Brilliant and Blind
By Ian Hamilton
Reprinted from: The Banner of Truth magazine, July 2019 issue
I recently watched a documentary-drama of the life of Stephen Hawking, the eminent cosmologist who died in 2018. I found it hard not to admire the mental resolve that enabled him to rise above his motor neurone disability and pursue his passion for physics. A few years ago I also read the most recent biography of Hawking and marvelled at the sheer capacity of his mind to imagine and construct theories of cosmology which sought to prove the existence of “The Big Bang” 15 billion years ago. Hawking was brilliant. At the age of thirty-seven he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a position once held by Sir Isaac Newton. Hawking’s death in 2018 was deeply lamented and a memorial service of thanksgiving was held in Westminster Abbey.
As I watched the documentary-drama, and remembered reading the biography, Paul’s words towards the close of Romans 1 kept coming into my mind, “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:25). It is bewildering that brilliant men like Stephen Hawking can look and look into the immensities of the cosmos and yet see nothing but random chance and inherent purposelessness. But is it really ‘bewildering’?
Stephen Hawking’s inability to see what every Christian can see was not due to any lack of intellectual ability. Hawking’s inability was an inability he had in common with everyone born of woman. We are all born into this world “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Sin has blinded our minds and deadened our hearts to truth. We see but we don’t really see. We hear but we don’t really hear. Until the Lord opens the eyes of our understanding to see that the heavens are the work of his hands and that his Son Jesus Christ is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), we remain unseeing, unhearing sinners, whom the god of this world. Satan, has blinded (2 Corinthians 4:4). This is why Jesus said to Nicodemus, whom he calls in John 3:10 “the teacher of Israel,” “you must be born again” (John 3:3). B. B. Warfield was only saying what the Bible itself says when he wrote, “Christianity is unembarrassed supernaturalism.” This is the bedrock truth that scandalizes the world.
The response to men like Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, and others like them, is not to bewail their inability to see, and think that if only they had enough “information” about “Intelligent Design” of the cosmos they would see. All the information in the world will not bring sin-blinded minds and sin-deadened hearts to life. they need to be “born again.” They need a supernatural work of God to sweep away the sin-induced darkness and flood their lives with “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). this is why the world’s greatest need is for the churches of Christ to preach the gospel in the power of “the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” ( 1 Peter 1:12).
There is much talk in these days about the need to “revitalize” the church, and who would dispute the need! However, the big question is, and how is the church to be revitalized? Answers abound: We need our churches to be “missional,” and who would doubt that? We need our churches to be more culturally aware, and who would doubt that? We must preach to the people in front of us, living in the age of same-sex “marriage” and mind-numbing social media. We need our churches intelligently to give reason for the hope within them, and who would doubt that? But are these what will truly revitalize God’s church? Isn’t the great need today for gospel congregations to live and witness in the power of “the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven”? God is most often pleased to use means to accomplish his saving and sanctifying purposes. But the means he most often chooses to use are men and women, boys and girls, who live Holy Spirit-dependent lives.
The church of the first century was persecuted and marginalized. Christians resisted the hedonistic culture that marked their age. And yet they “turned the world upside down.” How did they do that? “Not by might and not by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). What will impact the pride and rampant godlessness of our age are lives that show the transforming power of the gospel, and preaching that heralds the ageless relevance of the gospel of a crucified and risen Saviour. It is a remarkable feature of the New Testament to read how unintimidated the early Christians were by the prevailing ideas and societal norms of their day. They had experienced the power of the Lord and of the age to come. They knew first hand the saving power of the gospel.
Every age has its Stephen Hawkings and Richard Dawkinses. They have their day and then they are gone. But the One who is from everlasting and to everlasting continues his serene rule and reign. Be encouraged. “The LORD reigns, let the peoples tremble” (Psalm 99:1).
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