Christ the Logos unifies all Reality in Himself

Christ the Logos unifies all Reality in Himself

By Jay Wegter

The Day of the Lord will usher in and inaugurate the third cosmology known as the new heavens and the new earth (2 Pet 3:13).

“Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor 5:11). When God purges the universe by fire, this burning purification process will extend to the very nuclei of atoms (2 Pet 3:10-12). In previous articles we have referred to this cleansing of the cosmos as, “God does Himself to the creation.” By that phrase is meant that God will ‘press down’ His moral majesty upon the entire creation in a cosmic-wide event that extends down to the smallest particle. He will reorder the cosmos to a pristine state free of corruption.

The event known as the Day of the Lord is a critical component in the role of Christ the Logos in biblical cosmology. Sadly, a thorough going grasp of this central doctrine of cosmology is missing in much of Christian ministry today. As my pastor friend in Athens, Georgia said in response to ignorance of biblical cosmology, “The cosmology bomb has to hit!” It must detonate in the face of the Woke moral revolution. By that statement he meant we will not break out of our limp-wristed anemic Christianity until we proclaim the cosmic ramifications of Christ the Logos, Lord of cosmology.

One of the dangers of neglecting biblical cosmology is the church lapsing into retreat mode, even pondering the prospect of moral surrender in the face of the world’s relentless pressure. It seems that every year another Bible college raises the white flag, abandoning its scriptural stance on Genesis in favor of old earth theistic evolution. Evangelicalism has been substantially weakened by this subtle form of pseudo-science to which much of Christianity has given safe harbor. Theistic evolution flirts with philosophic naturalism—the idea that bedrock reality is but matter, motion, and natural law.

Consider that the secular humanist academy teaches its students that humans are nothing more than a jumble of atoms. Public university students hear this worldview from their professors, and then, if they are of evangelical persuasion, hear the opposite for 40 minutes on a Sunday. What a quandary, church-going students hear of God in one ear, and in the other, all week long that their search for life with innate purpose is absurd because they live in a universe that is ultimately meaningless.

The Western world is undergoing an historically new phenomenon; burgeoning technological achievement coupled with appalling biblical illiteracy—resulting in an educated populace without fear of God. Important to the fear of the Lord is our commitment to biblical cosmology. For, the fixed order which God has put in place has at its core: male and female, marriage and family, and fatherly headship. These relationships are ontologically real and integral to what it means to be human. Thus, it is no surprise that when the academy became apostate and atheistic, it declared open war upon God Almighty by a declaration of war upon His creation structures of heterosexual marriage, family, and biological patriarchy. Consequently, the progressives have characterized God’s good institutions as ‘oppressive’ to their ideology of erotic freedom.

A genuine fear of the Lord involves our continuous pressing in upon our created purpose—our telos of glory.

For a telos of glory is our creational identity; we exist for God’s glory. What’s more, all that our Creator has made has a particular telos. In other words, a goal or design in how it will glorify God. This all-pervasive truth extends to even simple forms of life. Fireflies flash to the glory of God, kangaroos hop to the glory of God, and good bacteria break down substances to the glory of God. And, if a humpback whale could talk, it would say, “I sport in the sea to the glory of God, that is my telos!” God’s fixed order in cosmology is a foundational and central piece of His glory story. But it is man who has departed from his telos.

‘Do you not fear Me?’ declares the Lord.
‘Do you not tremble in My presence?
For I have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea,
An eternal decree, so it cannot cross over it.
Though the waves toss, yet they cannot prevail;
Though they roar, yet they cannot cross over it.
‘But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart;
They have turned aside and departed.
‘They do not say in their heart,
“Let us now fear the Lord our God,
Who gives rain in its season,
Both the autumn rain and the spring rain,
Who keeps for us the appointed weeks of the harvest
(Jer 5:22-24).

The prophet Jeremiah comments further on man’s departure from his telos: “Thus says the Lord, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’ (Jer 6:16). This insolence is endemic where the fear of God is absent.

