Jesus the Mathematician
some thoughts on the extravagance on God's love
How can you describe the indescribable? How can you explain the unexplainable? Paul ran into this problem in the book of Ephesians when he was attempting to articulate all that Christ has done for us.
Notice these phrases taken from Ephesians 1:3-14:
“…who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing…”
“…he chose us before the foundation of the world…”
“…glorious grace that he freely bestowed…”
“…the riches of his grace that he lavished on us…”
“…according to his good pleasure…to gather up all things in him…”
“…him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will…”
These phrases speak to the extravagant, overwhelming, seemingly excessive love of God for us. Paul’s awe-filled language here only scratches the surface of how much God loves us, but there is one phrase here that I want to talk about today.
Paul says that it pleased God to set up a plan in Christ to “gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” When I read this, I can’t help but think of Jesus’s prayer that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Anyway, this idea of “gathering up” all things comes from a phrase used in mathematics and logic. When we press the equals sign on our calculator, we are telling the machine to take every figure along with every mathematical operator and give us the solution. When the Greek philosophers would get together to argue and figure things out, their solution, their conclusion, their thing that tied all the other things together was the “gathering up.”
The mystery, the plan God put in place before the foundation of the earth, was to sum up all things in Christ. To press “equals” on all creation. To say, “And in conclusion, Jesus.”
No wonder Paul used such extravagant language to describe the work of Christ.