Allegorical hermeneutics and the literal
interpretation. / Lecture Jürgen Haizmann 00, 2003.
The authority of the literal interpretation.
/ Lecture Jürgen Haizmann 01, 2003.
Jonah and the sea monster an allegory? / Article
at "Life is More"
Table – The true "Holy Week" – Tabular Overview of
the Week of Jesus’ Crucifixion
The death of the Lord, and Resurrection after three days
- a metaphor?
Are the days of Creation 24-hour days? / Lecture
Jürgen Haizmann 02, 2003.
Table – The Creation – UNIVERSE and EARTH
The biblical Trinity and some other specifics of the biblical Christian faith.
Christ says, "I am the door." This is a symbolic image. Christ’s intended
meaning is "I am the means of access to the Father." He doesn’t mean to say that he is
made of wood, and fitted with a doorknob – he just wants to tell us that he is the means of
access to the Father. So we understand the images that Scripture uses, and we take this image
just as it is, literally. This is allegory – in that we recognize an image as an image and
understand it as such, while at the same time registering the literal meaning of the image. This
is the true form of allegory. The false form of allegory, allegorical hermeneutics, is something
else. And I would like once again to make the difference between the two very clear: in the
false form of allegory, what is literal is interpreted as being an image. Where something is
written as a literal account – for instance, when we are told that God created heaven and earth,
along with a description of how he completed this work in seven days – then along comes someone
to say that this is not to be understood in the literal sense, and a lot of people will tell you
that it is just symbolic. But here the events are described literally. Allegorical hermeneutics,
on the other hand, simply asserts that this is not to be understood in a literal sense, it has
to be taken as a symbol. These seven days are seven epochs of millennia, or even millions of
years. And so a lot of people will try to fit evolution in at this point, or give God a bit more
time in which to have created everything. Whatever. What we see here is a plain denial of the
fact that the meaning here is literal. This is allegorical hermeneutics, and it is completely
wrong. What it does is to reinterpret literal statements as being symbolic.
(This extract has been taken from the recording of a lecture by Jürgen Haizmann,
Munich, on "Eschatology".)
Of course we must express our unreserved agreement with the above remarks of Mr.
Haizmann on the literal interpretation of Scripture. And when the Lord says, in Jn 10,9, "I am the
door," of course he is not "made of wood, and fitted with a doorknob."
I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved.
Jn 10,7 So Jesus said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you,
I am the door of the sheep. 10,8 "All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep
did not hear them. 10,9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and
will go in and out and find pasture. 10,10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. Jn 10, 7-10;
Likewise in the following passage from John, the Lord does not mean that he is
really a shepherd and we are the sheep.
I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
Jn 10,11 "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down
His life for the sheep. 10,12 "He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the
owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them
and scatters them. 10,13 "He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the
sheep. 10,14 "I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 10,15 even as the
Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. Jn 10,11-15;
All this is patently an allegory, and no one would seriously think otherwise. On the
other hand, in Rev 7,4-8 we hear about the 144,000 who were sealed, from every tribe of Israel – and
every single one of the twelve tribes is listed by name:
And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel.
Rev 7,4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred
and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: 7,5 From the tribe
of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the
tribe of Gad twelve thousand, 7,6 from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe
of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, 7,7 from the tribe
of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of
Issachar twelve thousand, 7,8 from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe
of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed. Rev
7, 4- 8;
And here some biblical commentators, even those who have nothing to do with
allegorical hermeneutics (though Mr. Haizmann is not among them, as far as I know!) have no qualms
about interpreting these twelve tribes – Israel or not – as an "allegory" of the Christian
congregation of all time. Anyone who reinterprets such totally unambiguous scriptural statements at
his own pleasure, on whatever grounds, may be pretending to interpret Scripture allegorically, but
in actual fact he is just falsifying it.
(See also Discourse 06: "The 144,000 who were
sealed: Israelites, or the congregation of the Last Days?")
Mr. Haizmann demonstrates in another passage, with admirable cogency, why only the
literal interpretation offers us a guarantee that we are understanding Scripture objectively, and in
a way that anyone can test for himself:
If we do not take the Bible literally, then we can interpret it any way we like,
it doesn’t make a scrap of difference. (...). I have no basis for saying why my own particular
method of interpretation should be the correct one, if I do not take the Bible in the literal
sense. If I take the Bible literally, I must be able to substantiate all my efforts of
interpretation from start to finish on the basis of Scripture, without getting into any
contradiction with Scripture. I have then the only system which is reliable for biblical
interpretation – namely, the literal interpretation. All other forms of interpretation have no
kind of authority, and cannot refer to any kind of principle that would make their approach
credible. God’s authority is behind the literal interpretation: that is the truth, and this
mode of interpretation is the only truthful one, the only one that is correct in God’s eyes.
