© 19 Colin Melbourne
Q: What is the Christian response to the so called “Pale Blue Dot” view of the Earth taken from the Voyager spacecraft?
A: LORD save us from despairing, sentimental cosmologists, and gloomy greenies!
Smile Please
You refer to the 1990, grainy photo taken of planet Earth from the NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft, as it left this solar system.
It shows nothing but dark empty space with three dim light reflections, which are artefacts of sunlight on the camera apparatus, and in the midst of one ray is a tiny bluish-white speck: Planet Earth viewed from a distance of 3.7 billion miles.
That’s an awful lot of pedalling if you go by bicycle, and over 5 hours if you travel at the speed of light. (With the cosmic wind behind you!)
Blind Leading the Blind
The image sent infidel, dope smoking Carl Sagan, into terminal melancholic prose, from which he rapidly perished in his sins.
The Pale Blue Dot has become the focal standard of Greenies and the Humanist religion, shaping their spiritually blind worldview, and underpins their vapid call to “Save the Planet”.
Of which we will inevitably hear much more as the Final Day approaches.
The Christian View
How does a Bible-believing Christian respond to the same picture?
With heart rejoicing!
We praise the LORD because it confirms the Holy Bible, and exemplifies the precious uniqueness of man’s place in God’s Creation: The works of our infinite, omniscient, Almighty God.
It is a stark, but thrilling, image of the physical reality of our place in the Cosmos, that we are solitary, alone, and made in the image of God.
The Bible tells us that when Almighty God decided to visit His Creation in Person, in order to redeem it from its awful bondage to sin; He did not visit Andromeda or Betelgeuse: He came to Earth, born of human flesh, as a Babe in arms.
God made Flesh.
He came to where sin had arisen in man’s bosom.
And fixed our problem: Once and for all. Halleluia!
We had committed High Treason against our Creator, broken faith with His Word, and we fell from having dominion over the Earth, and everything in it, to become subjects of Satan: The Deceiver, and Destroyer.
God, in Christ, redeemed fallen mankind from Satan’s power with His sinless Blood. He has made the only way back to Him, through turning from unbelief, to receive and trust in what He’s done for us through The LORD Jesus Christ: Who is Almighty God in The Flesh. Col. 2:9 KJV;
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
All that it is possible, of Almighty God, to confine within the human frame, in this physical realm, was present on Earth in Christ Jesus.
Peter, James and John witnessed what happened when Father revealed just a fraction more of Himself in Christ, they saw Jesus, Moses and Elias (Elijah) glorified on the mount, and were awestruck. Mtt. 17:1-9 KJV;
And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.
And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.
This was a spiritual revelation made visible in the physical realm, and the three disciples were literally floored by it.
As any mortal flesh and blood would be.
Found in Fashion as a Man
That is why Christ limited Himself to that which the human form could bear.
He became as us, but without sin.
Halleluia! Phil. 2:5-8 KJV;
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
The Holy Bible teaches that there’s no life anywhere in our Cosmos but in Christ Jesus, who bled and died on Earth, in Jerusalem, to redeem mankind from empty existence, self destruction, and eternal damnation. 1 Jn. 5:11-13, Jn. 1:4-5 KJV;
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Are You In God’s Ark?
When I look at that image of the pale blue dot, it makes my heart rejoice to know that when it was taken on February 14th. 1990, I was on the Earth, in Christ Jesus, busy proclaiming Him.
Which is what He made me for.
Planet Earth is not my home, by the grace of God I’m a citizen of Heaven, not of this world, and Christ is coming soon to take every believer in Him, to a new Earth, where righteousness rules.
© 19 Colin Melbourne
The NASA image has been’re-mastered’ Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech, and here it is for you to ponder…
Pale Blue Dot Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech