Jesus Christ our Saviour

REASONS FOR BELIEVING (5)

Jesus Christ our Saviour

Introduction

Who is Jesus Christ? Why did he come? What relevance does he have for us, as we begin the third millennium since his birth? The future of Christianity, of the Church, and indeed of the whole of the human race, depends on the answer to these questions.

This is an age of enormous development in human and scientific knowledge. We live in a world which has been transformed by science and technology. Back in the 1920s the philosopher A.N. Whitehead wrote:

“When we consider what religion is for mankind, and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them.”1

However, we can and must formulate this question in an even more radical way. What is the relationship between the universe, as revealed to us by science, and Jesus Christ, the greatest, most remarkable religious teacher the world has ever known, and who claimed to be the Son of God?

This is not an idle question, nor just a question for those who happen to have a philosophical turn of mind. Unless people can see that Jesus makes sense of our twenty-first century scientific world, they will not follow him; they will not find true life and fulfilment and happiness in him.

It is the unique characteristic of mankind that although we live in the physical universe—indeed we can trace our material origins back through the evolution of life and the physical development of matter, all the way back to the Big Bang itself—yet we yearn for something more than matter, something greater. To show that Jesus Christ is the meaning and fulfilment of mankind, we will need to show that he is the full answer to that yearning, the utter fulfilment and joy of that higher, spiritual aspect of man. But further, we will need to show that he is the meaning of the entire universe itself.

The Perennial Denial

Atheism, and the purely secular approach to life it inspires, gives no answer to the meaning of the universe.  Faced  with  the  magnificent development of  the  universe  and  the  evolution  of  life— processes bursting with intelligence, scientific wisdom, and purpose—it asserts that there is absolutely no reason for their existence. There is thus a contradiction at the heart of so-called ‘scientific’ atheism, which recognises a wonderful, meaning-filled universe, but denies the Intelligent Mind which gives it meaning.

Atheism and secularism also deny that man is anything more than matter. This again is a totally inadequate understanding of human nature. Our secular cultures have resulted in the loss of inner peace and joy from human beings. They have produced the restlessness and the anxiety of a society without God. The inner wellsprings of mankind are not being addressed. We see this only too clearly in the increase in family breakdown, in crime, lawlessness and the feelings of guilt and hopelessness that such secularism brings to us. We are a society of “scientific giants” but “moral and spiritual pygmies.”2 There is more to human nature than is dreamt of in these negative, selfish, and nihilistic philosophies and ways of life.

The Search for God

In contrast to atheism and secularism, the various world religions do acknowledge the importance of religious questions and attempt to address the spiritual yearning within human beings. Religion witnesses to the fact that man is indeed a spiritual being. The existence of religion in every society on earth shows that people yearn for more than material things. Thus even the non-Christian religions prove the truth of Jesus’ saying, that “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matt 4:4, cf. Deut 8:3) These religions are also, therefore, living witnesses to the emptiness of secularist and atheist cultures.

However, not all religions are the same. None of the non-Christian religions have any claim comparable to that of Jesus Christ—that he is true God and true man, and that the very universe itself was made for him alone. Thus they do not have within them the breadth of vision to ‘synthesise’ or show the coherence and unity of science and religion. In other words, they cannot link up God’s work of creation and his work of salvation. Unless we can do this, religion will continue to be seen by many as an irrelevance in a seemingly secular world.

God’s Plan for Creation

It  is  central  to  the  vision  of  Christianity  presented  here  that  Jesus  Christ  cannot  be  properly understood outside the context of God’s seamless plan for creation from the beginning. In other words, Jesus is not an add-on to the natural world—a second thought, as it were, in the Mind of God. He is absolutely essential to the meaning of the universe: without him our lives, our world, even the whole of evolution would be incomplete. To say otherwise would be to deny the unity and coherence of God’s wisdom and love. It would also render the created order ultimately irrelevant to Jesus, or, even worse, render Jesus irrelevant to us creatures. If Jesus is the meaning of man—and this is the Christian claim—he must also be the meaning of the universe.

The first four pamphlets in this series have attempted to present this vision in some detail. However it is worthwhile summarising their findings here, to bring out how the whole of creation finds its culmination and meaning in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Creation through Evolution 3

Science and human reason reveal to us a universe of cause and effect, of harmony and balance. Everything in  the  universe  exists  in  mutual  relationship  with  its  environment. The universe is governed by natural laws, which we discover as the ‘laws of science’. At the deepest level these laws are seen to link up into a single unified law or Unity-Law. The universe is also not static but dynamic. It manifests a clear line of development from the simplicity of the Big Bang, through the appearance of galaxies, stars and planets, and through the emergence and evolution of life, to reach its pinnacle in mankind. Thus the Unity-Law is a law of control and direction.

Such a universe could not exist unless brought about by a supreme Mind, a supreme Being we call God. “Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and deity—however invisible— have been there for the mind to see in the things that he has made.” (Rom 1:20, cf. Wis 13:1-9) Thus the universe itself, as revealed by modern science, clearly manifests both the God who created it and the initial stages of his plan for the world.

Man the Apex of Creation 4

God clearly had a purpose in mind in creating the universe. We can see this most clearly in the evolution of life and ultimately in the creation of man, the apex of the evolutionary process. Among all the things in the universe man is unique, created in the image and likeness of God himself (cf. Gen 1:26-27). He is spirit as well as matter; not determined mechanically by instinct and the laws of nature, but having free will.

But what is the destiny of man? Since we are spiritual we naturally seek beyond matter for our Creator. Our very being yearns for the God who made us, in order to know him and to love him, as a plant yearns for the sunshine. We are naturally religious, and God is our only true environment: “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) However God is not a passive environment but overflowing with personal love, ministering to all our deepest needs and desires. Thus we can better call God our Environer.

However, because of the disaster of sin, original and personal, man has a further need for God. Not only will we seek for a revelation from God and for communion with God because of our very nature as spirit and matter, but we will also seek redemption, healing and forgiveness from him.5

The Revelation of God 6

Since God is the true environment of man, and because God is all-wise and all-loving, we must expect a communication of the Being of God to the being of man. And we expect this communication to have certain characteristics. Clearly it must start at the very creation of man. In accordance with God’s overall  plan  and  the  law  of  creation—the  Unity  Law  of  Control  and  Direction—it  must  be evolutionary and developmental. In other words, it must begin with a simple revelation of God’s truth and love, and then develop in depth and detail as human culture grows throughout history. We also expect God’s communication to be appropriate to every aspect of human nature, for God has created no part of man without meaning. Thus we expect God’s revelation to nourish and teach us both individually and socially; and, since man is both spirit and matter, we should expect this divine revelation to manifest itself visibly and tangibly as a living fact within human history.

It is uniquely within the religious history of the People of Israel that we find what we are looking for. The Bible witnesses to a definite line of revelation claiming direct authority from God. It develops from primitive beginnings by an evolutionary process, each new stage being built upon the previous stage, and yet throughout its development and history the same doctrine, the same purity of teaching is maintained.

The line of revelation starts at the dawn of human history with the promise to Adam and the covenant with Noah. It develops with the call of Abraham and God’s covenant with him around 2000 BC, which is the beginning of the People of Israel. It deepens with the covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai, and grows further with the Jewish priesthood, the kingdom, the temple, and the line of prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But the truly unique mark of the Biblical revelation is that all of these things look forward to One who was to Come in the future, a ‘Messiah’, someone sent by God to bring salvation to his people. This line of revelation is not only developmental and authoritative, it is of its very nature Messianic.

Jesus Christ the Culmination of God’s Plan

The final and greatest claim of this line of development is that it is uniquely fulfilled in God Incarnate. This means that God the Son, the eternal Word of God through whom all things were made, took flesh and became also true man, the man called Jesus Christ. Out of Israel, therefore, came the One who was prepared for from the foundation of the universe, the One who is ultimately the only hope and fulfilment of all mankind, both individually and socially.

Jesus clearly claims to fulfil the whole of God’s plan of revelation: “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them.” (Matt 5:17) He claims to fulfil all the hopes, the prophecies and the desires of the People of the Old Covenant. But Jesus goes even further than this—he claims to be God. This is unique among the great religions of the world. No other great prophet has made such an assertion: Buddha, Confucius, or Mahomet, for instance, never claimed to be divine in person. Jesus did—and for this he was crucified.

This claim of Christ should not surprise us. In fact, when we consider God’s wisdom and charity, the Incarnation makes perfect sense. As we have already seen, man is created in the image and likeness of God. We are unique because we are spiritual and not just physical. This means that we naturally seek beyond the world of matter for our happiness and fulfilment. We are made for God, so union and communion with God is our only ultimate happiness.

