RECOGNIZING YOUR CREATOR
As the world makes progress with artificial intelligence and machine learning, the lurking thought that the machines created by man will one day supplant the authority of man is disturbing, to say the least. Movie series like ‘Terminator’ have their plots based on this very supposition. While man would not want to create a machine that will overthrow him, the creator, the necessity of ingenuity makes it inevitable that these machines will only get more complex with time. And as they get more complex, their ability to be autonomous increases.
Tracing back to the creation, we can see parallels when God forms his most complex creation, man. Other animals and life forms do not have anywhere close to the complexity that man has. Man alone has the ability to be autonomous. God created man with a will, which could even choose to reject God his creator. While doing so was a great risk to God, not allowing man to have that ability would limit the beauty of man as a creation of God. And so while other life forms do not change their pattern of instinctive behavior, man has gone on to abuse his ability to choose and has consistently chosen to reject God.
Choices lead to consequences and with the choice to reject God came the reality of death. God is by definition love and his commitment to his creation led him to send his Son, Jesus into the world to save man from his predicament of sin and death. And man promptly rejects the solution as well. As John captures it in the gospel,
He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:10-13)
The contradiction of the creation not recognizing its creator is depicted here. Man has gone so far away from God and the disconnect is so wide that Jesus was not even recognized despite being the creator of this world. And just as man rejected God through the ages, the majority of people around him rejected Christ as well. Yet a few responded to him and in doing so managed to plant their feet into eternity. What was lost through rejection of God was regained through belief and acceptance of God’s sovereignty over man.
Those who believed became children of God. A child has the nature of his parent. God’s nature was made available through creation when God’s spirit was made intrinsic to the human nature. However when God was rejected, the spirit went into hibernation. But through Christ, the spirit within man came alive and in doing so, man could once again be legitimately called the child of God. Additionally in connecting to the eternal Holy Spirit of God, the rekindled spirit of man gives man access to eternal life.
