Herbert Spencer, many moons ago, made the discovery that all things knowable could be fitted into five categories – Time, Space, Force, Action and Matter. It was hailed as a great discovery but it was in the first verse of the Bible all the time – In the beginning (time), God (force) created (action) the heavens (space) and the earth (matter).
A man called Tenney suggested that there are 7 expressions of man’s limitations. God addressed those in the Bible too. we are made in God’s image which means we are amazing creatures, but we realize we are not God, even though in one sense we are ‘gods’ (Ps.82:6). We have been given dominion but we are not infinite. We are challenged on so many counts, dominated by our environment even though we were given dominion over it – with the entry of sin it has become more dominant and so it is evident that everything is not yet under us – Ps. 8 cf Heb. 2:8. Just a simple thing like standing beside an old tree and wondering; how many years, storms, cold days, hot days, fires, floods, droughts have you stood? What about watching a sunset? I like to watch them from a distance! (lions and tigers too). Our finiteness shows that we are not in control of our life or our destiny and we need a Saviour, but in whom would we put our trust? The apostle John suggested Jesus (cf. 1 John 1:1-3 and John 20:30,31) and in the signs that He wrought he showed that these seven limitations of man were nothing to Him. Hence Matt.28:18 with His claim to all authority is readily accepted. What are these 7 limitations?
The first is quality. In John 2:1-11 Jesus changed water to wine and it was the best wine. How often are we lamenting the quality of something? The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the joy of a cheap price is gone. They don’t make things like they use to!. We expect to pay for quality because poor quality is easy for us humans. Things we produce are never perfect. There is almost always a flaw. There was a blacksmith working on a horseshoe: heating, shaping, reheating, reshaping. After some time he still wasn’t satisfied and so he tossed the hot shoe into a tub of water with the accompanying words Well, at least I made a fizzle!. Not one aspects of our achievements is perfect – we are flawed people living with and producing flaws: flaws in our work, our character, our relationships. Attempts at perfectionism just drive us crazy. Jesus did all things well. He had mastery over quality.
Then there’s quantity. In John 6:5-14 we have the record of His feeding of 5000 men with two fish and five cakes of bread. This is mastery over quantity indeed. How often do we not have enough? I could have done with a few more, there wasn’t enough to go round. The king with 10,000 troops wonders if he can withstand another king who has 20,000 troops. I’d like another division, but his kingdom doesn’t have another division. How many projects cease because there’s not enough dollars – this man began to build but was unable to finish. And the perennial problem goes on: I don’t have enough…money, nails, bolts, petrol, paper etc.
What about space? In John 4:46-54, Jesus healed a lad some 30 kilometres away. This is mastery over distance. Jesus was in Cana and the lad was in Capernaum. How often do we hear or read of someone not being able to help someone because they were too far away? A popular move-maker’s device is a scene where someone is straining to reach out and is crying out grab my hand – stretch just a little more! This is a guaranteed tension-builder. How many mothers have this line in their repertoire; I can’t be in two places at once! But Jesus’ claim in Matt. 28:20 to be with us always is believable.
Time dominates man, doesn’t it. In John 5:1-9 Jesus healed a lame man. Now this man had been lame for 38 years! What happens to unused muscles over 38 years? Some of you have had an arm or leg in plaster for just a few weeks and you noted how withered it became – the muscles atrophy. Could manipulation and physical therapy work after all that time? How often do we hear of Doctors who say If only you had come to see me a month ago. Time is destructive, not constructive – see eroding cliffs, ageing bodies etc. Time is not the saviour of evolution but its demise. Something becomes rusted through lack of maintenance and cannot be fixed – who remembers the Cherry Venture and the hulk of another ship on Dickey beach? So many things could have been saved with a drop of oil – a year ago! Jesus has mastery over time. Is a thing too far gone for the Lord? Is it beyond repair? Is a thing, once lost, lost forever? See the Lord’s promise in Joel 2:25.
Then there’s the dominance of natural law. In John 6:16-21, Jesus walked on the sea. This is mastery over gravity, or natural law. We don’t break these laws, rather they break us. We’re careful on high points because we respect the power of gravity. We overpower gravity with powerful rockets which costs millions of dollars and consume huge amounts of energy – but it’s all on a knife-edge and the slightest problem sees the thing toppling back to earth at the mercy of gravity. It’s the force that holds the planets in their orbits, and in walking on water Jesus shows He controls that! He didn’t have a power-pack on his back either. He controls the basic forces of the universe and He therefore can end it!
Misfortune dogs man. John 9:1-7 sees Jesus heal a man blind from birth, thus proving His mastery over misfortune. How often do we have nothing to say except That’s too bad, or What bad luck, or I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do – there’s nothing anyone can do.
And death is the great Master, but Jesus raised Lazarus after four days (John 11). Mastery, not only over death but the corruption that goes with it. What do we do with things that go rotten? Throw them out for we can’t reverse the process. Gangrene sets in and its amputation time. This death is the last and greatest enemy – the Grim reaper that ends our life here with all its limitations. The vaunted scientist who lauds the accomplishments of man’s scientific advances and research must at last lay down his weary body in defeat..
In a book written by an atheist Marxist called God Is Not Dead Yet, I came across the following paragraph: Through the infinite cosmos, which is governed by laws which must be obeyed, rolls the dark terrestrial globe – through infinite space, through infinite time, a dark, frosty infinity – and on this globe there skips about a little band of creatures with hypertrophically developed brains, kicking up a racket in its highly infinite time with repeated cries of “We have conquered the earth, we will tame the seas, we will govern nature, we will subdue the universe!” – and the earth rolls on through infinite space, following its inevitable laws and taking no notice of the squeaks coming from the mice – or from mankind.
David made a similiar comment but from a different perspective – Ps. 8:3,4 When I consider the heavens…the moon and the stars…what is man that you are mindful of him…? There is that same sense of limitation of man, but there is no hopelessness or despair in David for he knew the Lord made and controls the universe. What a wonderful thing to know the One who has no limitations. The One who made it all, controls it all, and works all things according to the counsel of His will.