Scripture Imagery: 1. Symbolical Language

 •  5 min. read  •  grade level: 11
The very abundant use which is made of symbolical language and actions in the sacred records is evidently for the purposes, (1) of compelling attention, for attention is more easily attracted to types and physical actions than to abstract statements: (2) of explanations, for scriptural subjects are so much above the ordinary power of human minds as to be only, or best, explained by figures; and (3) for riveting to the memory, because an illustration is like a nail to hold a subject in the mind which otherwise would soon slip out. These three considerations, attractive, elucidative and mnemonic, I consider to be among the main purposes of the use of scripture figures; but obviously there is the further important consideration, that their use adds to language much picturesque beauty. This last characteristic may be regarded rather as an effect than as a purpose.
It was not Herr Frצbel who first used the Kindergarten system, Germany adapts rather than invents. God had used symbol-teaching to “children of a larger growth” for thousands of years before. The Old Testament is one larger and divine Kindergarten, where, though all is historically true, the varied and dramatic figures of kings, shepherds, priests, worshippers, sacrifices, hosts, wanderers, pomps, miseries, triumphs, defeats, mercies, judgments, sufferings and glories are symbols Wand types of spiritual events. (1 Cor. 10:1111Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. (1 Corinthians 10:11)) The mightiest woes of the material realm are but as “Kriegspiel” to the gigantic conflicts of the spiritual; and its brightest glories are as the scintillating stars, presently to be flooded out by the majesty of the full-orbed day when the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
In this way the new dispensation interprets the old. But we find that the reality is the spiritual; the material things serve as shadows, This is the formula: seen-temporal; unseen-eternal. (2 Cor. 4:1818While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)) Thus interpreting the first chapter of Genesis by the first chapter of John, a correspondency will be seen, which reveals the operation of the same Mind in each case, and which suggests that the great spiritual truth of John 1 was present in that august Mind when it arranged the material operations of Gen. 1, Genesis giving simply the shadow, and John the substance. In each case the soul is guided back to survey “in the beginning” God triune, sole, absolute, whose transcendent power and capacious wisdom was pleased to originate and develop all things. In Genesis then we see first the order of heaven and the earth (1) before the horror of darkness and chaos, over which wide desolation the billowing Spirit broods (2). At length came the days, in the first of which “light was” (not said to be then created) fighting with the darkness—never blending, ever hostile and divided from it (3). Then heaven, the expanse, was with a separating power and effect (6-8); dry land appears on the third day, the earth apart from the sea, with herbage and fruit to be produced (9-12); the sun is appointed (not now made but for the first time disclosed to the Adamic earth, having been hidden not merely during convulsive changes, but by the vast vapors and clouds that must in the previous glacial, marshy, or heated periods have existed). For light had been here from the first day; but now the great light-bearer of our system is disclosed to rule the day; the moon and subordinate lights also (14-19); then the sea is productive for man, and fowls are to fly in the expanse (20-23) the beasts too next day, and the race, man, to rule and be blessed (24-31). “This universal frame began, from harmony to harmony. Through all the compass of the notes it ran, the diapason closing full in man,” made in God's image, after His likeness.
Now when the new creation is to be described, again, after the relation of the Word in His eternal glory, we see the darkness run amidst which the Spirit moves imparting life, (John 1:1313Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:13)), light shining in hostile darkness—rejected and separated from it. (10-12). Light is the Word or Son who in the bosom of the Father reveals Him. It reveals as a word reveals a thought, and is therefore called the Word disclosing heavenly things (14-18-51), always with a separating effect (37-39); it is only by death and resurrection that solid ground and fruit appears. There had been light (instruction) in the world from the first day, the Adamic dispensation, and through the Patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations following; but now in the fourth epoch the light, the Son, is disclosed and appointed the regnant expression of all truth—subordinate lights also to reflect His ways during His absence, whether corporately (moon) or individually (planets). In John 1:35-5135Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; 36And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! 37And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 38Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? 39He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. 40One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. 42And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. 43The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. 44Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. 46And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. 47Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! 48Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. 49Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. 50Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. 51And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. (John 1:35‑51) are passing shadows, as frequently pointed out, of the two great dispensations of Gentile and Jewish salvation; that is to say, the time comes1 when the sea—the Gentiles, and the land—the Jews, shall both in their day be prolific. And then finally the veil is drawn aside to show us “greater things than these” to— “see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man.” Thus again, “From harmony to harmony, Through all the compass of its notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man.” But this time it is the Second man, the last Adam. “What is man that Then art mindful of him; and the Son of man that Thou visitest Him.....hast crowned Him with glory and honor.....to have dominion over the works of Thy hands.” As a ship-builder makes first a model of his projected ship, and then builds the real vessel, so God as wrought first in model in the physical creation, then in the spiritual. A child looks on the toy-ship in the owner's office and sees no further; but the owner explains, from its symmetrical miniature, suggestions of the gigantic lines of some world-renowned craft. So do the glories of the spiritual realm and its phenomena surpass those of the physical.