No one can come to this conclusion who does not interpret the Bible literally.
(This extract has been taken from the recording of a lecture by Jürgen Haizmann,
Munich, on "Eschatology".)
We could hardly imagine a more trenchant expression of this point of view! And it is
just here that we encounter a highly critical issue: if passages that can be unambiguously
understood are interpreted not literally and in concrete terms, but are seen as symbolic and
allegorical, then every possible kind of interpretation – or impossible one – is likely to emerge.
This can go so far that the statements of a scriptural passage may be turned inside out, so that
they assert the direct opposite, without anybody being in a position to check what is going on. The
serious biblical commentator, then, must hold fast to that principle which once served our fathers
in faith as the foundation of their belief.
And this principle may be formulated as follows: we have to do with allegories in Scripture in all
cases where its statements and images contradict our experience of the realities of this world.
Examples of this are the Lord’s statement that he is the door, or the reference to the beast with
seven heads and ten horns in Rev 13,1. Such beasts are unknown to us, so this statement has to be
classified as allegorical. Those texts in Scripture, on the other hand, which we can judge to be
true to life, in the light of our knowledge of God’s creation, are principally to be interpreted
as referring to reality, and understood literally.
Here, though, we have to take into account that our knowledge of the creation can go on expanding -
first of all as a result of the discoveries of science, which we have to take seriously, but even
more through the insights which Scripture itself gives us into events and connections that go beyond
the limits of this visible world. A good example of this is Our Lord’s statement in Mt 12,38-40:
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Mt Mt 12,38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him,
"Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." 12,39 But He answered and said to them,
"An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it
but the sign of Jonah the prophet;
12,40 for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will
the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Mt 12,38-40;
We would like here first of all to address ourselves to the obvious question whether
it is realistically possible that a human being could be swallowed by a huge sea creature. We do not
just have Jonah’s own report, in Jon 2,1-11; we also have it confirmed by Our Lord in his saying
above, where he sees Jonah’s encounter with the whale as a historical fact. Here now is a short
extract from an Austrian website, one that I can recommend to your attention:
A crew of men had set out from the mother ship in a small boat to harpoon
whales. They spotted a very big one, and succeeded in harpooning it. The whale was enraged, made
straight for the boat and thrashed around, as a result of which the boat capsized. The entire
crew fell into the sea and swam towards the mother ship, from which all these events had been
observed. But the furious whale attacked once more, and one man vanished. This man later gave
his account of what happened on oath, saying that he was carried away all at once by a massive
wave, after which everything around him suddenly became pitch black, and terribly hot. He found
that he was sliding downwards on smooth, elastic surfaces, and a few seconds later he was
pitched into a kind of hot and acrid mush, by which he was most painfully affected. He felt
around, trying to find something to hold onto, and came into contact with all kinds of semisolid
objects, which frequently reacted to his movements. He said that the stink, in this close
atmosphere, was quite intolerable. Panic seized him when he realized where he was – in the belly
of the harpooned and maddened whale.
Have you ever opened up a chicken’s stomach? Do you know what it looks like? Do you know how
it smells? Would you like to find yourself in such a place? The sailor found he was in a
veritable death-vault, where only half-dead and half-digested objects floated around him in this
ghastly stew. The sailor lived in a real death-vault, in a hell, in the "depth of Sheol", as
the prophet Jonah so well put it in describing his situation (Jon 2,2).
He tried frantically to climb up the smooth walls, in order to get out. But he did not manage
it: he only succeeded in climbing a short distance, and then every time slid back down again.
The acrid mush and the stifling air affected him so unpleasantly that he soon became confused,
and lost consciousness. Some time later, the whale surfaced again, and was killed by the sailors
on the waiting ship. When it was cut up, they found the man who had disappeared. He was
unconscious, but alive. His skin was very yellow, and his eyes and ears had suffered damage.
When he regained consciousness, some time later, he was out of his mind. But he recovered after
a convalescence of some months, after which, at the request of his companions, he made a
statement about his terrible experience, confirming it on oath. This attested statement is to be
found in a book by Dr Rimmer (‘Science, Religion and Reality');.
