09. Numerical and Mathematical Features

Numerical and Mathematical Features

Chapter 8

Structure reveals itself even in minor matters, for it demands in all parts orderly arrangement and succession. The more perfect the building the more does one law and plan pervade it and control every detail. Accordingly the Author of Holy Scripture has left upon all its parts the impress of His own mind. It is one part of the office of Truth to insure not only verity, but accuracy and order, so that nothing shall be out of place or out of relationship to the whole plan, but help to carry out the main design.

There is unquestionable evidence of a numerical proportion and symmetry in this marvelous book.

Numbers and mathematical proportion mark it as a whole, and appear in its individual parts, with such frequency and in such definite relations and conditions as to evince a mathematical mind. Often this numerical structure is hidden, but like the fixed proportions of an Ionic column, are disclosed after patient examination. There is a crystalline symmetry and beauty, at first unsuspected, which reminds, when unveiled, of the walls of the celestial city.

It need not surprise us to find such numerical law pervading Scripture. In the works of God it is manifest; why not in His Word? A mathematical mind is manifest in the universe, in the planetary and stellar worlds, their distances and dimensions, densities, proportions, orbits and periods of revolution. In the most minute as in the most majestic objects in nature the same laws govern. In the mineral realm, crystallization shows its squares, triangles, circles and polygons—cubes, cylinders and pyramids or cones, all with exact angles and perfection of proportion. The million snowflakes have a million exquisite forms each, under the microscope, revealing indescribable complexity and beauty. In the vegetable realm, we find fixed numbers of stamens and pistils, regular proportions in leaf structure and blossom, and a strange recurrence of Numbers , 1, 2, 3, 5, etc., in the arrangement of leaf buds in spirals round the stems. In the animal realm, what superb variety of symmetry in the shells of the mollusca, the forms of radiata and vertebrata, the number of bones, and the relation of all the parts.

Mathematics, like morals, belong to the eternal, unchangeable order, not to the temporal and transient, and therefore to the Eternal, Immutable God. We might expect to trace the same mathematical mind in the Author of the Word, as in the Creator of worlds. And such is the fact. The numerical system of nature is repeated in Scripture, and to a surprising degree; so that, if the two are placed, side by side, and compared, it will be seen that not only do mathematical laws govern both, but there is a strange correspondence in the numbers and forms which prevail in both realms, and in their significance in both.

Even a superficial glance shows, in the structure of the Bible as a whole, a singular mathematical symmetry. Five books of history—the Pentateuch—succeeded by twelve of minor history—Joshua to Esther; then five poetic books, five of major prophecy, and then twelve minor prophecies. Again, in the New Testament, five historic books—another Pentateuch—then three times seven Epistles, and one crowning, domelike, apocalypse to complete the whole. This recurrence of five and twelve, three sevens, etc., can neither be accidental, nor, on the part of human writers, intentional. Not one contributor to the contents of this complex book ever saw it in its completeness, even John who wrote twenty-five years after the rest had all completed their work. The so-called “canon” of Scripture was not compiled and completed till all the writers were dead. Hence no one who thus wrought in the work had any conception how the finished revelation of God would appear when the capstone was laid. While the workmen were doing, each his part, the building was like some great temple, hidden by its own scaffolding. Yet, when the scaffolding was removed, a certain definite symmetry and proportion were revealed which could not have been suspected in the course of construction.

If this fact and feature are repeatedly and emphatically referred to in these studies, it is partly because of their conspicuousness in the construction of the Bible and partly because of their convincing tribute to its divine origin. In a day when there is a combined assault upon the supernatural element in the Word of God, it is of first importance to recognize its unique claims to supreme authority. There are two ways of destroying this authority: first, by letting it down to a common level, and, second, by lifting other books to its level: in both cases it ceases to be superior or supreme. Every mark of the uniqueness and solitariness of the Holy Scriptures should be noted and emphasized; and this is one: that they contain a system of mathematical number and order which cannot be due to any intention on the part of any human writer, or to an agreement between them all; and hence must be attributable to a divine design.

If we examine more closely we discover certain prominent numbers, such as three, five, seven, twelve, constantly reappearing in the structure of individual books, as in the five sacrifices or offerings in Leviticus, in the “Pentateuch,” of Psalms, etc., the Epistles to the seven churches, both by Paul and John, etc. The correspondence reaches to matters even more minute. In nature, seven is divided into four and three, as in the octave of sounds, where the half notes as on the piano keyboard separate the keys into two groups, or, in the octave of colors, with its three primary and four secondary. Twelve, both in nature and Scripture, represents the multiple of three and four, as in the pyramid with its four sides and three dimensions, length, breadth, height, etc.

All this shows that the God of the Worlds is the God of the Word, and that He works by fixed laws and methods, and nothing is accidental or imperfect, or insignificant.[1] We do well to search for concealed proportion, not expressed by any enumeration, but embedded in the structure, as when we find seven pregnant sentences spoken by our Lord on the cross, seven statements about Christ’s relation to the church in Ephesians 5:25; Ephesians 5:32, etc., seven features of church unity in Ephesians 5:4-6, seven marks of final perfection, Revelation 22:3-5.