However, we are matter as well as spirit, and our bodies cannot be ultimately irrelevant to our deepest meaning. God must have made them for a reason; they must be destined to play a genuine role in our communion with God. If God is truly our Environment, then we need to meet him directly if we are to receive the life and wisdom he offers us, just as any other creature must have direct contact with its environment if it is to live. As human beings we get to know things and people through our bodies—through our senses. This means that we must come into contact with God not just spiritually but physically as well. Yet at first sight this seems impossible, as God is pure Spirit. We could not have hoped or dared to anticipate how God would bring all these things together until he revealed the culmination of his plan. But now “we have heard, and we have seen with our own eyes; we have watched and touched with our hands: the Word who is life.” (1 John 1:1) God’s plan for the fullness of time was to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth (cf. Eph 1:10).

Thus the fulfilment of God’s plan of revelation is the Incarnation of his divine Son, who took to himself a full human nature and became truly man like us in all things but sin. This is the culmination of God’s plan for creation. It puts everything in creation into perspective and completes the whole path of evolution.

The Incarnation

The Claim

Jesus Christ is not partly God and partly man, nor some sort of hybrid of God and man—being ‘partly God’ is an utterly meaningless notion. Still less is he just a great human teacher, even the greatest teacher that ever lived. To say this would be to reduce Jesus to the status of one of the prophets, thus contradicting Jesus’ own claims to be God and denying his actions as God. It would empty God’s plan of its culmination. It would deprive us of real union, body and soul, with our Lord and God.

Jesus Christ must be true and fully God and true and fully man. No one expresses it better or more majestically than St John:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him…. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-3,14)

The Evidence

The evidence for Christ’s divinity can be seen in many aspects of his life. In the first place there is his clear personal authority. From the very beginning of his public ministry “his teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority.” (Mark 1:22) He claimed to fulfil and complete in his own Person God’s word as revealed in the Old Testament: “You have learnt how it was said to our ancestors: You must not kill … But I say this to you: anyone who is angry with his brother will answer for it before the court.” (Matt 5:21-22, cf. 5:27-48) Jesus also claimed to forgive sins (e.g. Mark 2:1-12). This was implicitly a claim to divine authority, as his hearers immediately understood: they accused him of blasphemy, for “who can forgive sins but God alone?” He also clearly showed his authority in casting out devils (e.g. Mark 1:27), and in the way he dismissed Satan’s temptations (Matt 4:1-11).

Even at the age of twelve years Jesus knew he had a unique relationship with God the Father (Luke 2:49), a relationship that would sustain him throughout his life. His awareness of his unique identity as the only Son of the Father was revealed many times in his life, for example at his baptism (Mark  1:11),  in  his  prayer  (Mark  1:35),  before  his  passion  (John  12:27-28), in  the  garden  of Gethsemane (Luke 22:41-42), on the cross (Luke 23:46), after his resurrection (John 20:17). The

Jesus Christ our relationship is one of utter intimacy, equality and union: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10); “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30).

He knows himself to be the source of our salvation: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37); “As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me” (John 6:57); “Follow me” (John 21:19 etc.).

Finally, and most clearly, Jesus showed his divinity by his miracles and his prophecies, which reveal his divine knowledge of, and power over, the whole of creation. And, unlike the great figures of the Old Testament, Jesus performs these acts on his own authority and by his own power. Above all Jesus manifests his divinity by his resurrection from the dead, which demonstrates not only supreme miraculous powers, but, even more importantly, his victory over the forces of sin and death.

The Role of the Virgin Mary in the Incarnation

For Jesus Christ to be both God and man has profound implications for his earthly conception as well as his heavenly origin. To see why, we need to look briefly at the marvel of human reproduction.

Part of the wonder and dignity of our being created in the image and likeness of God is that we are  privileged  to  cooperate  in  God’s  creation  of  new  persons:  a  work  that  is  fittingly  called procreation. This normally takes place through the act of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. But the Incarnation of Christ is different because it is not the creation of a new person. The Person of Jesus is the eternal, uncreated, Son of God. Thus the normal process of procreation is not appropriate, or even possible, for his conception. Yet Jesus does need to receive his human nature from a human mother if he is to be truly human, truly the Son of Man as well as the Son of God. So for Jesus to be true God and true man, he needs a human mother but cannot have a human father: he must be born of a virgin. And this is exactly what the Gospels tell us and what the Church has always taught. Mary is truly the Mother of Jesus, but he was conceived by the direct, divine power of the Holy Spirit who overshadowed her (cf. Luke 1:35).

