The Good-News: from dust of the earth to enthroned by Christ
So many human ideologies and religions reduce the status of humankind. For example, this is what secular humanism has to teach about human beings:
- The earth is a tiny spec in a vast universe, and therefore irrelevant
- Humans are an temporary evolutionary accident in the vastness of time
- Modern humans are an unwelcome and damaging intrusion into the environment of the earth
- Humans, being the products of self-genes, are mere matter, and
- Our thoughts are only relevant so far as they affect our genetic success: truth, ethics are not relevant
- The value of the individual is irrelevant; they are mere temporary carry-bags for genetic material.
This is the unholy foundation for the West’s social crisis. However, were we to listen to, and consider the activity of, our Creator God, a very different picture emerges:
God is much more significant than the universe: for ‘the heavens is my throne and the earth my footstool’; (Isaiah 66:1)
God came to earth, born as a human man, and lived among us, and we saw His glory. He rescued us out of the authority of darkness and transplanted us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, who is the image of the Invisible God, the Firstborn of All Creation; because all things were created by Him, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the visible and invisible.
Whether thrones or lordships or principalities or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is Before All Things and All Things are established in Him. And He is the Head of the Body, the Congregation; who is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead; that He might become Foremost in All Things. Because all the Fullness was Delighted to Dwell in Him; and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things upon the earth or things upon the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through Him.’ (Colossians 1: 13-20)
This same Man Who is God has invited humans upwards towards Him: ‘Behold, I am standing at the door and knocking; if anyone hears my voice and if he opens the door, I will go in to him and will dine with him and He with me. He who is overcoming, I will give to him to sit with me in My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father in His throne. He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the congregations.’ (Revelation 3:20-22)
So, in Christ, we are elevated to the throne of divine man Jesus Christ, who is Himself elevated to the fullness of the glory of God. This is the destiny God desires of each and every one of us. People and nations which reject Christ will only inherit ignominious oblivion.