But praise be to God, He will not leave Adam’s entire race in a state of self-imposed ruin. For, the five great ‘beats’ of redemptive history are: creation, fall, redemption, judgment, restoration. That fifth beat, restoration involves the perfect recovery of created order. But a great assize is coming first. “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him (Heb 9:27-28).

Romans chapter nine teaches that those who know Christ are vessels taken from the same lump of defiled clay as vessels of wrath and dishonor. In His matchless grace and electing love, God through Christ takes lumps of corrupt clay and makes them vessels of mercy and grace (Rom 9:22-24). What a cause this is to fear God; for on Judgment Day, He will ‘pour out’, and reveal the contents of each vessel. Will it be spiritual fruit exalting His unmerited mercy and grace, or will the contents be a lifetime of sin and selfish ambition? There will be no hiding in that Day, for God will reveal the secrets of men’s hearts (Rom 2:16).

God’s glory story is an all-consuming plot or metanarrative.

All history will be consummated in Christ when He sums up all things in heaven and in earth in Himself (Eph 1:9-10). In the purification of the cosmos, the Lord will thoroughly shake everything which exists right down to the atomic level until the only thing remaining is the everlasting Kingdom of God. This event, or cosmic-wide shaking is associated with a descriptive of God as ‘a consuming fire’—burning like a furnace, consuming all that is not like Him in holiness—indeed He will ‘do Himself to His creation’. “This expression, ‘Yet once more,’ denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:28-29).

Christ’s glorious second advent will be accompanied by cosmic disasters the scope of which our imaginations are incapable of conceiving. “. . .there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places” (Rev 6:12b-14). The calamities described in Revelation chapter six refer to the fact that the Lord’s shaking of creation will extend to the furthest reaches of the cosmos, beyond our telescopes (Hag 2:6; Heb 12:26-29). The Logos, the Son of God is the stone cut out without hands who will reduce all human structures and systems to powder carried by the wind, in preparation for the new heavens and the new earth (Dan 2:35-45).

During this cosmic-wide shaking, “God will do Himself to the creation” at the Day of the Lord. Illustrations and analogies of that coming phenomenon elude us. But one inadequate one came to mind. Imagine someone giving you a budget without limits for building your earthly dwelling. Your dream home would be designed according to your specifications, and you would choose everything about it including landscaping, functional features, décor, location etc. The design you would choose would say a great deal about you. But, say that your plans got into the hands of an evil and woefully incompetent architect, and after waiting for months, you looked at the blueprints and saw the following: the jacuzzi was in the garage, the garbage composting pit was in the dining room, the toilets were in the living room, and the dog run was in the kitchen. To make matters worse, the contractor had trucked to the building site hundreds of felons to live in your house and on your property. You would be justly outraged at the chaotic disorder, and you would take the appropriate corrective action. Because to enjoy your rightful ownership of your property, you would make right everything that was wrong, right down to each square inch of what is yours. Only then would it comply with your plans and wishes and reveal your purposes. This is but a feeble example to show how Almighty God will exercise His righteous indignation on that great day, the Day of the Lord.

When we teach these vital truths of biblical cosmology, it is important that we keep Christ at the center.

For Christ’s sovereignty, incarnation, humiliation, and all-sufficient redemptive work, including His resurrection is the warranty of a new cosmos. For to make a new heavens and earth, Christ the last Adam reverses the ruin caused by the first Adam. The Son brings in the reign of grace and life (Rom 5:21). Ideological attacks upon Christ’s saving power tend to come indirectly as assaults upon biblical cosmology. For millennia this present evil world has introduced lying philosophies which take men captive (Col 2:8). What we owe God by virtue of being created in His image, gets erased by Darwinism. Afterall, if human beings are but a species formed in the image of an animal then we owe God nothing, and there is no reverential fear and holiness of life required by Him (Rom 1:23-27).

The damnable lies of paganism need the theory of evolution to obscure humanity’s core identity as the image of God. This preference for darkness reveals man’s enmity against Christ, the illuminator of humanity. Christ’s role as Logos embraces His designation as ‘Light of the World’ in John chapters 1, 8 and 12. The Son of God as this world’s appointed light refers to the fact that He is the source of absolute truth. For light is the ultimate metaphor for truth. Our Lord’s title, ‘Light of the world’ touches all of life, for how we know what we know with certainty is only found in Him. He is God’s appointed illumination to mankind. “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (Jn 1:4-9). “So, Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light” (Jn 12:35-36).

No wonder those outside of Christ so often say ‘we cannot know anything with certainty’. Well, for them, that is true! For outside of Christ, in their darkened condition, they do not know where they are going, no matter how many academic degrees they possess (Jn 12:35). Conversely, all the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ (Col 2:3). Our Lord has, by God the Father’s appointment, absolute epistemic authority—that is, Christ is the only source of complete certainty of knowledge. If you do not walk in His Son’s light, you will sentence yourself to skepticism, atomism, pessimism, and hopelessness.

Now returning to our central theme: why is it so significant that Christ unifies all reality? As we have seen above, the world has declared war on God’s absolute truth, resulting in its suppression and fragmentation (atomism). The unbeliever has a hopelessly fragmented, broken, and illusory worldview. But he clings to his folly and futility because by it he reasons that self may remain on the throne. By means of biblical cosmology, the believer can show the sinner that he is created in God’s moral image, and therefore has an indelible telos of glory.

When the message of Christ, Lord of cosmology is missing from our teaching a host of spiritual ills will potentially manifest themselves.

A number of these ills, or symptoms are described in the following list:

1) Without a foundation in biblical cosmology, there tends to be a weak grasp of the significance of one’s telos as the image and likeness of God, created for His glory holistically in all of life. 2) A second symptom is a shallow view of the body soul binary—manifested as the devaluing of embodied life, which is accompanied by a discounting of our bodies as our chief spiritual resource. Pornography ‘feeds’ on this error that the deeds of the body are but secondary to ‘inner spirituality’. 3) A third symptom is the ripping from Christ’s hands His control over all physical existence, followed by crediting the control of the cosmos to the laws of science. 4) Fourth, without instruction in cosmology—or God’s relation to the creation, there is a tendency toward the privatizing of Christian experience so that it becomes inward, self-focused, and pietistic. 5) Fifth, there is a palpable metaphysical lostness in which even a professing Christian cannot answer the question with biblical accuracy and authority, “What is prime reality?” 6) The sixth symptom involves a truncated approach to doctrine. For without the determined goal to instruct in Christ the Logos, church goers will have little idea of the dignity and glory of the One who judged our sins in His own Person. 7) Where Logos doctrine is weak or absent, Christian experience tends toward a manageable ‘pragmatic’ form of Christianity that is missing the foundations of divine transcendence. 8) Next, as Christianity is shoved into a subjective category, the church feels the pull to look to rationalism for ‘real knowledge’ rather than to divine revelation. A devotional approach to the Christian life ‘eats up the life of the mind’. Christ is seen as Lord of spiritual things and not necessarily of the cosmos itself. This leads to a divided Christian experience which pulls apart faith from practice, reason from revelation, and truth from life. 9) And finally, when Christ the Logos is not proclaimed, this doctrinal deficiency shows up as an egregious neglect of Christ’s offices and transcendence in the life of the church. Paradoxically, this gives the church tacit permission to settle into a business model of ecclesiology in which the church exists to perpetuate itself, and as David Wells has warned, ‘the church replaces God’.

Christ in unifying all reality is the focal point and goal of all existence.

