The Living Fountain: Chapter 3

Wilbur Marshall Urban, Humanity and Deity (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1
1951), p. 344.
49
Chapter 3
The Symbolism of Grace
Science does not give us literal truth about the cosmos whereas religion
gives us symbolic. The scientific propositions are no less symbolic than
the religious although the symbols are of a different type and
constructed for a different purpose.1
In the preceding chapter we have attempted to point up the respect in
which the logical-mathematical and the empirical sciences are symbolic. In
particular, attention was given to the way in which the symbolic constructs of
the object and of causation formulate the relations in which the scientific
world of nature is built up. While there is, indeed, the presupposition of
reality as such, those formulations do not in any literal sense disclose the
inner nature of physical reality. In short, symbolism is a scientific
principle.
The purpose of the present chapter is to develop the concept of
symbolism as it functions in the area of religion. The concern here will be
devoted primarily to the Christian religion. The emphasis must, obviously, be
placed upon the language of the New Testament. For that is the language in
which the symbolism of Christian grace is expressed. The argument is that our
understanding of the religion of grace is, and must be, through the symbols
contained in that language. While, as we shall see, the symbols may be
50
expanded in terms of the wider generalities of reason, that expansion can
never replace the symbols as avenues of spiritual insight. Rather it is to
vivify and enhance the intuitive content of the symbol, in which is obtained
insight into spiritual realities.
We have earlier observed that the pagan myths address the themes that
are also addressed in Christianity: the sorrow and sin of human existence, the
dying and risen savior, the birth of the holy child, redemption and
purification through the shedding and appropriation of blood, cleansing and
newness through baptism, rites of communion with the deity by means of
sacrament of wine and food and marriage, and, ultimately, resurrection as
victory over death.
This circumstance has led many scholars to adopt one of two views. One
view is a purely reductionist one, that is, that the Christian themes are
reformulation of the mythic material of paganism. This reformulation but
changes the color of the older myths. Although the terms are modified, this
modification still leaves them as myth.
In our era, the development of physical science occasioned the
affirmation of its autonomy and, finally, of a dominance that excluded all
forms of knowledge except that of “positive” science. Religion is regarded as
identical with the mythical. Philosophy, this theory states, is at least
partially in the mythical stage, while science has succeeded in moving
completely beyond it.
Here it may be observed that this view of positivism as to its exclusive
claim to knowledge is but an irrational presupposition that cannot be
cognitively supported. The claim, which it makes, that myth is but a
precursor of science does not represent the place of myth in human life and
history. It certainly is not something that has been intentionally and
consciously developed as a preparatory stage for something else. Those who
lived and breathed in the mythical world has no such thought as to the
significance of their myths.
51
Ibid., p. 87. 2
Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, tr. Ralph Manheim (3 vols.: 3
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955-57), II, 237.
The other view is one that regards the Christian themes, not as myths,
but as symbols. While the material of the symbols is mythical, even in their
reformulation, that material takes on a symbolic significance. The meaning of
the symbol, then, is detached from its material base and referred to spiritual
realities that transcend the existence-level of its material foundation. What
the Christian religion says explicitly, then, must not be taken as literally
true. Rather, what is true is what that religion says implicitly——what it
says implicitly about the great themes of human existence and salvation. And
this meaning must be formulated and explicated in rational terms. In sum,
this view is an attempt to retain the primitive value of myth and yet go
beyond that value to a level of greater significance.
This conception of the relation of myth to religion is set forth, for
example, in the writings of Professor Urban:
Moreover——and this is a still more important point of difference——the
dramatic language of the myth and its categories are not permanent in
religion as myth, but rather as a necessary symbolic form in which
religion——itself not myth——is alone expressible . . . myth and religion
are fundamentally different in essence . . . Myth simply furnishes the
material for religious symbolism, for only the dramatic language of the
myth can provide the appropriate symbols for the content of religion.2
Here Urban follows Ernst Cassirer, whose treatment of myth in the modern
era Urban calls “the most significant, as it is also the most thorough”:
. . . myth and religion have within them their own source of motion, that
from their beginnings down to their supreme productions they are
determined by their own motives and fed from their own well-springs.
Even where they pass far beyond these first beginnings they do not
abandon their native spiritual soil. Their positions do not suddenly and
immediately shift into negations; rather, it can be shown that every step
they take, even in their own sphere, bears, as it were, a twofold omen.
To the continuous building up of the mythical world there corresponds a
continuous drive to surpass it, but in such a way that both the position
and the negation belong to the form of the mythical-religious
consciousness itself and in it join to constitute a single indivisible
act. The process of destruction proves on closer scrutiny to be a
process of self-assertion; conversely, the latter can only be effected on
the basis of the former, and it is only in their permanent cooperation
that the two together produce the true essence and meaning of the
mythical-religious form.3
52
Harald Höffding, The Philosophy of Religion, tr. B. E. Meyer (London: Macmillan 4
& Co., Ltd., 1914), p. 201.
Ibid. 5
The key concept of this latter view is “mythical-religious.” Religion
is not something completely disjoined from myth. Rather, it is the manner in
which myth is utilized in consciousness. This view of the relation of myth to
religion brings, obviously, the themes of Christianity into the sphere of
myth. Its symbols become the material of myth. If this view be accepted,
Christianity loses any claim to being the distinctive and unique religion of
revelation. Indeed, it is the case that the scriptures speak symbolically of
God and His relation to humanity. But does it follow that, finally, the terms
of that speech are but mythical? Here it may observed that any similarity, at
the categorial level, between the terms of myth and Christianity does not
imply an identity of essential content. This problem will constitute the
burden of the final chapter of this work. But now it must be held in abeyance
and attention given to a consideration of the symbols that the scriptures do
employ to register insight into the verities of spirituality.
We have earlier pointed up the basic nature of symbolism, by means of a
reference to the work of Harald Höffding:
In all symbolization, ideas taken from narrow although more intuitible
relations are used as expressions for relations which, on account of
their exaltedness and ideality, cannot be directly expressed.4
Thus symbols of religion share in this general characteristic of symbols. But
religious symbols have additional features that other types of symbols do not
possess. First, they are drawn from fundamental and pervasive regions of
intuition. They are rooted in a deeper layer of human experience than the
images employed in the formation of the symbols of science and art. Höffding
describes those regions as “. . . the great fundamental relations of nature
and of human life——light and darkness, power and weakness, life and death,
spirit and matter, good and evil . . . . Second, the more important feature 5
of religious symbols consists in their unique reference. The reference is to
53
6Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 2nd ed., tr. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford
University Press, 1950), p. 7.
Ibid., Foreword. 7
the infinite. The religious symbol, therefore, shines with a distinctive
luminous quality. It is extremely rich in color and extremely toned with
emotion.
In his book, The Idea of the Holy, the German philosopher Rudolf Otto
devised a term to denote the unique character of the religious consciousness.
He pointed out that the word “ominous” is taken from the Latin omen. There is
no reason, he argued, why a new word “numinous” should not be formed from the
Latin numen. “I shall speak, then,” he wrote,
of a unique ‘numinous’ category of value and of a definitely ‘numinous’
state of mind, which is always found wherever the category is applied.
This mental state is perfectly sui generis and irreducible to any other;
and therefore, like every absolutely primary and elementary datum, while
it admits of being discussed, it cannot be strictly defined. . . . it
can only be evoked, awakened in the mind; as everything that comes ‘of
the spirit’ must be awakened.6
In the earlier chapters of the work, he develops the elements of the
numinous. The experience of the numinous is a feeling of creature-hood. It
is also a feeling of the divine majesty, which Otto calls mysterium tremendum.
The tremendum involves the element of awefulness, of overpoweringness, of
energy or urgency. And the mysterium involves the element of The Wholly
Other, the unapproachable distance of God from humanity. All this Otto terms
The Holy.
The Holy is an a-rational category. It cannot be equated with the moral
category of the good. It is not a metaphysical category to be explicated
through rational analysis. It is strictly a category of feeling, of
intuition. It is, Otto says, “the feeling which remains where the concept
fails.” The terminology that is available for use here “is not any the more
loose or indeterminate for having necessarily to make use of symbols.” What 7
is important for us here is the observation that the symbols will carry the
54
Rom. 11:33. 8
Rudolf Otto, op. cit., pp. 33-34. It may be appropriate to include here a 9
passage from William James: “For the moment nothing but an ineffable joy and
exaltation remained. It is impossible to fully describe the experience. It was like
the effect of some great orchestra, when all the separate notes have melted into one
swelling harmony, that leaves the listener conscious of nothing save that his soul is
being wafted upwards and almost bursting with emotion. Varieties of Religious
Experience (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1902), p. 66.
burden of the numinous. It is precisely this burden that makes the symbols,
drawn as they are from the intuitions of humanity, the symbols of religion.
