When we open our eyes as babies we see the world stretching out around us; we are in the middle of it; all we see is determined by relation of all objects to ourselves. This will be true as long as we live. I am the center of the world I see; where the horizon is depends on where I stand. The same is true of our mental and spiritual vision. Some things hurt us; we hope they will not happen again; we call them bad. Some things please us; we hope they will happen again; we call them good. Our standard of value is the way things affect ourselves. So each of us takes his place in the center of his own world. But I am not the center of the world, nor do I determine what is good or bad. I am not the center; God is. In other words, from the beginning I have put myself in God's place. This is my original sin.
(pp. 37-38, William Temple, Christianity and Social Order, 1942, HT C. Fitzsimons Alison)
That picture that when I move the horizon moves with me, struck me very powerfully when I heard it today.
It is all too easy to see how such self-centredness leads to conflict with one another, and ultimately with our God who will not be moved into our orbit by the force of our will.
... and yet he did move into our orbit according to his own will!
Christ submitted to the judgment of humanity "who call evil good and good evil" (Isaiah 5:20) and was executed as a sinner. After three days the Father could stand the injustice no longer justified his Son by his Spirit who raised him from the dead (1 Tim 3:16).
For a while God let us rule, and the sun stopped shining and earth became unstable... but then Christ was made Lord and Christ and the world is being put right (Acts 2). But because he took that route, rather than the route of shear power, there is room for us in the world put right.
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