Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey, Mark Clark Podcast. We are super excited about this week. We have been doing this series called Anything Goes where let the Internet decide on what I was going to preach about. And this question this week was the number one voted on question. Literally tens of thousands of votes for a Christian to speak into the question of aliens. Are aliens legitimate? Do they exist? If they exist, how does it fit into the Bible and all of the questions around it? Even if you've never been interested in the question of aliens, I'm telling you, you should listen to this because it surprise you. And remember, this podcast is part of the Thrive Podcast Network. We have a whole bunch of podcasts on there.
Mark Clark [00:00:37]:
Stuff about marriage, some cultural stuff, and there's one awesome podcast that's firing back up called the Bible Study. Every single week, a bunch of pastors at Bayside get around the Bible and talk about it for half an hour. It's called the Bible Study. You can listen to it. You can watch it on YouTube. It is an awesome podcast. So go look that up. It's part of the Thrive Podcast Network.
Mark Clark [00:00:56]:
Okay, let's get into this. The number one voted on question with Anything Goes was the question of aliens and their existence and how it all fits with the Bible. Hopefully you enjoy it. Let's get into it. I could just say I don't know, and then preach to you about something I actually want to say. And the sermon would be great. It's like, are there existence? I don't know. Let's pray together, Father.
Mark Clark [00:01:21]:
But I think there's some actual more things to say about this. Actually important to teach. And for those who might have. Those might have grown up before the YouTube era, this question may be a little weird. I mean, obviously people have wondered about aliens for a long time and talked about them. And even those who grow up generations ago would have had movies and ideas and books and, you know, War of the Worlds and H.G. wells and all this stuff. And it's always kind of gone to the heart of people's conversations.
Mark Clark [00:01:50]:
But this is actually in the church, actually, something needs to be addressed because in the culture, there is this movement of people who actually believe in this. They just stormed Area 51. The Twitterverse blew up. And they all. They all said, we need to go storm area 51 in Nevada and prove. Make the. Make the government show us the space aliens that they found in the 50s. And so the Twitter verse, everybody said, okay, on this date, everybody's got to show up in storm area 51 and get the truth.
Mark Clark [00:02:21]:
And then I think it was like 100 dudes that showed up. But anyway, and they're all living at home with their moms and wearing shirts like this. But the reality is you have those guys, you have that movement afoot, and then you have the Bob Lazar movement afoot, where people listen to Joe Rogan's three hour conversation with Bob Lazaro and then go on and watch his documentaries and YouTube things about how he saw, he's a, he's a credible scientist and he saw spaceships in Area 51 and he had to work on them. And there's all these kind of conspiracy ideas. So it's a cultural question. It's not as insane as some people may think it is. And so we have to be able to kind of engage it and understand it if our job is to be contextual, missiologically as the church, or be able to explain and talk to the actual questions people have, which are vastly sometimes different than the ones that the Church have. So let's explore some of this stuff.
Mark Clark [00:03:13]:
Believe it or not, this actually is a theological category. Through history, religions, since they've been drawing on walls, have explored this question of aliens. Since the Middle Ages, the Church and Christianity have explored the question of aliens. It actually has a name, it's called exotheology. And I'll give you the definition of it. It's the examine of examination, examination of theological issues as they pertain to extraterrestrial intelligence. It's primarily concerned with either conjecture about possible theological beliefs that extraterrestrials might have, or have our own theologies have been or will be influenced by evidence of and or interaction with extraterrestrials. How will our theology change? What do they.
Mark Clark [00:03:57]:
Do they exist? What might they believe? And so on. But the main question for us, of course, is is the room in Christianity for aliens? Does it disprove the Bible? Is it actually part of the Bible? All of those. And there's lots of theologians that have written on this. Vatican Catholic theologians, C.S. lewis, a Lutheran theologian named Ted Peters. The culture is obsessed with it, obviously. Movies, scientists, contact, Carl Sagan, Bob Lazar, X Files. I meet people who say they've seen aliens.
Mark Clark [00:04:27]:
Now it's always the guy where you're like, I would totally believe you if you weren't you. Right? It's always that guy. Like, it's never the guy who's like, man, I've been credible my whole life. I've never said anything crazy. I'm totally legit, I'm irrational. And then all of a sudden, he's like, dude, you don't understand. It's always the guy where you're like, oh, really? You were abducted? That's great. And then you're like, yeah, I totally believe this if it wasn't you.