It should be noted here that this circumstance in nowise contravenes the
concept of divine revelation. The meaning of revelation is that God speaks,
but speaks in the terms of humanity, the only terms that we are able to
comprehend. For in themselves “. . . how unsearchable are his judgments, and
his ways past finding out!”8
Of this supreme experience of the numinous, Otto writes:
. . . the mysterium is experienced in its essential, positive, and
specific character, as something that bestows upon man a beatitude beyond
compare, but one whose real nature he can neither proclaim in speech nor
conceive in thought, but may know only by a direct and living experience.
It is a bliss which embraces all those blessings that are indicated or
suggested in positive fashion by any ‘doctrine of salvation’, and it
quickens all of them through and through, but these do not exhaust it.
Rather by its all-pervading, penetrating glow it makes of these very
blessings more than the intellect can conceive in them or affirm of them.
It gives the peace that passes understanding, and of which the tongue can
only stammer brokenly. Only from afar, by metaphor and analogies, do we
come to apprehend what it is in itself, and even so our notion is but
inadequate and confused.9
The great religious symbols have their source in two areas: nature and
human nature. We shall consider first certain of the symbols drawn from our
experience of nature. We shall, in the main, restrict our consideration to
the biblical record, with special emphasis placed on the New Testament.
Light.
In its function as symbol, the term öäò (phôs), light, is what is
known as a “tensive” symbol. A tensive symbol is one that strikes deeply into
and expresses the tensions and contrasts of human existence. One of those
tensions is that of light and darkness. The symbol light represents and
expresses the positive pole of that all-pervasive tension of human existence.
55
Nowhere is that basic tension better stated than in the language of St.
Paul: “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk
as children of light” (Eph 5:8). In this passage Paul uses the abstract form,
óêüôïò (skotos), which means “darkness itself.” The term conveys the thought
that outside of Christ people are not only in darkness; the darkness is also
in them. But now in Christ the whole nature of light belongs to them as did
formerly the nature of darkness. They are now not only in the light, but they
are penetrated by the light, so that they themselves are “the light of the
world.” They are truly the “children of light.”
In its spiritual significance, the symbol of light has three basic
meanings. First, light means illumination–the illumination of revelation.
Second, it means holiness–the condition of life that is delivered from the
selfish and grasping spirit. And, third, it means influence–the contagion
that extends outward to others.
Light as illumination.
Light as illumination is one of the oldest of human symbols. In the
third millennium B.C. a school flourished in Sippar in ancient Mesopotamia.
Young men from all over Mesopotamia, and perhaps from outlying regions,
congregated at this school. Some time before the Second World War a buried
stone was discovered, which was probably the lintel to the main entrance of
the school. The stone carried the characters, which could still be read,
which mean: “May he who sits in the place of learning shine like the sun.”
Light is the illumination of knowledge and truth.
There is a passage in Ezekiel in which the writer alludes to light as
the defining essence of the term glory. He says that the divine glory is as a
bright, fiery appearance that resembles a rainbow:
As the appearance of the bow
that is in the cloud in the day of
rain, so was the appearance of the
brightness round about. This was
the appearance of the likeness of the
glory of the Lord.
56
Exek. 1:28; 10:4. 10
Then the glory of the Lord
went up from the cherub, and
stood over the threshold of the
house; and the house was filled
with the cloud, and the court was
full of the brightness of the Lord’s
glory.10
Here, then, is found the visual registration of God’s glory. The glory
of the Lord is manifest as brightness. The divine glory is the visible
radiance of light, by which the divine presence is disclosed to the people.
Isaiah had spoken of God as “the light of Israel.” In an oblique
manner, Isaiah had designated God as light. But the designation is an
indirect, and thus an imperfect, designation. The finally definitive
designation is reserved for the New Testament. Accordingly, John defines God
as essentially light: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John
1:5). Thus, in the final analysis, light is not merely a gift of God; it is
the very nature of God.
Since light is of the essence of God, we now can understand why the
writer of Genesis recalls God’s first words at the dawn of creation: “Let
there be light.” And in the New Testament John speaks eloquently of the
Eternal Christ, the everlasting Logos, who, being Himself deity, is “the true
light” (John 1:9). But more: that Light, eternal in pristine radiance, “was
made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
One evening, in that long-ago time, the ancient people of Israel were
celebrating the Feast of the Tabernacles. The Court of the Women was
brilliantly illuminated by the four golden candelabra. There was festivity
and dancing. The glow there shining was perhaps a remembrance of the Pillar
of Fire that had led the people out of their bondage into freedom. As he
gazed upon the scene, there fell from the lips of Jesus words such as no man
has ever dared to utter: “I am the light of the world.” What an astounding
57
announcement! What did, and what does, it mean? The occasion itself provides
the answer. As the ancient people were led by the light into the realized
promise of deliverance and freedom, so by the light of Him who is “the Sun of
righteousness” (Mal. 4:2) the people are now led from the darkness of
ignorance to the light of the knowledge and truth of God. The anticipation of
Isaiah has now been realized: “the people that walked in darkness have seen a
great light” (Isa. 9:2). We are, Paul wrote, “partakers of the inheritance of
the saints in light; . . . delivered . . . from the power of darkness, and . .
. translated into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:12-13).
Thou Sun of our day, thou star of our night,
We walk by thy ray, we live in thy light;
Oh shine on us ever, kind, gracious, and wise,
And nowhere and never be hid from our eyes.
Light as purity, or holiness.
Throughout Scripture there is a marvelous collation of light and life.
“For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light” (Ps.
36:9). John is even more explicit in associating light and life: “In him was
life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).
One result of modern science and technology is the disassociation of
light and heat. The devices that give light and those that produce heat are
not the same. But in the ancient world this disassociation had not yet come
about. For those people light and heat were naturally regarded as inseparable
aspects, manifestations, of a single entity. Something of this experience of
fusion of light and heat, however, can still be felt by us today, when, on a
cold winter’s day, we feel the heat of the sun penetrating into even the
marrow. And the light emanating from the hearth fire is also the power of
warmth. Thus the symbol of light carries the connotation of fire as well as
that of intellectual clarity. Fire possesses a warming power. In its
spiritual connotations, then, light not only illuminates and instructs the
mind, it also stimulates and enlivens the spirit. Light is an infusion of
spiritual qualities within the character of the person. The comprehensive
58
meaning of those qualities may be summed up in the spiritual quality of
holiness.
There is a light that is the beauty of holiness. Harmony is the
defining essence of holiness. Holiness is an inner harmony in which the
various graces of the spirit are blended together so as to constitute a
developed character. Holiness means that the excellences of character are
harmonized. There should be no excess of one or defect of another. When
inner harmony does not obtain, or when the beauty of holiness is lacking, a
person may, for example, be upright but harsh. The ideal of Christian
perfection, for which in its fuller realization we must always strive,
requires that uprightness be combined with kindness and delicacy of feeling.
We can be said to truly live–live as human beings ought to live–only when
the moral excellences of the spirit are realized in balance and harmony. That
is, finally, the meaning of personal salvation.
Heat, associated as it is with fire, enlivens what it touches. From
that heat the seed is induced to germinate and develop into a living plant.
The warmth of the human body connotes the powers of life and health. Thus
there is a light that brings the warmth of life to the spirit. Further, the
light of fire also purifies. In our natural, unredeemed state, our “silver is
become dross.” Yet God has promised: “And I will turn my hand on thee, and
purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin; . . . afterward thou
shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city” (Isa. 1:22-26).
It is this purging that brings that condition of life in which the moral
excellences are realized in harmony, and in which, therefore, the life is free
from selfishness and the grasping spirit. There is thus established the basis
of the outward aspect of holiness, the beauty in which there is harmony with
others. In both the inward and outward phases, holiness is the realization of
life–life at its highest as realization of the spirit. The light of God, of
Christ, is therefore, one with life.
Light as influence.
59
It is probable that, to men of an earlier time, the light of fire often
appeared to come into existence suddenly and spontaneously and to increase and
spread with dramatic rapidity. When controlled, fire can be multiplied from
torch to torch, from hearth-fire to hearth-fire. As a symbol of the
intellectual and the spiritual, fire suggests the ability of the mind and
spirit to pass their intellectual and moral qualities along to others in
spontaneous and quick contagion. The light, which is fire, is, in short,
influence.
The contagion of the light is dramatically expressed in Psalm 110:3:
In the brightness
of the saints,
from the womb
before the day star
I begot thee.
The Revised English Bible translates the passage somewhat differently:
You gain the homage of your people
on the day of your power.
Arrayed in holy garments, a child of
the dawn,
you have the dew of your youth.
This beautiful passage carries the thought of the life-giving light that
is entrusted to the people of God, whose work it is to convey that light to
others. For God’s people are the saints of brightness, arrayed in holy
garments, the children of the dawn. This Psalm may have been composed in
celebration of the festival when the ark of God was brought from the house of
Obed-Edom to Jerusalem. On that occasion David assumed the double function of
king and priest. Here is typified that divine act in which the King, Jahweh,
constitutes the Son, our Lord, “a priest forever.”
