Bible Speaks by Rev. L. Althouse 

 

March 8, 2015

Background Scripture: John 14:15-26

Devotional Reading: Psalms 23

Shall Christians take everything in the Bible literally, or are there words, sentences, passages or whole books that are intended to be taken as parabolic or metaphorical?

An oversimplified example would be the passage we studied last week, John 1:29: “Behold the Lamb of God.” Obviously, John is using “Lamb” in a metaphorical or symbolic manner. He is not saying that Jesus is a real-life animal member of the lamb family, but that his ministry is symbolized by the paschal lamb offered the Hebrews at Passover and in the prophetic quotation in Isaiah 53:7:

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent.”

The reason I raise this issue is that between branches of Christendom, denominations, within congregations, as well as between individuals, there is often considerable disagreement and controversy as to whether some passages are to be taken literally or symbolically.

There is also another issue that can cause much trouble: Our failure to realize the words we use to express our Christian convictions are usually inadequate to equal the depths of meaning behind these terms. As an example, when we talk about “God” there is no way that word can convey the depths and heights of what the Deity really is.

If I think I can fully “explain” God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the like, I probably do not “know” as much as I feel I do.

Words and ‘The Word’

The holiest and most divine realities are ineffable – incapable of being fully comprehended. We may call Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God, the Savior, the Messiah, the Lamb of God, the Lord, the Second Person of the Trinity, but we cannot completely capture him with our words.

So, let us not attempt limit God to the ideas and words we use to capture the God who can be apprehended, but not fully comprehended.

When I was a seminarian, we used a theology text written by a respected scholar. When we came to the chapter dealing with the Holy Spirit, he listed what he called “the offices of the Holy Spirit” – divine activities purported to be limited solely to the activity of the Holy Spirit.

They read like a job description: the Holy Spirit can do this, this and this – but not that, for that is the office of God the Father or God the Son. These “offices” were an honest, if quite inadequate, attempt to lock-up the “proper” delineation of what God in His various forms can do and be. The human mind finds it impossible to conceive of a reality that cannot be perfectly described and delegated.

Example: I have previously written of an experience that took place in Germany about a half-century ago. In 1960 my wife and I were members of a Christian youth workers’ delegation invited by the Protestant churches of Bavaria. One of the cities we visited was Nuremberg, where we were hosted in a villa, the home of a German lawyer and his wife.

Unfortunately, they did not speak English and my German was woefully inadequate. Soon after our arrival, my wife became ill and we agonized over how we could seek medical treatment at that time of night. In the middle of the night, I awoke and was “aware” of “someone” standing at the foot of the bed. After some minutes of awkward silence I clearly heard him say: “Do not be afraid!”

While pondering this strange but assuring advice, I fell soundly asleep. When I awoke the next morning, my wife had surprisingly recovered. I realize some will rationalize this as a waking dream, but I was calmly aware of what and who I had experienced.

Private property?

Some years after I was relating this event to a Christian friend, when I said I “knew” that the figure at the foot of my bed was Jesus, he objected, saying, “This kind of experience can come only through the Holy Spirit, not Jesus nor the Father.” From that time on I have avoided giving God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit limitations as to who can do what.

So, when I am called to pray for someone with a health or personal problem, sometimes I appeal to “God,” or to “Jesus Christ” or “the Holy Spirit.” Why?

Because I am not praying to three different gods, but to one God who manifests Himself to us in many different ways. Occasionally someone has “corrected” me because I have ascribed to Jesus or God the Father the thanks “that belong only to the Holy Spirit!”

William Barclay says the Greek word for “Advocate,” is “really untranslatable.” Different Bible versions use different terms: “helper,” “comforter,” “counselor,” “advocate, “another to befriend you” and “someone else to stand by you.” The important thing is not in being semantically “correct” in knowing which of God’s “persons” you are dealing with.

So, in John 14:15-26, I do not see Jesus setting up boundaries, but tearing them down. Jesus was telling them he is going away to the Father. But: “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you … On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (14:19, 20). What he is telling them is almost beyond their capacity to envision. Typically human, they and we want to know how he’s going to do this. They cannot understand – nor can we – but if we, like them, trust in his promise, we will not be left alone.

Reading again what I wrote above, I wondered if I had actually said what I intended. Then, in my mind I began to “hear” a popular Cole Porter song from the 1940s, and that is God’s message I was trying to deliver: “Don’t fence me in.”