Since the coming of Christ is the apex of the whole of God’s plan for creation, Mary must therefore also be right at the centre of that plan. Of all creatures she takes first place in God’s Mind, not just because she is specially privileged to be the Mother of Christ, but also because without Mary Christ would not have come into the world at all. Since creation finds its fulfilment only in the coming of Jesus—that is why God created it after all—so, when God decided to make the universe, he had at the forefront of his Mind the person who would be instrumental in bringing about the Incarnation, namely Mary. We can even see that the splitting of the sexes into male and female during the course of evolution is not merely a biological mechanism for efficient reproduction, still less an accident of nature. It is a vital feature of God’s design, which finds its fullest meaning in the Virgin Mary, making possible the birth of her divine Son.7

Jesus Christ Predestined before Creation

The vision of Christ presented so far has been that he is the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation. Mankind, and indeed the whole of creation, is meaningless and ultimately pointless without Christ. Christ’s coming was always the very centre and purpose of God’s plan. It was not just a response or reaction to the disaster of sin; and if mankind had not fallen into sin Jesus would still have come.

This view of the Incarnation, of Christ predestined before the creation of the universe and not just coming because of sin, is known in theology as the Scotist view, following the teaching of Blessed John Duns Scotus (c. 1265–1308). Whilst it is not a defined dogma of the Church, and Christians are free to hold it or not, it is the predominant view of most contemporary theologians. More importantly, it is also the view found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, one of the main fruits of the Second Vatican Council:

“In the creation of the world and of man, God gave the first and universal witness to his almighty love and his wisdom, the first proclamation of the ‘plan of his loving goodness’, which finds its goal in the new creation in Christ.” (315)

“The Church … believes that the key, the centre and the purpose of the whole of man’s history is to be found in its Lord and Master.” (450)

“God created the world for the sake of communion with his divine life, a communion brought about by the ‘convocation’ of men in Christ, and this ‘convocation’ is the Church…. Just as God’s will is creation and is called ‘the world’, so his intention is the salvation of men, and it is called ‘the Church’.” (760)

“The name ‘Jesus’ contains all: God and man and the whole economy of creation and salvation.” (2666, see also 280)

Pope John Paul II has also taught this same vision of Christ in his writings. For example, in his important document for the new millennium, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, he states:

“Christ, the Son who is of one being with the Father, is therefore the one who reveals God’s plan for all creation and for man in particular … ‘[He] fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear…. By his incarnation the Son of God united himself in some sense with every man’. (Vat II, GS, 22)” (4).

“Christ, true God and true man, the Lord of the cosmos, is also the Lord of history, of which he is ‘the Alpha and the Omega’, ‘the beginning and the end’ (Rev 1:8; 21:6). In him the Father has spoken the definitive word about mankind and its history.” (5)

Most importantly, this view is supported by the most profound texts of the New Testament, as will be discussed in the section Jesus Christ Master-Key to the Meaning of the Universe below.

None of this is to deny that the work of redemption, i.e. rescuing us from sin, is now central to Jesus’ mission. Indeed, this work is so important that it is the topic of a separate pamphlet in this series.8  But Jesus’ work of bringing us life, happiness and fulfilment is the primary meaning of his Incarnation, and our redemption through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection only really makes sense in this context. As Christ enters this world to bring God’s life to us, because of sin he will inevitably meet resistance and hatred, and it will lead him to the bitter death of the cross. But Jesus does not shrink from this. The same love which moved him to come and dwell among us, leads him now to embrace even the cross, and through it to restore us to the life which he came to bring to fulfilment in us.

To call Jesus Christ our Redeemer is to indicate his work of forgiving us and healing the wounds of our sins; but to call Jesus our Saviour does not simply carry that same implication. Although the Bible sometimes refers to Christ “saving us from our sins” (e.g. Matt 1:21), the title Saviour has a much wider and richer meaning. The Latin word we translate as ‘salvation’ is salus, which also means health, well-being, safety. The Greek term sôtêria used in the New Testament means both deliverance from evil and also the positive fostering of our Christian destiny: it thus implies much more than rescuing us from sin alone. The roots of this idea can be traced to the Old Testament concept of salvation as the blessing of God, victory over enemies, peaceful dwelling in the land, and supremely God dwelling in the midst of his people.9 Thus a ‘saviour’ is one who brings us the fullness of life. In this sense we could call a mother nourishing and caring for her baby its ‘saviour’.