As King-Priest, Christ brings the day of divine power in which the
people are “made . . . kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Rev. 1:6).
The hosts of God now assemble to serve God willingly in cheerful selfsurrender.
Clothed in the beautiful garments of holiness, they are as bright
and numberless as the dew of the early morning dawn, descending by a silent,
mysterious birth from the star-lit heavens. They are “the dew of your youth,”
60
fresh and vital in regenerative and sanctifying newness of life, a host of
goodness, willing volunteers in the service of Him who is forever King and
Priest.
The import, then, of Jesus’ statement, “I am the light of the world,” is
his declaration that in Him and His way of life are found the illumination of
the mind, the purity of spirit, and the contagion of influence that transmits
that light to the world.
And now, “Ye are,” Jesus further says, “the light of the world.” The
light symbol, first expressing God and His Christ, now defines the nature and
work of Christians. There is thus a task in society that Christians are to
fulfil: a task of disclosing the truth about humanity, of producing character
in humanity, and of radiating that truth and character outward into all the
walk-ways of human kind.
Now, this foregoing analysis of the import of the symbol light is an
example of the expansion of the symbol. The language of the expansion is more
abstract and less figurative than the language of the symbol. The images and
ideas of the symbol are taken from are taken from the regions of intuition and
are used to express ideal relations that because of their ideality cannot be
expressed directly. There is a transference from one universe of discourse to
another. Thus, in the case of the symbol light, the character of the
experience of light is transferred to the context of the spiritual sense of
divine presence. Light’s powerful rays, its life giving qualities and warmth,
becomes, then, a natural symbol for the quickening and illumination of the
spirit and the mind. The fire, as it burns the dross, becomes the natural
symbol for the purification of the inner spirit. The rapid spread of fire
from place to place becomes the natural symbol of the influence of the saints
of light. But in all this transference from the intuition to the abstract
concept, the value of the symbol is not lost. Rather, the transference to the
conceptual serves to enhance and vivify the symbol and allow it to function in
yielding insight into the spiritual reality that it indirectly expresses. For
61
in its very concreteness the symbol, as expanded, is the only context in which
the full measure of the spiritual can be conveyed to the heart and mind.
Water.
From the earliest times the term áäùñ (hudôr), water, has three
meanings: the flood that surrounds the land, the dispenser of life, and the
agent of cleansing. For the purpose of this work, attention is given
primarily to water as the dispenser of life.
In the Greek world springs and rivers were regarded as divine. There is
a rich mythology of the river gods and nymphs. In the Iliad Homer has
Achilleus say that the Trojans will not be saved, regardless of how many bulls
are dedicated to “your silvery-whirled strong-running river” (21:130). He
addresses the river Spercheios as “the waters of your springs, where is your
holy ground and smoking altar” (23:147-48). The nymphs of bodies of fresh
water were the Naiades. They were intimately connected to the water. If the
connection were broken, they were doomed to die. If the stream dried up, they
also expired. The waters over which they presided were thought to be endowed
with life-giving virtue. Thus the Naiades were worshiped by the Greeks.
Yet, for the Greeks, the work of water in mediating life did not furnish
life in the hereafter or bring one back from the underworld. According to the
Adapa-Myth, even the wise Adapa was denied that benefit: “They brought him the
water of life, he did not drink it” (II, 62). It was the drink of immortality
for only the gods. The Babylonian Ishtar was brought back from the underworld
by sprinkling with “living water.”
The Old Testament statement about the vital necessity of water is rooted
in the account of the desert-wanderings of the Children of Israel. The
weakness of their faith is again and again recorded, particularly when they
rebelled at the water of Meribah (Num. 20:23, Ps. 81:7). But God miraculously
provides them with water: “Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the
rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock , and there shall come water out
62
of it, that the people may drink” (Exod. 17:7).
God gives His chosen people the promise of water: “For the Lord thy God
bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and
depths that spring out of the valleys and hills” (Deut. 8:7). Here the water
is physical water. But even in the Old Testament, the context begins to
change from the literal to the symbolic. Ezekiel’s vision of the holy waters
is a vision of the temple river of the eschaton, of the final, golden day of
eternity in which redemption is secured forever. The water is the water of
prophetic symbolism: “And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth,
which moveth, withersoever the rivers shall come, shall live” (Ezek. 47:9).
The ability of water to quench thirst and nourish life is now a
metaphor. It is no longer physical water that is in itself the subject. The
qualities of physical water are now transferred, as a symbol, to God Himself.
Through that transferred usage, God now becomes the source of living water.
This Jeremiah states, in recording the Lord’s contention with His faithless
people: “they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters” (Jer. 2:13).
God Himself is “the fountain of living waters.”
This expression, “living waters,” is most significant. It is rarely
used in the Old Testament. The expression íåɁçP í‚\î (khah’yim mah’yim) means
the running water of a spring or fountain. It is contrasted with the stagnant
water of a cistern, the type of water that, in the verse quoted, the people
attempted to substitute for the living waters of salvation.
The most complete Old Testament transference of the symbol to God is
found in the promise of Isaiah 55:1. God Himself will give water and bread,
i.e., that which is strictly necessary for life:
Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money; come ye, buy,
and eat; yea, come, buy wine
and milk without money and without
price.
The desire for God or His Word is like the thirst for water, which is
63
Ps. 42:1-2. 11
Ps. 23:1-2. 12
Ps. 1:3. 13
Isa. 58:11. 14
vitally necessary:
As the hart panteth after the
water brooks, so panteth
my soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God,
for the living God: when shall I
come and appear before God?11
Again, the children of God are like the flock drinking the source of
refreshing water:
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in
green pastures: he leadeth me
beside the still waters.12
The imagery speaks yet again. Those who belong to God are like the tree
by the brook:
And he shall be like a tree
planted by the rivers of water,
that bringeth forth his fruit in
his season; his leaf also shall
not wither; and whatsoever he
doeth shall prosper.13
Finally, in the time of salvation the people shall “be like a watered
garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”14
The New Testament use of the symbol water is found preeminently in the
Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. John’s Gospel employs ideas more
hellenistic in form, while Revelation adopts ideas that are more Old Testament
in form.
John presents the symbol water in reference to Old Testament
institutions and objects and then gives Jesus’ antithesis to them in ideas
that are more dualistic and Hellenistic in form. This is the setting of the
incident at Jacob’s well:
Jesus answered and said
64
John 4:13-14, 15
John 15:7. 16
John 7:39. 17
John 14:20. 18
John 4::11. 19
unto her, whosoever drinketh of
this water shall thirst again:
But whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst; but the water
that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up
into everlasting life.15
The Old Testament person no longer thirsts because he can come again and
again to drink of the fountain. But the New Testament person no longer
thirsts because he has the well of life within him. It is the gift of Jesus.
His gift, the living water, becomes a well of water in himself. This gift is
His Word: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye
will, and it shall be done unto you.” It is His Spirit: “(But this spake he 16
of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy
Ghost was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified.)” And it is He 17
Himself: “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and
I in you.” The true water brings to the person a total renewal from within. 18
In this new mode of expression, there is a fulfillment that surpasses all Old
Testament prophecy.
The permanence of the well of life within the New Testament person is
but one feature of the water of life. The Samaritan woman questioned Jesus:
“. . . from whence then hast thou that living water?” Here the phrase 19
“living water” is, in the Greek, ôÎ àäùñ ôÎ æäí (to hudôr to zôn). This is
the traditional sense of “flowing water,” the sense employed in both ancient
Greek and Old Testament thought. But in the preceding verse, where Jesus
promises the water that he shall give her, the expression, in the Greek, is
entirely different. It is àäùñ æäí (hudôr zôn). The absence of the article
65
Rev. 7:17. 20
Isa. 55:1. 21
Rev. 21:6. 22
before the noun gives the reading, not “the water the living,” but “water of
life.” This water is the water that mediates life, the water of life. It is
now a symbol of a new reality, a spiritual reality of inward birth into life
everlasting.
The use of the symbol of water in Revelation takes its departure from
the Old Testament. Isaiah 49:10 reads:
They shall not hunger nor
thirst; neither shall the heat nor
sun smite them: for he that hath
mercy on them shall lead them,
even by the springs of water shall
he guide them.
Revelation echos this theme. The Lamb, who is now the Exalted One, will
as Shepherd lead those redeemed from earth to “fountains of the water of
life:”
For the Lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall
feed them, and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters:
and God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes.20
Isaiah had said, “Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters . .
. .” Based on this, the Revelator writes that God Himself shall give to the 21
thirsty freely “of the fountain of the water of life.” The expression here 22
is, in the original, ¥ê ô­ò ðçã­ò ôïØ àäáôïò ô­ò æù­ò (ek tçs pçgçs tou
hudatos tçs zôçs). Here it is explicitly asserted that the water is not the
“flowing water” of earlier thought, but the water of life.
