Posted on by Abe Austin

The Richness of Scriptural Symbolism- A Modern Reenactment

My last post was about Jacob and Esau, and how they unwittingly reenacted something deep and eternal and fundamental to the destiny of us all. The hope of us all on judgment day was manifested in their little family drama. They were expressing a symbol of something that didn’t even know lived within them. In my last post I also promised that I had another example of this, a personal one, and today I will share that with you.

Passing on the Way)

This story takes place when I was twenty, serving as a missionary in the country of Guyana. My companion and I spent each day under the blistering Caribbean sun, meeting people on the street, sharing messages in homes, and helping run the affairs of the local branch. Our days were always very full, and one morning we were zipping along the streets on our bicycles, hurrying to our next appointment.

“Hello, Brother Ravi!” we waved as we zoomed past a member of the local congregation. He smiled and called out “good morning,” to us, then went back to slowly pulling himself along the road by his toes. Brother Ravi, you see, was in a wheelchair, too weak in the legs to stand, and too weak in the arms to push the wheels, so he was left to dangle his feet onto the dirt and gravel road, grip with his toes, and inch his way forward at a snail’s pace.

My companion and I turned down two more streets before suddenly we stopped and looked at one another.

“What are we doing?!” I said.

“Why didn’t we help him?!” he responded.

We immediately turned around and raced back to help Brother Ravi get home. As we approached, however, we found that someone else had already stepped in to do it. It was a man who looked extremely ragged. His hair was unkempt, his clothes were full of holes, and his legs wouldn’t bend at the knees. By putting his weight on the handles of the wheelchair, he barely managed to keep his balance, awkwardly shuffling down the street with Brother Ravi. Both the stranger and Brother Ravi were in good spirits, though, happily chatting to one another, with Brother Ravi giving directions to his home. It was clear from their conversation that this was their first meeting, the man was a stranger who stepped in simply because he saw a need.

Even though we were younger and more fit, it didn’t seem right for us to take over this stranger’s kind act of service. With a sense of guilt, my companion and I turned our bikes and continued on our way.

A Story from Long Ago)

It was only when reflecting on this experience that I realized we had reenacted a story that I’d already heard many times before. Brother Ravi, the stranger, and us two missionaries had all unwittingly taken part in the story of the Good Samaritan. Brother Ravi was the man in need on the side of the road, the stranger was obviously the Good Samaritan who went out of his way to help another, and my companion and I had played the unfortunate part of the priest and the Levite, two men specifically called to help those in need, but who had instead hurried on their way. We had abandoned our rightful duty, and it had fallen to another to fill that gap.

There is much that I have learned from that experience, but for now let us consider how the story of the Good Samaritan is full of symbols that manifest themselves in our lives, even without us realizing it at the time. As it turns out, humanity is full of examples of those who should help falling short, leaving strangers to take over the responsibility instead. I won’t go into the details on all of these, but you can see these themes among The Kindertransport, The Righteous Among Nations, and The White Helmets. These were all volunteers who stepped in to help when official aid was lacking or absent.

An important lesson from these symbols having so many applications is that we should never read these stories and say, “This is the one thing that that story is supposed to represent.” Because if it is a truly good symbol, it hasn’t finished representing all that it is meant to represent. There is no one, single, interpretation. Was Jesus’s story meant to symbolize the state of ancient Israel at the time? Yes. Was it also meant to represent me and my companion passing by Brother Ravi? Yes. And a thousand other instances of this pattern as well. It is a story that has played out through the past and will surely play out again in the future.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Richness of Scriptural Symbolism- Constant Reenacting

In my last post I mentioned that good symbols connect to the very core of the human experience. They identify something that is fundamental to our race, which means they keep showing up in the lives of countless individuals. This means that they will be reenacted by people who have no idea that that is what they are doing. Today I will give a scriptural example of this, and in my next post one that is more personal.

Receiving the Father’s Blessing)

The last time I studied the story of Jacob obtaining Esau’s blessing, I noticed a symbol in it that I had never seen before. In the Genesis account, Jacob dresses in the clothes of his brother Esau, prepares meat in the same manner as Esau, and presents himself under the name of Esau in order to receive the blessing that his father has for his elder brother. In this moment, it doesn’t appear that anyone involved in the charade saw it as anything more than an isolated family drama, but it was actually a sign of something bigger than them all.