The Nicene Creed which we profess at Mass also supports this wider meaning of ‘salvation’ when it teaches:

“For us men, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man. For our sake too he was crucified under Pontius Pilate…”

Christ’s Incarnation is for our salvation in the wider sense of bringing us utter happiness and fulfilment through communion of body and soul with God. But, because of sin, Christ’s work takes on a further aspect too, the work of redemption through his cross and resurrection.

There are many passages in the scriptures which show Christ’s vital work of nourishing his divine life within us. Jesus himself frequently refers to this wider aspect of his saving work, for example: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37); “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35); “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6); “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:14); “I am the light of the world” (John 9:5); “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25); “I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Many events in Jesus’ public ministry also witness to this gift of abundant life which we find only in him: for example the transfiguration, when Peter rightly exclaims, “Master, it is wonderful for us  to  be  here”  (Luke  9:33);  the  miracle  of  the  wine  at  the  wedding  feast  at  Cana;  and  the multiplication of loaves and fish to feed the five thousand. The last two of these examples clearly allude to the Eucharist, the gift of Jesus’ abiding presence among us in his full divinity and humanity, under the appearance of bread and wine. Jesus himself brings out the salvific importance of the Eucharist—which is his very self—in his teaching after the feeding of the five thousand:

“The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world … I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst

… Whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life … I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world … He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him. As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me.” (John 6:33, 35, 40, 51, 56-57)

In summary, only in Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, can we find full communion of our being—body and soul—with the being of God. Jesus is the total self-gift of God to us, given in the way which best suits our human nature, that is, by sharing our human nature. Thus in Jesus alone can we find our real and everlasting joy and fulfilment—our real life. This is what St Paul meant when he said, “to me, life is Christ” (Phil 1:21), “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). This is what we mean when we call Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Jesus Christ Master-Key to the Meaning of the Universe

If Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, is really our Saviour, then another consequence follows: the universe itself must have been created for him. For the universe was made for man—man is the purpose of the universe—and man was made for Christ. We can find this idea too in the words of our Saviour himself, and throughout the New Testament.

An unusual Text: “The very stones will cry out”

As Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday the crowds were praising him as the Messiah: “Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Pharisees tried to check his disciples but he answered: “I tell you, if these keep silence the very stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:40) What did Jesus mean by this strange expression?

At the time of Jesus the accepted teaching and tradition of the Jews about the Messiah, the ‘Anointed One’ who was to come, were summed up in two key statements:

“All the prophets prophesied only of the days of the Messiah.”

“The world was created only for the Messiah.”10

In the light of these two statements we begin to see what Jesus meant. Jesus was entering Jerusalem to fulfil his destiny, and he should have been accepted as the One who would bring God’s life to his People and to the whole of mankind. He was claiming to be the Messiah. And so he was also claiming to be the one for whom the universe was created. Because of sin man could turn away from his true meaning, but the humbler material creation is always obedient to God’s law. God’s plan cannot ultimately be thwarted. If men will not acknowledge the Christ, the rest of creation will.

The Heir who was to inherit the Vineyard

In the parable of the vineyard (Mark 12:1-12) Jesus gives us again the vision of a world which was prepared for him but which meets the contradiction of sin and evil in mankind. A man (the Father) plants a vineyard (his kingdom) and leases it to tenants (the Jewish people). He sends his servants (the prophets) to collect the revenue. They are treated shamefully and some are killed (sin and evil in man). Finally he sends his son (Jesus Christ, the Son of God). His enemies say, “This is the heir. Come on, let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours.”

Of central importance here is that the son is the heir to the kingdom. He was predestined to inherit the vineyard from the beginning, not just because of the disloyalty of the tenants; and the landowner does not send him to be killed, but to receive the fruits of the vineyard. Therefore the universe and mankind were the true inheritance of Jesus from the beginning; Jesus comes into the world to live, not to die. However, since sin, he can now only come into his inheritance through his death and resurrection.

