PARABLES OF THE BIBLE :

Have you ever read Scripture and found yourself wondering why a passage was there or what was the meaning of the passage? Perhaps the words used made no sense to you, why would God talk about people as if they were fish, Mt 4:19? Why does He refer to Jesus as the lamb as if he were an animal, Jn 1:29? This study will deal with how the God of the Christian Bible has indeed given meaning to all of the Scriptures but has concealed the meaning from us and how only He can open our eyes, our spiritual eyes, to see that which is hidden.

Isaiah 45:15 states, "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. And in 1 Corinthians 4:3 we read, "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost".

Both of the above verses are dealing with salvation. In Isaiah God even states He is the Saviour. He also states He can hide salvation from us. But the Corinthians passage tells us that it is only hidden from those who are lost. The Greek word translated as lost here, is also used in Mt 18:11, Jn 17:12 and 18:9. It is also translated as perish in John 3:15 and 10:28. The teaching here is eternal damnation (life) in hell versus eternal life in heaven. To be lost means to be unsaved which points us back to the Isaiah verse where God says He is the One who saves. How then can this God of the Bible hide salvation from me, even in the very words of the Bible?

I've chosen one verse in the book of Isaiah to try and explain to you how God can open your understanding to Scriptures or darken it and hide things from you, that verse is Isaiah 35:6. Here God tells us about something that can't possibly happen, but does. In verse 1, that a desert shall rejoice. In verse 2, it does so with singing. Right off the go we find a statement that can't be taken literally. The entire chapter is cryptic to us, especially if we've never read or studied the Bible before. But as I stated, the God who wrote the Bible can hide even the meaning behind the very words that you read. I put forth that Isaiah 35 is dealing with salvation coming to the unsaved not a literal desert springing forth with life.

Something that I noticed about verse 6 is how God refers to the lame man as being healed because of the waters and streams that now appear in the desert. What does the NT tells us about water springing forth? In John 4:14 Jesus says that the water He offers us gives us eternal life. Again in John 7:38, Jesus even tells us that as believers, even we can send forth the Gospel, the living water of life, to others.

By comparing scripture with scripture we can start to make some sense out of a passage that didn't seem to make any sense before. God is telling us that something happens to us once we are saved. He is using earthly terms and making analogies with them to salvation. These are called parables in the Bible. Jesus spoke of them many times and in Matthew 13:34, 35 we're told that this was done for a reason, to fulfill scripture. Again in Mk 4:34 Jesus tells us that He not only spoke in parables but He is the one who gives us the meaning to these parables. That is very interesting to know. Especially the part about Jesus only revealing the meaning to the saved.

In the Isaiah 35 passage; if we were to look at every word and sentence for meaning; we would find that God is really talking about salvation coming to the unsaved. He will come and save you, verse 4 states. Once this happens, the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame man leaps as a hart. Lets look closer at this lame man to test God, does He really speak in parables? Is there something hidden in the verse?

In the OT God lays down some rules for priests and states that a lame man could never perform any of the priestly duties. Look at Lev 21 where the LORD gives us these rules. When we get to vs' 18, 21 and 23 God makes it clear, "...a blind man, or a lame...No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire...he shall not go in unto the veil, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he has a blemish..."

But while God is dealing with His people as priests, He also tells us about the animals involved in that same priestly office. Turn to Deu 15:19-21 where the LORD also holds that a lame animal cannot be used. In Malachi 1:7, 8 and 12-14 God tells us of His displeasure with those who offer such sacrifices to Him, their purpose was to deceive but God is not deceived. He was not pleased with these offerings. A blemished animal is as unfit as a blemished man concerning the priestly function in the Old Testament.

In the NT however, Jesus is pleased with the lame. Read Mt 11:5, 15:30, 31, he healed them all and then they in turn glorified God. In Mt 21:14 Jesus even heals them in the temple. And they gave praise! And why not, God made them whole again. It's as if God is saying that while they are lame, they are a picture of sinners and when they become whole they now are presented to us as being saved. Once salvation comes to us we can then go into that temple, we are no longer lame. Then shall the lame man leap. When? When salvation comes and only when it comes. He was lame, now he is able to leap because his infirmity is removed. We see how being lame equals being unsaved, a sinner. Once healed/saved, he leaps for joy. What does it mean to leap?