The fact that truth is a divine Person (Jn 14:6) and that truth is only known by a relationship with this divine Person is a poignant commentary upon our utter dependence upon Him as His creatures (Jn 18:37). Liberals like to say that Christianity is one of many religious options. May the Lord have mercy upon them, for Christ truly is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, and the end (Rev 22:13). Everything outside of Him is but confusion and soul-damning darkness—a runaway descending elevator with cables cut, plummeting into eternal hell.

In unifying all reality, Christ does what the greatest philosophers in history could not do. He unifies being and becoming; temporal and eternal; visible and invisible; material and immaterial; singularity and multiplicity, created and uncreated reality (Col 1:15-16). These central truths baffle us, for how could the Creator take on creaturehood? How could the timeless One become subject to time for 33 years? No wonder Paul describes Christ as ‘God’s mystery’ (Col 2:2-3).

Christ is the first ‘heavenly man’—the prototype of the glorified man; the ‘first fruits’ of the resurrection to come (1 Cor 15:23-28; 45-48). In Himself, in the hypostatic union He joins the human and divine. And by this union, we are brought as near to God as a creature could possibly be. In Himself, He unites all redemptive history—for every program of God is carried out in Him, Creator, Logos, Lawgiver, Lamb, Lion, Lord of the cosmos. No greater miracle can be imagined than God the Son becoming one of His creatures. This was necessary for Him to be the perfect Mediator to bring His own from defiled dust to flawless glory (1 Tim 2:5-6).

In making all things new, the Son of God is the source of the coming ‘cosmic holiness’ in the new heavens and earth.

In the new heavens and earth the bondage of decay will be removed forever. Every created thing will declare God’s praise in accordance with its created purpose— that is what is meant by ‘cosmic holiness’ (Rev 21:5). Christ has the power to subject all things to Himself. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil 3:20-21). “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Col 1:19-20).

In unifying all reality in Himself, Christ is the solution to the dualisms that have afflicted the church since the beginning. For He rules His church by means of His three offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. And these three offices are dimensions of His mediatorial glory. In exercising these offices, He unifies redemptive history, He Himself being its goal. For all recorded time will be consummated and summarized in Him (Eph 1:9-10). On that Great Day, history will prove to be the record of the honoring and the dishonoring of God and the results of each.

All things will dovetail into one unifying purpose—seeing and beholding God in our nature. The glorified saints surrounding the throne of our Lord will marvel forever (Rev 4:10-11; 5:12-13). This is the purpose of the ages (Eph 3:9-11), to dwell with God in our nature—this explains the ultimate reason for human existence. The revelation and the communication of God to redeemed men is history’s destination. This is the glory for which we were created. This destiny of beholding this glory is the highest possible happiness—it is the beatific vision. To behold this glory is why we were created, it is why we are going through trials. We must be prepared by God to experience this communication of Himself. “Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:16-18).

How can the church experience a fresh discovery of Christ’s lordship over all creation?

Admittedly, the church has been ‘beat up’ and fractured by a form of dualism which rips apart Christ’s sovereignty over salvation from His dominion over creation. How can the church return to the conviction that Christ unifies all reality? Answer: she must make it her highest goal to give to Christ the proper place His supremacy and preeminence deserve, for He is the eternal Logos. In the Christ-hymn in Colossians 1:15-20, Christ as Lord of cosmology is exalted in His role of absolute dominion. Colossians chapter one reveals that it is the Father’s purpose that Christ have first place in everything. He possesses dominion and preeminence in creation, in redemption, and in judgment. By virtue of Him having first place in everything, His vastness is explicated, exalted, and exhibited before our eyes of faith.

What is missing from most pulpits today is the ‘strong meat’ of Christ’s cosmological power and authority as Creator, Designer, Owner, and Upholder. Few professing believers are conversant with His role as Logos—namely that all the laws and ordering principles which make our universe a beautifully ordered and rational cosmos, are upheld by Him and exist for Him (Col 1:17; Heb 1:3).

The dying saint and our aging cosmos both find their true telos in Christ.

