Symbolic or Literal?

Why do we sometimes take the words of the Bible literally, and other times consider its words symbolic language which needs interpretation?

JN:

To answer this question my post will be rather long. I hope that it will not be too tedious because it is long.  To make it easier to read I have divided it into two parts.

Sometimes the Bible teaches us in plain language, and sometimes it teaches us in figures or symbols. An example of symbolic teaching would be Jesus' parables in the gospels. These stories are easy to teach to young people and to those who are new to the faith. They underline a moral or a principle which could be summarized in a sentence or two, but the story helps to put it in picture form so that it can stay with a person his whole life through. They and their teachings are also easily known even by those who are not Christians. Why it is that a picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures in a parable (think of the story put into a moving picture, containing a thousand individual still pictures) can be put into a sentence or two is something that is a wonder to us. But it seems clear that the meaning of it is that pictures seem to stay in the memory more than words do, but that words can also paint a picture worth more than the words themselves. And the Bible uses these also in communicating to us the eternal truths we need to know, truths of that a full salvation is being prepared for those who love God.

The general rule for understanding the symbolic language is that the plainer meanings interpret the less plain ones. In other words, the literal parts interpret the symbolic parts. The fact that the Bible uses more ways to communicate to us than just literal words, by using words to paint pictures and to create moods, shows us that the Bible is meant to be more than just verbal communication: it is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to us also with His presence through the Holy Spirit. It is my plan to speak to this in more detail in a future post, after I have shown how a Christian knows truth despite the world's censure that Christians do not have the truth alone, or that we depend upon myths for our particular version of truth. I hope to show the utter contradiction in such sentiments. I hope for now that through three examples I can show a general rule for symbolic interpretations.

In your communication with me it seems clear that this question comes from three influences within recent memory. 1, in a recent sermon on Judges 6 the minister of the Word asserted that the term 'angel of the Lord' in the one text was the same as the term in a following verse which referred to 'the LORD'. 2, a recent visit by a Jehovah's Witnesses representative challenged the Christian understanding of 'firstborn of God', asserting that we should prefer the plainer meaning of the text rather than the imposed symbolic meaning which deifies Jesus. And 3, there is in this last post of mine a reference to a dispute about how the Bible is to be understood concerning Genesis One, whether we are to understand the six days literally or symbolically. #1 is answered in this post, and #’s 2 & 3 in the next one.

The gist of your question can be put in this way: People turn the meanings of words to suit their theologies, so how are we to know when we are right in understanding the Bible's own meanings? How are we to discern the difference between contrived meanings and original meanings? I will take the method of supposing that the challenger is right: the "angel of the LORD" refers literally to an angel and not  to God Himself; the 'first born' is to be taken literally; and Genesis One is to be understood symbolically. I do so to see if there is any weight to each of these interpretations; not side with them but to show why each would be an error.

Allow me first, though, to allay any question you might have concerning the minister's integrity in the conclusion he draws. As I understand it, a minister may have several reasons for being too brief in an assertion he could make, so that it might appear to some that it is a stretch of reasoning or a hasty conclusion. He might not wish to dwell on a minor point too long; for it might be necessary to mention it in his sermon but it would take too much time away from the main point if he explained it more fully. He wishes you to rely on the soundness of the theology itself, though it might seem to you that he asks you to rely on his judgments alone. But it could also be that a reasonable explanation might go deeper into the theology than is meaningful to his various hearers, and make the sermon too difficult for some or too simple for others if he said nothing about the minor point. At any rate, what may appear to be a hasty conclusion can be resolved by a careful study of the theology itself, and I'm sure the minister of the Word would promote that sort of thing.

1. Such a study would include a study of the good angels, one of whom might be indicated in the text upon which the minster preached, the angels who always stand in the presence of God and are blessed forever, always enjoying His benefits. The good angel in the text, if he is an angel sent by God, would be a faithful messenger in that he gives no glory to himself, and seeks nothing but God's will. In speaking to him we would know that we are speaking to God Himself, not because the angel is the LORD but because our answer to him would be an answer to God Himself, God's own message to us through the angel. We would be addressing the LORD Himself in speaking to the angel.

Whether there were two beings involved or just the One is not a question that Gideon would have had. Rather the question was, "How do I know it is You, and not one of the spirits of a false god which my town worships, or some other god?" Gideon's three questions show this: Why did you forsake us? Why do you choose me? and, By what sign do I know that you are God who commands me? His question would never have been, "Are you a good angel or God Himself?" To speak to God's ambassador would be to speak to God Himself, for the ambassador is only the vehicle by which the message was sent. He wanted, rather, to know where the message came from; he wanted an assurance that it was from God.

It is not strange at all that the angel of the LORD be identified with God Himself. This also occurs in Genesis when Abraham greets the three strangers. In chapter18 we read that the LORD met Abraham when he saw and entertained the three men, so close was the identification. In Hebrews 1 we have an answer to the question, What are angels? "Are they not ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" (vs.14) It is as if the angel himself disappears in the service which he performs, doing with pleasure the will of God, so that the angel is identified as God Himself even though he is an angel. Not that they are the same being, though it might be as in Genesis 18, but that even though they might be two separate beings yet only the one is in view, as is represented in the interchange. When you do the bidding of the messenger then you actually do the bidding of the one who sent him as if the messenger were the sender himself.

So the theology is right, whether they are two beings or one. I only supposed for the sake of argument that they were two beings. But now we know that it makes no difference to the text itself whether we speak of two beings or one, it was only the LORD that was in view in the story of Gideon's calling to service to save Israel from the Midianites. The minister asserted that they were the same being, and this comes from his greater knowledge of the subject than I have. He obviously refers to Gideon’s fear of death for having seen the face of God. He intends no disservice to God in the assertion, for he cannot be wrong unless he meant to indicate a different meaning to the angel than as a faithful messenger of God in service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.

The minister did not, however, turn the text to his own will, or draw a hasty conclusion to suit his own teaching. Your question concerned the use of symbolic and literal interpretations. And I have shown why the minister's assertion was not an abuse of Scripture. Whether he was right that the angel was God Himself and not a literal angel is a different question, and one that an even closer look at theology can answer. It is enough to know for now, though, that the minister was not teaching wrongly in saying so. Theology will show us that he was justified: we also see in 1 Cor. 10:4 the rock in the wilderness being identified as Jesus Himself (i.e., For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ), so it is not a strange use of symbolism at all.