27.2 On the Use of Metaphors
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
God speaks to us through metaphors, a language of metaphors. In fact, words themselves, the fabric of the universe, are themselves just a metaphor of the meaning which they represent.
The thing that makes metaphors difficult for us is that they are fluid. Yes, the metaphor means what God says it means, but that meaning is applied at different levels and for different purposes. Words work in the same way. Most words have more than one meaning and the only way to tell which meaning the author intends is by the context, something we usually do automatically.
Concrete versus Abstract
A young child thinks and sees the world very concretely; abstract thoughts like love and friendship are outside of their comprehension. If a playmate takes their toy, the loss of that toy from their hands and its presence in the other child’s hands is the only thing that has meaning.
Metaphors are incomprehensible to a child until they pass into their early adolescence when their brain becomes more capable of working with metaphorical thinking. More than that, the power of Marxist/Darwinian thinking in our world today has removed all purpose and all authority from education; thus teenagers are not taught metaphorical thinking, but rather against it.
God’s Language
God’s Biblical language of metaphors must be learned as any new language. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age (Hebrews 5:13-14a).
In Hebrews 9, the writer of Hebrews lists many of the elements and furnishings in Moses’ tabernacle and then states: Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. Yet the writer does speak of some of those things, using them as metaphors of Christ in us.
God’s people don’t know His language, however, not so much because they are babes, but because their teachers don’t know His language.
God’s Plain-Speaking
“In that day” is a metaphor, but “know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you” is not metaphorical, but straight literal. Yet most Christians hardly even notice the words of John 14:20. Because they don’t know God’s metaphorical or figurative language, they cannot see the awesome realities when Jesus tells us of the Father plainly.
And the reason why God’s teachers do not themselves know God’s metaphorical language is because they do not know the absolute literalness, all here now, of these two Bible phrases. KNOW that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you – That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Only One Purpose
All of God’s metaphors serve only one purpose – that we might know all the complex and dynamic realities to be found in the plain speaking of God. KNOW that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you – That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. If a teacher does not use a metaphor of Christ to take you to this same place every time, they do not know God’s language.
You may have noticed that I often position two different metaphors or lines from Scripture and then say, “Same thing.” That might bother some because the lines look different. I mean they both speak of this ONE reality of us in God and God in us, God manifest in the flesh.
Yes and Yes
Are we sons of God? Are we the bride of Christ? Are we the heavenly woman? Are we the Christ child? Are we the temple of God? Are we the firstfruits? Are we the body of Christ? Yes and yes and yes and yes and yes and yes and yes. And ALL at the same time. And ALL revealing themselves at different levels through all the seasons of our experience.
You see, the mind of a child seeing only outward appearance and concrete realities, wants to ask, “Am I the woman screaming to give birth? Or am I the Christ child coming out of her womb?” The problem is they are seeing completely backward.
That We Might Know
The plain speaking of Jesus, the literal reality of God is this. KNOW that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you – That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
At every step of our journey, at every stage of our life-development, now and forever, the Spirit of God uses and will always use these metaphors and many more to cause us to know the present literal reality, the incredible complexity, the breath-taking wonders that are found inside these plain-speaking words that sound so simple, but are larger than the universe. The operative word is KNOW. The metaphors of God’s language are so that we might know.
Mixing Plain-Speaking with Metaphor
Now, our biggest difficulty of understanding is when God mixes metaphor with plain and concrete reality. The Lord Jesus Christ is the plain-speaking of God, yet He is also quite metaphorical. You in Me and I in you is literal and concrete plain-speaking.
But Jesus as Seed is metaphorical. Metaphorical does not mean “not real,” however. God’s metaphors are very real. The difference is found in the terms fluid versus strait-jacket. You in Me and I in you is a strait-jacket absolute. It means what it says and it says what it means, absolute and without limit.
A Fluid Metaphor
Jesus as Seed, on the other hand, is a fluid concept. In other words, we never ask any of these one or the other questions.
Is Jesus the cross-bar of the DNA connecting me with Father OR is He the entire DNA by which I am conceived of God?
Is Jesus God’s sperm in me OR is He the Christ child coming through me into the full light of day?
Is it my human faith that receives into itself the Word of God OR is it the faith of the Son of God in me?
Is the flesh only for a day OR is the whole point of everything God manifest in the flesh?
Do I know Jesus as a very human Man in me now OR do we know Him according to the flesh no more?
Only One Question
God never intends for us to strait-jacket His metaphors, to bind them to one thing or another, to set one metaphor in opposition to another or one verse doing battle with another. Those who do so are babes throwing their food at each other.
When we say that God’s metaphors are fluid, we mean that here is the only question we ask. First, here again is the plain-speaking of God. KNOW that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you – That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
What particular truth of this awesomely complex absolute is the Holy Spirit using this metaphor or this verse to unveil to me right now? – That we might KNOW Him.