Jovial (18 Aug 2005)
"Why are so many teachings hidden in Symbolism?"

Someone recently asked me why I thought so many things are hidden in symbolism. Prophecy is certainly one that is, but so are many other teachings.

In Matthew 13:10-11 it says,

The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.

Symbolism exists so God can teach us things He does not want the world to understand until they get saved. The literal level is for those who need slavation. Once you get saved, you're ready to go deeper. The details of His Master plan and return are not for the lost to know. So He hid it in type in the scriptures. But He also gave us the keys to unlock those types (such as the use of the 42 Journeys to figure out many meanings in Revelation).

Symbolism exists to protect us. If we learn a spiritual truth before our spirit is reborn during the salvation experience, we gain an understanding of that spiritual truth with our natural mind, because we have no spiritual discernment yet. The spirit of man is not alive, having not been reborn yet. God wants us to wait until we've been born again to learn certain truths so that we will learn them with our spirit, not with our mind. If we learn a spiritual truth with our natural mind before the new birth, we might draw from the natural mind after we begin our spiritual walk, instead of drawing from our spiritual realm. So truths that must be exercised from within the spirit are hidden from us through symbolism until we receive a new spirit during the new birth. This too, is the reason for the veil discussed in 2 Cor 3:13-16. God only wants the unsaved to gain knowledge of salvation, but not about deeper spiritual truths. Also, there's times when words simply do not express truths in enough detail, while visual examples get the message across almost instantly.

The type of person who is LEAST likely to study Scripture at a symbolic level (but are still spiritual people and COULD understand it if they wanted to) are the type of people who like to have well defined boundaries, everything spelled out in black and white, etc. Its not as popular for people who don't like grey area or to be forced to ponder on something without getting the answer right away. But of course, for any prophecy student, it is a must, because prophecy is hidden in this kind of language.

But God has made it hard sometimes to understand the plain language of scripture without digging into the symbolic level of things. For example, John said that our Savior did not have His bones broken, "In fulfillment of the Scriptures." What Scriptures? The only thing in previous scriptures banning any breaking of bones is that the bones of the Passover sacrifice cannot be broken. And HE WAS OUR PASSOVER SACRIFICE. That is telling us that He fulfilled all the verses about the Passover lamb.

In John 7, He said,

    "He that believeth on me, as
     the scripture hath said, out
     of his belly shall flow rivers
     of living water."

What scripture is this refering to? I can show you where, but you'd have to accept the idea that something in Song of Solomon is meant at a level above the plain simple language. Or take a look at Heb 13:11-13

"11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore."

There's 3 things this is telling us....

Regulations on temple sacrifices

That our Savior fulfilled the regulations on temple sacrifices

That we should fulfill the regulations on temple sacrifice! Not, of course, by slaying an animal in the physical realm, but by slaying the old man of sin in the spiritual realm on the altar of our heart.

These kind of messages don't exist so that only a scientist can understand them, but quite frankly to prove to the scientist that he is not as smart as he thinks he is, and that God's thinking exists as levels so deep and rich that worldly wisdom cannot figure it out. You can't see this kind of stuff with human intelligence. You have to be listening and waiting for the Spirit to speak to you and reveal to you the message that is in there. It is written...

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

Teaching us things symbolically is one of the ways God destroys the wisdom of the wise, and demonstrate to us that His ways are higher than our ways, because we could have never figured out to do this kind of stuff.

Shalom, Joe
Learn all about how Revelation uses the same symbols as the Wilderness Journey in The 42 Journey Pattern.... available at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jovial/ads/42journeys.htm
Home Page : http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jovial/learn/mc/mcindex.htm