When It Comes Right Down To It....

[HKHaugan]

Of civilizations and kingdoms, of courts and kings, of temples and altars, of galaxies and planets, comets and stars, of winds and tides, of past and future, of minds and hearts, of all that is and was and is to come the bottom line is this:

“No one can lay any other foundation than the one that has already been laid. That foundation is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11).”

This passage displays three elementary truths: about everything in existence, what it means to be a person, and what it means to be relational.

First, Jesus is the foundation for understanding existence. This is basic. It involves the very essence of everything that exists, visible and invisible. Visibly, the entire physical universe, “Through him everything was made. Nothing that has been made was made without him (Jn.1:3).” Invisibly, all the emotional, intellectual and spiritual capacities were founded in Him, “In Him was life and that light was the life of mankind (Jn.1:4).” Both the invisible and visible dimensions of existence came into being through Him making Him the foundational source of understanding everything. So both the invisible and the visible are an expression of the spiritual invisible mind of the Father revealed in His spiritually visible Son, Jesus Christ. This was His will. Jesus is the center-point of everything. Spiritual existence is the source of physical existence.

Three basics emerge from this.
First, what we observe is that science is a gifted discipline for the mind that discovers and analyzes what already exists. Science informs us about the physical structure of existence.
Second, that invention is an extension of the human body, a parallel to the creative nature of God that enables us to reshape existence to make it more usable, enjoyable and productive.
Third, the purpose and use of Creation is all in the mind of the Creator and He reveals what He wants in His way and His time according to His will. Therefore, Jesus and His Word are the focal points to make sense out of existence since God precedes, let me repeat that, precedes His universal Creation.

Second, Jesus is the foundation for what it means to be a person. We were created in His image. Through Jesus we can see God has a mind, a heart and a Spirit. We are His images and have a mind, a heart and a spirit. In Jesus we see a person that has a sense of self, of being a unique individual, of being in a world of others. The same is true of us who were created in His image and likeness to have a consciousness of being an individual. We have the desire to communicate that self, find purpose, meaning and significance. Jesus is the One who brings that all together and calls us to trust Him as the foundation for being a person and living each moment to the fullest.

But there is a roadblock. The devil tempted man to think of himself apart from God. When he did, sin entered and distorted how man saw himself, others and his environment. Man chose himself above God to define who he was and what he was here for. He spiritually alienated himself from God and took control of his spiritual consciousness away from God. That is why Jesus was sent by the Father to be the foundation for our recovery and restoration. He was the perfect self-conscious human being whose spiritual nature was the Holy Spirit. So when Jesus went to the Cross it was the perfect way to show that faith was the path to eternal life not just getting back this life. It's the faith part of our nature that Jesus exhibited perfectly on the Cross and gifted us with at Pentecost.

Third, Jesus is the foundation for what it means to be relational. His perfect relationship with His Father is the key to being a relational person. No other figure in history can make that claim. He set the mold for being relational not only with God but relational with everyone with whom He came in contact. There is no symbol that makes this clearer than the Cross. He loved His Father, trusted Him completely and obeyed His will in every detail. The vertical beam shows how God through Jesus initiates and maintains a relationship with us from above and then the horizontal beam shows how God in Jesus reaches others through us. In fact the Cross of Christ is the foundational pattern for life. It is the way we carry ourselves to the Cross and leave our egos there and allow Jesus to think and act through us in the Holy Spirit that is the exhibition of life itself. So when Paul says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself it meant that all things visible and invisible are being resolved in and through the person of Jesus by the power of the Spirit.

So Jesus is the foundation for all existence, for who we are and who we are to become and for the restoration of all people and the universe. No matter what anyone since has done or will do it can never be foundational like Jesus. Everything that man can think or do will eventually fit a structural pattern that coincides with the mind of God because all Creation is designed by Him and for Him. No one can think outside of God. When it comes right down to it nothing makes sense outside of the spiritual atmosphere that is Gods Kingdom.