Wonderful Design
“A mighty maze!” wrote poet Alexander Pope, “but not without a plan”, and the whole immense project of our universe seen in the innumerable stars in the sky and permutations of the geological record is condensed into two marvellous complimentary chapters at the start of the first book of the Bible. A mighty maze, but behind it all a plan. No lectures on human anatomy but its climax the wonderful design of the human body: Genesis 1.27, 2:7, 20-24 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139.14.
But
whilst all of this is confined to these two solitary chapters, once we get into
the middle of the next book of the Bible and keep on digging into the
Pentateuch, we are presented with chapter after chapter after chapter, detail
after detail after detail, on the Mosaic Tabernacle and the services that took
place there. “See that you make [everything] according to the pattern shown you
on the mountain,” Ex 25.40 the writer to the Hebrews has just quoted, Heb 8.5
but here he adds, “we cannot discuss these things in detail now”. 9.5 Before
all else, he needs to get to the heart of this wonderful design: Christ, our
High Priest, True God and True Man, has pierced through the veil that separated
God and man and entered the Most Holy Place it was all pointing to, “thus
obtaining eternal redemption” v.12 “so that we may serve the living God.” v.14.
Like His universe and our body, it all points to Him.
James
Pitts
Figure
of the heavenly bodies - Illuminated illustration of the Ptolemaic
geocentric conception of the Universe by Portuguese cosmographer and
cartographer Bartolomeu Velho (?-1568). From his work Cosmographia, made
in France, 1568 (Bibilotèque nationale de France, Paris). Notice the
distances of the bodies to the centre of the Earth (left) and the times of
revolution, in years (right). The outermost text says: "The heavenly
empire, the dwelling of God and of all of the elect".
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