Jacob’s presentation in the guise of his elder brother reflects how each of us hope to be presented to the Lord on judgment day. Obviously, we won’t actually be fooling God, but by laying down our own lives and taking up Christ’s, we hope to be introduced under the name, appearance, and deeds of Jesus, our elder brother. He, alone, is worthy of God’s blessing, but because we can be adopted under his name, we can receive his blessing as though we were him.

As I said, I do not think that Jacob, Esau, Isaac, and Rebekah had this in mind when they performed their little drama, but that symbol comes from the very roots of the human soul. It is baked into us, and it is not surprising that it rises to the surface now and again in our lives.

As we look for good symbols to guide our lives, we should take special note of patterns that emerge seemingly at random, but which echo things of a more eternal nature. We should consider if what we see in our typical day is, in fact, a new bud on a plant whose roots extend far, far below.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Richness of Scriptural Symbolism- Eternal Wisdom

The Perpetual Relevance of Symbols)

The Bible is a library of many different things, including historical accounts, legal instructions, moral teachings, prophetic sayings, psalms, letters, and gospel testimony. One of its defining features is its rich symbolism, which people continue to find new interpretations and new meanings for even today.

Some of the text in the Bible is, at a minimum, over 3000 years old. It is a rare thing to have words from that long ago that still resonate and have meaning to us today. Such an accomplishment demonstrates a profound understanding of the human condition, for it is only by identifying and representing something that is fundamental to humanity itself that these symbols can be consistent through all changes of culture and context. A symbol that is tied to the very core of the human soul will re-manifest itself perpetually, keeping its importance forever new.

They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But history is but a record of how people reacted to their fundamental human nature, and since fundamental human nature persists, history will repeat itself again and again, whether we have studied it or not. Every great setback that we will face in the future has already been observed, and the way that each of those setbacks will be overcome is also already knowable. When the old evils return, it is the timeless symbols of ancient scripture that will guide us back to the light.

The Qualities of Good Symbols)

So far, we have identified one hallmark of good symbols: that they represent a core part of the human soul and thus reappear eternally through each generation. With the rest of this study, I want to consider what other hallmarks of good symbols, so that we may know how to separate the perpetually useful from the context dependent.

It will be necessary to provide specific examples of scriptural symbols as a part of this study, and when I do so, I will specifically use ones from the Bible. This will serve a secondary objective of this study, which is to demonstrate the intrinsic value of that book. That being said, this study will by no means be a comprehensive list of all the greatest symbols within the Bible. It remains the responsibility of each of us to find those nuggets for ourselves and to integrate them into our own lives.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 14:29

29 But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

Verse 29 describes a most awe-inspiring situation for the Israelites. “The waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.” Thus, they went forward with the potential for absolute destruction raised on either side of them! It must have taken great faith to put themselves in such a situation. Of course, faith in a safe crossing would be strengthened by the fact that God had already proved He could part the sea in the first place, so He should be able to keep it parted for as long as needed to reach the other side. The God who brings us into the path by a miracle will also be able to sustain the path by continual miracles.

Recently, I observed how some of the symbolic expressions in the Judeo-Christian theology were literally manifested among the ancient Israelites. There is another example of this in today’s verses, too. Here, in the image of the Israelites walking down the parted sea we have the literal manifestation of the straight and narrow way “which leadeth unto life,” a way that is marked by God and provided to us by His grace and power. Meanwhile, on either side of the narrow path stood the broad expanse of the sea that led unto destruction.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 12:24-27

24 And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever.

25 And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service.

26 And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service?

27 That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.

The notion that the yearly observation of the Passover was meant to remind the Israelites of what God had done for them is not up for debate. God explicitly instructed His people that when their children asked for an explanation of the ritual that they should tell the story of how He had delivered Israel from Egypt. God gave the symbol, and also the interpretation of it. He did the same when He gave the prior Pharaoh the vision of the cattle and grain, and then gave Joseph the interpretation of it. Christ, too, would teach by parable, and then explain its meaning to his disciples.