So the biblical story of Jonah is really something that can happen. It has even happened a
number of times in recent years, as Dr Rimmer tells us.
(This extract has been taken from the website "Life is More" – https://www.Life-is-More.at.
So much for the reality of such occurrences. But let us go on to consider that part
of the Lord’s saying quoted earlier (Mt 12,38-40) which gives us an insight into realities which
go beyond the visible spectrum of our earthly experience. In Mt 12,40 the Lord says:
"Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea
monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
| Day | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday |
| time | 6am6pm | 6am6pm | 6am6pm | 6am6pm | 6am6pm | 6am6pm | 6am |
| 13th Nisan | 14th Nisan | 15th Nisan | 16th Nisan | 17th Nisan | 18th Nisan | 19th Nisan |
| Night Day | Night Day | Night Day | Night Day | Night Day | Night Day | Night Day |
Preparation Day for Passover after 6:00 p.m. the Lord’s supper Capture in Gethsemane Crucifixion 3:00 p.m. Death on the Cross ~ 6:00 p.m. burial |
Begin Passover Great Annual Sabbath |
Preparation Day for Sabbath Purchase of Spices and Perfumes |
Weekly Sabbath ~ 6:00 p.m. Raising up |
First Day of the Week Women arrive at the empty tomb |
(Day:
In Jewish division of the day, the day begins with 6:00 p.m. and ends
on our today’s next day at 6:00 p.m.)
(See also Discourse 87: "The Turin
Shroud – The sign of Jonah")
The statement that the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth is interpreted by many commentators – in principle quite correctly – as a reference to
the death and Resurrection of Jesus. But if we put ourselves to the trouble of studying Scripture in
depth, we will recognize that a great deal more is being revealed here, and that this is no more
than just the tip of the iceberg. To understand the full implications, let us look at a few more
scriptural passages that have a bearing on this issue.
He had descended into the lower parts of the earth.
Eph 4,8 Therefore it says (Psalm 68,18), "When He ascended on
high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men." 4,9 (Now this expression,
"He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts
of the earth? 4,10 He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens,
so that He might fill all things.) Eph 4, 8-10;
(See also Chapter 12: "The Resurrection.")
Let us first of all take a look at a scriptural passage that may be able to give a
more detailed explanation of the implications here. Peter tells us in 1Pet 4,3-6 that the gospel has
been preached to the dead.
For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead.
1Pet 4,3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have
carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness,
carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. 4,4 In all this, they are surprised that you
do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you; 4,5 but they will
give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 4,6 For the gospel has for
this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh
as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God. 1Pet 4, 3- 6;
The good news that is preached here is, of course, the gospel of the redeeming
sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross at Golgotha for the sins of humanity. And now we are in a
position to see why the Lord spent three days and three nights in the kingdom of the dead. It was he
who at this time proclaimed the good news to the dead. Those who died in the time before the death
of Jesus were none of them able, as yet, to take advantage of this opportunity of salvation, because
this sacrifice had not been offered in their lifetime. Now, after the sacrificial death of the Son
of God on the cross, God’s justice insists that not just the living, but also those who have died
up to this point should have the opportunity of making a personal response to the Lord’s dying for
their sins, as a substitute for them.
And of course this offer was also extended to those who had lived before the Flood, whom God
destroyed by means of the Flood because of their violence upon earth.br>
God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
Gen 6,10 Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
6,11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. 6,12 God
looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the
earth. 6,13 Then God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth
is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Gen
6,10-13;
As Peter goes on to say in his first Epistle, in these three days in the realm of
the dead the Lord also, of course, preached this news of great joy to those who had lost their lives
in the Flood, so as to offer them the chance of redemption from their sins:
The Lord also made proclamation to those who had been destroyed by the Flood.
1Pet 3,18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for
the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made
alive in the spirit;
3,19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 3,20 who
once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during
the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the
water. 1Pet 3,18-20;
And this shows us, now, that the good news of redemption by grace, through the
redeeming sacrifice of the Son of God, has in very truth been proclaimed to all human beings – all
those who died before the death of the Lord, to whom the Lord preached the good news in person, in
the realm of the dead, as well as all those who have only come into the world since, who have had
available the preaching of the apostles and their successors. And this brings home to us a second
point – the absolute justice of God. No one is forgotten. No one – not a single human being who has
ever lived, or who will ever live in future – will be able to say at the Judgment that he has been
treated unjustly.