Coming from the eschatological river of Ezekiel, Revelation speaks of “a
pure river of life:”
And he shewed me a pure
river of water of life, clear
as crystal, proceeding out of the
66
Rev. 22:1. 23
Gen. 3:22-24. 24
Gen. 2:10. 25
The river of the water of life is mentioned in only two places: Rev. 22:1 and 26
John 7:38. There are no exact parallels in religious history.
Rev. 22:17. 27
throne of God and of the Lamb.23
That the water is of the river suggests the idea of fulness: the fulness
of the life that God shall give His people. There is the thought of the
restoration of the original Paradise. The tree of life, once barred from the
people, is now accessible to them. Yet in the final redemption that 24
Paradise is transcended. For now the river of redemption does not part into
four streams, as did the Paradisaical river. It flows in its undivided 25
fulness, bringing consummation to the works and ways begun at creation.26
Then comes the final promise of Revelation. The prophecies of Isaiah
and Ezekiel refer to actual water. Revelation takes the term as symbol:
And the Spirit and the bride
say, Come. And let him that
heareth say, Come. And let him
that is athirst come. And whosoever
will, let him take the
water of life freely.27
Here the language achieves the final transformation of the intimation in
John’s Gospel that the “living water” is, indeed the “water of life.” Gone
now are the allusions to the older form, that the water is but “flowing
water.” The phrase now is, in the language of the writing, àäùñ æù­ò (hudôr
zôçs: water of life.
Now, there is here a final observation that is significant for our
understanding of religious symbolism. Revelation 7:17 combines three symbols:
the Lamb, the Throne, and the Shepherd. He who furnishes the living waters is
at once the Sacrifice, the Exalted One, and the Leader. As these He is “the
pioneer of life.” To these three symbols, Revelation 22:1 adds the symbol of
67
Supra, p. 11. 28
Supra., pp. 17-18. 29
the Bride. It connotes that He who is Sacrifice, Exalted, and Leader is also
He who is with His people in fellowship. No such complex of elements, or
nuances, can be admitted in literal language, which places its premium on
specific identification. Only symbolic language can convey the rich
complexity of the spiritual. The symbols may be expanded, but they are
finally indispensable and irreplaceable. We may view them in terms of
concepts, but the concepts must eventually reflect back upon those intuitions
from which the symbols are derived. For we are earth-bound, and in our reach
for God’s reach to us, we must wait and allow the intuitions of earth to shine
through to insight into the heavenly.
Blood.
In the previous chapter mention was made of “the feast of raw flesh,” 28
a rite of the Greek Dionysus cult. The slain animal was believed to be a
sacred animal, temporarily having within it the divine life. It had to be
devoured while warm, dripping with blood, before the divine life escaped.
When thus eaten, the initiate received within himself that divine life and
thus achieved communion with the god. In the taurobolium, a rite of the cult
of Great Mother, the blood of the sacrificed bull pours down on the devotee
who is in a trench under the platform of slaughter. He drinks of the blood
and, he believes, is born into a new and divine life.29
A similar rite was practiced by the ancient Semites. They were a tribal
people, organized as families and clans. The dominant social conception was
that of the kin. According to this conception, the group was of one blood,
participating in one blood that passes from generation to generation and
circulates in the veins of every member of the group. The unity of the group
is viewed as a physical unity, for the blood is the life–which is an idea
found in the Old Testament–and it is the same blood that is shared by every
68
30Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: First Series
(London: Adam and Charles Black, 1914.
Ibid., p. 269. 31
descendent of a common ancestor.
Further, not only do the members of the kin share in a common blood, but
the god also shares with the people in one life of life-blood. The place of
the god in the community is conceived on the analogy of human relationships;
thus the relationship is itself physical.
The animal that was offered in the semitic ritual of sacrifice was, not
a gift to the god, but a means of establishing a communion “in which the god
and his worshippers unite by partaking together of the flesh and blood of a
sacred victim.”30
Originally, the sacrificial meal was a feast of kinship, an act in which
the common life is sealed and nourished. To refer again to Smith:
The sacrificial meal was an appropriate expression of the antique
ideal of religious life, not merely because it was a social act and an
act in which the god and his worshippers were conceived as partaking
together, but because . . . the very act of eating and drinking with a
man was a symbol and a confirmation of fellowship and mutual social
obligation. The one thing directly expressed in the sacrificial meal is
that the god and his worshippers are commensals, but every other point in
their mutual relations is included in what this involves.31
The Semites slew the animal, drank of the blood, even stood in the pit
while the blood of the animal placed above them flowed over them. The cultic
practice is wedded to the existent object. It is in and through the very
blood itself that sharing in the life of the divinity is achieved.
Among the ancient Hebrews there is a “softening” of the idea of blood
sacrifice. As it was for the pagan Semites, the blood is the bearer of life.
It is therefore sacred. For this reason the eating of raw flesh and the
drinking of blood was prohibited:
For the life of the flesh is in
the blood: and I have given it to
you upon the altar to make an
atonement for your souls; for it is
the blood that maketh an atonement
for the soul.
69
Lev. 17:11-12. 32
Therefore I said unto the children
of Israel, No soul of you
shall eat blood, neither shall any
stranger that sojourneth among you
eat blood.32
The text indicates that there is a further reason for the proscription
against the drinking of blood. Blood is the agency of atonement. Exodus 24
records the establishment of the Mosaic covenant. The Hebrew term covenant is
úéøÀv (ber-eeth), which means cutting. The term is used because the covenant,
or compact, between the parties was made between cuttings of sacrificial
animal flesh. And this involves the shedding of blood. The blood is sacred,
and therefore cannot be drunk. On that great day of covenant-making, Moses
served as the priest. He took half of the blood and threw it against the
altar, which represented the active presence of God in the covenantal
relationship. He then sprinkled the same blood on the people, thus uniting
them and God in sacred fellowship. Here was enacted the sacred meal of
fellowship, which, in distinction from earlier pagan Semitic times, did not
involve the actual consumption of blood. There are here the beginnings of the
symbolizing process that molds the physical in clearer service of the
spiritual.
In the New Testament the concept of blood assumes its greatest
significance in relation to the death of Christ. In that context, the blood
of Christ is the means of justification through atonement and sanctification
through grace:
Regarding the former, the passages in the fifth chapter of Romans are
extremely instructive:
Much more then, being now
justified by his blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through him.
For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God
by the death of his son,
much more, being reconciled,
we shall be saved by his life.
70
Rom. 5:9-11. 33
The term atonement in vs. 11 is in the original reconciliation. 34
35Sandy, William & Arthur C. Headlam, The Epistle to the Romans, 11th ed. (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906) p. 329. In The International Critical
Commentary.
Heb. 13:12. 36
1 John 1:7. 37
Heb. 9:17. 38
And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom we have
now received the atonement.33
Here it is explicitly stated that justification is accomplished by the
blood of Christ. The text also asserts that reconciliation to God is
accomplished by the death of Christ.34
These verses also refer to sanctification through grace. There is not
only justification, but final salvation:
No clearer passage can be quoted for distinguishing the spheres of
justification and sanctification than this verse and the next——the one an
objective fact accomplished without us, the other a change generated
within us. Both, though in different ways, proceed from Christ.35
By reference to blood, sanctification through grace is expressed:
Wherefore Jesus, also, that
he might sanctify the people
with his own blood, suffered
without the gate.36
Again,
But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ his
Son cleanseth us from all sin.37
We now come to the question of the meaning of the phrase, “the blood of
Christ.” In Hebrews we read:
How much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the
eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?38
71
The Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, c1955), XI, 692. 39
Here the writer means that the phrase, “the blood of Christ,” is to be
understood in a literal, although not mechanical or magical, sense. He
affirms that “The offering Christ made was in the realm of reality, as
tangible and real as blood, as central and decisive as life (blood).” In 39
keeping with the view that life resides in the blood, the New Testament finds
the significance of the blood of Christ in relation to His death. The
interest is not in His material blood, but in His shed blood as the life
offered for the redemption of humanity and world. The blood is a graphic term
for the death of Christ. This means that the phrase “the shedding of blood,
requires us to come to an understanding of the salvific significance of the
death of Christ. That is the important issue.
The second significant phrase of the text is “through the eternal
Spirit.” This phrase, too, is to be understood literally. It signifies a
transmutation of Christ’s offering on the plane of animal existence into an
eternal redemption. While the shed blood, the loss of life, did in fact occur
as historical event, these in themselves are not the finally sufficient
condition of redemption. With these alone, what Christ did and underwent
would have, as many believe, only an ethical significance. They thus must be
brought within a new scope, the scope of “the eternal Spirit.” We have here a
form of the distinction between existence and significance that is essential
to religion, and in particular to the Christian religion. But in this form of
the distinction, existence is not abrogated; rather, it is preserved and yet
elevated into an eternal significance.