Mark Clark [00:04:53]:
Because you're kind of say weird things all the time. Seems like that's always kind of you. It's never the nor. So that's kind of the big question. A guy named Jack Handy. You guys listen to Jack or you? Jack Handy? You watch snl? I watch it for cultural research. I don't enjoy it at all, but Jack Handy. You ever heard of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy? Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy.
Mark Clark [00:05:16]:
You've heard of that before? All right, here was Jack Handy's reflection. If aliens from outer space ever come and we show them our civilization and they make fun of it, we should say we were just kidding, that it isn't really our civilization, but a gag we hoped they would like. Then we tell them to come back in 20 years to see our real civilization. After that, we start a crash program of coming up with an impressive new civilization. Either that or just shoot down the aliens as they're waving goodbye. All right, that's kind of our options. Right? So what do we think about all this from a Christian perspective? What are biblical thoughts on the issue? Culturally speaking, there are two reactions that people have. Either excitement, which is the kind of X Files, Mulder, I want to believe that kind of reaction, or dread, which is, they're going to come for us.
Mark Clark [00:06:08]:
They're going to enslave us, they're going to take all of our water, they're going to kill us, they're going to be more powerful than us, all of that. And so do they exist? Obviously, to get to the point, we don't know. We're agnostic about it, but let's explore some issues around it. I have about four general things to talk about in these areas. First, if there are aliens, does that disprove God? No. In Genesis chapter one, we have God creating the universe. And he creates it. Massively expansive.
Mark Clark [00:06:38]:
The stars, planets, people. And he does this amazing thing. In Genesis chapter one, verse one, he creates the heavens and the earth. And the point of that text is that it's very vast, but God made it. And so the reality is he makes this massively expansive universe. And does that challenge if, in those mass, in that massively expansive universe, on a planet, if we find aliens, does it crash Christianity to the ground? There are philosophers who think so. Physicist Paul Davies, he says this. The discovery of extraterrestrial life would have catastrophic results for religion because he says humanity, according to Christianity, it's very important, is the sole end pinnacle of creation and the object, only object of God's love.
Mark Clark [00:07:25]:
That's what he says Christians believe. Ergo, if we found aliens, it would destroy Christianity. He says it's inevitable that if we discover life elsewhere in the universe, it will change forever our perspective of our own species and our own planet. Those people who cling to the idea that humanity is the pinnacle of creation, or that somehow we were made in the image of God, would, I think, receive a rude shock. Philosopher Theodore Schick says this. For all their differences, Christians and humanists agree on at least one thing, that humans are the most valuable form of life on the planet. Whether divinely crafted or naturally evolved from nothing. Both groups consider humans to be the crown of earthly creation.
Mark Clark [00:08:06]:
Since humanists believe that life is a natural rather than a supernatural phenomenon, they have no trouble admitting that self conscious, intelligent beings may exist elsewhere in the universe. Such an admission, he says, is not so easy for Christians. However, the Bible does not mention the existence of other planets, let alone intelligent creatures that inhabit them. So if intelligent aliens were discovered, Christian theologians would have a lot of explaining to do. Here's the thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. It would simply reveal, here's the Christian response, that God has created life more than once. It's a straw man for these philosophers to say the Bible never mentions aliens.
Mark Clark [00:08:45]:
Ergo, if aliens exist, the Bible falls apart. The Bible doesn't mention a lot of things. The Bible doesn't mention telephones, doesn't mention Internet, doesn't mention dinosaurs, doesn't mention any of these things. It doesn't mean that those things actually don't exist. Saying that the Bible doesn't mention it actually isn't an argument for anything. That's one response. The second response is the assumption that these philosophers make that it is a biblical view that humanity is actually the only object of God's love and the pinnacle of creation. As if humanity is the only thing that matters in the world.
Mark Clark [00:09:19]:
And what we have in the Bible is actually a different picture. Here's the response. The psalmist David talks about this. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, he's looking at the heavens, he's looking at all this expanse. We're going to come back to this passage. I think it's important, which you have set in place. What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him, look at what his conclusion is. Yet you have made him meaning man a little lower than the heavenly beings.
