He Speaks-

Language of the Holy Spirit: Signs

(An excerpt from the book The Ikon of God)

One key to understanding Scripture is to know the language of the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine (AD 354-430), a bishop in Northern Africa, taught that the interpretation of Scripture as a process of dividing its elements into “things” and “signs.”

For a sign is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of itself: as when we see a footprint, we conclude that an animal whose footprint this is has passed by; and when we see smoke, we know there is fire beneath; and when we hear the voice of a living man, we think of the feeling in his mind; and when the trumpet sounds, soldiers know that they are to advance or retreat, or do whatever else the state of the battle requires.^[i]

“Signs” are references in Scripture that point to something else by having a different (and higher) dimension of meaning than just what is indicated on the surface, e.g. footprints tell us that an animal has left them. “Things” are items in Scripture that are to be taken at face value.^[ii] Properly interpreting

Scripture can be described as reading the “signs” employed by the Holy Spirit. It is that simple. Reading Scripture is not like reading the periodic table: it is more than numbers and values. It is about many voices of meaning; it is the metanarrative of God’s dream. It is important to understand this presupposition because we will be interpreting signs— the meaning of figures and types— in this study on Man and his relationship to God. Reading Scripture is a treasure hunt!

Augustine goes on to say:

For among men words have obtained far and away the chief place as a means of indicating the thought of the mind. Our Lord, it is true, gave a sign through the odor of the ointment which was poured upon His feet; and in the sacrament of His body and blood He signified His will through the sense of taste; and when by touching the hem of His garment the woman was made whole, the act was not wanting in significance. But the countless multitude of the signs through which men express their thoughts consist of words. For I have been able to put into words all of these signs, the various classes of which I have briefly touched upon, but I could by no effort express words of those signs.^[iii]

Think about what Augustine is saying: that all words are signs because they point to a meaning. All communication is based on signs (words) that have meaning. Take for example the word “dog.” The word “dog” is not the dog itself, but it points the individual toward the actual object. The word “dog” is a sign that points us to the object (the golden retriever chewing on your rug). Hence, communication is  inherently a signed based action, and without  signs, communication would be impossible. Scripture takes this same principle a level further: that objects in Scripture have more meaning that what is suggested at face value.

Jesus refers to Himself as the “Good Shepherd.” (John 10) Was Jesus talking about His occupational skills related to getting a job looking after somebody’s livestock? No, He was speaking about how He relates to His followers. “Good Shepherd” is a word picture to communicate something very meaningful about Himself. Jesus could have spent a lot of time explaining how you can trust Him with your life , but the picture communicates clearly what He is saying, particularly to an agricultural people. Entire books have been written expounding the depth of meaning to the believer regarding the Good Shepherd as we know Him.    

Another way to describe Augustine’s thinking about signs is to see that Scripture is laden with symbolism, or hidden messages and meaning. The Holy Spirit speaks, very often, through symbols that go beyond the words employed. If you are familiar with liturgical worship, you know it is more meaningful when you understand what all of the items and actions are saying. Understanding both Scripture and Liturgy involves the proper handling and understanding of the symbolism or signs employed.  

Symbols (signs) provide word pictures for the believer’s understanding, but the symbols employed can have multiple meanings. This makes it possible for Scripture to have so much meaning in a short volume: no other book on earth works like this. 

Let us consider Christianity’s most basic symbol, the cross. It is the faith’s universal sign, symbol, and even motif. But, what does the cross mean? It means many things that are all related to Christ, His passion, and the Church. From a theological point of view, among other things, the cross means that a price was paid so that my sins could be remitted and not counted against me in my relationship with God. From a devotional point of view, one may wear a cross or bow before a cross as an act of devotion to Christ. From a personal point of view, we can see the cross as referring to a lifestyle. After all, Jesus said we are to take up our own cross and follow Him. Here the meaning becomes even more personal: it suggests something about my own actions and attitudes. No symbol has received such universal proliferation throughout human history.

Very few things speak so much about the Christian faith, but to the common Roman soldier of Jesus day, the cross was an instrument of execution, the ultimate humiliation, and a demonstration of Roman supremacy. To him, all crosses upon which criminals hung were the same; there was no other meaning for him. For the believer, the cross upon which Christ hung is the epicenter of meaning. It is humanity’s only ticket to freedom out of bondage and into regeneration, into right relationship with God.

Symbols are like love letters passing through the mail system to be opened by certain people, obscured from public view. They are like arrows passing through time and space, landing on their intended targets, bringing tremendous import to the heart. This is how God speaks: the Holy Spirit works in conjunction with signs in communicating Grace to His people.   