The expression, Ðíåýìáôïò áÆùíßïõ (Pneumatos aiôniou), is, literally,
Spirit eternal. It is in the genitive case. Some biblical scholars interpret
the phrase as “the Holy Spirit.” But this is not the usual designation of the
Holy Spirit. Were the Holy Spirit meant, the term –ãéïõ (hagiou), holy, would
in all probability have been used by the writer. In addition, the definite
72
Heb. 7:16, 17, 25. 40
John 1:29. 41
Isa. 53:7. 42
article, which ordinarily is present in designatg the Holy Spirit, is lacking.
The eternal Spirit is the divine element in Christ. The emphasis is thus
placed on the spiritual aspect of the atonement. Its especial virtue is not
the mere suffering or the shedding of blood or the death upon the cross, but
the perfect obedience of Him who stood for humanity and in whom “the eternal
Spirit” triumphed over the weakness of humanity. The language answers to
earlier designations: that He is a High Priest forever, made so according to
the power of an indissoluble life, and that He lives forever to make
intercession for His people. The expression, “who by an eternal Spirit 40
offered himself without spot to God,” when added to the expression, “the blood
of Christ,” expands the effect of that blood, representing it as an everliving
and valid effect. And this expansion is necessary, if the physical
fact is to be lifted up into a spiritual and eternal sphere of redemptive
significance. The atonement is valid only on the basis of the Incarnation.
The Lamb.
The term lamb (•ìíüò amnos) occurs four times in the New Testament
(John 1:29, 36; Acts 8:32; 1 Pet. 1:19). It is always applied to Jesus, who
is compared with a lamb as One who suffers and dies innocently in behalf of
humankind.
The cry of John the Baptist is representative of the New Testament usage
of the term: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world.” There is reference here to the suffering servant of Isa. 53: 41
He was oppressed, and he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his
mouth: he is brought as a lamb to
the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so he
openeth not his mouth.42
73
“ The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to 43
the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth.”
“But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and 44
without spot.”
Sup., p. 72. 45
The passage in Isaiah pictures the lamb as patiently enduring suffering.
The symbol of the lamb connotes patience, gentleness, innocence, harmlessness,
and purity. This is, certainly, one aspect of the Baptist’s designation of
Jesus by the symbol lamb. The Baptist seems here to have called to mind the
words of the Old Testament prophet.
But there is another aspect expressed in the Baptist’s words. It is
that the lamb is the lamb of God! Here is a new dimension, for nowhere in the
Old Testament is the symbol of the lamb as the lamb of God found. In the
Aramaic language, which is the language spoken by the New Testament figures,
the word àéÈìÀîP (mal’yah) means servant. When the Baptist used the word, it
carried, accordingly, a reference to Isaiah. It is quite probable that John
so understood that reference. But the Aramaic has another meaning, which is
lamb. This second meaning of the term allowed the Greek translation of the
term àéÈìÀîP (mal’yah) as lamb. Thus the Isaiahic expression that fell from the
lips of the Baptist, the Servant of the Lord, takes on a new meaning, the Lamb
of God. This new meaning carries the thought, not merely of meekness and
patience, but of sacrifice. It is probable that John himself grasped this new
meaning, even in the Isaiahic reference, for he goes on to characterize this
Servant of God, now the Lamb of God, as the One “which taketh away the sin of
the world.” The Servant-Lamb is thus the Paschal lamb of the New Covenant.
There are three elements in the Servant-Lamb: the patience of His suffering
(Acts 8:32), His sinlessness (1 Pet. 1:19), and the efficacy of His 43 44
sacrificial death (John 1:29, 36).45
The word lamb as it appears in Revelation is •ñíßïí (arnion). It
74
Rev. 5:6. 46
Rev. 5:9. 47
Rev. 5:5. 48
Rev. 5:6. 49
originally signified a little lamb, but did not retain that significance in
New Testament times. In Revelation the lamb (•ñíßïí, arnion) is also depicted
as “slain.” Thus the statements of Revelation cannot be separated from what
the New Testament says about Jesus as the sacrificial lamb (•ìíüò amnos).
Those statements depict Him as Redeemer and Ruler and in so doing bring out
all the most significant elements in his title as Deliverer.
The Lamb bears on His neck the mark of his slaughtering:
And I beheld, and, lo, in the
midst of the throne and of the
four beasts, and in the midst of
the elders, stood a Lamb as it
had been slain . . . .46
His blood flowed in atonement for sin:
And they sang a new song,
saying, Thou art worthy to take
the book, and to open the seals
thereof: for thou wast slain, and
hast redeemed us to God by
thy blood out of every kindred,
and tongue, and people, and nation.47
Notwithstanding this, the Lamb overcame death and is omnipotent:
And one of the elders saith
unto me, Weep not: behold, the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, the
Root of David, hath prevailed
to open the book, and to loose
the seven seals thereof.48
The Lamb is also omniscient:
. . . and in the midst of
of the elders, stood a Lamb as it
had been slain, having seven
horns and seven eyes, which are
the seven Spirits of God sent
forth into all the earth.49
He assumes the government of the world as He opens the book of destiny
in the heavenly council (Rev. 4:2 ff.), receiving divine adoration (Rev. 5:8
75
Rev. 17:14. 50
Rev. 19:16. 51
Rev. 19:9. 52
Rev. 22:1, 3. 53
ff.), establishing the rule of peace on the heavenly mountain (Rev. 7:9;
14:1), subduing all alien powers (Rev. 17:14), exercising judgment (Rev. 6:16
f.; 14:10), and making distinctions on the basis of the book of life (Rev.
13:8; 21:27).
The Lamb is victor as the Lord of Lords and King of Kings:
These shall make war with
the Lamb, and the Lamb shall
overcome them: for he is Lord
of lords and King of kings: and
they that are with him are
called, and chosen, and faithful.50
And he hath on his vesture
and on his thigh a name written,
KING OF KINGS, AND LORD
OF LORDS.51
The Lamb celebrates His marriage festival with the community of the
redeemed:
And he saith unto me, Write,
Blessed are they which are
called unto the marriage supper
of the Lamb.52
Finally, the Lamb governs His own as partner of the throne of God:
And he shewed me a pure
river of water of life, clear
as crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the Lamb.
And there shall be no more
curse: but the throne of God
and of the Lamb shall be in it;
and his servants shall serve him.53
Now, it is here, in the symbolism of Revelation, that the irreplaceable
power of symbolism is disclosed. The figure of the Lamb embraces nuances of
meaning that cannot be expressed in the abstractions of logical conceptions.
The power of conceptual thought lies, we have seen, in its insistence upon the
self-identity and self-consistency of meaning. A conceptual element must be
76
Homer Odyssey 1:397, tr. Richmond Lattimore (New York: Harper & Row, c1965), 54
p. 37.
Odyssey 1:28, Ibid., p. 28. 55
held before the mind as a self-identical object. But no such ideal is
required for symbolic expression. Here meanings which, at the abstract level,
appear contrary and even contradictory of each other, can be brought together
in one context. And that is what happens with respect to the symbol of the
Lamb. For now the values of meekness, patience, weakness, suffering,
sacrifice, and isolation and defeat and death, are combined with those of
victory and triumph, power and authority, governance and fellowship. While
the Lamb as sacrificial is central, He is also called the Bride who brings His
Church into living fellowship with Him, and, finally, the Lion who rules from
the divine throne with authority and power. No such constellation of
significance can be combined by the purely logical intellect. The complex
symbolism can be expanded by the use of concepts, but when this is done, it is
finally necessary to return to the symbolism. For the depth and richness of
the meaning-complex can be decisively grasped only when the mind attends upon
the primary intuitive meaning of the elements that constitute the symbolism.
We have discussed four major symbols: light, water, blood, and the lamb.
They are taken from our experience of the outer world. The Bible also draws
its symbols from the world of our human experience. We shall consider in some
depth two such symbols: the father and the bridegroom. Both ideas have their
correlates. The father involves the father/child relationship; and the
bridegroom, the bridegroom/bride relationship.
The Father.
The ancient Greeks meant by the term father the head of the house and
teacher. The emphasis is placed on patriarchal control in the house and
family. Telemochus avows: “But I will be the absolute lord over my
household.” Homer calls Zeus “the father of gods and mortals.” Athene 54 55
77
Iliad 8:31, tr. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 56
c1951), p. 183.
Plato Laws IX, 881d, tr. R. G. Bury (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 57
1961), II:293.
58Fragment 53. In Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to The Pre-Socratic Philosophers
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 28.