The Vision of St Paul

We have already seen how St Paul shows us the deeply personal nature of our communion with the divine Person of Jesus our Saviour. He is also a great exponent of the cosmic vision of Christ. Indeed, his whole education as a Rabbi and Jewish theologian would have acquainted him with the teaching that “the world was created only for the Messiah.”

In his letter to the Ephesians he states that God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world.” (Eph 1:4) Thus not only we ourselves but Christ also is part of God’s plan from before creation, and so clearly before sin. The universe is created for us and even more for Christ. St Paul continues to talk about God’s eternal purpose, “which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph 1:9-10) So Christ is the beginning and the end—the Alpha and the Omega—of the whole of creation. Commenting on this passage Pope John Paul II says:

“In God’s eternal design, the Church, as the unity of humanity in Christ the Head, becomes part of a plan which includes all creation. It is a ‘cosmic’ plan, that of uniting everything in Christ the Head. The firstborn of all creation becomes the principle of ‘recapitulation’ for this creation, so that God can be ‘all in all’ (1 Cor 15:28). Therefore, Christ is the Keystone of the Universe. As the living body of those who belong to him by their response to the vocation of being children of God, the Church is associated with him, as participant and minister, at the centre of the plan of universal redemption.” (General Audience, 31 July 1991)

In his letter to the Colossians St Paul again gives us this same vision of Christ as pre-destined before creation: “all things were created through him and for him.” (Col 1:16) There are echoes here of Christ as the Heir to creation. Once again, he is clearly both the beginning and the end of creation: its origin and purpose.

Again in his second letter to Timothy, he states: “God saved us and called us to be holy—not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and by his own grace. This grace has already been granted to us, in Christ Jesus, before the beginning of time.” (2 Tim 1:9)

The Letter to the Hebrews

Another passage from the New Testament should be quoted, because it witnesses to this same faith and vision of the first Christians in very succinct and beautiful language:

“At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature, sustaining the universe by his powerful command.” (Heb 1:1-3)

The Perspective of St John

St John’s prologue to his Gospel (John 1:1-18) gives us the deepest vision of the early Christians on the place of Christ in creation. As St Paul did, so St John also takes a cosmic perspective on his Lord and Master.

He begins by echoing the very first words of the creation narrative from the book of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word …” (John 1:1, cf. Gen 1:1). The “Word” (in Greek Logos, from which we have the English word logic) means the personified Wisdom and Intelligence of God, the Mind of God, in creating. St John is quite clear that the Logos is divine: “… the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (1:1-2) Everything is created through him (1:3).

In this vision mankind can only find its light, its true environment, in him: “All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men,” (1:4) and again: “The Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world.” (1:9) St John acknowledges the effects of sin on this coming of the Word into the world, but the whole tenor of his vision is that sin causes a failure of recognition and acceptance of the Word, not at all that sin is the reason for his coming. “He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him.” (1:10-11)

Then comes the climax of the whole of this vision—the greatest description of who Jesus Christ really is:

“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (1:14)

St John is teaching many things in this simple verse. In the first place, the Word through whom all things were made takes flesh, a full human nature: Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Next, the universe was only created for the Word to become flesh. St  John is  surely  leading us  to  this conclusion by his careful interweaving of the themes of the eternal Mind of God the Word (1:1 and 1:14), his involvement in the work of creation from the beginning (1:3 and 1:10), and several references to the Incarnation itself (1:9, 10, 11, 14).

And there is yet another, deeper meaning to this important text. The Greek word eskênôsen, usually translated as lived or dwelt, is translated literally as tabernacled.11 It means literally that God pitched his tent among his people. This unique expression is used in the Old Testament of the Tent of Meeting or tabernacle in the desert, where Moses and Aaron went to speak with God, the place where God lived among them and beside them. And the words which follow, “we saw his glory”, are also related to the Tent of Meeting: when Moses had finished its construction, “the cloud overshadowed the Tent of Meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” (Exod 40:34) And this in turn alludes to the overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit in the conception of Christ (Luke 1:35). So St John is describing the Incarnation as also the coming of the ‘New Temple’. In his own Person Jesus fulfils what was shown symbolically by the Old Testament tabernacle and temple: he is truly the place where God dwells among his people.

