Avatar and the Gospel

The gospel is one of those words that people use and they are often not very familiar with the theology that goes behind it. In the movie Avatar the gospel is revealed through the experience of almost every significant figure in the movie. Both bad and good responses tell the story of the gospel, of opportunities slighted and opportunities taken advantage of. But for simplicity’s sake let us focus on Jake Sulley and Colonel Quaritch.

The movie starts with Jake leaving earth due to the death of his twin brother. Jake has decided to take the offer of the mining corporation who want Jake to fulfill the obligations of his brother whose DNA was used to make an Avatar for the mining corporation on Pandora. Duet to the DNA match Jake would save the corporation and would give Jake a new start. Jake could make good money and perhaps get the operation that would allow Jake to regain the use of his legs which he lost due to a spinal injury during his time as a Marine.

When Jake made the final decision he was willing to leave his old world and head out for the new. With the death of his brother he no longer had any emotional attachments to Earth and could leave Earth and not look back. Pandora offered distance and the opportunity for a new life.

When Jake arrives at Pandora he has spent several years in suspended animation while traveling to Pandora. Jake arrives at the mining station of Hell’s Gate and is able to ignore all of the comments that people make about his disability and is interested in learning about the new things in his sphere of influence. Jake meets Colonel Quaritch and they feel a mutual respect for each other due to their military activities on Earth.

Soon, after this experience with the Colonel, Jake is able to have his first experience “driving” an Avatar body. Jake is overwhelmed by being in the Avatar for he can feel his feet again, although those feet belong to the body of the Avatar, rather than his own real feet. Jake runs out of the awakening room, and experiences running for the first time in years. Being in his Avatar body is an awakening to a new way of life and Jake enjoys it thoroughly.

Soon after this Jake goes on a mission with the rest of the Avatar crew and we are shown Jake experiencing the newness of life in his Avatar body. He is able to do, to move, and to experience life at a level that he has almost forgotten about. While moving around in the field he encounters the larger life forms of Pandora and gets separated from the rest of his team. During this time he meets Neytiri who saves his life from Viper-wolves. Neytiri attempts to send Jake back to the Earthlings, but Jake asks for help from her. During the interchange the Tree of Souls communicates to Neytiri that Jake is different and something special. She decides to take Jake to meet the Shaman of the village, her mother. When Neytiri’s mother finishes her examination she allows Jake to stay and commands Neytiri to train Jake in the ways of the Na’vi. Jake is thrilled and passes this information on to the rest of the team when he returns to his real body during the time of rest for his Avatar body.

Upon returning and sharing the information about the Na’vi accepting him and training him, Quaritch offers Jake a new life if Jake will get him pure data on the living arrangements of the Na’vi. For this information Quaritch will “take care of my own” by having the corporation grant Jake the funds sufficient to get the surgery necessary to restore his legs. Jake is willing to enter into this new opportunity for a new life. The Colonel is willing to give Jake 3 months to learn how to be a Na’vi and get the information and then the Colonel will have sufficient information to be able to properly attack the Na’vi. This is what is referred to in the Bible as an Old Covenant gospel the good news of a new life by working out an arrangement usually at the expense of other people and usually by some human method of change.

For 90 days Neytiri trains Jake about the ways of life in her village and with her people. During this time Jake grows stronger as an Avatar, while his human body grows weaker. In the training process Jake has to wrestle with many new ideas of love, life, death, and the ways of a spiritual person. At the same time Jake is exposed to the ways of Colonel Quaritch and his views of life. Colonel Quaritch is a very simple and straightforward man. He is loyal to the corporation and he will do anything to accomplish his mission – not to save people but to fulfill the quota that he promised to assist with. The Colonel will do anything to fulfill his promise and nothing of the heart or of the spirit will change his direction.

As the time draws near for a final decision Jake is torn between the new feelings he has develop for Neytiri, and her family and way of life, and those feelings for his earthly connections including Colonel Quaritch, and the science team that he has been sharing his observations with. Jake has been making great progress with Neytiri and she feels that he has made enough progress to take the final step of bonding with an Ikran – the flying dragons of Pandora. If he survives this final step he will be a man, in the eyes of the Na’vi, and will be accepted into the village as a man.

Jake is allowed to go through the experience of bonding with his own selected Ikran and survives the harrowing process. As a result Jake is admitted into the fellowship of the Na’vi. As a result of this step he is allowed to accept a mate from the people and he chooses Neytiri and she chooses him. That very next morning Colonel Quaritch, and company, sends a bulldozer to start the mining process near the home tree and Jake decides to defend one of the sacred trees, as well as rescuing Neytiri. His loyalties are growing more and more distant from the mining company and the ways that they use to accomplish their goals.

In the process of defending the sacred tree Jake attacks the bulldozer and takes away their sight – they can not see the literal forest, and they can not see the spiritual forest that surrounds them. Jake goes back to the home tree and attempts to warn the people of the coming of the mining camp. The people are distressed for the damage that the miners have done to the planet, and now to a sacred tree. While trying to explain what happened Colonel Quaritch sees Jake as a traitor and brings him back from the Avatar body to face the judgment.

Colonel Quaritch accuses Jake of betraying the company for the sake of the native. Jake pleads with the company boss who gives him one hour to warn the Na’vi to leave the home tree area for that is where the company has come to mine the minerals under the home tree. Jake is rejected as a traitor by the Na’vi as he has been by the Earthlings and the Na’vi fight and end up losing their home in an attack by Colonel Quaritch in home tree itself. For a time he is persona non grata to both sides. Again Jake has to face his feelings and has to make decisions that will affect his destiny in life.

After being rejected by the Na’vi, and by the Earthlings, he is given an opportunity to flee to the mountains with the Avatar crew. He decides that he will help the Na’vi come what may. He is able to regain his Avatar body and is granted an awareness of a plan of how to become the Toruk Makto, or the Messiah, of the Na’vi. He is able to link with the giant dragon of Pandora and when he arrives at the meeting with the Na’vi he is granted the opportunity to share the plan of saving Pandora that he has thought of. He rallies the other tribes and they have enough warriors to try to take over Hell’s Gate.

Colonel Quaritch is also aware of the gathering of the warriors and initiates a plan to destroy the Tree of Souls and make a spiritual scar on the people so that they will never again attack the Hell’s Gate camp. The Colonel gathers his troops and sets out to attack the Na’vi. During this battle Eywa comes to the aid of Jake for Jake came to recognition that he would not be able to defeat the Colonel even with the help of the warriors. Jake is willing to surrender to the point of praying to Eywa, Pandora’s goddess of nature, to ask for help in defending the planet and the way of life of the Na’vi.

In this great last battle Eywa sends the large animals to assist Jake and the battle is slowly won. During the battle Jake and the Colonel have a final encounter. Both Jake and Colonel Quaritch are in artificial bodies – Jake in his Avatar, and the Colonel in his robotic external suit. In the battle Jake decides that he wants to be with the Na’vi forever. When he wins the battle with the Colonel Jake asks if he can be transferred into his Avatar body forever and Eywa grants this request. Jake becomes a Na’vi forever.

In the above brief description of the events of the movie Avatar, many different concepts were expressed. In the movie Jake finds his true love and is allowed, by the movie, to find true happiness, justice, and success. It has been this writer’s goal to reveal the gospel of the Bible in the various articles written about the symbolism incorporated in the movie Avatar.

From the Bible’s perspective the movie tells the story of the gospel in a twisted way. God would have each person see the gospel of the Bible so that the joys displayed in the movie can be acquired in the way that God has intended for it to be acquired. From the Bible’s point of view Jake Sulley both Messiah – the Toruk Makto, and he is an individual in the process of accepting the gospel of Christ. Colonel Quaritch represents both the role of Satan, and the role of a sinner trying to decide to either follow God or to follow the things of the world. The interactions of these two figures – Jake, and the Colonel summarizes the story of the gospel

Jake makes the decision to follow his heart and the Spirit of God. So each of us on Earth can follow the movings of the Holy Spirit and can respond to God when He reveals Himself to us on Earth. At the very same time there is a Satan and Satan wants to interfere with our relationship with God. As Jake discovered that there was a plan that was unfolding for him he was willing to let go of his old world and embrace truth as it came to him. So for us each of us we have to let go of the old and accept the new revelations granted to us by God. Jake had to accept help from one whom he could not see, so we have to accept help from a God that we can not see but that has provided abundant evidence of His presence and His power. When we are willing to see that the things of this world have little lasting value then we will make those final decisions that God requires in order to make a change in us.

In the Bible each person can have a personal acquaintance with God. God will unfold events in such a manner that each individual will recognize that God, and no one else, is talking to us. Based on our decisions, in light of the information granted, God will work for us to draw us closer and closer to Him. When the final decision is made God has promised to give us a new body one like the one originally given to Adam – tall, powerful, intelligent, and immortal. We can have that body if we are willing to accept all of the gifts of the one true God – Jesus of Nazareth. If we accept God’s gifts then we will have the opportunity of going to heaven, and then will return to this earth to participate in the judgment scenes of the symbolic Colonel Quaritch – Satan. When Satan and all of his people are judged, then God will recreate this Earth and make it again like it was in the time of Eden. Then all of mankind will live in an environment much more glorious than that of Pandora.

The story of the Bible is the offer of the gospel – the good news of total restoration to an open relationship with God. Each person will have the opportunity to receive this gift or to reject it. What will you do?