Mark Clark [00:09:52]:
It's an assumption on philosophers parts to say that the Christian view is that human beings are the pinnacle of creation. And the most important thing, the reality is God has made angels. And the whole philosophy of the Bible, whether it's Psalm chapter 8 or the book of Hebrews chapter 2, when it's taking Psalm chapter 8 and it's kind of interpreting it through a Christological lens. The point is, is that humankind is not necessarily seen as the pinnacle of creation, that God himself has created such a vast universe that there are amazing things that God himself looks at and values. So CS Lewis says this. It is of course, the essence of Christianity that God loves man and for his sake became man and died. But that does not prove, listen to this, that man is the sole end of nature. In the parable, it was the one lost sheep that the shepherd went in search of.
Mark Clark [00:10:50]:
It was not the only sheep in the flock. And we are not told that it was even the most valuable. And so here's what we have to understand. If intelligent beings were found elsewhere in the universe, they couldn't compromise the special relationship already existing between God and human beings. That's the reality. In the same way that if. So I have three daughters, right? I have Sienna, she's 13. We have Hayden, 10, and Bella's 8.
Mark Clark [00:11:15]:
Now imagine that once I had Hayden, all right, my second, that that somehow made me love my first less. That's the point of the philosophy. God could have an infinite amount of beings. He could have 12 different species of whatever, and it doesn't change his love for us in the same way that you have multiple kids. Now, we all know that there's probably a kid that you like more than the other ones. All right, that's fine. Admit that to yourself. That's good.
Mark Clark [00:11:42]:
And I know that Sienna has started to now come into these sermons, so, honey, it's you. I love you more than the others, but don't tell them, okay? So here's the reality. The reality is I have one child. I have a second child. It's not that my love all of a sudden has to be taken away from the one and given to the other. It multiplies out exponentially. All right? So that's the reality. And so Lewis's point is just, even if there was aliens found, it doesn't mean that God doesn't love humankind.
Mark Clark [00:12:10]:
Now, second point is the question of the vastness and the mystery of the universe has always been embraced by Christians. In the beginning, God makes the heavens and the earth. We know that There are around 100 billion stars in our galaxy. All right, let me show you a picture. This is the, this is the photo. It looks, it looks pixely. And the reason it looks pixely is because this is a Hubble telescope photo. This is the largest picture of the universe ever taken.
Mark Clark [00:12:43]:
This is the best picture. We've got, the largest amount of the universe we have. Now, obviously you cannot tell what is going on here, but the bottom line is there are a hundred billion galaxies. Now for those of you, you know, haven't been to school or whatever, you got to understand something. We exist in, in one galaxy, all right? The Milky Way galaxy, there are a hundred galaxies, billion galaxies that There are around 100 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, and then there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe. So we live on one planet orbiting one star, the sun, in just one galaxy. And so we have to understand the vastness of creation could mean, as some people think, that look at us, we're some random little like you. You would even be able to close to seeing a dot of what the Earth is or even our galaxy in this thing.
Mark Clark [00:13:41]:
I mean, these are, these are galaxies within galaxies. You want your mind to be blown. There's black holes in here where things go in and they don't come out. But then they might come out in a different universe. We have no idea. It's crazy. Go watch interstellar, all right? It'll blow your mind. Because then stuff starts to, gravity starts to take place.
Mark Clark [00:13:59]:
And what happens is they go on one planet and every hour that they're there is actually seven years back home. Because time functions differently once you start to go through these different places and so, and then they, they make a mistake and so they're there and then they get messed up and they come back and they've only been gone for a little bit and they come back and it's been 23 years and they're like, oh my goodness. This is what happens when you start talking about space. The vastness, the complexity, the mystery of it. Christians have always embraced this, the idea that we're one part of a vast universe. Now here's what you got to understand. Scientists point out, I think this is very important, the anthropic principle, the fine tuning of the universe, the idea, all of the things that would have had to come into play for our universe to ever come into existence. Our life giving universe, the Idea that our world even can be life giving, that you and I can breathe, that there's oxygen and there's H2O and there's CO2 and there's, we're this far away from, from the sun, we're not too far.
Mark Clark [00:15:00]:
All of those things actually had to come within view. Scientists tell us the chances of our universe coming into existence are 1 chance in 10 to the 138th power. Now I don't know if you know that. That's 138 zeros after the 10. All right. Now just to compare what kind of astronomical number this is, if you were to add up all the seconds since the universe began, scientists tell us let's just go with the natural ideas. Fifteen billion years ago the universe came into existence. So how many seconds have existed for 15 billion years? 10 to the 70th power.
