It is important for Christian’s to realise HOW INVOLVED God is with His creation and OUR LIVES. The gospel continually declares that God is forever present in our reality, no matter what we think, feel or do in the present reality.

James Thwaites open up Chapter 4 of his book ‘Renegotiating the Church Contract’ with the following:

“The Platonic worldview did not come from God. It is not taught in Scripture. It should have no place in defining either the nature or the purpose of the church. Our challenge is that its leaven has worked its way substantially through what we deem to be the primary expression of the church – that being the local church organisation… There is quite some difficulty in describing something that does not exist or at its best unknowable. This is the challenge when it comes to examining the nature of the platonic regime.

It is the unknowability or inaccessibility of the Platonic realm that is… the source of its power over so many people’s lives. To uncover the reasons for its elusive sway over the Western and Christian minds we need to look into the way it taps into and turns the creation reality away from the good.”

James Thwaites then goes on to talk about the transcendence and immanence of God.

I would like this post to explore the different realities of God both the Platonic and the Hebraic world views offer.

I think it is about time we explore the Hebraic and Platonic World views. One is a godly world view – the other, unfortunately (I believe) is demonic in so many ways.

Hebraic World View

The Hebrews believe God is in all things.

God brings the sun. God brings the rain. The Israelites saw God move powerfully in pagan Egypt. They saw their God meet with them powerfully at the Sea of Aquaba, the Sinai wilderness and deserts. They saw their God live, dwell and fight with them as they came into pagan Canaan. They saw God in the temple, in their children, the elders, the family and the community.

They knew God was in the sun and the rain, in the heat of the day, the morning mist and in the cool among the grazing cattle.

They saw God express His beauty through the flowers and his gentleness through the seeds of a dandelion (if they have them their). They saw his strength and might expressed through thunder, storm, fire and mountain. They saw his wisdom and life hold things together, they saw his love expressed through community, they saw his richness expressed through perfumes, mineral and solar system. You get the idea.

But God is also found in pain and in loss. His judgment was seen in famine and disease. He was also found in struggle. In the bible He wrestled with Jacob and struggled with His relationship with Israel (there is a significant link between the two as Israel means . In that struggle with Israel, Israel saw their God cares for them and loves them. Israel saw God choose to limit Himself within His creation and also saw Him respond with human emotion and vulnerability. Their God was incredibly engaged with their creation. If you look at the bible – he is not often talked about transcending outside of time. He CHOOSES to operate within time. We also observe that the first heaven (earth’s atmosphere), the second heaven (the great vacuum of space) and third heaven (invisible realm) are all connected and have a place WITHIN creation, not beyond.

Artistically, God is the painter’s, the writer’s, the singer’s, the worker’s, the artist’s best friend.

With this perspective, we see God fully at work in His creation and in His community with the Hebraic world view.

Platonic World View

The pagans, (we’ll say through platonic thinking), believed that their God’s were not in all things.

James Thwaites says:

 “Plato’s power to deceive comes from the way in which he made use of the perfections (attributes, nature and power) of the eternal transcendent God. He made these the focus or the goal for human existence. There is a semblance of truth here, in that these eternal perfections do actually exist in God. But… they are infinitely out of reach. Things like the eternal, the ideal, divine holiness, absolute knowledge and the like exist only in the transcendent God himself…

Plato’s ploy was to make the focus of life and truth something and somewhere outside the scope of human experience. He disconnected truth and reality from the life of the image bearer in creation and (supposedly) attached them directly to the infinite. Thus, rather than travelling in, through and over the finite revelation of God in creation, people were dislocated from their present life. Essentially what Plato has done in messing with our mind is to make us focus on the perfect and ideal rather than the good and created relational present.”

Our everyday life in creation is considered to be the backdrop, the waiting bay, the shadowlands waiting to the defining moment when ‘it’ all comes into focus. The platonic realm is ever inaccessible to people because reality is always elsewhere - that being said, there are a group of people in the Platonic programme, the elite, who have special knowledge of this ideal realm. There are the chosen few who are in contact with the ‘eternal’. These ‘philosopher kings’…”

We can see that Plato with this philosophy is seemingly treating the human race and creation like a donkey and has offered us the carrot that we will never obtain. This philosophy is Gnostic in origin as we try to obtain that level in God so that we can be more like Him. With this mental thought/wiring in striving to that ‘closeness’, we start the religious road to enlightenment. Therefore, we are often trying to see what God wants us to see and are struggling to obtain an enlightenment that so called prophets, evangelists and ‘apostles’ already have… ‘supposedly’. We can deny religion as much as we want, but unless we desperately seek truth, (commune with God, focus on the gospel, return to our first love and use the mind of Christ God has given us), we will fail. Now that we are aware of how we are taught to think, this religious philosophy has a much weaker and powerless grip over our minds.

Think about this. Think long and hard about this. How does advertising work? How do governments speak to get re-elected? How do leaders speak to congregations? Why are church visionaries so exalted? How do corporate businessman or bosses speak to their staff?

With the exaltation of the ideal, (the perfect, the transcended, the glorified, the pure, etc), all being associated with the divine, we see a division of the divine with the fallen, corrupted, muddied understanding of the world. Lets see what Jesus has done with this philosophy of Plato by coming to earth and doing the work He came to do in obedience to His Father.