Heraclitus Fragment 80, Ibid., p. 30. 59
Plato op. cit., III:690a. 60
Ibid., IV:717b. 61
Plato Republic VI:506e, tr. Paul Shorey, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 62
1956), II:95.
addresses Zeus as “Son of Kronos, our father, o lordliest of the mighty.” 56
Plato calls Zeus “guardian-God of kinship and parentage.” This view is in 57
line with that of Homer, for whom Zeus is the divine paradigm of the head of
the house.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus writes: “War is both king of all and
father of all, and it has revealed some as gods, others as men; some it has
made slaves, others free.” His point is that war shifts and clarifies and 58
orders all things, selecting but also restoring. “One should know that war is
general (universal)and jurisdiction is strife, and everything comes about by
way of strife and necessity.)59
Plato affirms the right of the father as the head of the house and
teacher. He asks, and thereby infers the answer: “And in general would not
the claim of parents to rule over offspring be a claim universally just?” 60
He also insists upon piety toward the father:
. . . and next, honours paid to living parents. For to these duty
enjoins that the debtor should pay back the first and greatest of debts,
the most primary of all dues, and that he should acknowledge that all
that he owns and has belongs to those who begot and reared him . . . .61
Plato gives to the father-idea a metaphysical status. He writes: “But
of what seems to be the offspring of the good and most nearly made in its
likeness I am willing to speak . . . .” Of that which he speaks, Plato 62
78
Ibid. 63
Plato Timaeus 28c, tr. The Rev. R. G. Bury, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: 64
Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 50.
Plato Republic VIIc, Ibid., II:131. 65
calls “the tale of the parent.” In that the Idea of the Good, which is the 63
highest reality, effects an offspring, the Good is then regarded as father.
It is the ultimate and supreme source of everything that exists, both physical
and intelligible. The Good streams into the world but yet remains beyond the
world. Yet it is active and visible in the world.
In the Timaeus creation myth, Plato gives the father concept a
cosmological form. Here is introduced a powerful idea into the ancient world,
not only explaining the birth of the universe but adumbrating a religious
father concept. It prepared the way for Jesus’ witness of the Fatherhood of
God, although it differed profoundly from this. Thus Plato writes:
And that which has come into existence must necessarily, we say, have
come into existence by reason of some Cause. Now to discover the Maker
and Father of this Universe were a task indeed; and having discovered
Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible.64
The Father of all is known by only a few, i.e., those who are
sufficiently educated in philosophic truth, and this for the reason that He is
beyond Being, beyond existence and essence. He is shrouded in His remoteness.
In identifying the Maker and Father with the Good, Plato concludes:
. . . in the region of the known the last thing to be seen and hardly
seen is the idea of good, and when seen it must needs point us to the
conclusion that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is
right and beautiful, giving birth in the visible world to light, and
author of light and itself in the intelligible world being the authentic
source of truth and reason . . . .65
The Hebrew word for father, áàÈ (âb), is a primitive word connected to no
stem. The meaning and use of the term is determined by the concept of the
family. The Hebrew family is “the father’s house” (áàÈÎúévÅ, bêyth âb). The
expression signifies the household community as subordinate to the male head
of the family. The other members of the family belong to the father.
Depending on the love toward and pride in the person, the sense of belonging
79
Rom. 4:12. 66
Exod. 20:12; Deut. 5:16. 67
Jer. 18:6. 68
to the father can extend back through several generations. Thus Abraham and
David are regarded by succeeding generations as “father” of the people. Even
as late as the time of Paul, the Apostle writes of “that faith of our father
Abraham.”66
Israel regarded the father relationship predominantly as one of
authority. The tone is set by the commandment that the son should honor the
father. ” The commandment is more than a legal injunction. It expresses an 67
emotional value that underlies the law and registers its true intention.
Throughout the Old Testament, the writers find in the dignity of the father
the source of the genuine humanity that is born of God. There is a divine
element in the father, since in God there is the fatherly element.
The dominance of the father guaranteed his primacy in all family
decisions, especially in regard to property and inheritance. He also
possessed a sacral quality. In Judges 17 a young man of the tribe of Dan
assumed the role of a priest and was given the title of “father.” This
indicates the sacral dignity of the father, in that when one was a priest he
also had the role of father. The father was also a kind of ideal and was thus
due respect from others.
Israel is Jehovah’s possession. Over him God has free and unrestricted
sovereignty. Deut. 14:1, “Ye are the children of the Lord your God,”
introduces legal regulations emerging as the result of the election by which
they are made God’s possession. Much later, Jeremiah takes up the same point
in his great saying:
O house of Israel, cannot I do
with you as this potter? saith the
Lord. Behold, as the clay is in
the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine
hand, O house of Israel.68
80
Isa. 64:8. 69
Deut. 14:1. 70
Hos. 1:10. 71
W. Robertson Smith, op. cit. 72
This passage expresses the idea of passive dependence on the divine
will. Isaiah takes up the same thought:
But now, O Lord, thou art
our father; we are the clay, and
thou our potter; and we all are
the work of thy hand.69
The mixed metaphor, father and potter, refers, not to creation or providence,
but the educator who fashions individuals as though they were a shapeless mass
into a work of perfection.
For the Hebrew mind, the father was always a metaphor. It could not be
taken literally of God, since any image that was but an heightened image of
man was prohibited. Thus, when the idea of the father was referred to God, it
was never recognized as adequate to describe the nature of God or the manner
of His relationship to people. For this reason, there is only one occurrence
of the expression “sons of God” (Deut. 14:1). This form of the filial
relationship could not be established. Instead, it is Israel that is
Jehovah’s son. Certainly, Jehovah is his father who created him. However,
the creation is not a physical act, but the shaping of a people into a nation
by a series of gracious deeds. Thus it is said of the Israelites as a whole:
“Ye are the children of Jehovah your God.” Only in the last days, Hosea 70
says, “it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”71
The fatherhood of the deity is an idea found in contexts other than the
Hebraic. Among the ancient Semites the fatherhood of the gods is physical
fatherhood. Robertson Smith, for example, writes “. . . that belief in their
descent from the blood of the gods . . . was a widespread feature in the old
tribal religions of the Semites . . . .” The Old Testament writers were 72
familiar with this earlier and heathen tradition. Jeremiah describes
81
Jer. 2:27. 73
Num. 21:19. 74
Mal. 2:11. 75
Deut. 32:18. 76
Ps. 2:7. 77
It should be noted that this analysis does not negate or rule as invalid the 78
New Testament Messianic interpretation of the Psalm. This will be further considered
in the sequel.
Gerhard Friedrich, ed. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand 79
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., c1967), V:969.
idolaters as “Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, thou hast
brought me forth . . . .” The Moabites are called the sons and daughters of 73
Chemosh. Malachi calls a heathen woman “the daughter of a strange god.” 74 75
In the earlier phase of Hebrew thought there are echos of the older
mythic sense of divine fatherhood. In the Song of Moses Jehovah is called
“the rock that begat thee.” And the Psalmist speaks of a king begotten of 76
God: “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” In the strict 77
context of its composition, the formula of begetting, which appears in legal
usage both in and outside the Bible, must be interpreted as a formula of
adoption. David and his seed are adopted as Jahweh’s son on the day of the
Davidic covenant, when David began his reign by right of divine sonship. Thus
the passage does not connote the older, heathen mythos of physical
begetting. Further, as noted in the foregoing, Jeremiah rejects a literal 78
rendering of the rock motif and says that it is pagan and unworthy of a man
who knows Jehovah. Where the rock motif is employed, as in the Song of Moses,
the import is not that of a blood relationship between the people of Jehovah
and their father. “In their desire for a wealth of living colour the poets
and prophets of Jahweh make use of their mythical heritage, but their only
purpose is to depict the reality of fellowship with God as vividly as
possible.”79
82
Isa. 1:2. 80
Therefore, in the spiritual religion of the Hebrews, the idea of divine
fatherhood is completely dissociated from the physical basis of natural
fatherhood. No remnant of the ancient heathen mythos remains. Man is not
begotten; rather he is created in the image of God. God-sonship is not a
thing of nature, but a thing of grace.
Finally, there is in the Old Testament the beginnings of an extension of
the fatherhood of God beyond the limits of nationalism towards universality.
To refer again to the Song of Moses: notwithstanding the explicit nationalism,
it yet connotes a broader, universal, scope. Deut. 32:6 asks: “O foolish
people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath brought thee forth? hath he
not made thee, and established thee?” The key terms are brought (äðÈÈ÷, qânâh),
made (ä”È òÈ, Ìâsâh), and established (ï{ƒ, kûwn). These verbs are also found in
statements about the creation of the world. They refer to the God who works
in cosmic miracle and who works as an architect. They thus have universal
scope. In that it is the father who thus works, the father is thus related to
more than his national people. He is the father of all. The first note of
the song, “Give ear, O ye heavens,” but reinforces the universal scope of
divine fatherhood. Exactly the same note is sounded in Isaiah’s great refrain
the introduces his account of his great vision: “Hear, O heavens, and give
ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled
against me.” Again, the appeal to the heavens and the earth, brings the 80
fatherhood of God beyond the scope of the nation and extends it to the cosmos
and all that it contains.
