The Special Planet - "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth".


Sun not at centre of universe


Early modern science allegedly showed that, not only was the earth not the centre of the universe, but there was nothing special about it. Now, it turns out, science is showing that we and our planet are far more special than we could have known.

Ever since astronomers first figured out that the universe is an extremely large place, the assumption has been that, as far as the existence of life is concerned, bigger is better. Those who claimed the earth was not unusual posited 100 billion galaxies with 100 billion stars each. If only one in a million has planets, and only one in a million of those can support life, the universe should be a fecund place.

Now it is understood that bringing together the conditions for life as we know it is so complex that the existence of locations in the universe capable of supporting advanced life is likely to be exceedingly rare. For it's not just a matter of earth, water, fire, and air. It also involves circumstellar and galactic habitable zones, moons and eclipses, neighbours, and an endless array of complex interactions and feedback cycles, to name only a few factors.

The following video shows in detail how everything must come together just right for life to be possible and how the confluence of factors and forces that enable life on earth also empowers us to understand the universe.

The question is, why? Albert Einstein once remarked that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe was that it was comprehensible. What meanings do we assign to that specialness?

For the most part, human beings act as though there is no Creator and no purpose in the world around them. Nonetheless the extraordinary fine-tuning of the laws and constants of nature, their beauty, their discoverability, their intelligibility - all of this combines to make the existence of a God who has created the earth with the intention of it supporting creatures like ourselves the most reasonable choice we have. For the past few centuries, no one has offered a satisfactory non-theological explanation as to why this should be so. All other theories come short

The Bible provides the information we need

The Bible alone adequately explains the specialness of the earth. The reason is that the Creator

"formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:1 8).

We think it is logical to assert that if there is a Great Designer, and if He created a race of beings to inhabit this remarkable, life-supporting, planet, then there must have been an ultimate objective in His mind. Happily, we have not been left to guess what that goal might be. From the day that God put a human being on this earth, His one supreme purpose was that His creation should willingly respond to His own perfection:


The final stage in fulfilling that intention is what the Bible describes as The Kingdom Of God On Earth.

If there is a God, and He has a future for the human race, then surely He has told us? The whole Bible, from beginning to end, reveals His plans for the earth. He spoke to the "fathers" and through prophets, and "in these last days by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things" (Hebrews 1:1,2). That is why the Gospel was the centre of Christ's ministry. "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom" (Matthew 4:23). He left no doubt when that kingdom would happen:

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations " (Matthew 25:31,32).

"Thy kingdom come"
Following these dramatic events and the establishment of the Kingdom of God, the earth is ultimately to be inhabited only by men and women who possess eternal life. The great destroyers of man's potential, sin and death, will have been conquered. God's will will be truly done on earth, and the "Lord's prayer" will have been answered. The Apostle Paul summed up this time in 1 Corinthians 15:


We may find it difficult to think that far ahead, or to visualize what is meant by God being "all in all". But it will be the climax of the Creator's great purpose with the earth -- and it will be wonderful!


Don't let this marvellous future slip away from you! Jesus will be here soon. Please, read your Bible, and pray:
