Avatar and the Providences of God

Providence is one of those concepts that people use to try to figure out the mysterious workings of God. We can not process the idea that God can organize events in such a manner to have the right person at the right place at the right time to accomplish a wonderful event. Avatar is a story of such a series of events. The hero of the movie – Jake Sulley – is at the center of a series of extraordinary/supernatural events and this series of events is the story of the movie Avatar.

The series of events goes something like this:

Jake is wounded in combat and loses his ability to walk on his own.

Jake does not have sufficient funds to get the required surgery so he is more open to a set of new events should they come.

Jake’s identical twin brother goes through extensive training to be an Avatar driver and the mining corporation invests significant funds to train and to prepare an Avatar for Jakes’ brother.

Jake’s brother is shot just a few days before leaving for the 6 years flight to Pandora.

The Mining Corporation offers Jake the opportunity to go to Pandora to save their investment because he has the DNA requisite to use the Avatar and save the corporation all kinds of money.

Jake is open to going to Pandora because he is totally dissatisfied with life on Earth. He is willing to do something new.

Jake is assigned to Dr. Augustine’s program and has the opportunity to experience being able to walk and perform in a different setting than he has ever done before.

Jake is attacked by the largest land carnivore on Pandora and survives.

Jake’s survival exposes him to the denizens of Pandora and he needs help.

Neytiri finds Jake and is about to kill him when Eywa expresses her wishes to save him by sending the seed to descend upon Neytiri’s arrow.

Neytiri delivers Jake from the wolves.

Jake sees Neytiri as a Savior and does not want her to leave him alone in the jungle lest he die by some other creature.

While discussing issues with Neytiri, Eywa again expresses her wishes to Neytiri by sending a number of seeds to communicate the idea that Jake has been called by her to accomplish a task of importance to Eywa.

Jake is taken to the village of the Omaticaya clan and after assessment, identification as someone who does not know it all, and identification as a warrior, Jake is allowed to train and the trainer is Neytiri the princess and potential love interest.

Jake is accepted by Colonel Quaritch, Dr. Alexander, and Mr. Selfridge to go through the training process, and a time limit of 90 days is established. This puts pressure on all parties to move expeditiously. No time for fearful decisions, action is imperative.

Jake gets so involved in the training, and in his new body, and his new relationships, that it is difficult for him to remember who he is. He can not remember what his old life was like especially in comparison with his “new” life. Change is occurring.

Jake is learning and he likes what he is learning and when he is able to “see” life like a Na’vi would, Neytiri passes judgment upon Jake and declares him ready to take the final steps in becoming a man, a member of the tribe of the Omaticaya, and one eligible to become a mate and husband, and lover, to be fulfilled as a person.

Jake accomplishes all of his tasks and is accepted as a full member of the tribe, and takes Neytiri as his wife.

Jake is now confronted with the rapaciousness of the Mining Corporation when they bulldoze the holy tree on the morning of his marriage. He acts and is recorded as a rebel against the Corporation and against humanity.

Jake is rejected by the Corporation and by the Omaticaya as a betrayer of both clans.

The Home Tree is destroyed and his relationships are challenged at all levels.

Jake is delivered by his friends and is able to get back to his Avatar.

Jake recognizes that he must do something extraordinary and he chooses to become Toruk Makto and flies into the camp of the Omaticaya on the back of the largest flying predator on Pandora.

Jake is accepted as the leader of the resistance and all of the clan leaders are willing to follow him into battle.

Jake recognizes that he needs special help and he is willing to ask Eywa for help.

Jake survives the battle and delivers the Na’vi from the Earthlings.

Finally Jake is willing to abandon his Earthling form to be forever identified as a Na’vi warrior.

Now that is a lot of events and circumstances and providential movings in the life of one man. It thus brings us to an interesting question. That question is whether Eywa is the goddess of Pandora only or the Goddess of the universe. If she is the Goddess of the universe then she would be able to foresee the needs of Pandora as well as the needs of Earth, and of every other planet in the universe. Whoever the God is that Eywa is modeled after is either the real God or not to be able to control all the variables in the story of Jake Sulley.

Now all who have seen the movie Avatar, are satisfied that Jake, Neytiri, and Eywa are fictitious characters and are not real. But as we have discussed earlier, James Cameron came up with all of these spiritual ideas and he came up with them strictly from his imagination, or he got them from somewhere else. It has been the primes of the blog – Avatar’s Garden of Pandora – that Mr. Cameron got all of his true ideas directly from the Bible, including the greatest Avatar of all – Jesus Christ. The reason that the movie Avatar so resonates with people is that it tells the story of Jesus Christ symbolically. All of the issues of the movie Avatar are symbolic and are told in a fictitious story. The Bible tells the same intergalactic story but tells the truth about the real story of the great struggle and tells about the real experiences of people working with God and tells the real story of God Himself. In the rest of this article I will tell the story of Jesus in the same abbreviated way that I told the story about Jake Sulley. For the fuller, more complete version I would recommend reading the Bible for yourself.

