Scenario #1:
Adam was the first man. God gave him the task of sorting through all the creatures he had created and giving them names. This was not only a way to demonstrate Adam's dominion over the other creatures, but also a concrete way to show him that none of the other creatures were fit for him. So God put him to sleep, and opened his side, and brought forth his counterpart, woman.
Christ, described as the second Adam, also found no suitable conterpart for him while he was on earth. The scripture says the Son of man had nowhere to lay his head...meaning no intimacy, no marriage bed. Therefore God put him to sleep, so to speak, on the cross, opened His side (from which spilt blood and water) and brought forth the bride of Christ: us.
Scenario #2:
Moses led the Israelites in the Desert where they wandered for years, and finally took them to the promised land. However, he only made it to the border. Moses couldn't lead God's people into the promised land...Joshua was called to do that.
Moses, of course, represents the law. The law can tutor you to Christ, but can not bring you to salvation. Of all the counterparts and Christ-types in the Old Testament, whose name did God choose for Christ? Joshua (Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus).
I know that I have BARELY scratched the surface of the Old Testament/New Testament parallels...even the Joshua as a type for Christ ccomparisons go on and on (they each appointed twelve Israelites, the sun stopped when they took hold of the "promised land") These were explained to me last night in a way that was compeletely awe-inspiring. But my question is: is this reading too much into scripture? I mean, really...I know for a fact that humans tend to want to find symbolism and unveil mystery...many times to a fault...are these some of those times?
Like I've said before, on of my greatest fears in dealing with Scripture is presumption. I have had to deal with so much arrogance and dogmatism in prophecy and teachings in the past that I start to question how I can know anything. It's a fear I probably need to get over. But, nevertheless...I want to ask the opionion of all my extrordinairily intelligent friends.
(which is why I really have this blog, anyway.)
1 comment:
Bekka,
This is a bit long, but it is a subject of great interest to me. I hope you will tolerate my ramblings. Please don’t feel that you have to publish this on your blog; I’ve taken up more than my share of comments. Anyway, here are some thoughts:
In whatever other way we read the Bible, we cannot help but read it typologically and metaphorically. No one, even those who claim to do so, can read the entire Bible literally, because if we do that, we are no longer able to understand the Bible (in more than one dimension) or to reconcile it to the reality of our own lives, and we fall into error. Biblical literalists, for example, find it impossible to reconcile creation and evolution, because they have limited themselves to one understanding of Genesis, which is that God literally created the world in six days (or, as some are willing to concede, over thousands of years since a day, to God, is “as a thousand years.” However, even those who will accept a metaphor for time will not take their metaphorical reading much further.). Someone who reads the Bible metaphorically, on the other hand, is able to view Genesis and the scientific theory of evolution as two ways of explaining the same phenomena. The theory of evolution explains the world’s beginnings the only way it can—through observable and measurable evidence—while the Bible gives us what science never can: the part of creation that we can never observe (God speaking the universe into being) and a loving creator-God in which we can put our faith.
As for reading the Bible typologically, the examples are many, but how would we interpret the reference to Christ as the "second Adam," if not typologically? How do we explain Christ's words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up"? How do we understand Hebrews’ explanation of Christ as the ultimate “High Priest” without typology? Here is a good explanation from Northrop Frye's The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, which I would definitely recommend reading:
"This typological way of reading the Bible is indicated too often and too explicitly in the New Testament itself for us to be in any doubt that this is the "right" way of reading it-- "right" in the only sense that criticism can recognize, as the way that conforms to the intentionality of the book itself and to the conventions it assumes and requires."
Also, if we say there is such a thing as "reading too much" into the Bible, we have concluded that there is a limit to the wisdom of God. Literalism limits our understanding of God to words on a page; metaphor opens to us other worlds of understanding-- beyond the page to the living "Word." Remember that Christ was "the Word made flesh."
Lastly, this is very long, but it is one of my favorite bits of John Donne:
"My God, Thou art a direct God, a literal God, a God that would be understood literally... But thou art also a figurative, a metaphorical God, a God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of Allegories, such third Heavens of hyperboles... The style of thy works, the phrase of the old Law, was a continual Allegory; types and figures overspread all; and figures flowed into figures... Circumcision carried a figure of Baptism, and Baptism carries a figure of that purity, which we shall have in the new Jerusalem... How much more often doth thy Son call himself a way, and a light, and a gate, and a vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of Man..."
(John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions [1624])
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