Sustained by the Word of His power

So far I have addressed divine time and divine power.

I acknowledge that God is eternal, yet works along a continuum that science calls “event horizons”. He does not live in a flux of yesterday and tomorrow, but in a linear progression to a divine objective, not unlike the linear nature of the number system.

I also acknowledge that God is immensely powerful, if only by virtue of His position and the power at His disposal, but I have stopped short of the implication of omniscience, which suggests infinite power. It simply doesn’t fit with the body of scripture.

Now to another intrigue

1 Corinthians 15 limits the power at Christ’s disposal. It describes the one who delegated His power in verses 27-29, and  relates His power to that which vests in an office or in the power to summon an army (of angels). But the power delegated is limited.

It is one thing for the authority of Jesus to be limited to the mandate of His Father, just as the power of someone with delegated power is subject, at least in terms of the ability to delegate such power, to the powers of the delegator.

Certainly Jesus spent His lifetime reminding us of His relationship with His Father and how He submitted to that authority: a position He gladly accepted. It was also necessary because the validation of a sacrifice must be independently verified by a higher referee.

However, that is not the limitation that Hebrews 2:8 implies when it says, “Not all things are subject to Him”. At least, from 1 Cor 15, we know that death is not subject to Him. Indeed, Hebrews says that will be the last enemy to be destroyed.

Other enemies must also be destroyed to make that possible, because death and corruption stemmed from rebellion and sin, so Jesus also needs to subdue the agent or agents of rebellion.

By implication, He has limited control over the rebels. Sure He almost certainly restrains them, but even if He bound them in chains, that won’t change their hearts.

People who claim to have seen hell remind us that even in the face of terrible judgment, those who rebelled in this life will defy God beyond this life.

Okay, so Jesus is limited by the corruption of God’s realm 

I refer to the no-go areas that have arisen from rebellion and sin. That’s why there are walls and gates around Zion, duly patrolled by angelic sentries. It also accounts for warrior angels like Michael.

Just seeing the walls would convince me that life is not as sublime and ordered as it seems.

I have no doubt that Satan rebelled because God’s power was at least 'perceived' to be limited. As such, the angels that rebelled with him, war against the saints and all that is good in this life.

Never simplify your prayers to simple no’s or rejections. It took three weeks of engagement for Michael to break through rebel ranks in response to Daniel’s prayer (Daniel 10).

Further, in Jude, we see Satan disputing with Satan for the body of Moses, because he believed he had a claim to Moses, but the angel of God simply said, “the Lord rebuke you”.

It is a painful reminder that the relative comforts of this life belie a cosmic spiritual war that far exceeds our comprehension, yet Jesus will show up His enemies not through a show of might but through exquisite timing and profound wisdom (Ephesians 2). 

Jesus will eventually tread the wine-press of God’s wrath and ride with his saints in train, to conquer his eternal enemy. Until then the Kingdom of God suffers violence and is under siege.

So, not all things are yet subject to Him, but they will yet be subject to Him 

When that is so His work will be complete. If subduing all things completes His work, than that is His work. Thus He died, rose again and will yet ride into battle to finally subdue the enemy.

Eventually, when all is done, He will create new heavens and a new earth, but how will He dispose of the existing one?

Hebrews 1:11-12, foretells a day when He will fold up the universe like a garment. The galaxies are disk-shaped, suggesting a flat universe, rather than a rounder shape. 

But now we have a dilemma 

If He can just fold it up like a garment, then perhaps He has greater power than suggested thus far.

We need to go back again and examine the basis of His power. Is it a position of authority and does it vest in the power at His disposal, or is He just infinitely powerful. I have exhaustively argued against the latter. Thus we need another angle.

In Colossians 1:17, we see that “by Him all things consist”. That means that He has a key, a means to sustain the universe and keep it from collapsing in on itself.

Scientifically speaking, 4 laws were defined well within the first micro-seconds of creation. Those were gravity, light and the two nuclear forces.

Those laws hold the universe together and ensure the logically evolution of galaxies, stars, planets and so on. So something in all of those laws is at the behest of Jesus.

Well that brings us to “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the word was God” ~ John 1. So the worlds are sustained by His Word, which is tantamount to saying “by His edict” or “by His Law”, as in an order of the crown. 

He thus achieved a vast universe by enshrining fundamental principles into the smallest objects of matter, the atom and its subsets. He did not need to physically make it all. He only needed to make the laws that define all matter, for the Universe to be.

However, when the time comes to end it all, He need only rescind that Law, for the universe to dematerialize and return to its singular state of genesis. That event may well look like the ionized "vestments" or "garments" of an aurora. 

As the Master chemist and grand Architect or Engineer, He built similar codes and algorithms into all DNA, to define species. he did not need to make everything. Rather He facilitate the self-reproduction of life. I will elaborate further in a future post.  

(c) Peter Missing @ Bethelstone.com