gift (Rom 15:1-4; 1 Tim 1:5; Gal 5:6; 1 Jn 4:10, 19). To love Christ who is given to us, is to love the people given to Christ (1 Jn 4:7-9). And to love the people given to Christ is to gladly be spent in building up His body, the church. Is that your story?
End Notes:
i Greg Koukl, The Story of Reality, pp. 173-179
ii Ibid, pp. 90-94