The testimony of David Block (David Block has been a visiting research astronomer at Harvard University and the Australian National University) who writes: How I learned that the same God who numbered the stars knew and loved me personally.[1]
The idea of the universe being designed by a Master Artist continued to resonate with me, but I struggled to find evidence that this artist had any interest in knowing me personally. I shared further doubts: “Are we,” as Shakespeare said in Macbeth, “just a fleeting shadow that appears and then disappears? What is our reason for living? What is the purpose of life? Is it possible to have a personal encounter with the creator of the cosmos?” [2]
Did you see that? The God who numbered the stars knows me and loves me personally? Do you know how big is the universe? There are millions or billions of stars in the cosmos, and many of them are like thousands of times larger than the earth we live in, and God numbers them, God puts them there. He is such a big God, and yet intimate enough to stoop down to care for each an everyone of us. That’s the breaking good news! That’s what every human being longs for.
That is a beautiful experience and testimony of David Block. The tension between the almighty God who created the universe and the personal God is what every Jewish and every one indeed needs to know that it’s all resolved and fulfilled in the God Man Jesus Christ.
Between the Universe Transcendent God and a Personal God, which would you choose? I would choose personal God anytime. However, merely being personal God is not good enough, because we do need a transcendent universal God who is mighty and awesome. So we need a transcendent Almighty God first and foremost, before we delve into the personal God. Just being transcendent and universal may sound awesome, and great, however, what’s that got to do with me? Many may ask. The most important part of it, is the personal God.
If we just have a very personal God, but not the cosmos power of holding the universe together and putting them in place, we will not be bothered with such a god. In Jesus we have both! He sustains and create the whole world and then he also lived among us, and became like one of us!!
Hebrews 1: 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. The Son of God sustains all things in this universe, and who is that Son? He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory, and he is the exact representation of God’s being. In other words He is God.
John 1: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
All things in this universe were made through him. The Word was God. He is God! And what happened to this Word?
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
v14 says the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. Who can that be? Jesus Christ! The Word became flesh, and flesh means human. And he lived among us. We know that Jesus the Son of God, incarnated into this world 2000 years ago and became flesh and lived in Nazareth. So that’s how God becomes intimate with us, cares about us, by him becoming like one of us, and yet maintained his divinity as God. So he was both God and man. He was the transcendent God, but not intimately close to us before the incarnation. And after that happened 2000 years ago, Jesus truly became intimate with us, walked with us, eaten with us, and he performed loads of miracles like changing water into wine at a wedding, raised the death, Lazarus from the tomb after 3 days, raised the crippled, cleansed the leper, opened the eyes of the blind, cast out many demons, fed 5000 men from 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, the miracles that he did, goes on and on, and the bible says in Acts that if they were to record everything Jesus did, there is not enough room in this world to write that!
So by doing that, Jesus becomes the God who is able to love us personally. No god in this world can do that, because he is not like one of us.
Hebrews 4 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.—
Jesus is able to empathize with our weaknesses, because he has been tempted in every way (as a man) just as we are, yet he did not sin. That’s the power, he has been tempted in every way like us in the world. Which god in this world did that? No god of any religion actually walk the earth and lived among us, and being tempted like we are and yet without sin, therefore they cannot love us personally. But Jesus can, because he empathizes with us fully and lived a perfect life to save us. He qualifies to be sacrificed as a perfect lamb of God as an atonement for the sins of mankind to redeem us, to bring salvation for us for an eternal life that awaits all of us who puts our faith in him. Amen.
[1] David Block, What the Heavens Declared to a Young Astronomer, Christianity Today, Feb 2021
[2] Ibid
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