Reformed World View

The Hebrew God who revealed himself as Jesus completely turns this platonic agenda upside down, exposing it as a lie. The Gospel, (the Good News, who IS Jesus Christ) exposed this lie. He revealed that God IS in us and not far away at all. He is a God that revealed himself as both HUMAN and DIVINE, that goes against the philosophies of Plato’s gospel. Let’s see how he does this through His incarnation and ministry:

Jesus Christ’s ministry exposed the lie of the Platonic Philosophy. This is just one thing he did to the platonic. From the Hebraic World view, this is what we too are called to do like Christ.

In Jesus’ life, what revealed His perfection, His godliness and His glorious aspects of His Father (Love, Wisdom, Word, Faith, Hope, Forgiveness, Mercy, Peace, Gentleness, Light, etc), was His willingness to engage His Father’s creation. Through Jesus’ challenges, His wisdom and authority and love and faithfulness was revealed.

When God made the first Adam, He gave Adam an untamed garden/wilderness to TAME. Since the first Adam knew NOT what sin was, he would learn how to face the challenges he would come up against in the wild and untamed creation. Adam was to GROW into the fullness of the creation that called him into.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil seems to be the short-cut/robbery of man experiencing this discovery of creation. Adam was to grow up into all things like God was, but THROUGH the creation He was placed in. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil operated outside of God’s agenda, and undermined the gift of creation to man and its purpose it served in relation to God.

Hidden in creations DNA was a hidden function that responded to mans actions to it. When man chose to eat of the forbidden tree, creation RESPONDED to Adam by bringing in death, thorns and sweat to seemingly prevent him from entering INTO the fullness of the creation.

What Jesus revealed through His ministry on earth, is how relational God is to man through His creation; and how we are to walk through it TO inherit its fullness. Read the gospels again.

If Jesus did not encounter opposition; if Jesus did not encounter angry mobs, hard questions, dangerous sea-storms, angelic temptations, puberty, sweat, frustration, pressure, tears and death, what proof would we have that he is God?

To truly show He was a God of purity, he fell in the dust and filth of the streets while carrying his cross – still sinless until his final hours. He embraced sin, the curse and death. Since he became our sin, we can push on through our shortcomings. We can be thankful that He is willing to deal with our impurities by becoming those impure things. But in our relationship with Him, he chooses to work through our short-comings, sicknesses, greeds, lusts so that we may turn to Him to take us out from such acts. He dealt with all these impurities! This is the God who loves us that we know!

In further examining the New testament, we see Jesus revealed as Judge, Love and also the God who holds death in His hands. With this Hebraic pattern laid out in front of us, what is revealed is that through our suffering, God is there WITH us. In our sin and imperfection, God is there WITH us. This is what the gospel revealed – but this is something that the Jews had an understanding about all along (until they were exiled and started adopting pagan beliefs into their own). We will all face the death of love ones, but death, struggle and pain will help shape us into the PERFECT will of the Father, just as it did Christ. Christ was born as an infant and walked into the fullness His Father laid out before Him, by having His Son embrace difficulties, trials and judgments.

Now Plato has twisted the Hebraic meaning of the word ‘perfect’. For when God said ‘be perfect just as I am perfect’, James Thwaites beautifully writes:

“When the word ‘perfect’ (teleios) is used in scripture in relation to our lives, it refers to our being who we were made to be. When Jesus speaks of being perfect like our heavenly Father is perfect he speaks of our journey towards the fullness of who we are, not a journey to arrive at the actual perfection of God Himself.”

This means I can value my journey with God intimately and appreciate where others are with God in their personal journeys with Him.

Now it is important to note how creation responded to the death of the man who did overcome IT through His death and Resurrection. This is also talked about in Romans 8. It says how we through Jesus’ Spirit, now walk on His road of suffering into the fullness of the creation that can’t wait to be liberated. Christ laid down the Hebraic world view and plan down through His ‘perfect’ life. With His Spirit in us now, we all walk in our ‘perfection’ into maturity and fullness like Him.

We shall embrace other people’s short-comings/sins and embrace the grave like Him. But we too shall be raised like Him.

I pray that Jesus will reform your philosophy and your world view. (Yes this is brainwashing! But at least NOW you KNOW who is doing the washing!)

Now that we are in communion with God, he has made us ‘perfect’ in His creation and among His human family. Enjoy the adventures of life and learn to rest with yourself, in God in His creation. You, as a Christian will endure incredible hardship and will have to learn to embrace the thorns, sweat, tears and death in your life, just like Christ did, so that you may grow into the fullness with God in this life. You will have adventures and stories to tell to children. You’re life will be full of rich memories! People around you will see what you go through WITH God and will see Him through your trials when you acknowledge that He is there among those dark times.

So I encourage you to shake off the shackles of Plato’s lies and walk in ‘perfection’ through these God-given difficulties of this present creation. Don’t take short-cuts or escape the realities of this present creation. Engage WITH THEM! Let God reveal what YOU are capable of in His life!

Learn to enjoy your hardships !

Until next time… Think Hebraic, not Platonic!

Jake