Christ alone makes men new, and He will recreate a cosmos that’s new. ‘New’ in this context means telos realized—created purpose restored. The new heavens and new earth will be occupied by men and women made new—both the cosmos and the redeemed will together perfectly fulfill their telos. The holy angels will marvel at the revealing of the sons of God; an event synchronized with the lifting of the curse upon the creation. The entire creation will enter a new state of freedom (Rom 8:18-23). But how many professing Christians grasp this truth to such a degree as to be staggered by it? Now returning to our thesis of unified reality in Christ.

Reality is unified and ‘consolidated’ in Christ, for the origin, sustenance, rationality, and definition of the cosmos belong to Him in His role as Logos. For it is the exercise of His power and authority over the cosmos, and His ownership of it that constitute prime reality. Because of the church’s weak understanding of biblical cosmology, and its relative ignorance of Logos doctrine, a ‘robber’ has been plundering Christ’s bride. The thief has sought to chip away at the church’s role as the supporting column of God’s truth, “. . .[for] the church of the living God [is] the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15b). But God be praised, by the infallible Word of God, the ‘thief’ has been identified and ‘finger-printed’. Yes, the fugitive bandit is idolatrous paganism concealing itself behind the lab coat of pseudo-science. That thief has been astoundingly successful in darkening minds by stealing the glory which belongs to Christ Himself in His dominion over the cosmos and handing it to the cosmos itself—as if the universe were self-sustaining and autonomous.

This clever lie leaves the world of religion with a feeble savior who is not Lord of all, and who cannot conquer a man’s lusts, much less bring in a new world. Scripture’s corrective is comprehensive; for Christ has absolute power and authority over the creation. He is Overcomer and Conqueror (Rom 8:37; Col 2:15; Rev 19:11-13). And in His role as Logos, He exerts His sovereignty by designing, upholding, and defining the telos of every aspect of the creation. At the Day of the Lord, by Christ’s infinite power, everything except fallen angels and impenitent sinners will be restored to its proper telos—with no remnant of corruption. All things will ‘sing’ at their appointed frequency so that the whole creation will be a worshipping harmonious chorus making a joyful sound of praise to God (Ps 104:1-2; Is 55:12).

This restoration of the universe to function as a worshipping chorus is all owed to Christ ‘the Choir Director of creation’ who is carrying out every aspect of God’s plan. For all the Father does is through His Son. He creates, upholds, defines, reveals, saves, sanctifies, glorifies, judges, and restores—making all things new. The crowning reason the cosmos and its contents exist is that God might upon this ‘stage’ extend His glory by means of revealing and exhibiting His moral majesty. And His purpose of extending His glory is being carried out through His Son’s rule over redemptive history, and His Son’s entrance into redemptive history, and His Son’s making of a new humanity after His own likeness. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified” (Rom 8:28-30).

What is missing in today’s gospel apologetic is God’s absolute holiness and justice, and the truth that the Savior Himself is Lord of the cosmos.

As Christian worldview recedes in the West, the culture of death (abortion, perversion, euthanasia) will enthusiastically claim every square foot of territory that has been abandoned by biblical theism. And, with this eagerness to ‘liberate’ our culture from the remnants of its ‘Christian harness’ comes the wholehearted rejection that our human identity and dignity rest upon our being image-bearers of our Creator. The progressive left’s pagan cosmology constantly telegraphs that the priority of choice overshadows any assertion that the dignity and sanctity of life are at stake in these matters. Nevertheless, the rejection of our creational identity as the image of God is primary in the ploy to justify eroticism’s moral revolution.

We must recover the truth that to meet the Savior is to meet one’s Creator, for Christ is the Logos, the moment-by-moment source of the beautiful order in our cosmos. Therefore, those who appeal to Him for a cleansed conscience also bow the knee to Him as their Creator and Lord of the cosmos, and from then on, find their life in being ruled by His infallible Word, the Holy Scriptures.