Everything Is More Than It Seems: The Bible, Metaphor, and How the World Teaches Us About God
A metaphor is a word picture. It is an image constructed out of language. It is the use of reality in one form in order to better describe the reality of something else.
The Bible is loaded with them. God speaks to His people through metaphor in His Word all the time. And just what is and what isn’t metaphorical within the Scriptures has always been a controversial topic. (Maybe a blog for another day.)
But have you ever thought about what it means that the Creator of all reality uses that reality in order to describe Himself? When human beings deploy metaphor, we are not utilizing things we ourselves brought into existence. “That storm was a real killer,” we might say, after a particularly nasty bout of low pressure, wind and precipitation passes overhead. But we didn’t create storms. We didn’t create weather. We didn’t create the elements of the storm nor the wider physical reality that they inhabit.
God did. Let’s think about that for a moment.
When the Scriptures tell us that God “is a consuming fire,” (Deuteronomy 4:24, Hebrews 12:29), we instantly begin to get an idea of what is meant because we have experienced fire. We know what is meant by “consuming,” because we’ve all seen fire consume things. We understand because we’ve experienced. But God knows because God made fire – He brought it into being, created all of physical reality that would allow for it to exist, and then gave fire its function within that reality. It was His idea from the start.
And then He used it as a metaphor to describe Himself in regards to His judgment. Which means that, in at least some way, God created fire with the express purpose of revealing something about Himself to His children.
Consider: Christ told the woman at the well that, “God is spirit,” (John 4:24) and Paul later seconded the statement in II Corinthians 3:17. Colossians 1:15 and I Timothy 1:17 tell us that God the Father is also invisible; both John 1:18 and I John 4:12 teach that no one has ever seen Him. Exodus 33:20, I Timothy 6:16 and Job 9:11 go even further: not only has no one ever seen God, but nobody ever could. Point being: Christians worship Yahweh, a God so far above and beyond our perceptions that we cannot sense or perceive Him on our own.
So, how do we, as beings constrained by the parameters of physical existence, even begin to comprehend or relate to such a transcendent God? How might Yahweh manage to communicate Himself to us in a way that we might begin to understand?
Enter the concept of reality as metaphor.
In Romans 1:20, Paul writes, “For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” The Apostle is making a direct connection between nature and the existence of God: we can know He is real because His power and nature are on display everywhere throughout creation.
Within the context, Paul is making the point that the existence of God as evidenced by nature is so powerfully inarguable that it removes any excuse people might put forward to the contrary. Nature itself serves as the only indication we need that something more than nature - something higher than nature - exists.
So, while nature – physical reality experienced through the senses – serves to evidence God, it also does a great deal to help explain Him.
Over and over again, we read the Word as it uses metaphorical language to explain the things of God to us. And given the fact that God was the One that brought everything we know of into existence from His own mind, will and power, it is evident that God deliberately created physical reality in such a way so as to both reveal Himself and relate to us. Through nature, He speaks to us in a metaphorical language we experience and understand so that we might begin to understand Him.
Don’t miss it: one of the primary reasons things are the way they are is so that we might be able to comprehend God.
He created birds with wings so that we would understand Him when He said:
He will cover you with His [feathers], and under His wings you will find refuge; – Psalm 91:4
He gave us appetites for the things we require to survive so that we would understand the importance of what He meant when He said:
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. – Matthew 5:6
[W]hoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life. – John 4:14
Plant life functions the way it does so we could comprehend:
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:5
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. – Galatians 6:7
Animals behave the way they do so that He could say:
Know that Yahweh, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. – Psalm 100:3
Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the Lord. – Jeremiah 8:7
Time and time again throughout Scripture, the elements of nature are used in order to describe God or how we are to relate to Him. God utilizes His own creation to give object lessons and to paint word pictures for us, His people, in order that we might begin to grasp who He is.
Don’t misunderstand: He intended all of this from the beginning. He began to create with all of these metaphorical lessons already in mind. He deliberately created real things with the intention of revealing deep spiritual truths about even realer things.
The scientific zeitgeist of our times would have us believe that physical reality is the highest level of reality there is. The Bible would have us think differently. It wants us to know that there is another, deeper, truer, ever more real realm and that our physical reality is but a shadowy indicator of it. Humanity is confined to space, time and matter. God, however, is beyond all of them.
Christians often say that nature bears the signature of the God that made it. True enough. But it bears more than His signature: like how a work of art reveals to you something about the painter that created it, so nature teaches us what we need to know about God. His personality, His character, and His nature (pun intended) are all on display through the very reality that He spoke into existence.
Nothing of what exists is haphazard. None of these connections are incidental. God made what He made with the express intention of enabling us, His children, to better understand Him.
All of it speaks of Him.
Mountains are huge for a reason. Oceans are powerful for a reason. Fire burns for a reason. Flowers bloom for a reason. The sun gives light for a reason. The universe is incomprehensibly massive for a reason. Cells and atoms and quarks are incomprehensibly tiny for a reason. Stars and changing leaves and waterfalls are beautiful for a reason. Lightning and lions and tsunamis and sharks are frightening for a reason.
Let him hear who has ears to hear.
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The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world. – Psalm 19:1-4
Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. – Isaiah 46:8-11
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. – Colossians 1:15-17
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by the breath of His mouth all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;
He puts the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
For He spoke, and it came to be;
He commanded, and it stood firm. – Psalm 33:6-9