A CHRIST BEYOND THE COSMIC; ETERNAL AND FROM EVERLASTING TO EVERLASTING

A Christ beyond the cosmic.

It is widely accepted that Maslow’s hierarchy is used to understand or motivate behaviour in a variety of settings.  Yet, many of its disciples will readily admit that penetrating the “Higher levels” of the pyramid is not an easy task, especially the need to self-actualise.  This is the point where Viktor Frankl speaks of the will to meaning, “Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life, and not a secondary rationalisation of instinctual drives.”

While Maslow is right, there is very little to help us understand how to reach levels of self-actualisation.  In his theory, one level builds upon the other, and very rarely do people succeed in achieving the breakthrough between lower and higher level needs.

To be sure, Frankl insists that there is more to the human being than the achievements of Maslow’s “Lower Level” needs.  We are driven by a desire to be all that God created us to be, and that desire lies latent within us, and is often suppressed or called forth by positive or negative pressures of the environment.  Frankl fails precisely where Maslow did; they both gave us very little direction for breakthrough.

Frankl participated well in the theoretical evolution of his discipline, but Christ taught a similar and more superior principle much earlier, ^{Lk 4:4(TNIV)} “People do not live on bread alone.”  That in fact is a quote from the Old Testament in relation to Israel’s experiences in the wilderness. Social scientists in their failure to help us explore the more meaningful in life, have instead erected idols around which we gather and die.  We have been sacrificed at the altar of prestige, power, and pomp.

Nietzsche made a sterling observation when he said, “There are more idols in the world, than there are realities.”  This is proven true every time there is an economic crisis, because every market crash is followed by a string of suicides—Mammon returning to claim those who bleed his grave.

 

 Why are we so determined to go through hell before we even get there?  We build atomic bombs, nuclear arms, and other hazards that have the capacity and potential to wipe us off the face of the earth in milliseconds.  The answer is simple; the environment has become our god, and that many-headed dragon comes masked in pretty faces, and eventually, we are consumed in the path of the fire-spitting dragon.

The temptation to erect environmental idols is not new; it was introduced since the beginning of time.  Adam and Eve were not thrown off by a new truth, but an aberration of the existing one; that has been the tactic of the serpent ever since, most of what we know and want is true, and even crucial for the survival of the human species, but it is introduced with a skew.  We chase the skew and lose the rest of the truth.

 

The ability to recognise truth at its point of aberration has been our challenge ever since, we embraced illusions at the expense of realities, and that shortfall is more spiritual than it is natural.  The twist is where we miss the mark, and the exact point, where we need deliverance.  Tillich called it ‘estrangement.’

The promise of the Mat 6:33 Imperative is to return us to the point where the truth was bent, and to offer us the chance to straighten the twist.  Both John the Baptist and the Christ began their ministries with a resounding call to “Repent!”  Essentially, that was a call to abandon the former and embrace the new, and this is the core of the message of the Kingdom of God.

 

There is another world beyond the sensual, and beyond the unseen physical world; it is the intangible spirit-world.  Paul spoke of this world when he wrote, ^{Eph 6:12} “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  These unseen cosmic forces influence human behaviour more than we realise, or are willing to admit, and because we can’t pick them up through the five senses, we tend to undermine the reality of their existence.

Our spiritual senses are not blunt to the spirit-world, but in our consciousness, we design our own ways to respond.  

Religion is a biting indictment of our refusal to deal with God on Christ terms.  Like Aaron, we fashion our own idols and baptise them in the name of God, ^{Ex 32:4} “He (Aaron) took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.  Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

 

The Christ-Experience is both an instant event, and an unfolding process; we arrive, yet never arrive.  In it we begin the pilgrimage where our “inner being” is exposed; we begin to recognise that we are more than matter.  We are spiritual beings with a purpose, and our destiny as individuals is determined and knotted with the eternal purpose of God for all creation.

Paul spoke of this “Being” when he wrote, ^{Eph 3:16} “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.”  We use different names for this “inner being,” we call it/him/her human spirit, soul, mind, and a host of other names—it really doesn’t matter; we are however convinced, that “a being” is alive inside of us; what we need to do is define, or discover the nature of this being.  When we discover the nature of our “inner being,” and the relationship of that “being” to the God-being, our breakthrough is introduced.