Tasting the Fruit of the Resurrection While Watching TV

[HKHaugan]

Flush from a wonderful Easter service and a delightful lunch with friends I was resting at home.
I happened to be watching the National Geographic channel, at least I think it was that channel. The program was covering what is known as the ‘Higgs Boson Particle’ which just the program said may be the foundational particle in the universe, the ‘God particle.’ There is even a 17 mile long collider in France that sends particles crashing into each other to prove the point. Now I’m definitely not opposed to scientific exploration into anything. It just helps us know more about the mind of God but when it makes conclusions about God, it is at this point your red lights should start flashing.

I’m not sure about how the next part of the program got from the collider to the brain but it did. The program and the interviews took another tack. It was in the conclusion made by the physicists interviewed as they extended their research into the brain function of religious believers and non-believers. They found what they believe to be a God gene in the frontal lobe that some have and others do not. Therefore belief, trust and faith are genetically controlled which they concluded was why there is atheism because some people just don’t have that gene. The implications for the future are another example of man again trying to define and control humanity without God, in this case by genetic manipulation. Are your red lights flashing yet?

Follow along here:

My question to them is this, how then do they explain atheism since it takes belief not to believe? Just having a concept, an idea, a thought is based on the belief in exploring ideas, thinking about them and making conclusions, which is what? You’ve got it---belief, trust and faith. Atheism is as religious as any other so-called religion, but more than religious it is relational (gathers people together based on belief in an idea) and being relational it is spiritual. So we are right back where we started, “In the beginning God created…”

There are no ‘God particles’ and no ‘God genes.’ All genes are God-genes. All particles are God particles. He created them all. He didn’t create one gene to be His gene and the only gene that determines our spirituality. All genes are part of the basic makeup of the human body. All genes are God’s genes not only in the human body but in the entire universe. All cells are God cells. All molecules are God molecules. Our human body is a totality of cells that are part of our makeup as images of God. “Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many… But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body (1Cor.12:14,18-20).” Every cell is designed to function together with every other cell. The whole universe works on the basis of a unity of design.

In each of us there is an invisible emotional nature and a spiritual nature. It is the whole visible and invisible part of us that God has created. The more we research the physical the better. The more we understand the better. It takes the total of our visible and invisible nature to be human, to be relational and to be spiritual. Jesus was born just as we are. He had a fully human biological body and fully divine spiritual nature. They worked together perfectly. Our human body and our spiritual nature are flawed by sin. That’s why we need Jesus.

All structures in the universe are God structures. Everything in the universe from space in its breadth to the tiniest particle is God’s. Their formation and function were designed in the mind of God to be a physical environment for the experience of spiritual reality. What God did was to give us the spiritual gift of faith which cannot be measured scientifically no matter how hard you try. There is no question that physical research will uncover more and more about the workings of the body and the universe. Again that only helps us to know and worship God more. But ultimately everything is in a spiritual context and can be understood only by faith. Why? Because the physical universe and everything in it comes from the Father’s will through Jesus by the power of the Spirit, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created (Rev.4:11).” You can’t break down God, His nature, His mind or His Spirit. He’s beyond all that. He’s not analyzable. You can’t put Him in a box. The only way we can know God is as Jesus revealed Him and that knowledge is expandable only through faith.

However you think, feel and act it is always ultimately in God’s context because we are by nature images of God who can’t help but be personal, relational and spiritual no matter how hard we fight against that nature. Even the fight with all its thinking, conclusions and passionate involvement depends on a spiritual thing called belief.

If the Crucifixion didn’t get your attention the Resurrection really makes sense and puts the whole of everything together. That’s what made the closing of Easter day so marvelous and complete as I watched the conclusion of “The Bible.”

Let the Scripture be your guide.