Finally, St John describes the great benefits that we receive through the Word made flesh: firstly, grace and truth, which are so much more wonderful than the Mosaic Law (1:14, 16-17); and then, above all, personal knowledge of God, and intimacy with him, which alone can satisfy us:

“No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, who has made him known.” (1:18)

This vision of St John is very old but also very up to date. The idea of creation through the Logos, the Word and Wisdom and Intelligence of God, harmonises perfectly with the modern, scientific perspective on the universe as highly intelligent, bursting with wisdom, and full of amazing design. But St John goes on to show that this scientific knowledge of the universe is inadequate on its own: the universe leads to man—and the meaning of man and of the whole universe is only found in the Word made flesh, for whom the universe was made. Moreover this is not just an abstract theory. It gives a living meaning and relationship with God through Jesus Christ to every single human being created. It is a vision personified in the Word made flesh. Jesus Christ, for St John, is therefore the Master-Key to the meaning of the universe, and the Master-Key to our own personal lives. It is a single vision of creation fulfilled in the Incarnation—probably the most profound statement ever made of the true meaning of Christianity.

Conclusion: “All Things have Meaning in Jesus Christ”

To return to the question posed at the beginning, what is the relationship between the universe and Jesus Christ?

In the first place, we have seen that, from the very sciences themselves, the universe reveals God as the supreme Mind behind the amazing order, design and beauty of creation. And this creation is purposeful: it is set up to develop and evolve, leading ultimately to man, who is made body and soul for God. Next, God, who created the universe, revealed through his People before Christ came that “the world was created only for the Messiah”. Thus the Messiah, or the Christ, is the total fulfilment of the universe and the total fulfilment and happiness of man.

Jesus claimed to be the Christ—to be God in Person, our Saviour and Redeemer; and he manifested that divinity in his teaching and in his miracles, especially his own resurrection. His claim is unique among all the religious leaders and prophets the world has ever known. Jesus also claimed that the universe was made for him: he is the “Heir” of the Kingdom prepared before the foundation of the world; and if because of sin we do not acknowledge him, then “the very stones will cry out”. St John and St Paul also clearly taught the same doctrine: “through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him”, and “all things, visible and invisible, were created through him and for him.”

Thus we can now see the relationship between the universe and Jesus Christ: Jesus Christ is the Master-Key to the meaning of the universe. The universe was made through him and for him. It was made so that he could take flesh and enter his creation; so that he could give himself to us in love in the greatest way possible, by taking on our human nature to be our brother, our Saviour and our God.

The Master-Key could not have been found in any secular philosophy or in the physical sciences alone since man is made to the image of God and his meaning and purpose, and that of the whole universe, will only be found in God himself. All attempts to find the meaning of the universe and of man in secular philosophies or in created things are doomed to failure. We must look to God for the revelation of that Word, that Master-Key which unlocks the final meaning of the universe—Jesus Christ, God and Man, Saviour and Redeemer of mankind, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. In summary:

“Without Christ man is meaningless, without man the evolution of life is meaningless, without life the earth is meaningless, but all things have meaning in Jesus Christ, to whom all things visible and invisible are relative, and to whom all things bear witness in their being.”12

We can and must draw a new vision of Christ for this age, which will be the basis of a synthesis of science and religion. It is a vision that our secularised world desperately needs and is longing for at its deepest level; for Jesus Christ is Lord of the cosmos and Lord of history, the Master-Key to the meaning of the universe, and also the Master-Key to the meaning of every mind and heart.

1 A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, Cambridge University Press, 1926, p. 224.

2 Cf. Duncan Williams, Trousered Apes, Churchill Press, 1971, p. 90.

3 See the first pamphlet in this series: Can we be sure God exists?

4 See the second pamphlet in this series: What makes Man Unique?

5 See the third pamphlet in this series: The Disaster of Sin.

6 See the fourth pamphlet in this series: The Promise of the Messiah.

7 This is discussed in greater depth in the Faith pamphlet: Sexual Order and Holy Order by Fr Edward Holloway.

8 Pamphlet six in this series: Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

9 See New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 51:20 and 77:144ff.

10 Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Hendrickson, 1993, p. 115.

11 Cf. Nestlé, Greek/English Inter-linear Translation, Bagster, 1979. The same word is used with the same deep meaning in Rev 21:3, and the idea is prefigured in Sirach 24:3-10.

12 Edward Holloway, The Path from Science to Jesus Christ, Faith Pamphlets, p. 10. p. 11

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