Mark Clark [00:15:42]:
All right, that's how many seconds that the universe has been in existence for. And what mathematicians say is the universe coming into existence with all the life giving variables that we need to actually ever exist. Here right now is 1/10 to the 138 power. Basically from a mathematical equation. It's a miracle, it's impossible, it can't be done unless there was a mind that actually played with it. And that's what one writer says. He talks about the idea that there were 15 constants that had to be lined up. First off, these had to be lined up.
Mark Clark [00:16:20]:
122 variables had to be lined up within a million millionth for anything ever to exist. Francis Collins says this matter would not have been able to coalesce. There would have been no galaxies, no stars, no planets and no people. So picture 122 dials across the universe needing to be zoned in to the million millionth for our universe to ever come into existence. William Lane Craig says the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature which operates inside the nucleus of an atom, is so finely tuned that an alteration in its value by even one part in ten to the thousandth power would have prevented a life permitting universe. Astronomer Fred Hoyle says this a common sense interpretation of the facts. Now listen for you mathematicians and for you scientists out there, but naturalists, you're atheists, your skeptics, your agnostics. Listen.
Mark Clark [00:17:11]:
Fred Hoyle A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics as well as chemistry and biology. And there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The bottom line is the math shoots to the idea that there is a creator. There is a mind that actually put all of this into play and said, now it's going to come about. Now, if all of that is true, the argument is this, if all that data had to be true about our life giving universe coming into existence, what are the chances that that happened somewhere else again? That there's four of those kind of planets or a hundred of them, and that therefore there's life and it evolved in the aliens, all of that. The facts that we are here are miraculous, let alone it happening again and again. Now. I think it's a good argument.
Mark Clark [00:18:04]:
I think it's a good argument against aliens. However, I don't think it's a great biblical argument, because our whole point is we don't exist here by chance. We exist here because God lovingly created us and actually said, I want to do something. Which means the more you believe in God, in a sense, the more you can believe maybe God did it again, maybe somewhere else. God actually created people. So we don't have any direct evidence for the existence of aliens. But lack of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. That depends upon how likely it is that we would ever find evidence of extraterrestrials if they actually existed.
Mark Clark [00:18:41]:
I think God here's the point is so vast that he can create anything he wants, because human beings aren't the point of the universe. Theology says that God's the point of the universe. His glory is the point of the universe. God would have been entertained and fully in awe and full of love and totally full if he never created us. If he created that vast universe and then just sat and watched it, it proclaimed his glory to creation, he would have been fine. The Trinity would have existed. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Because the point of the.
Mark Clark [00:19:15]:
The whole human story isn't about human beings. It's about the glory of God. That's the point. Which means your life is supposed to be about the glory of God, by the way. So every time you sit and you look in awe of the stars, the deduction has never, from a Christian standpoint. But my gosh, look at the expanse of the stars. AI must mean nothing. The universe must be meaningless because it's so vast.
Mark Clark [00:19:37]:
It's man. Look at all of this. God did this for his glory and he made us and he made me and I matter in the midst of this vastness. That makes it more beautiful. That should stir you to actually say, my gosh, in the midst of all this, God actually cares about me. And so the Vatican theologian Jose Gabriel Funes says this, just as there is A multiplicity of creatures on Earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith, because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom. The reality is, you might have heard of SETI before, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
Mark Clark [00:20:25]:
Seti, S E T I. It's. It's what that Contact. You've seen Contact. Jodie Foster and Carl Sagan book. It's what that's based on. You shoot out a bunch of program numbers out into the universe, and hopefully, if we get a repeat back to us that is a certain length and has a certain rhythm, we know that somebody actually is returning the message. And we know that there's life, which is a fascinating philosophy, by the way.
Mark Clark [00:20:50]:
Go back and watch Contact and apply the same ethic to biology that we said to ourselves in seti. And we do this now that if we shoot out a certain number of numbers, it can't just be like four numbers or four digits, because that could be random. But if we set out a certain amount of numbers in a certain Morse code kind of pattern. Rhythm of mathematics, which would be the language of the universe, I think. And I just. A lot of philosophy on this. I don't think that they're going to speak Italian if there are extraterrestrials. Okay, they could.
Mark Clark [00:21:19]:
Sorry for the Italians in the room. They'll. They'll. But they'll probably speak math because math is kind of a universal language. So if they do show up, we could probably do math equations together, which, you know, I'll be checking out at that point. But. And so the reality is, so we say, let's shoot out all these rhythms, and then if these rhythms come back, that means they're intelligent. And then.