And Isaiah, who was a heavily embattled believer, raised in prayer the
urgent question, “where is thy zeal and thy strength?” He then invokes God
with the confession, “Look down from heaven, and behold the habitation of thy
holiness and of thy glory . . . Doubtless thou art our father . . . .” The
fathers after the flesh, Abraham and Israel, are not redeemers who provide
83
Isa. 63:15 f. 81
Ps. 68:5. 82
Hos. 1:10. 83
saving help. The Father who is able to save is God alone. In truth, the name
Father belongs only to God alone.81
Beyond the national motif there is the personal concern. The Psalmist
gives God the ancient title “fatherless of the fatherless.” The indication 82
here is that the divine fatherhood means more than the analogy of
human experience can suggest. Ps. 27:10, “When my father and my
mother forsake me, then the lord will take me up,” also suggests a filial
relation far exceeding that of earthly parents. It is the strongest
expression of comfort. Here is the adoption to sonship, as in Ps. 2:7: “Thou
art my son, this day I have begotten thee.”
The Old Testament epoch was one, we have seen, in which only the nation
of Israel was the son of God. The people enjoyed sonship only indirectly, via
the nation of which they were members. But, prophesied Hosea, in the last
days, “it shall come to pass, that . . . it shall be said unto them, Ye are
the sons of the living God.” In the turning of the ages, the last days did 83
indeed come:
God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners spake in
time past unto the fathers by the
prophets,
Hath in these last days
spoken unto us by his Son, whom
he hath appointed heir of all
things, by whom also he made
the worlds:
Who being the brightness of
his glory, and express image
of his person, and upholding all
things by the word of his power,
when he had by himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right
hand of the Majesty on high;
Being made so much better
than the angels, as he hath by
inheritance obtained a more
excellent name than they.
For unto which of the angels
84
Heb. 1:1-5. 84
Matt. 21:28. 85
said he at any time, Thou art
my Son, This day have I begotten
thee? And again, I will be to
him a Father, and he shall be to
me a Son?84
There is now a change of venue. The earlier, nationalistic, adoption,
when David and his seed were adopted as Jehovah’s son, has been reissued in
the terms of Messianic fulfilment. Now what has been from eternity is made
plain in the terms of history. For in this, the final now, it is declared
beyond all cavil: “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son.”
And it is in this transaction of ever-living fellowship that the full meaning,
for us, of the fatherhood of God is finally disclosed. Now, through this
fellowship, the possibility is opened for us to be given the privilege of
becoming “the sons of the living God.”
There is thus, in the New Testament, a new conception of the divine
father. It is to this new conception of father that we now turn our
attention.
The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus’ view of the father is
grounded in the Old Testament presupposition of patriarchy. The father is the
one who exercises complete authority, whom the children are to obey and treat
with piety. The father is also the one who provides the care that is
essential for the family, to give advice and counsel. In especially the
Synoptic Gospels, there are countless incidents and passages that indicate
this.
The authority of the father is seen in the parable of the vineyard:
“. . . and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my
vineyard.” Here the will of the father is absolute and unconditional. The 85
parable of the two sons (Luke 15:11-32) indicates Jesus’s recognition of the
father’s control of his property. So long as the father lives, the sons have
85
Matt. 7:32. 86
nothing of their own. The Sermon on the Mount reflects Jesus’s endorsement of
the care the father is to provide his family. The father, although inferior
to the excellence of the heavenly Father, knows “how to give good gifts” unto
his children. Here is the imagery of the father portraying to the superlative
degree the solicitude of the heavenly Father that, combined with His
commanding power, brings comfort to His children: “. . . for your heavenly
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”86
Notwithstanding the Jewish background of patriarchy and the illustrative
imagery of the human father, both of which factors play their role in Jesus’
teachings, there is something radically different from these, something
radically new. Jesus’s understanding of the father concept goes beyond all
that has occurred before.
In the first place, there is the term Abba. This is the authentic term
for God in Jesus’ teaching. It is significant that Jesus employed the term in
his prayer in Gesthemane, when, facing the prospect of death, he prayed that,
if it were possible, the cup might be taken away. It is thus reserved for
that most extreme experience in his life and mission.
The word, in the Greek ¢â␠(Abba), is an Aramaic word (àvÈ àP , âba),
meaning father. In Jesus’ prayer, it is combined with the Greek word for
father, ðáôÞñ (patçr). In the original the phrase reads: ¢ââ Ò ÐáôÞñ. The
definite article Ò (the) serves to qualify both nouns. Why are the two nouns
with the same meaning used?
The two uses of the noun father is not simply reiterative of a single
meaning. The reading is not, merely, “father, father.” The Greek term father
(patçr) carries the thought of the absolute authority of the father, here the
heavenly Father. The Aramaic term father (Abba) is the babbling of an infant,
as is the Greek ðÜððá (pappa). This means that an everyday infant sound is
86
Matt. 6:26-33. 87
applied without reservation to God. For Jesus it is the most appropriate term
to express God’s attitude of tenderness and care for His children. When the
Aramaic term Abba is associated with the Greek term, the Father is not merely
and only the absolute Lord. He is also the intimate Father. Reomoteness is
tempered with proximity. God is not a distant ruler in transcendence but is
One who is intimately close. This is the new dimension that Christianity
brings to the Fatherhood of God.
In the prayer in Gesthemane, Abba is a cry of distress, a child’s appeal
to the love of the father. In Rom. 8:15 and Gal. 4:6 (the two remaining New
Testament usages) it is a child’s cry of joy and happiness for the spirit of
adoption given in the heart.
In the second place, the personal pronouns associated with the Greek
term father are of significance. Jesus constantly refers to God as “my
Father.” It is true, however, that less frequently Jesus uses the absolute
The Father. But usually it occurs in association with Jesus as “the Son” or
“the Son of Man.” In Greek and Roman thought sonship is by nature or estate.
It is true, to be sure, that the New Testament teaches that God’s goodness as
Creator extends to all. But this is not fatherhood. In the teaching of the
of the fouls of the air and the lilies of the field, which is directed against
anxiety, the Father’s care is integral to the fellowship in the “kingdom of
God and his righteousness.”87
The phrase “my Father” signifies that Jesus’ sonship is uniquely His own
and incapable of transfer to others. John 10:30, “I and my Father are one,”
unequivocally affirms the unique sonship of Jesus. The saying indicates
Jesus’ awareness of a deep intimacy with God that he regarded as different
from others, as his disciples, for instance. Here is a standpoint that cannot
be removed; it is the sine qua non of Christianity. The late Belgian
theologian Edward Schillebeeckx has written:
87
Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology, tr. Humbert Hoskins 88
(New York: The Seabury Press, c1979), p. 268.
John 17:21-22. 89
Jesus’ Abba experience is an immediate awareness of God as a power
cherishing people and making them free. . . . That is why trying to
delete the special ‘relation to God’ from the life of Jesus at once
destroys his message and the whole point of his way of living; it amounts
to denying the historical reality, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, and turns him
into an ‘unhistorical,’ mythical or symbolic being, a ‘non-Jesus’. Then
all that remains – in so far as a Jesus trimmed to measure still has
power to fascinate – is nothing but the apocalyptical Utopia.88
When the personal pronouns our and your are employed, they derive their
import from their association with the sonship of Jesus. The “our Father” of
the Lord’s Prayer is not absolute, but relative to the direction of the
earthly by the name, kingdom, and will of the Father, all of which are
disclosed in the Son. The meaning of “your Father” is not the same as “my
Father.” “My Father” indicates the standpoint of the unity of Father and Son.
“Your Father” is an altogether different standpoint: the standpoint of the
unity of the disciples with the Father through the primordial unity of Father
and Son.
That they all may be one; as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in
thee, that they also may be one
in us . . . .
And the glory which thou
gavest me I have given them;
that they be one even as
we are one89
The fatherhood of God is determined and evidenced by the relation of the
Revealer to God. It is the Son whom the Father sent, who is uniquely related
to the Father, who is the first to say “Father” in the full sense. The
Prologue in John 1:1-14 gives the Father-Son relationship the accent of
eternity. Only He who is beyond all human comparison and has always been most
intimate with the Father can declare the Father.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
88
John 1:1, 14. 90
John 17:6. 91
John 20:17. 92
Matt. 6:10. 93
we behold his glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the
Father,) full of grace and truth.90
The Father is the author and giver of revelation; the Son is the
Revealer. The Father is the one who authoritatively commissions the Son to be
the instrument of His will; the Son has no other purpose but to carry out that
will. The name Father is inseparable from the process of revelation. “I have
manifested thy name” sums up the whole work of Jesus. The process of 91
revelation is explicitly a declaration of the Father. Here there is something
new in calling God “Father.” A new content is given to the name father.
John further attests to the uniqueness of the phrase “my Father.” “Our
Father” does not occur in John. “Your Father” occurs but once. Early on the
Resurrection morning, Mary recognized the risen Lord. But
“Jesus saith unto her,
Touch me not; for I am not yet
ascended to my Father; but go
to my brethren, and say unto
them, I ascend to my Father,
and your Father; and to my God
and your God.92
To the unity of the disciples with the Father via the unity of the Father and
the Son in the accent of eternity is added the finally definitive designation.