The same word leap is used in Song of Solomon 2:8 where a bride is speaking of her beloved. There is joy here. There is no mistaking the meaning of the word, God means to signify great joy. And why not? If you were crippled all your life and one day found you could now walk, wouldn't you be overjoyed? That man who was lame can now walk, and he doesn't just walk, he leaps as a hart. But here we go again, God is painting a picture for us with an analogy between a man and an animal. But this time we can look at a verse God has placed in the Bible to clearly shows us what He is teaching us about the hart and a lame man.

Turn to Deu 14 where God is speaking to His people Israel. He calls them holy to Him, they are His chosen, His choice not man's. God then goes on to tell us about animals that are clean and unclean. (On your own sometime read this chapter, perhaps the LORD will give you some insights outside this study) In verses 4 and 5 we read that the hart is a clean animal. Isn't that interesting in light of Isaiah 35? The man who was unclean, blemished according to God and could not come into the temple of God, is made whole and can now leap - leap as a hart, a clean animal. God is saying He has changed the man from unclean to clean. (Salvation has come.)

Of course he now could go into the temple of God since he was no longer spiritually blemished. What does God say about us and heaven? Can we as sinners go into heaven? Mt 5:20 says no. Mt 18:3 says no. And in John 3:5 Jesus tells us that unless we become saved, that is, born again, we cannot enter into heaven. Did the lame man in Isaiah become a new creature? Was he reborn? God certainly says this is so by saying a hart (clean) replaced the lame man (unclean). A rather beautiful and clever way for God to show us that a change has occurred in this man. If you never read the Bible with wisdom, the wisdom God gives to see spiritual things, you'd never make the connection between the man and the hart. We become "new" in Christ, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor 5:17).

God says there is a change in us, not in our body, but in our spirit. In Eze 36:26 (Ps 51:10) God tells us we get a new heart once he saves us, He certainly is not talking about the physical one. He is showing us that the change is not something we readily understand but there is a change. It has nothing to do with man or an animal physically, but has everything to do with what God sees as He looks at us with His perfect spiritual eyes, he no longer sees a sinner, He now sees change, a new man is reborn from the old, the old self is put off and a new man, a man cleansed of his sins replaces the old. Salvation is not outward but inward. Is it any wonder that the world cannot understand salvation as the Christian does? The above parable will have no meaning to those who are worldly, it just a nice story with a happy ending.

Everything ties right into the salvation program that the Bible tells us about. It was there all along, God wrote it but did you see it? Truly God can hide things from us, just as verse 5 tells us, unless we become saved we are the blind mentioned here. By the way are the blind such because they can't see with their eyes or because their eyes are closed? Here it states that their eyes are now opened implying they couldn't see because they were closed. The same word "opened" is used in Genesis 3:5 where God is referring to spiritual sight. No, a blind person, literally blind, simply cannot see. Our closing our eye lids is a completely different matter. God shows us a different approach to this problem in Jeremiah 6:10 where He tells us that our ears are closed to His word. There is no circumcision for the ear. God explains this verse in John 8:43 and 47. If we stop our ears to God's word because we do not like it, we may as well be deaf. This ties right in again to Isaiah 35:5, it's God who unstops our spiritual ears, opens our spiritual eyes, makes us whole and allows us to understand His Word.

In just half of a sentence in verse 6, God hides and reveals the entire salvation program. The lame priest who could not go into the physical temple to offer a sacrifice for others (sinners) because he was a sinner too, can, once made spiritually whole, go in to the spiritual temple and have the hope that God will now save others through him as he now has ears to hear God's word and in turn, preach it to others, God using that to unstop their ears also. And this is just what God teaches us in the Bible. Remember that God calls all believers priests in 1 Pe 2:2-5 & 9. Mark 16:15, 16 confirms the thought, we are Christ's disciples on this earth. The OT priest was actually serving as a type or figure of what God really had in view, the believer. God was simply using the earthly/physical story to teach us about the heavenly/spiritual truth He had in view. We take up our cross everyday just as Christ did, we can now go into the spiritual temple before the Holy God and be used of Him to bring salvation to the deaf and sightless and lame all around us, because we can now hear and see and leap, as the hart.

Jer 6:10
Col 2:11
Deu 10:16
Eze 36:26

"Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ; ye blind, behold your Savior come; and leap, ye lame, for joy." - Charles Wesley, 1739.

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