We depend upon a presumed order. The “spectacles” as Kant describes them are a set of presuppositions that determine how we make sense of the world we inhabit. As empiricists, we rely on the belief that objects are the same from one experience to another, but we do not know that to be the case. For all we know, the world is recreated every time we open our eyes.

The current spate of anarchy threatens this way of life. Indeed, anarchy itself, on the reading of evil as an absence of good, can hardly be described as a way of life. This anarchy stands in direct contrast to the sacralised order presented in the Bible. Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 characterises the Antichrist as riding on the wings of anarchy. Christ, by contrast, is characterised as the agent of order. He abolishes the chaos of this present evil age and brings about a new Eden, one better than the last.

But men love the darkness: our deeds are evil. Long ago – though not so long compared with eternity – this wickedness brought the Flood upon itself. God spared the righteous to restart the world. We need not quibble about whether this flood was global or local; the principle is the same on either reading: corruption brings judgement. God promised never to flood the world in that way again; He set His rainbow in the sky as the sign of His covenant with the descendants of Noah.

That rainbow appears again in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, where the scene is once again one of judgement. The angels blow seven trumpets and pour out seven bowls of wrath. The earth is restored, and trees grow whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. This cycle of judgement and restoration is central to the Biblical concept of the “Day of the LORD”.

The Cross is also at the centre of this concept. On the day of Pentecost, Peter spoke the prophecy of Joel about the darkness and celestial signs that would precede Christ’s Coming, and before those the pouring out of the Spirit, which the crowd gathered in Jerusalem had just witnessed. But on Good Friday too the sky was darkened and God’s wrath was poured out on His beloved Son. “He was chastised for our iniquity.” The wrath was followed by restoration and renewal, the Resurrection.

Christ is the saviour and restorer. He is the Wisdom of God by whom the world was made. There can be no order apart from Christ: in Him we live and move and have our being.