“Steep your life in God-reality.”
(Matt 6:33, The Message)
The slogan of the cult film The Matrix has become a popular saying in contemporary culture – “Welcome to the real world.” If stepping away from its virtual world-connotation for a moment, we should remember that it has through the ages been a very apt description of one of the greatest crises concerning spiritual perception. By definition faith works with an unseen reality, it is after all “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Os Guinness contends that “Many modern Christian believers are atheists unawares. Professing to be believers in supernatural realities, they are virtual atheists; whatever they say they believe, they show in practice that they function without practical recourse to the supernatural.”
In his classical text The Spirit of the Disciplines Dallas Willard also suggests that “Spirituality is a matter of another reality.” It is indeed akin to a different country altogether. This unseen spiritual reality is not unreal, we have seen in previous teachings. It is a world with its own dynamic, a particular energy, a completely different mode of operation. Although Jesus spells out that we are in the world, but not of it (John 17:14-16), it still seems to be a theoretical concept for most believers, and not something they practice on a daily basis.
This reality can only be seen if you are born-again – this Jesus had explained to Nicodemus long ago – “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3). And even though they may see it, few live within it. To again quote Guinness – “It is quite common for people to trumpet that they have been ‘born again’ yet exhibit no signs of living in the supernatural dimensions of the reality they have been born into.”
The Matrix explains this prickly matter in an amazing visual manner. The main character, Thomas Anderson (prototypical of the unbelieving individual), is confronted with Morpheus, who represents God. He shows Thomas that he lives in an imagined reality, the matrix, and that he needs to be born again in order to see the true reality. He presents Thomas with the choice between the blue pill and the red pill. The red pill obviously points to the blood of Jesus; if he chooses the blue pill “you will wake up and believe whatever you want to believe”. Anderson chooses the red pill and then follows a series of tracing operation to trace and destroy the Great Agent of the Imagined Matrix, who represents Satan, within Thomas Anderson. But before this can happen he is taken by Trinity (who represents the manifestation of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit) to the Adam’s Street Bridge. Here, at the origin of man’s fall to an imagined world and womb (matrix is the Greek word for womb), he is freed from the demonic genetics in his flesh, through the port of his navel. He receives a new Godly nature (2 Pet 1:4).
He also receives a new name (Rev 2:17) – Neo, which points to the newly born man (2 Cor 5:17) in the true reality – that which he could not at all see earlier. When his spiritual eyes open after being born again, Morpheus says to him: Welcome to the real world! What Leanne Payne had said is indeed true – “seeing with the eyes of the heart” is really “the true imagination”.
- Sela: Were your spiritual eyes opened when you became born again? Are you born again?
- Read: 2 Sam 13-15
- Examine how this has been fulfilled: 2 Sam 15. (Tip: Mal 4:4; Luke 1:17).
- For a deeper understanding: Watch the film The Matrix I within the context of this theme.