This phenomenon of many (more than one) but related meanings is also evident in other symbols: water is a symbol of Life (God’s presence) as in, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38-39), but it also symbolizes death, as in, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3) The symbolism of water in Scripture is both life and death, and— in each case— the context makes it obvious as to which is the correct interpretation for that passage. But as we mentioned, both interpretations of the sign, “water,” have to be connected, and they are: Christian life is all about Life out of death or, we could say, Life that passes through death (which we call resurrection Life). The Life God gives to the believer is resurrection life, life that endures death to live again. Being filled with God’s life is about “dying daily.” While we are always living out the death of Christ by self-sacrifice, we are being filled with Life, God’s Life. 

There is another way in which the sign of water is used in Scripture, but, in this case, it is set opposed to fire. Both water and fire are used to refer to purification or cleansing.

But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. (Malachi 3:2-3)

In this one verse, the Spirit of God is speaking of how God will purify His people. Two analogies are employed:  that of fire (as it relates to purifying silver), and fullers’ soap (which— with water— cleans many things). Before, we mentioned how water refers to either life or death, but here it refers to cleaning and purifying, and it is coupled with fire which cleanses things in a different way: by burning up the undesirable elements in silver and gold. Searching other places in Scripture, we see two different ways in which God purifies His people. First is water, as in:

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. (Titus 3:5)

Many theologians believe this points to baptism. Washing speaks of cleansing, and regeneration speaks of rejuvenating with Life: both are meanings of water.

The Bible also refers to a cleansing experience in the believer’s life that is brought about by fire:

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:7, emphasis added)

Fire here speaks of a purifying effect in the believer’s life, but it should never be confused with the eternal fire that the unregenerate will suffer in for eternity.  So, the sign “fire” also has multiple uses.

By using signs to communicate multiple meanings, the whole of Scripture is packed full of significance and expanded meaning.  The sign always implies the natural understanding of a thing, like fire or water, as a spiritual application: this is how signs work. Things of a physical nature point out and describe spiritual Truths.

The Holy Spirit’s usage of signs in Scripture shows us that Truth is very often parallel: water speaks of life because it is, in fact, the essence of all created earthly life (plant, animal, or human). It is irreplaceable. The truth of water being essential to all of life is parallel to the fact that God’s Life giving power (His living water) is also essential to our spiritual life and relationship with Him. Water in Scripture is also used for the cleansing that a spiritual Truth provides for us (as every housewife knows how essential water is to house cleaning). For this reason, God’s use of signs shows us that Truth is parallel.  

Another example of a sign used in Scripture (that is distinctly present in Creation) is that of gender. Reading what the Bible has to say about gender, we immediately see God created Man male and female; this would be what St. Augustine called a “sign,” something that has much greater importance than just the mechanisms of procreation. We would miss something divine, something wonderful, and something foundational if we just take gender at “face value.” Divine and eternal Truths are impressed into God’s image, Man, through gender. We will go into this in great detail later.

If we do not grasp these principles as they relate to signs, much of Scripture will be closed to us, locked up in types and shadows. Understanding this shows us that all of God’s workings can be described as three-dimensional in nature; by using word pictures, God  gives us a fuller understanding of what He is saying. By using signs, His intention is to create a desire within us to seek out the things of God. This use of signs also hides things from the unregenerate; knowing of God’s communications would create abuses by those who are against God and make their sin against God even more egregious. Signs (as well as parables) serve as a form of encryption of what God gives to His people and withholds from the unregenerate (Matthew 13:11). 

However, even though God communicates through multi-dimensional signs, our human comprehension, for the most part, only works in one-dimensional concepts; therefore we have to break it down into bites of information that make it chewable and digestible to us. Even though we are limited in this fashion, God’s desire is that we have a broad understanding of His ways: 

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

When gazing into the things of God, we must not limit our observation to our linear thinking but behold the wonder there is in a manifold revelation of Christ in all His glory. As we go through this study, we will be identifying signs (as St. Augustine explained) in Scripture. These signs serve as word-pictures to communicate God’s realities to us.

---

[i] Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. J. F. Shaw, (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2009), p. 32.

[ii] Ibid., p. 2.

[iii] Ibid., p. 33.

First Things First-

Authority From Which We Speak

(An excerpt from The Ikon of God)

The first and most basic element any reader would want to examine when reading  non-fiction is authority: how does the reader know that what the writer is saying is true? What does the author base his information on? Essentially, how do you know that you can trust us and what we say? Primarily, our authority starts and ends with the Bible. The first and foremost presupposition is that the Bible is understood to be the inspired, infallible Word of God that does not err. Even if the student does not have all of the theological nuances of what that means, he or she must understand that we are using the Bible as the authority for the way we should think about, implement, and live out a core understanding of Man and his relationship to God. Simply stated, it is through the Bible that we are able to peer beyond the veil of human limitation into God’s wondrous plans. Answers to all of the major questions of life are found in the Bible.