This, then, is the background to this saying of the Lord’s in Mt 12,38-40: "so will the Son of
Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Some commentators, though, prefer
not to go into this kind of analysis, and so turn the saying into an allegory – claiming that this
is just to be understood symbolically, that it is just a metaphor of the death of Jesus and his
Resurrection on the third day. As we can see, this method totally misses the real reach of the
passage.
Then again, we have another interesting saying of the Lord’s that refers to the realm of the dead:
The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
Jn 5,25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now
is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
5,26 "For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life
in Himself; 5,27 and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. 5,28
"Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will
hear His voice, 5,29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection
of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. Jn 5,25-29;
And death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them.
Rev 20,13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and
Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to
their deeds. Rev 20,13;
Here, in Jn 5,25-29, the Lord says to the Jews that the dead will hear the voice of
the Son of God. And he speaks here of several events of this kind ("hours"). One day, at the end
of the world (Jn 5,28-29), the Lord will send forth his voice into the realm of the dead; and all
the dead who at that time are still in the realm of the dead will hear this call, and come alive
again in body, in the General Resurrection, and rise for the Last Judgment.
(See also Discourse 97: "Raising and resurrection
‒ the realities of another dimension.")
But then the Lord has spoken before this, in Jn 5,25, of another "hour" which is
coming, and in which too he will send forth his voice into the kingdom of the dead. Not all of
the dead, admittedly, will be able to hear him. But those dead who hear him will live
likewise. This is the time of the raising of the dead in Christ for the Rapture, on the Second
Coming of the Lord. The Lord will call into the realm of the dead, and those of the dead who hear
him – that is to say, those of the Christian faithful who sleep in Christ – will rise, be clothed in
a spiritual body and will then join the living faithful, who have been similarly transformed, to
meet the Lord in the sky and be taken up into the Rapture (1The 4,15-17).
But at the same time the Lord also says here that this "hour" now is – and this
indication must be taken to refer to the immediate future of the time at which he uttered this
saying. If this interpretation is correct, the statement of the Lord that this hour also "now is"
would imply that already, at that time, a resurrection of faithful must have taken place. And indeed
we find just such an event in Mt 27,50-53:
The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
Mt 27,50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up
His spirit. 27,51 And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the
earth shook and the rocks were split. 27,52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints
who had fallen asleep were raised; 27,53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection
they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Mt 27,50-53;
It was immediately after the death of the Lord that the very first resurrection of
all took place. The tombs were opened, and many of the saints who had died rose from the dead. This
is what the Lord meant to convey in saying that "the hour is coming and now is." But we
come now to the second part of the statement by Mr. Haizmann which we quoted at the start of this
Discourse. He says here – to recapitulate:
And I would like once again to make the difference between the two very clear:
in the false form of allegory, what is literal is interpreted as being an image. Where something
is written as a literal account – for instance, when we are told that God created heaven and
earth, along with a description of how he completed this work in seven days – then along comes
someone to say that this is not to be understood in the literal sense, and a lot of people will
tell you that it is just symbolic. But here the events are described literally. Allegorical
hermeneutics, on the other hand, simply asserts that this is not to be understood in a literal
sense, it has to be taken as a symbol. These seven days are seven epochs of millennia, or even
millions of years. And so a lot of people will try to fit evolution in at this point, or give
God a bit more time in which to have created everything. Whatever. What we see here is a plain
denial of the fact that the meaning here is literal. This is allegorical hermeneutics, and it is
completely wrong. What it does is to reinterpret literal statements as being symbolic.
(This extract has been taken from the recording of a lecture by Jürgen Haizmann,
Munich, on "Eschatology".)
(The basic understanding of the following interpretation forms Excursus 12
"The Creation.")
Mr. Haizmann is quite entitled to defend his position against the advocates of
allegorical hermeneutics, who think that the seven days of the account of Creation are to be
symbolically understood. And he thinks that such people are denying that we here have to do with
perfectly normal 24-hour days. Although it is not our intention here to speak in support of the
false form of allegory, we would like to see, just the same, how these literal statements in the
Bible actually look, and what sort of conclusions may be drawn from them. So let us start with the
first three days of Creation:
The first day.
Gen 1,1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
1,2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit
of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 1,3 Then God said, "Let there be light";
and there was light. 1,4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the
darkness. 1,5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was
evening and there was morning, one day. Gen 1, 1- 5;
The second day.