“Your Father” now denotes the new status of the disciples accorded by the
Resurrection. For us, now “children of the Resurrection,” the final and
definitive experience of the fatherhood of God is granted. The heavenly
Father is the supreme Lord of those who live in the power and glory of the
Son’s resurrected life. They are able now to say, as did the Son, “Thy will
be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” The Father is also, with his 93
transcendent majesty, the “Great Companion.” Thus His people are able to
89
Hos. 2:19. 94
Isa. 62:5. See also 61:10. 95
sound the glad cry of rejoicing, Abba, exulting in the inner quickening by the
Spirit, and secure in Him who loves, comforts, and instructs His children.
The Bridegroom and Bride.
From the time of Homer íõìößïò (numphios) means bridegroom, young
husband; and íýìöç (numpç)means bride, marriageable young woman.
From the time of Hosea Judaism was familiar with the metaphor of the
marriage of Jehovah and Israel:
And I will betroth thee unto
me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee
unto me in righteousness, and in
judgment, and in lovingkindness,
and in mercy.94
Isaiah wrote: “. . . as the bridegroom [ïúÈçÈ, châthân] rejoiceth over the bride
[äÈìPƒ, kallâh], so shall thy God rejoice over thee.” But the Old Testament 95
does not present the Messiah as a bridegroom.
There are two parables of Jesus in which Christ is presented as
Bridegroom: the ten virgins (Matt. 25:1-13) and the wedding guests (Mark 2:19
f, Matt. 9:15, Luke 5:34 f). The Bridegroom stands allegorically for the
Messiah.
It was a custom among the Jews that, in celebrating nuptials, the
bridegroom would go in the evening to bring his bride to his house, where a
feast was prepared. He was accompanied by the bridesmaids, who carried lamps
with them.
In the parable of the ten virgins, no reference is made to the bride.
The reason for this is that the parable teaches the coming of the Son of man
and the necessity of watchfulness. The Bridegroom is Christ, who will come to
His own. There is no room for the figure of the bride. The heavenly
Bridegroom cannot bring His bride from heaven.
Mark 2:19-20 is a more complete account of the parable of the wedding
90
John 3:29. 96
guests:
And Jesus said unto them,
Can the children of the bridechamber
fast, while the bridegroom
is with them? As long as
they have the bridegroom with
them, they cannot fast.
But the days will come, when
the bridegroom shall be taken
away from them, and then shall
they fast in those days.
In the Greek text the phrase “children of the bridegroom” is “sons of
the bridegroom.” It is a late Hebrew idiom meaning wedding guests.
The secondary clause of verse 19, “as long as they have the bridegroom
with them . . . ,” is significant. Jesus speaks of Himself as the bridegroom
and means Himself as the Messiah. His disciples are with him as wedding
guests. Just as it is impossible for the guests who accompany the bridegroom
at a wedding to weep, so too the disciples cannot grieve. They have the joy
of the coming age of salvation and even now are within the Kingdom of Grace.
Verse 20 forebodes a time of sorrow. The Bridegroom shall be taken away
from them. Jesus here adumbrates his Messianic passion. Then the disciples
will fast and mourn. If we are allowed to regard the time of mourning as the
age of the Bridegroom’s absence and of our waiting for His return for His
bride, then the time will, indeed, come when His faithful ones will hear the
glad cry of Matthew 25:6, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet
him.”
John the Baptist hails Jesus as the Bridegroom. But John designates
himself as but the friend of the Bridegroom:
He that hath the bride is
the bridegroom: but the friend
of the bridegroom, which standeth
and heareth him, rejoiceth
greatly because of the bridegroom’s
voice: this my joy therefore
is fulfilled.96
The friend of the bridegroom is a person called by the Greeks paranymph
91
“ The voice of the bridegroom” was a symbol of joy. It is found in Jeremiah, 97
e.g., 7:34: “Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets
of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom, and voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.” See also 2 Cor.
11:2, where Paul develops the allegory of the paranymph as applied to himself.
(ðáñÜíõìöïò, paranumphos) and by the Jews shoshabin (ïéáĖÀ{–). There were
usually two such persons, one for the bride (the bride’s maid) and one for the
bridegroom (the best man). With respect to the best man, his duty was to find
a bride for his friend and arrange the marriage. Before her marriage, a young
woman did not meet with her spouse elect, but was guarded at home with her
parents. Therefore, the shoshabin was the intermediary between the two young
people. At the time of the wedding, he certified the purity of the bride. He
distributed gifts and presided at the wedding festivities. Finally he led the
betrothed couple to the bridal chamber. When, standing outside, he heard the
bridegroom welcoming his bride (“voice of the bridegroom”), the friend
“rejoiceth greatly” (÷áñ” ÷áßñåé, charai chairei, “with joy rejoices”).
In this passage John designates, in effect, Jesus as the Bridegroom.
He has wooed and won the bride for his Friend. Having thus heard the voice of
the Bridegroom, who welcomes His bride, the Baptist now finds his own joy
fulfilled. Now the bridal of Heaven and earth has begun. As the Scripture
teaches, the joy of the Lord will be fully realized at the Resurrection and
the Second Advent, when the rapture of fellowship with His bride is
completed.97
The book of Revelation employs the figure of the bride in two ways. In
Revelation 19:7-10 the bride is the people of God. In Revelation 21:2 the
bride is the abode of God. Notwithstanding this, the two symbols do coalesce
in meaning.
Revelation 19:7-10 reads:
Let us be glad and rejoice,
and give honour to him: for the
marriage of the Lamb is come,
and his wife hath made herself
ready.
And to her was granted that
92
Rev. 17:14. 98
John 8:26; 6:63. 99
she should be arrayed in fine
linen, clean and white: for the
fine linen is the righteousness of
saints.
And he saith unto me, Write,
Blessed are they which are
called unto the marriage supper
of the Lamb. And he saith unto
me, These are the true sayings
of God.
Revelation 21:2 reads:
And I John saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down
from God out of heaven, prepared
as a bride adorned for her
husband.
The Bridegroom of Revelation 19 is the Lamb. As noted previously, the
symbol of the lamb is employed because it is through His earthly passion and
self-sacrifice that the Bridegroom has procured His bride. Without the crisis
of the Cross there would be no triumphant joy of marriage. There is an old
Oriental myth, according to which the wedding of the deity is postponed until
he returns from victory over the darkness and cold of winter. Indeed, the
Messiah’s foes shall make war upon Him. But now, in the final days, the slain
Lamb is become, through His Resurrection-victory over death, the conquering
“Lord of lords, and King of kings.” The “marriage of the Lamb is come.” 98
The invitations have been issued. The wedding-feast is set. There is now,
legitimate for symbolism, a mixture of images. The guests are gathered at the
wedding-feast. They feast upon the spiritual delicacies, “the true sayings of
God,” and this because, in the days of His flesh, the Bridegroom had spoken
the words of life, the promises of the Gospel.
. . . but he that
sent me is true; and I speak
. . . those things which I
have heard of him.
. . . the words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit, and they are life.99
But those who partake of the marriage supper are also the bride. The bride is
93
arrayed in splendor: her garments of linen, clean and white, “the
righteousness of saints;” her robes washed and made “white in the blood of the
Lamb.” Commenting on verse 9, Matthew Henry writes eloquently:
These promises, opened, applied, sealed, and earnested by the Spirit of
God, in holy eucharistical ordinances, are the marriage-feast; and the
whole collective body of all those who partake of this feast is the
bride, the Lamb’s wife; they eat into one body, and drink into one
Spirit, and are not mere spectators or guests, but coalesce into the
espoused party, the mystical body of Christ.
Revelation 21:2 portrays the bride as the abode of God, “the holy city,
new Jerusalem.” We saw in the above that the heavenly Bridegroom is also the
slain Lamb. In the glory of triumph there is always the reflection, the
shadow, of the past. The same is true in regard to the designation of the
bride as the City of God. In the Old Testament the Shekinah glory of God
filled the old tabernacle. John writes in his Gospel that the Bridegroom,
when upon earth, “tabernacled among us” (¦óêÞíùóåí ¦í ºìÃí, eskçnôsen en
hçmin). There once appeared upon earth God’s Shekinah glory in the Person of
His Son. Now, in the final resolution of the drama of salvation, the true
tabernacle, radiant in Shekinah glory, appears as the bride, the Lamb’s wife.
The union of Bridegroom and bride is realized. This bride, bedecked in the
splendid garments of holiness, is “the holy city,” the Church of God, now
glorified and prepared for perfect communion with the Bridegroom, her redeemer
and companion for ever and ever, “unto the ages of the ages.”
The great promise has been fulfilled:
But now they desire a better
country, that is, an heavenly:
wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God: for he
hath prepared for them a city.
Him that overcometh will I
make a pillar in the temple of
my God, and he shall go no more
out: and I will write upon him
the name of my God, and the
name of the city of my God,
which is new Jerusalem,
which cometh down out of
heaven from my God: and I will
94
Heb. 11:10; Rev. 3:12. 100
write upon him my new name.100