That isn’t to say that God’s works are single-dimensional, there are many combined lessons and symbols that can be found in them, but we should be careful when we look for these extra interpretations. There is always the danger of reading things into the text that we personally want, making them our story to teach our principles and not His. Indeed, the only times that I feel I have found a new and valid interpretation of a scripture story is when I feel that interpretation coming to me by revelation. There are many other times that I have ideas as to what a scriptural story could mean, but I recognize that they are only that: ideas. Genuine interpretation of scripture is given only by the divine author of it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 2:10

10 And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

Moses’s mother kept her end of the bargain. Though Moses was really her own child, to save his life she gave him to the princess to live as if he were hers. There is something very symbolic in this passing of the child to another, and also in the phrase “drew him out of the water.” This is clearly a baptism. Moses’s infant life was surrendered to the water, then he was drawn out as someone new. The destiny to live merely as a slave was drowned, and the destiny to live as a ruler was raised. And in conjunction with this rebirth, this baptism, there even comes a new name: Moses.

Much has been speculated about the name of Moses. The word “mose” is an Egyptian suffix that means “son of.” Much like how in English “Robertson” means “son of Robert,” in Egypt there were names such as Ramose which meant “son of Ra.” At the same time, the word “moses” was a Hebrew verb meaning “draw out.” Thus, it might be that Moses’s name was bilingual, having appropriate meanings in both his Egyptian and Israelite homes, a name that was very befitting to his dual identity.

Moses has special parallels to two other men in the scriptures. Like the patriarch Joseph, he was both a man of Egypt and Israel. This foreshadows his destiny to save the Israelites in their time of need, just as Joseph did. Joseph was a man of dual identity who saved the Israelites by bringing them into Egypt, and Moses was a man of dual identity who saved the Israelites by bringing them back out of Egypt. And, of course, both Joseph and Moses are archetypes for Jesus, another man of dual identity (son of God and son of woman) who would again save the Israelites, and also the entire world. In fact, the way Moses came into his Egyptian home is further reminiscent of the birth of Christ. Moses was presented to the daughter of Pharaoh as a gift from God, brought to her outside of the usual procreative act. Like Jesus, Moses came to the Egyptians, seemingly as a virgin birth.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 50:10-13

10 And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

11 And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which is beyond Jordan.

12 And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:

13 For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

The funeral procession comes into Canaan, but pauses for a week at the threshingfloor of Atad, and I see some considerable symbolic significance with this place. First of all, it is a threshingfloor, which means a large, hard surface, upon which grain is threshed to separate the seed from the stalk. Often this is done by beating it with flails or crushing it under the foot of an ox. Also, this place is called Atad, which means “thorn bush.”

Things being beaten and thorns immediately bring to mind the abuse Jesus Christ suffered before his crucifixion. He was whipped and he was crowned with a ring of thorns before being taken to his place of death. Also worth noting is that Atad was “beyond Jordan,” the very river where Christ would be baptized, which baptism is also a symbol for death and burial. And finally, all these somber tokens are joined with the sound of mourning for the death of Jacob.

I feel that these connections to the Messiah are clear, but I admit I don’t fully understand why they are being invoked in this particular instance. What did the cosmos see in the death of Jacob that befitted a connection to the death of Christ? One possibility, I suppose, is that Christ’s death signaled a sort of death for all of Israel. His passing would bring his testament into full force, a new covenant to fulfill and supersede that of Abraham. Another reason might be that Jacob is the direct forerunner of the Israelite people in a physical sense, but Christ is their spiritual forerunner, and so the death of the physical is also pointing to the death of the spiritual. Or perhaps simply since the death of Jacob was notable and important, and all the eyes of the people were upon it, God saw it as an excellent opportunity to teach of a coming sacrifice.

Whatever the reason, the symbolism is unquestionably there. And so, the symbolic significance continues until the mourning of Jacob concluded, and then the Israelites and Egyptians move on, and Jacob is buried how and where he intended. The sons’ final duty to their father is fulfilled, and now they truly are out on their own.