Gen 1,6 Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of
the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."1,7 God made the expanse, and
separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and
it was so. 1,8 God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second
day. Gen 1, 6- 8;
The third day.
Gen 1,9 Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be
gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. 1,10 God called the
dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
1,11 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on
the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. 1,12 The earth
brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed
in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 1,13 There was evening and there was
morning, a third day. Gen 1, 9-13;
So let us sum up the happenings of the first three days of Creation. The first day
sees the creation of the heavens (plural) and the earth. On the second day God creates an ‘expanse’
(the Hebrew word "rakia" for "expanse" here denotes the air or the atmosphere), that is, the
earthly sky around the earth. And on the third day, finally, the seas are created, the dry land
appears and we see the start of the growth of the vegetable world.
Now let us consider the fourth day:
The fourth day.
Gen 1,14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of
the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be
for signs and for seasons and for days and
years;
1,15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on
the earth"; and it was so. 1,16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to
govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 1,17 God placed
them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 1,18 and to govern the day and the
night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 1,19 There was
evening and there was morning, a fourth day. Gen 1,14-19;
And here we are now confronted with a double surprise. First of all we realize that
the sun – without which 24-hour days on earth would be quite impossible – was only created on the
fourth day of Creation. Consequently we are told, by Scripture itself, that the "days" referred
to earlier cannot possibly have been days of 24 hours. And then too, to substantiate this, we have
the statement in Gen 1,14, which tells us that the sun is to serve "for signs and for seasons and
for days and years".
This means, then, that those days which were given to humanity, in accordance
with the will of God, to determine the seasons and the days and the years – standard earthly days,
that is – could only begin when the sun was created, on the fourth day of creation. So we will only
be accurate in assuming the reality of a 24-hour day on earth, with the alternation of day and
night, from the fifth day of Creation on – when the first animals, fishes and birds were created.
All this, now, follows from the literal (and in no way symbolic!) interpretation of what we find
here written in the Bible. And if Mr. Haizmann, in the passage quoted earlier, is completely
justified in condemning the false form of allegory and defending his views against it, we have to
bring it to his attention here, all the same, that when he claims that all the days of Creation were
days of 24 hours, he is redrafting the literal significance of this passage and so himself falling
into the same error as the misguided advocates of allegorical hermeneutics.
And when he observes,
"And so a lot of people will try to fit evolution in at this point, or give God a bit more time in
which to have created everything," either he has not paid sufficient attention when reading these
scriptural passages, or he is denying what we find literally stated in Scripture – namely, that the
sun was created only on the fourth day of Creation. So none of the "days" preceding this can
have been earthly days of 24 hours.
And it is not a matter here of wanting to give God "a bit more time". Most assuredly, God could
have accomplished the whole act of creation in just five minutes, if he had wanted to. But anyone
who knows Scripture will be aware that in his created world God always acts along with creation
and also keeps himself to the natural laws determined by him.
A good example of this is the feeding of the 5000 (Mt 14:15-21). Here there was a crowd of 5000
people, and they were all hungry. It would surely have been an easy matter for the Lord to arrange
things by the "spiritual method" through the Holy Spirit that they might all at once have been
miraculously filled. But he chose the earthly way and took the limited resources that happened
to be available – five loaves and two fish – and gave thanks to the Father, after which he and
the disciples divided up what there was, for as long as it took until the last person present had
had enough; and what was left over of the broken pieces, in the end, was twelve full baskets.
In the same way, in his Creation, God created everything in sequence and according to plan, one
thing after another. First of all the universe, with space, matter, light and darkness (Gen 1,1-5).
Then, at the preordained moment in time, the earth along with the heavenly bodies, and all
vegetable, animal and human life (Gen 1,6-31). And anyone who reads the account of Creation with
attention will recognize that the first three days of Creation fall into a completely different
category from those days which God gives to humanity in Gen 1,14 as earthly days for the definition
of seasons and days and years. The one is a measurement in God’s terms; the other is on a human
scale.
If we compare the first day of Creation with the second to fourth days of Creation, as in the table
that concludes Excursus 12, we will see that the repeated mentions of "heaven", "earth", "day",
"night", "light" and "darkness" are by no means repetitions of one and the same
happening, but are associated with two quite different acts of creation: on the first day, the
creation of the universe (as a result of the Big Bang) and from the second day through the fourth,
the creation of the earth, along with the heavenly bodies.
The Creation of the Universe (Heavens)G4n 1,1 In the beginning God created the
heavens |
The Creation of the Earth1,6 Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the |
(See also Excursus 12: "The
Creation: Universe and Earth.")