Mark Clark [00:21:40]:
Okay, so that's beautiful. There's an intelligent life. If there's form, if there's structure, if there's intellect, if there's rhythm, if there's pattern, if the, you know, cognitive ideas. And yet then we look at biology and apply the same thing. There is literally in our DNA a math equation, codes that are intelligent, that define everything about you. In our DNA. We've mapped it out. It's called the human genome.
Mark Clark [00:22:04]:
And the guy who did it ends up going, I want to give my life to Jesus, because this is crazy. There's an actual language in your DNA. And so when we say it about aliens, we got to say it about ourself. And we got to go, yes. Any sign of any kind of rhythm or information that seems encoded points toward a Creator points toward a mind behind all of this. And so Christians could actually be the ones leading seti, leading the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. But Oxford chemist Peter Aiken says this, and you're surprised. I actually have found this many quotes about this issue, haven't you? I've always thought that I was insignificant.
Mark Clark [00:22:46]:
Peter Atkins says, getting to know the size of the universe, I see just how insignificant I really am. And I think the rest of the human race ought to realize just how insignificant significant it is. I mean, we're just a bit of slime on a planet belonging to one sun. And that's the difference of a worldview. You have David in Psalm 8 saying, look at me. I'm one person in the midst of the heavens. I see the moon, I see the stars. Man, I can't believe you care about me versus boy, I'm one person in the midst of the stars.
Mark Clark [00:23:25]:
Who cares? Nobody must care about me. Life must be meaningless. See, that's a philosophical deduction that you're making. Now you're in the realm of metaphysics. Now you're in the realm of philosophy, not science. You say, here's some data and here's my conclusions about it. Here's what the psalmist said. Psalm 19 says this.
Mark Clark [00:23:45]:
The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night, they display knowledge. I mean, this is fascinating. The Bible actually says that when you're looking at this, all right, not that you're looking, but when you see it, there's one of two things you can say. I mean, nothing. There is no God, it doesn't matter.
Mark Clark [00:24:09]:
Or, my gosh, this is displaying. The psalm says, the sky's proclaim the work of his hands. It means two different ways of interpreting this data. And the question I have for you is, if you choose to interpret the data and say, this means I'm nothing, the vastness means I'm life is meaningless. Here's my question. Why? Because there's always a thing behind the thing. I. I've been.
Mark Clark [00:24:38]:
Romans chapter one says, you have all this data, these visible qualities that show the world an invisible God. And he says, and yet people suppress the evidence. See, in the end, what's the problem? It's the humankind. It's not the lack of evidence. The evidence is right here. The issue is the suppression of the evidence. Why do you suppress it? Why spin it? Why go the extra mile to reinterpret something that seems according to reason to be saying Hey, I exist. The reason I made this was so that you would come to me.
Mark Clark [00:25:17]:
I'm preaching to you. I'm welcoming you. I love you. And then we choose to interpret as I'm meaningless. There is no God. Why? What's the why behind the why? Paul says, there's something else going on, bro. Look at yourself. And I'm not going to project on you what it is, but look into your own soul.
Mark Clark [00:25:32]:
Look into your own heart. Look. Look into your own life. What are the reasons that you wouldn't necessarily say, there is a God and he gave us his son, Jesus, and I want to give my life to him. I'm not sure it's just because of the data and because you're smarter than everybody in the room. I think that it may have to do with something behind the something. Maybe a fear that you have, maybe a cowardice that you're afraid of what people might think of you. Maybe you're afraid of what it means for your sex life.
Mark Clark [00:25:58]:
The fact that you don't just get to do whatever you want anymore. Anymore. Because now there's an authority over your life. Be honest with your reasons. Because there's always a thing behind the thing. Is it because you don't get to control your money anymore? Because God says, you know what? I know you made this and you go after shiny stuff, but all that stuff's gonna burn in the end. I want you to use it for kingdom. I want you to help people.
Mark Clark [00:26:21]:
I want you to take your things and use it for the people come to know Jesus, kids who are dying, sex trafficking. I want you to take your time, your energy to actually do stuff beyond you and your life and your redoing your little kitchen tiles? The world is bigger than that. It's bigger than what you think it is. It's bigger than your kid getting straight A's and making sure they make the basketball team wake up. Look at this. Your kid ain't going to the NBA, bro. I'm just letting you know right now. Look at this.
