Kingdom Harbor

We are often guilty of what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery,” the smug assumption that because we have smartphones, modern medicine, and a post-Darwinian education, we have inherently outgrown the “primitive” worldviews of our ancestors. I’ve recently been “nerding out” by reading and watching N. T. Wright’s Gifford Lectures from 2018 where he dismantles the assumed (but mistaken) philosophical worldview hiding beneath much of Western thinking and assumptions about reality.

This theological deep dive is part of my own study of the manifold meanings of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, I am currently wrapped up in. So, for the reader who might also be in a philosophical mood, I want to share a summary of one of Wright’s most fascinating lectures where he blows our minds inviting us to rethink space, time, and anthropology in light of a Jewish understanding of Temple, Sabbath and Images. Buckle up! (You can watch the lecture below.)

We look back at the ancient world and see a “three-decker universe”—a supernatural upstairs, a natural downstairs, and something unpleasant in the cellar—and we congratulate ourselves on our sophistication. This shallow cosmological sketch, however, says more about our own limitations than those of the ancients. In reality, we aren’t as “advanced” as we think; we are simply trapped in a very old, very recycled philosophy.

The contemporary Western worldview is not a product of modern discovery, but a revived form of ancient Epicureanism. Despite our technological prowess, we have largely adopted a philosophy that was already widespread during the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We have been distracted by the rhetoric of progress, failing to notice that our fundamental way of putting the world together is a recycled antiquity that has produced deep distortions in how we understand history, theology, and ourselves. What if the ancient Jewish worldview of the Temple and the Sabbath offers a more sophisticated, integrated way to understand reality than our current “split-level” universe?

We Are All Ancient Epicureans Now

The modern world is currently defined by what we might call an “Epicurean takeover.” This worldview creates a “big divide” between God’s world and our world, making any intersection between the two appear problematic, if not impossible. We have split the past from the present and history from eschatology, resulting in a fractured cosmology where divinity is either absent or entirely separate from the material realm. In this “split-level” world, the builders of the Enlightenment have discarded the cornerstone of integrated reality, leaving us with a universe that feels thin and lonely.

This split makes history and theology incredibly confusing for us. We approach ancient texts as though they were addressing our modern, muddled questions, failing to realize they operated within an entirely different framework. By imposing our “split-level” philosophy onto the New Testament, we make the message of the early Christians seem like an idealist dream rather than a claim about reality. The modernist protests against ancient worldviews are often just a desperate attempt, as N.T. Wright has observed, “to distract our gaze from the pink nakedness of the Enlightenment emperor strutting down the street.”

The Temple: A Small Working Model of the Universe

To understand the ancient perspective, we must look to what scholars like John Levenson call “Temple Theology.” This framework suggests a “homology”—a direct, structural correspondence—between the creation of the world and the construction of the sanctuary. The Temple was never just a building; it was a “micro-cosmos,” a small working model of the entire creation. Conversely, creation itself was viewed as a “macro-temple”—a palace built for God to inhabit alongside humans.

The biblical text signals this from its first syllables. The first sentence of Genesis contains seven words; the second contains fourteen. The world is prepared in seven stages, mirroring the seven years it took Solomon to build his Temple. This isn’t mere numerology; it’s a claim that the physical world is intended to be filled with divine glory.

This represents a “dangerous fusion” of heaven and earth. In an integrated cosmology, the Temple is the place where the two dimensions meet, overlap, and interlock. This is far more radical than any “three-decker” caricature. However, because this fusion is so potent and “dangerous,” it requires management. We should view the stringent Levitical laws not as archaic ritualism, but as a form of ancient “Health and Safety” regulations. When heaven and earth overlap, you need protocols to manage the sheer intensity of the divine presence in a world still marred by impurity.

The Sabbath: A Tabernacle in Time

If the Temple is the “micro-cosmos” of space, the Sabbath is the “micro-Chronos”—a tabernacle in time. As the great Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel famously argued, the Sabbath is not a matter of “legalism,” but a holy intersection where the “Age to Come” arrives in advance within ordinary time. Just as the Holy of Holies is the sacred center of space, the Sabbath is the sacred focus of time.

The Sabbath serves as a “foretaste” of the new creation, a sign of the resurrection. This is why ancient liturgy was so specific: Psalm 93 was read on Fridays to celebrate the victory over the waters of chaos, followed by Psalm 92 on Saturdays to celebrate God’s enthronement. It is a weekly “delight and joy” where the end of days is made available in the here and now. It is the moment when the “Age to Come”—the perpetual Sabbath—is anticipated.

Humans: The Final Piece of Temple Equipment

Within this cosmic temple, the “Image of God” (Imago Dei) is not an abstract quality or a “soul” but a functional, vocational role. In the ancient Near East, an image was the final piece of equipment placed within a temple’s inner sanctum to embody the deity’s presence. Humans, therefore, are “image bearers” or “God reflectors,” placed in the world to reflect God’s purposes outward and to reflect the praises of creation back to the Creator.

This “image-bearing vocation” is a democratization of royalty. Whereas other ancient cultures saw only the King as the image of the deity, the Jewish worldview sees all humans as royal and priestly stewards. We are the vice-regents summoned to bring justice and mercy to the world. This stands in stark contrast to “Epicurean anthropology,” which views humans as autonomous accidents or disposable biological units. In the temple framework, the human vocation is essential to the project of creation; through us, the divine glory is intended to fill the whole earth.

Jesus: The Intersection of Heaven, Earth, and Future

Jesus functions as the ultimate “stone the builders rejected.” The “builders” in this case are the historical-critical traditions that have tried to strip Jesus of his cosmological context. When Jesus claims to be “Lord of the Sabbath” or speaks of himself as the “New Temple,” he is not merely breaking rules; he is claiming that the “Age to Come” has arrived in his own person.

When the goal has been reached, the signposts become redundant. You don’t put up a sign saying “This way to Los Angeles” when you are already standing in the middle of Hollywood Blvd. Jesus is the destination. In Mark’s Gospel, the narrative moves from the “new creation” of Jesus’ baptism to the “royal enthronement” of the crucifixion. On the cross, the veil of the temple is torn, mirroring the tearing of the heavens at his baptism. The crucified Jesus becomes the place where heaven and earth finally and fully meet.

This perspective shatters both the 1st-century Jewish world and the modern Epicurean world. It asserts that the overlap of heaven and earth is not an idealist dream, but a historical, visible reality in the form of a human life. To try to understand Jesus without this framework is like putting a dolphin into a field to see if it will eat grass; you are looking for the wrong kind of life in the wrong environment.

Conclusion: Discerning the Dawn

To move forward, we must abandon the “split” lens of the Enlightenment. Biblical “Natural Theology” is not about finding God through abstract logic or looking at the world as it currently is and working backward. Instead, it is a vocation of love. It is about “discerning the dawn” of a new creation already breaking through the old.

The human vocation is a call to imagination, labor, and love—discovering and displaying meaning within God’s world through symbol, story, and action. It is the task of recognizing the “dawn of new creation” in the present. We are invited to see the world not as a collection of autonomous accidents, but as a project moving toward a goal where the divine glory fills all things.

The question remains for us: Will we continue to view the universe through the small, divided lens of a rejected philosophy, or will we open our eyes to the integrated, cosmic temple that has been there all along? To see the world this way is not to retreat from history, but to finally participate in its true purpose.