Chronologically the story of Jesus starts in the book of Colossians 1. Before there was a universe the Bible tells us that God existed alone. God consisted of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Remember that God is infinitely more complex than can be described in words but we will do the best we can to tell an infinite story in finite terms.

God decided to create the universe and created all of the planets, galaxies, and all of the principles and powers involved in this creation. Colossians 1:12-17

Among the things created was heaven and angels.

In the process of time, the greatest created angel – Lucifer, chose to rebel against the revealed will of God and brought chaos and dissension into heaven.

After working with Lucifer, and those who chose to follow Lucifer, to try to bring them to a point of repentance and reconciliation. When this did not work out there was war in heaven and Lucifer was cast out of heaven but not destroyed.

Earth was then created and mankind was created on Earth to live out their lives and reveal the perfect will of God.

Lucifer, now called Satan, – the Adversary – seduced Adam and Eve, and they chose to listen to Satan rather than to God. This started the sin problem on Earth.

To give Adam and Eve another chance, and to fulfill their plans on Earth, God chose to reveal what is called the Plan of Salvation, of how God Himself would come to Earth as a man and redeem mankind, destroy Satan, and reveal His glory to all of the universe, so that none would ever choose to follow Satan or his ideas ever again.

God informed Adam and Eve that God would come as a man, through the lineage of the church and through the people.

All Bible history is a record of the lineage of the church people, the chaos and confusion of their lives, and yet there is a constant thread of how God watches over His people, and providentially continues to guide His true believers through the difficulties of a life of sin on this planet.

All through this Bible history God gives little revelations of the fact that He is still here, He is guiding, and He is controlling events even in the context of freedom of choice to obey or rebel. These revelations are prophecies to show that God can see the future, long before it happens, and is able to guide and control without infringing on our freedom to surrender and obey, or to rebel.

God promises that he will come as a man, and that he will come through the line of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. This lineage is more clearly identified in the time of Abraham and a promise is made that of the seed of Abraham all the nations of the Earth will be blessed. Genesis 15:1-6.

God again promises to come and more specifically He will come through the lineage of Judah. In fact Messiah will come by the time there is no longer a descendent of Judah sitting on the throne of Israel. Genesis 49:8-10

God preserves Israel through all kinds of difficulty but still His hand guides and keeps that His prophecies will unfold.

In Micah 5:2 God tells the city where Messiah will be born in.

In Isaiah 53 God tells what the mission of Messiah will look like.

In Psalms 22 God gives great details of how Messiah will die.

In Daniel 8-9 God tells the time of when Messiah will show up and various details of His life. Daniel says that Messiah will be born around 4 BC, anointed in 27 AD, and crucified in 31 AD.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell the story of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth – the Messiah of the Bible.

Jesus, the Creator of Earth, comes to Earth as an Avatar in that He takes on the form of a man and to mankind is indistinguishable from any other man by appearance alone. But when one talked with Him and watched Him any honest open hearted person could tell that there was a significant difference between Jesus and any other man. Those who recognized this difference followed Him and became His disciples.

Jesus fulfilled all of the prophecies of the Bible to show that He was the fulfillment of the utterances that He Himself had given all through Earth history.

Jesus then chose to gather all of the collected guilt of mankind, past, present, and future, and took it all upon Himself and was punished for all of mankind, and then crucified to fulfill all Scripture to reveal that sin brought death.

Jesus then resurrected Himself to show that He had power over death for Himself and all who believe in Him.

Bible prophecy states that from the resurrection of Jesus to His second coming there would be great warfare between His followers and the followers of Satan. God prophesied that there would be a people that He would reveal Himself through so that any who wanted to could follow Him by faith. God reveals all of these things in the Bible.

God tells all of the major issues that would confront His people and warned them that life would not be easy, but that through His power all could overcome anything Satan would throw at them.

Jesus tells us that when all is accomplished He will come a second time to gather His righteous ones, including those who have died all through history.

When Jesus gathers His people He will take them to heaven and then after 1000 years He will return to Earth and resurrect the wicked. He will judge the wicked, for they have refused His gift of sacrifice and death, and then destroy the wicked and recreate the Earth so that it returns to the state of the original creation.

God, and His people, will reign over the universe on Earth for ever.

All of the above concepts are to be offered to any and all who want to have a personal relationship with God. All of the wonderful things, seen in the movie Avatar, will be fulfilled in reality in God’s kingdom. He will grant us new bodies, He will grant us eternal life, and He will grant us the opportunity of traveling through out the universe seeing the things that He planned for us in the beginning when He first created the universe. All of these things are available for any who will accept the Bible truths by faith and experience. The choice is ours and can be started today. To start today simply start reading the story of the Bible with the belief that this story is written for us to train us and to give us opportunity to work together with God Himself.