We had occasion earlier in this discourse to speak of those biblical commentators
who take the 144,000 who have been sealed, coming from the twelve tribes of Israel, and press them
into service – free of charge – as the Christian congregation of all time. Such persons can hardly
be reproached for a lack of intellect, seeing that we here have a blatant and deliberate
reinterpretation of scriptural passages so as to make them yield confirmation of a preconceived
opinion. The interpretation of all the days of Creation as 24-hour days, on the other hand, does
rather suggest a certain superficiality on the commentator’s part: the texts have been read, but
their full implications have not been understood; nor has the commentator succeeded in registering
the entire spectrum of their significance.
(See also Discourse 50: "The account of creation
in the Bible.")
The Biblical Trinity and some other specifics of the biblical Christian faithUnlike all other religions in the world, biblical Christianity is not
a religion. It is a relation. A relationship with – or
connection to – God, as our Father in Heaven. That is why our Lord
Jesus Christ told us: Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Mt 23,9 9 "Do not call anyone on earth your
father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Mt 23,9; So, in biblical Christianity, we do not call anyone on earth
our Father – the one and only Almighty God in heaven is our Father. In fact
God created not only us but all human beings, with Adam and Eve, our archaic parents, and is
therefore the father of us all. But very few people want to know anything
about this. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Jn 4,23 "But an hour is coming, and now
is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth;
for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 4,24 "God is
spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
Jn 4,23-24; And as Paul also confirms to us in his first letter to the
Corinthians, God’s Spirit dwells in us if we are God’s children. Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1Cor 3,16 Do you not know that you
are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
3,17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the
temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. 1Cor 3,16-17; So this is a very similar connection to the one the Son of God had with the Father during his mission on earth: Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? Jn 14,10 Do you not believe that I am in the
Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to
you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding
in Me does His works. 14,11 Believe Me that I
am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of
the works themselves. Jn 14,10-11; Finally, the Lord Jesus himself also tells us that the one
who loves him will be recognized by the fact that he will keep the word of
his Lord. And therefore the Father will love him, and both Father and Son
will come and make their abode with him (in his spirit). If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. Jn 14,22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him,
"Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to
us and not to the world?" 14,23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If
anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We
will come to him and make Our abode with him. 14,24 "He who does not
love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine,
but the Father’s who sent Me. 14,25 "These things I have spoken to you
while abiding with you. 14,26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to
your remembrance all that I said to you. Jn 14,22-26; So, let us summarize: Paul tells us above, in 1Cor 3,16,
that the Holy Spirit dwells in us if we are children of God. The Lord Jesus
tells us above, in Jn 14,23, that the Father and the Son will come to us and
abide with us if we love the Son. Thus we have united Father, Son and Holy
Spirit in our spirit! It is therefore obvious that it is in the nature of spiritual beings to integrate
themselves both in the spirit of a human being, as well as in other spiritual beings. In their spiritual
form, they are non-material and can merge into each other, as when we empty one glass of
water into another on the material plane, and the two both waters become one (trinity). However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; Acts 7,48 "However, the Most High does not
dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says (Isa 66,1-2):
7,49 ‘Heaven is my throne, and earth is the footstool of my feet; what
kind of house will you build for me?’ says the Lord; – Or what place
is there for my repose? 7,50 ‘Was it not my hand which made all these
things?’ Acts 7,48-50; In the biblical Christian faith, therefore, there is no rite, no liturgy, no
"masses", no priests, bishops, cardinals, popes or anything else like that.
Biblical Christian believers themselves are God’s temple and in their spirit
have immediate and direct connection with their heavenly Father. For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." 2Cor 6,14 Do not be bound together
with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness,
or what fellowship has light with darkness? 6,15 Or what harmony has
Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?
6,16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? And it is also this spirit of the children of God who will
live after the resurrection as a spiritual being in the eternal dimension
with our Father in heaven, after he has walked the path that our Lord Jesus
Christ has already gone before us as the first fruits (1Cor 15:20-28). But you, when you pray, go into your inner room and pray to your Father who is in secret. Mt 6,5 "When you pray, you are not to be
like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and
on the street corners (or on the "Wailing Wall"! / FH) so that they
may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
6,6 "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door
and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees
what is done in secret will reward you. 6,7 "And when you are praying, do
not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that
they will be heard for their many words. 6,8 "So do not be like them;
for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Mt 6,5-8; |