While mainly referring to Scripture as our guide for our study, we also will be referring to theological commentators from a broad spectrum of the Church. Interpretations will be quoted from some relatively new Christian authors and some very ancient writers, theologians, and Church Fathers. The wealth and volume of revelation contained in Christendom is immense and it spans many generations and comes from Christians of all walks of life.  

Our study can be described as your grandmother’s stew. Many things go into that stew, both vegetables and meat. The flavors of potatoes, carrots, beef, and many seasonings, all intermingle when cooked over time.. Here, you will find the Protestant with the Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian and the Charismatic, the new with the old. We will not be camping out in a particular denominational perspective but will be taking from a broad treasure and throwing it into one pot, simmering it until the common flavor exudes from every morsel. Like when the potatoes take on the flavor of the meat and carrots, we see a unity across the division as when we realize how various thoughts settle together from various branches of Christendom.

This melting pot of sources will, as we said, include some of the Church Fathers (by consulting the Church Fathers on matters of biblical interpretation, we are using the  lens of tradition). Many people today would ask why we consult the Church Fathers on Bible interpretation. How could they be relevant in obtaining a deeper understanding of the Scripture? There are two reasons: one, they were closer to the time of Christ and the first apostles. This makes their commentaries more reliable because we are always reforming and referring back to what God had established at the beginning. And two, they express a common thought for the entire, complete, and unified Church. It is hard for us today to think of the Body of Christ in any state other than its current condition with all of its denominations and non-denominations. The modern Church is highly fractured, but this has not always been. The Church developing out of its roots in Jerusalem was one in thought and mission. For 1,000 years (think about that) the Church was, very much a united body. The first major division did not occur until AD 1054 when the Catholic (western) and Orthodox (eastern) churches split. And even then, for another 500 years, the Church was only split in two. With the emergence of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, a fracturing process began to shape Protestant churches, first with the establishment of multiple denominations and— in recent times— a further splintering with the establishment into the “non-denominational/independent church,” each having a customized form of outside oversight or none at all. Modern writings no longer represent the stance of a unified whole, as the writings of the Church Fathers did. We certainly do not consider what the Church Fathers wrote to be of equal authority as the Scripture, but looking back at the Church and its writings in its pre-divided state brings a more accurate interpretation of the biblical authors for the very reason that the Church was completely unified and these men were closer to the Apostles (some, such as Clement of Rome, had even conversed directly with and learned personally from them).

Saint Vincent of Lérins (5^th century Christian writer) articulates why we need the lens of tradition when interpreting Scripture:

If someone wants to be protected from tricks and remain healthy in the faith, he must confine his faith first to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and secondly to the Tradition of the Church. But someone may ask, is not the canon of Scripture sufficient for everything, and why should we add thereto the authority of Tradition? This is because not everyone understands the Scriptures in the same way, but one explains them this way and another that way, so that it is possible to get there from as many thoughts as there are heads. Therefore it is necessary to be guided by the understanding of the Church ... What is tradition? It is that which has been understood by everyone, everywhere and at all times ... that which you have received, and not that which you have thought up ... So then, our job is not to lead religion where we wish it to go, but to follow it where it leads, and not to give that which is our own to our heirs, but to guard that which has been given to us.[i]  

Basically, we are not saying much that new in this volume. We disclose things already discovered and they can be found in other writers throughout church history. We only hope for a pulling together into one location from across a broad history in order to obtain a better understanding of things already known and understood.

As with the astronauts of Apollo 8, discussed in the “Introduction,” Man needs outside perspective. It is not within Man to discover his origins or the origins of the universe on his own. He needs outside help. He needs God’s help. God provides that help through the Church (as well as the Holy Spirit); without the historical perspective of the Church, most readers succumb to their own private interpretation (2 Peter 2:20), formulating errors.

---

[i] Deacon George Maksimov, “Three-Hundred Sayings of the Ascetics of the Orthodox Church,” Orthodox Missionary Society

of Venerable Serapion Kozheozersky, 01-18-2013, http://orthodox.cn/patristics/300sayings_en.htm.

Two Basic Modern Worldviews

Two Basic Modern Worldviews

(an excerpt from the book The Ikon of God)
vs.

