davidbowerkingwood

Who are You and What is Really Going On?

One morning, recently, I decided to leave the news off and quietly have my coffee and toast in the peace and quiet of my den. Despite my modest efforts to leave the world outside, my mind started wandering and I began to reflect on the world situation today. As I’ve mentioned before, my mind is inextricably immersed in Biblical theology and I started blending the world situation with Biblical truth.

When I do this, a completely different view of the world emerges and I see things in a totally different light. It is one thing to view the world from an empirical perspective and something totally different to view it from a theological perspective. As a Christian, I am convinced the theological perspective is the true expression of reality as it actually exists!

I was reminded of an essay I wrote in 2012 on a movie which captured my imagination at the time, “The Matrix.” I was interested in the parallels I saw between the movie and the world in which we live and decided to express my thoughts in writing.

In light of the world situation we’re facing in 2020, I thought it might be appropriate to publish the essay again with some updates and revisions.

Fiction Versus Fact

As a fan of science fiction I have assembled a rather extensive collection of books and movies. Many of these I have watched or read multiple times with renewed enthusiasm; I suppose that’s what makes a fan.

One of the problems that comes with extensive exposure to any area of fiction is the relative shortage of truly original ideas. After awhile, the fan begins to see the same general story-lines repeated with variations which may be ever so slight. The movie series  “The Matrix” introduced an original story-line which I had not read or seen before.  This alone was intriguing to me as a sci-fi fan.

For those of you not familiar with “The Matrix” I’ll try to summarize the major premise behind the story. The story takes place around 1,000 years into the future; mankind has engaged in a battle with the machines and lost.

The world-wide battle for supremacy happened to include the creation of a cloud cover which permanently blocked the sun’s ray from actually penetrating to the surface of the earth. As a result there is a serious problem with the generation of power.

An Illusion of Reality

As a solution the machines started harvesting humans and tying them into an electrical grid as a power source. To keep the humans quiet the machines created a huge computer program called the matrix which, when plugged into the minds of the human generators, created an impression the humans were living on earth in the year 1999 and enjoying life in all of its variations.

They lived their virtual lives in a computer simulation of normal human life in 1999 whereas their physical bodies were encased in a womblike container which sustained their bodily functions and withdrew into the grid the electricity and heat needed by the machines.

The movie series involves a group of free humans who are not part of the matrix and their efforts to break mankind free of the matrix and the machines.

Recently I watched the entire series again and it occurred to me there were rather interesting parallels between the fictional matrix and our actual matrix. What do I mean by “our actual matrix” you may ask? Let me share some thoughts with you.

How Does This Apply to Us?

In an earlier blog called What is Reality, I pointed out the unreal aspects of our world and the life we live on this world. The dictionary definition of reality I referenced gave this definition: “the quality or state of being real: something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily.”

Based on that definition I concluded it fair to say that the only true reality is the Trinity; I wrote: “Ultimate reality then is the Trinity; everything else is both derivative and dependent!” After watching this movie series again some additional thoughts came to my mind.

The world we live in and the bodies we inhabit are creations of God; all we are and all we can see continues to exist by the exercise of God’s will and as an expression of the mighty power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When we are born, we begin to live our lives in two realms, the spiritual and the physical; in the spiritual realm we become eternal creations, God has created us in His own image and we will always exist. In the physical realm, our bodies are formed from the materials found in a created world which, by definition, is not real and has been infected by a virus called sin.

A New and Improved Matrix

This physical world is our matrix and while it appears to be real and permanent is, in fact, a temporary construct that exists as a manifestation of the power of its creator, the Holy Trinity.

Just as the humans in the movie matrix did not realize their true situation without outside help, even so we humans living in our real matrix can only be made aware of our situation with outside help which tells us of the temporary nature of our matrix and the dangers of the sin virus that has infected it.

Fortunately this help has been made available by the author and creator of our matrix through the written and living word, the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ. Although at present we cannot move between these two realities at will, as they did in the movie version, we can by faith accept the truth of our situation, follow the directions provided in the Bible and secure our place in the coming eternal reality in perfect union with our Creator.

Our matrix, the so called reality which we now see and in which we live will, at some point in the future, be transformed and will totally cease to exist as it is now.

Our outside help, the Bible, tells us a completely new heavens and earth will then be created which will never be deleted; it is in this new matrix that we will live with our Creator forever.

I mentioned, near the beginning of this blog, my favorable impressions regarding “The Matrix” movie series because of its originality in sci-fi literature; now, having thought through all of this, I realize it was not so original after all but was in fact based on a real life story, our story.

I encourage each of you to take advantage of the “outside help” and free yourself from bondage to the matrix in which you currently appear to be living, freedom comes by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. In the movie, one character, Morpheus, tells the hero, Neo, about the danger of taking the red pill:

Morpheus: “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

Salvation is just like that, once you have been born-again by faith in Jesus Christ, there is no turning back, your world has just changed forever!

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and be freed forever from the Real Matrix!