Mark Clark [00:26:56]:
Be honest with your own heart. What's the reason behind the reason that you might interpret this in a different way than it's asking you to? The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day and night they pour forth speech. Night after night, they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth. Their words to the ends of the world.
Mark Clark [00:27:27]:
Is it because you don't get to do marriage the way you wanted? Is it because you don't get to do work the way you wanted? Is it because you have to come under the authority of the scriptures and now they get to define what you have to deal with and what your opinion is on things and how you're gonna live your life? Is that the thing behind the thing? Just be honest with that. And maybe that's the most important thing out of all this alien talk for you. Isn't the question of aliens the question of how you interpret the universe? Because there's one of two ways it's vast, meaningless nothing, or there's something in it. You know, it's fascinating. Look at. Compare Star Treks, okay? For you geeks out there, compare Star Treks. The Star treks of the 60s were of course about the future. And they were about traveling around and going to different galaxies and visiting green women and whatever.
Mark Clark [00:28:19]:
And that's what it was about. So there's no religion in that original Star Trek series because the projection was that as we went forward with technology and the world evolved, religion would go out of style and be done because no one would actually believe stupid myths anymore. But then you look at the Star Trek the Next Generation with Picard in the 90s, the late 80s and the 90s, and what you have is religion everywhere. They have people on the ship that are religious. Everything's metaphysical, everything's spiritual, everything's existential. Why? Because that 30 years went by and we realized more people were becoming religious as they followed science, not less. And they began realizing that science itself raises a lot of existential, metaphysical questions. It doesn't say, let's stop with it and I'll just become more secular.
Mark Clark [00:29:14]:
That's not where science has gone. I don't know what you're reading, I don't know what your one year at SFU told you, but that's not where the world went. The world went, look at the data. And then it said, it's crying out for an answer. And the answer is not matter. Because matter can't ever create mind. If you just give it enough time, give it enough chance, matter and meat will, over time, create a cognitive thing that can self reflect and do art and music. Not gonna happen.
Mark Clark [00:29:52]:
Mine comes first. It's where all the evidence leads. So Alvin Plantaga, greatest living philosopher Christian, says this. It would seem strange if God would have created this entire universe and have creatures in only one small corner who are able to witness and see what miraculous work he has done. So the natural thing to think from a Christian perspective is that There are lots and lots of different intelligent species out there. Now, let me give you a third and then a movement here, and then I'll give a final reflection. The third thing is that this, of course, raises one of the most critical questions toward a Christian would be, okay, what about the incarnation, which is, of course, Jesus becoming human? And what about the atonement, where on the cross Jesus dies for the sin of the world? What do you do if there's intelligent life out there with those questions? Because on the one hand, you have Romans chapter five, which of course says that Jesus died for man, that as man was disobedient, and then God's going to save man through the death of Jesus and so on and so forth. But I think there's.
Mark Clark [00:30:59]:
I think there's an interesting reflection on the Bible on this, and it doesn't necessarily need to be a problem. Colossians chapter one is this beautiful cosmic chapter in the Bible. You should go home and read it this afternoon. Talks about Jesus through, Through Jesus, everything was created. And then it says this. Colossians chapter 1, verse 18. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning.
Mark Clark [00:31:24]:
This is talking about Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things. So here's what the cross did, right? The atonement is a reconciliation issue. It's trying to reconcile what we talk about often humankind, to God. But he says it's bigger than that. He's reconciling to himself. This is the Greek word panta. It means, it means all things.
Mark Clark [00:31:55]:
And then he says, I know it's a little heavy already, so I didn't want to get into, like, Alexa con for you. It's like, all right, okay, so it's all things really technical, whether on earth. So you have a couple. You have a couple different spots you have on Earth or in heaven, right? In the heavenlies. It's in the heavenlies, in heaven there, but vast. And he's trying to explain this cosmic making peace by the blood of his cross. So what's the means by which Jesus Christ, what's the means by which he did all this? He did it by his cross. That's the means by which salvation in your life happens.
Mark Clark [00:32:40]:
But he's saying it's not just about your life personally. There's a cosmic vision where the cross actually creates a reconciliation in the heavens. There's, there's, there's the, the cosmic vision of what the cross actually accomplishes, the reversal of death, the all creation in every corners. So it's not a problem in regard to incarnation necessarily because of course, Jesus, as theologians say, maybe we're not the only place he incarnated. Now, it doesn't really make much sense because once he incarnated here, he went to be in the heavens and he's a person forever. Which by the way, as an aside, is one of the things I think Christians miss about the sacrifice of Jesus. Here's what I think most of you grow up with. I think you grew up with a, with an incarnation vision of Jesus where, you know, he exists somewhere as a blob or something and then he becomes a human being and he roughs it out for 33 years.
Mark Clark [00:33:36]:
And yeah, he's, you know, he's poor, he doesn't eat very much and he's hanging and then he gets beaten, which is terrible. Then he goes to the cross. But don't worry because in the back of your head he goes back to glory and he's fine and everything's great. And, and for you, that 33 years was the sacrifice. The problem is, as theologians have pointed out, that's not actually the proper vision of what happened because Jesus, when he became a human being. And this should make you, next time you're reflecting on the body and the blood of Jesus for you, just have this in your mind. The picture of Jesus now is a picture of a Jesus who actually is limited in a sense to the human body forever. It wasn't a 33 year sacrifice, guys.
Mark Clark [00:34:17]:
It was infinite. It goes on even now. He's at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf right now. So obviously he's not off at another, you know, planet doing whatever maybe he could have before he came here. We're not really sure. C.S. lewis and you were like, at least we're not going to get a C.S. lewis quote today, because there's no way C.S.
Mark Clark [00:34:42]:
lewis wrote about this. Well, I already quoted him once. CS Lewis has a sermon called Religion and Rocketry, and here's his reflections. And this is what I think is a fascinating question in regard to redemption and incarnation and atonement. So we got the question of was it just for man? Maybe we got the question of Colossians 1 being a cosmic vision of possibly what the atonement meant and that if, you know, people need redeeming, then maybe the cross actually does it for them. But then Lewis goes one deeper and he asks this Question. If there are intelligent beings out there, maybe they're not fallen yet. And here's what he says.
Mark Clark [00:35:24]:
If there are species and rational species other than men, are any or all of them like us, fallen? This is what we always seem to forget. We seem to think that the incarnation coming of Jesus implies some particular merit or excellency in humanity. But of course it implies just the reverse, a particular demerit and depravity. No creature that deserves redemption would need to be redeemed. They that are whole need not the physician. Also, if all of them or any of them are fallen, have they been denied redemption by the incarnation and cross of Christ? For, of course, it is not a very new idea that the sun may, for all we know, have been incarnate in other worlds than earth and so saved other races than ours. Perhaps of all races we only fell. Though perhaps man is the only lost sheep, the one, therefore, whom the shepherd came to seek.
Mark Clark [00:36:20]:
It's a fascinating question. If there are other planets and other intelligence, maybe they're not fallen yet. Maybe they don't need the redemption of Christ yet because they're living in an Eden state of perfection. Richard Randolph, Kansas City University ethicist, says, would sin be the same on other planets as we conceive of it here? Would there even be sin? Or would God be present to that species in a completely different way? So here's the other thing. Lewis says. If they came here and they were fallen or weren't fallen, what would our call be in every movie? We shoot them, we kill them, we blow them up. We're scared, we run. But he says, if they're not fallen and they arrive here in perfect godlike state, almost like we were in the garden, what should we do? Shoot them? That would be bad.
Mark Clark [00:37:12]:
He says we should learn from them. And then he says, but if they are fallen, what should we do? Shoot them or evangelize them? If they're fallen and in need of Jesus, what would our response be? He says, this two paragraphs are great. We know what our race does to strangers. Man destroys or enslaves every species he can. There are individuals who don't, but they aren't the sort who are likely to be our pioneers in space. Our ambassadors to new worlds will be the needy and the greedy. Adventure. What will they do if they meet these beings? If they're weaker than them, they will be destroyed.
Mark Clark [00:37:54]:
How would things go if those types met an unfallen race? At first, they'd have a grand time jeering at them, duping them and Exploding, exploiting their innocence. But I doubt if our half animal cutting would long be a match for a godlike wisdom, selfless valor and perfection. Can even missionaries be trusted? He says gun and gospel have been horribly combined in the past. Would they continue to press upon creatures that did not need to be saved? The plan of salvation which God has appointed just for man? I don't know. Then he says this. I love this. This is crazy. Our loyalty is not to our species, but to God.
Mark Clark [00:38:31]:
Those who are or can be his sons are real brothers, even if they have shells or tusks. It is spiritual, not biological kinship, that counts. And then he says this. I have wondered whether the vast astronomical distances may not be God's quarantine precaution. They prevent the spiritual infection of a fallen species from spreading. Basically, he creates that to keep us away from everybody. Now, let me end this way. Let's get practical.