What was the marvel of America sending men to the moon? What was the grandeur of that accomplishment? Was it that something wonderful would be found there, that maybe the moon was made of green cheese? When the first man, Neil Armstrong, stepped foot on the moon, how was this act  "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?" Nothing changed on earth: life was no different other than some brief excitement. If it was such a grand frontier, why have we not been back in over 40 years?

Let us put this into perspective. When Man finally got to the moon, he only found rocks and dust, rocks and dust made up of the same stuff as rocks and dust found on earth. How was this “small step” any kind of “one giant leap for mankind?” The real discoveries of putting a man on the moon had nothing to do with the moon itself, but had everything to do with what he saw when he got far enough away from earth to look back at it. The moon was inhospitably cold and hot, but the earth was the most brilliant thing in the cosmos, sparling, shinning, and full of life. Man’s travels to the moon did not result in any magnificent lunar discovery: we did not find plants that grew upside down, new elements to include on the periodic table, or even the smallest living cell. The true discovery came in what Man saw when looking back at earth. Undoubtedly, the most remarkable, most astounding discovery was not anything found on the moon but happened in the Apollo 8 mission, before Armstrong uttered those infamous words when stepping on the moon. When viewing earth from space the three astronauts of Apollo 8 had a message for earth, revealing what they saw:[i]

Bill Anders:

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell:

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman:

"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

What was the message for earth that the astronauts wanted to convey? What was it that they discovered by going into space? This message was nothing new, but something very old, as old as earth itself. It gave the only meaningful purpose to the Apollo missions. Earth was NOT an accident! Its existence was intentional. And if earth was intentional, then Somebody had to intend it and then create it; this gives meaning to everything. Intent demonstrates meaning; earth was intentional. But who intended it? That somebody, is God. And there is nothing that can compare with earth: it is the most wonderful place in the universe, nothing has been observed through any telescope or viewed from any space probe that can even remotely compares with earth. Like Dorothy, in the “Wizard of Oz,” at the finish of her long journey, who proclaimed, “There is no place like home.”

So if this truth was self-evident to the astronauts, why do so many disbelieve it? The advent of enlightened reason during the last few centuries has taken a terrible toll on the modern mind. The modern secularist sees the existence of everything as being some sort of enormous accident (how reasonable is that! Can you imagine a train wreck ending as beautiful as earth?!) The atheist’s bible reads something like this, “In the beginning there was nothing and nobody, then boom, something appeared quite accidentally, and that something without any intent, direction, or purpose from of anybody, again, accidentally became something well defined, and it, of its own accord, accidentally, produced grass and trees and birds…and then, quite accidentally, produced Man.” Making everything an accident is a very dim view of the universe indeed. It is like living on the moon: rocks on dust and dust on rocks. There are no animals, no trees, and even no color. Everything is lifeless,  just sitting there, and just existing with no real meaning or purpose.

This presents two very strikingly different points of view of the cosmos. One view is personal: that there is a Person who had intent and meaning for everything. Conversely, the other view denies any design or intent for the universe. With this view, nothing has any meaning, because it was all a series of accidents. When there is no meaning to the cosmos, then there is no meaning for the individual. To believe in this theory of accidents is to both believe in and live a life that is morbid and meaninglessness.

If there is a Creator, then there is intent, and if there is intent, then there is meaning, and that intent is the meaning of everything to us. To find meaning for life is to locate God’s original intent for creating everything. Life then becomes about the meaning; life is full of meaning and then everything has meaning. Every blue sky, every sunset, every flower, every bumble bee, has meaning. If there is a God and His intent was relational, then everything in Creation speaks, and even shouts, with the meaning of God’s intent. Everything created is God’s love letter. To lose sight of that is to lose the meaning of everything.

The secular worldview kills everything because there is no Creator and therefore no intent; with no intent, nothing has any meaning or value. Even life itself becomes disdainful, morose, purposeless, because it all was an accident; this is the culture of death. And as with all accidents, life becomes about the injury, the pain, the hurt. The cosmos injured us by producing us through an ongoing train wreck. By giving us life with no meaning, the cosmos has imprisoned us and made us victims. The modern obsession with being oppressed blatantly manifests this symptom of our much larger sickness. The secular worldview is a dungeon, with many tortures and devices of torment, because it strips the essence of every dignity God gave to Man from him.

In summary: there are two ways of seeing the universe. One, holds onto the dream of the Dreamer: it is full of meaning, full of life, full of wonder, and is based on miracles. The other is as lifeless as the moonscape: cold, dead, and without rhyme or reason. These are the your choices.  

Moses had it right:

See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil. (Deuteronomy 30:15)

The choice has always been and will always be the same, life or death.

---

[i] Apollo 8 Genesis Reading, Wikipedia.org, 01-08-2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8_Genesis_reading