Avatar and the Great Controversy Theme

In the movie Avatar the theme of warfare begins to play out soon after the movie starts. The conflict is between the mining company and the Na’vi. The mining company sees the native Pandoran people, the Na’vi, as standing in the way of their access to the mineral Unobtanium. The Mining Company will do anything to get the money that will be paid to buy this mineral which helps to speed up the processing of electronic equipment back on Earth. The Na’vi, on the other hand, are appalled at the way the Company destroys the jungle in their goal to play with dirt. The Na’vi see no value in mining and only see it as an affront to their culture, their religion, and their planet.

Thus, from the beginning, we see the principles that will lead to the great conflict between these two groups of people. Again Mr. Cameron is using a spiritual issue to plumb the emotional and spiritual depths of the audience. He is successful in this because this Great Controversy Theme is present in life. This is one of the central themes of the Bible and God has implanted this idea into the souls of men. God has known from the beginning about this warfare between two peoples, and two sets of angels as was seen in the article about Satan. This Great Controversy Theme clarifies many of the issues in the Bible, as we will see.

We read in the Satan article that the Great Controversy started in heaven. Satan and his angels fought against Christ and His angels. Christ, or as He is referred to in Revelation 12:7 as Michael – One who is like God. This battle was fought and Michael and His angels won the battle, but the war has continued through out the last 6000 years. The war started in heaven and then moved to Earth. It was fought conceptually in Eden and Adam and Eve joined the wrong side for a period of time, just long enough to allow evil to enter into the world. As a result of this warfare Adam and Eve had to leave Eden and then the casualties of the war began to mount. First Abel, Adam and Eve’s second son, was killed by his older brother, and then more and more people were killed until God decided to bring the flood to cleanse the planet because man thought only evil continually.

After the flood occurred God started to repopulate the Earth again with the 8 people who were willing to go into God’s Tabernacle on Earth – the Ark that Noah had built. Soon after they left the Ark people again started to gather together, to build cities and kingdoms and the inevitable warfare continued again. God came down, saw the coalitions gathering and confused the languages so that people would have to spread about and have fewer opportunities to harm people in a collective manner.

God allowed things to develop for a while until He decided that the world needed a priestly nation (Exodus 19:3-6) to communicate the principles of God to the entire world. He raised up Israel to be this nation and to have this task. Satan had control over all of the rest of the world but he did not control Israel at this time. But as Israel stood out the warfare grew intense again and Satan tried over and over again to destroy Israel. The Bible is written to record these conflicts so that people can see the cause and effect issues that are involved in the war and so that they can decide what side they want to be on.

This battle has continued through the ages. It came to a major battle at the time of Christ and both of the generals came to meet in the wilderness and in Gethsemane and then again at Calvary. In each of these events Jesus won the battle and showed His children that they can win there battles as well if they will trust in Him. Soon after Jesus returned to heaven to take His position as Great High Priest Israel the literal nation, their capital city Jerusalem and their temple were all destroyed by Satan’s earthly representatives – Rome. Thus it looked again as though Satan had won but God’s plans know no hurrying and no defeat.

After literal Israel was destroyed those who followed Jesus continued. The Priestly nation concept continued in the Christian church. I Peter 2:1-10. These people who followed Jesus were referred to as sons of Abraham in Galatians 3 – thus the spiritual nation of children of Israel has continued through the ages. They have been persecuted by all sorts of nations yet they continue to exist and bear their testimony to all mankind. Even today the message God has given them is being carried forward even through avenues like Avatar and the commentaries being written about it on this blog.

This warfare between God’s people and Satan’s people will continue until the great war called Armageddon will occur, we will discuss this battle shortly, and Jesus will come to gather His people at the second coming of Christ. I pray that we will be ready for this Great War and the great deliverance of Christ.