[1]These matters are followed more in detail in the Author’s Exeter Hall Lectures—God’s Living Oracles and The Bible and Spiritual Criticism. The Book of Daniel is happily so divided as to indicate its contents: twelve chapters, the first six recording as many tests in which the worldly wisdom and policy of Babylon and its magi are seen in competition with the superior wisdom and principles of the captives of Judea: and the loyalty of the holy children enters into successive conflicts with idolatry, and God’s servants are in each case more than conquerors; then six more chapters, recording as many visions of God and the future which constitute this book the Old Testament apocalypse. The structure of the Book of Esther shows peculiar symmetry. It towers far above the other historical narratives of the Old Testament, its composition being nearly perfect, as Prof. Schultz has remarked. The history develops scene after scene in swift succession and advancing toward the climax in a series of acts which have a fascinating interest, and reminds us of a well-planned drama and masterly novel, both in one. The first chapter is an introduction, the last a supplement. Between lie eight chapters, four of which show how the knot was tied, another plot formed; the other four, how the knot was untied and the plot defeated and reversed, or to adopt a phrase from the book, “turned to the contrary.” Two of these eight chapters regularly belong together in the first part because of the relation of plot to counterplot; in the second part, because they refer to the removal of an identical difficulty. The Pentateuch of Psalms, already referred to, is seen not only in the five books in which the whole hundred and fifty are arranged, but in the close correspondence with the Mosaic Pentateuch:

The resemblances are not fanciful; the studious and devout Hebrews long ago found in Psalms 1, the reference to the Tree of Life in Eden; in Psalms 42, to the oppression of their fathers in Egypt; in Psalms 73. the despair of the alien and the privilege of drawing near to Jehovah; in Psalms 90, the disastrous story of the wilderness wandering and a generation’s graves; and in Psalms 107, the approach to the Promised Land. The fivefold structure in the great forecast of Messiah in the very heart of Isaiah’s prophecy is very striking, though not at first apparent (Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12).

Of numerical structure, many students, like F.W. Grant, in his Numerical Bible, find numbers so embedded in the very structure of the Word of God that they believe it to be one method of stamping divine design upon the Scriptures; and close investigation shows amazing numerical symmetry where a careless reader would never suspect it, as in Exodus 14:19-21, in each of the three verses in the Hebrew there are seventy-two letters. This seems a trifling thing, but these verses form the heart of the narrative. An English writer reckons in case of Elijah, eight miracles, and in Elisha’s ministry, a “double portion,” sixteen; and he thinks Paul, as a “chosen vessel” corresponds to Elisha, and was permitted to work exactly double the number of recorded miracles of our Lord, or of those mentioned as directly blest by his ministry. This writer curiously reckons the latter to be 153—the number of fishes particularized as enclosed in the miraculous draught recorded in John 21:11; and he finds Paul’s recorded instances 306—just double.[11] [11]A Double Portion, by Lieut. Col. F. Roberts

Whatever may be thought of the exactness of these calculations, this whole matters of numbers as bearing on the structure of Scripture may yet become one of the most conspicuous proofs of a divine mind. To attribute all this to a deliberate intention of the human writers taxes credulity. This numerical law lies so embedded in the very construction of the Word of God that it is only now beginning, after all these centuries, to be discovered by the most minute search. A striking instance of numerical structure is found in Php 2:5-11, where the contrast is so vivid between the humiliation and exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the words be counted from the sixth verse to the end of the eleventh, there are about one hundred and twenty in the English, divided into two almost exactly equal parts, the first half describing His descension, and the second, His ascension, as though to hint that the one must be measured by the other somewhat as the height of one of the Alpine mountains we are told, is exactly correspondent to the depth of the lake at its foot. When we know how far our Lord went up, we may know how far He came down. In the Greek the numerical proportion is even more striking. If the introductory phrase “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”—be placed by itself, with the companion phrase, “wherefore God also,” which introduces the second half—there remains seventy-two words—half of which refer to the descent and the other half to the ascent.

Some correspondences are very unique and striking. Not only are there five historical books which begin both the Old and New Testaments, but there were twelve tribes beside Levi in Canaan, and twelve apostles beside Paul in Judea; there were three disciples to whom our Lord was manifested on the Mount of Transfiguration, James, John and Peter; and three to whom He appeared after His ascension—Stephen the martyr, Saul the persecutor, and John the revelator. But mathematics is also the science of proportion, and deals with forms like the triangle and pyramid, the square and cube, the circle and sphere. In the Tabernacle, the square and cube are prominent. It was a threefold cube thirty cubits long, ten broad and ten high, the Holiest of all being a perfect cube. The Laver seems to have been circular, and the golden lampstand suggested the inverted triangle. These proportions reappear in the Temple of Solomon and City of God in Revelation 21-22.

There are many who think that the ideal structures, referred to in Scripture metaphors, are pyramidal. For example, the spiritual Temple so sublimely outlined by Paul and Peter (Ephesians 2; 1 Peter 2) of which Christ is both cornerstone and capstone—“Headstone of the corner”—(Psalms 118:22; Zechariah 4:7). Zechariah particularly seems to have in mind a stone which when laid, completes the structure; and it is a beautiful conception that this Holy Temple is one which both commences in our Lord as cornerstone and culminates in Him as capstone: for in a pyramid there can be but one crowning stone, itself a perfect pyramid and an image of the whole; and by the lines and angles of the two—the corner and capstones, all the other lines and angles must be controlled.