Mark Clark [00:39:09]:
We don't know about aliens. We could have ended the sermon in 30 seconds. But you know about your neighbor. Your neighbor doesn't know Jesus and he's fallen. So instead of sitting around listening to Bob Lazar on Joe Rogan all day, go tell your neighbor about Christ. What does the fact that we even ask this question mean about us? What's the mirror? The mirror is this. I think. I think a lot.
Mark Clark [00:39:43]:
I think we all have in us this desire for something transcendent, something bigger than your boring life, than the natural world. You know, when Avatar came out in 2009, people left and reported that they wanted to take their own life after Avatar was over. Now, some people said that just because it was so horrible. Other people said that when they entered into the world of Pandora, they experienced a kind of transcendent experience that made them want to go back again and again and again. And they wanted to be able to live in that reality so much that it sucked coming back to the real world of marriage and bills and work and the natural physical limitations where we can't fly around on dragons and go, all of this stuff. There was a limitation. But the minute you start to feel that way about anything, and one writer has says this, if nothing in this world can satisfy and fulfill you, it means you were made for another world. What is that constant, elusive yearning we all have? That thing that's like, I grasp it for a quick second, then was gone.
Mark Clark [00:40:54]:
Like, I want more of that. I want that. Why, you wouldn't have that if you were just an animal, by the way. You wouldn't know anything other than eating stuff, procreating and moving on, that's the reality. Zebras aren't asking the big questions about existential reality. They're just having sex and eating and trying not to get eaten by the lion. That's it. They're not going, what's my place in the universe? And I wonder if there's a place where my soul could dwell forever, right? And they don't write stories like Peter Pan where we all get to fly.
Mark Clark [00:41:24]:
They don't write stories like Beauty and the Beast where the beast gets to turn into a beauty because the love and sacrifice of a person who write these stories. Why do we write these stories? Why do you have that yearning? It's because, listen to me. There is a place where we don't die. There is a place where the beast gets turned into a beauty because of the sacrifice of another. There is a place where there's no more death or pain and you could fly in its new creation and it's perfect perfection and it's such pleasure and delight, you can't even imagine it. And once in a while we get this little, little plant that pops up through the concrete of the nonsense of real life and it goes, you know, there's another world, right? And that other world has started because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross and in the resurrection and the power of the spirit in your life, the one who came from another world and came into our world and gave his life so that you might experience that kind of cosmic, insane joy and delight forever for all time. Here's the problem. You refuse to follow that yearning to where it's leading you.
Mark Clark [00:42:40]:
And instead of following it where it's leading you, like a holiday at sea, you sit around making mud pies with sex and ambition and drinking. It's so small. It's so rusty. Don't settle. You settle too easy. Your soul settles on nonsense. When Jesus going, the reason I came from another world is so you can join me there. Father, I just pray that that yearning in our soul that wants to talk about this kind of stuff, the movies every time we see one, the shows, the I want to believe the desire in us to experience something that transcends our thing, all of that, that we would interpret that right, that we would follow the path to where it leads, which is Jesus welcoming us through his own work.
Mark Clark [00:43:36]:
He came for the one lost sheep so that we could join the Father in absolute perfect delight and passion and pleasure forevermore, as the psalmist says, that we'd actually follow it. We'd have the courage. You burn away fear. You'd burn away the questions. You'd burn it all away. And people, even right now, over this kind of crazy, silly question, would actually give their life to you as they're sitting in seats across these sites, that they would actually pray to accept Christ into their life and say, I will take him as the cosmic lord over heaven, over earth, and over my life. Because he reconciles me to God. He forgives me of sin, he offers me delight and pleasure that nothing in this world can offer me.
Mark Clark [00:44:26]:
And he's the only way to get it. I pray they'd have the courage to give their life to him and Holy Spirit, that you would move and when people would would feel that in their heart and their soul, the sweating, the nervousness, whatever, to start a new life. It's the new world trying to break into the old world right now. And I just feel that tension even in the room. The new world is pressing through the veil of the old world, trying to get us to follow it. And we resist and we resist and we fight it. Holy Spirit, I just pray that you would burn that resistance away and we would embrace grace, the love of God, the uniqueness of ourselves made in your image and all you did to bring us back to yourself. In Jesus good name we pray.
Mark Clark [00:45:12]:
Amen.