15. Scriptural Precision and Discrimination
Scriptural Precision and Discrimination
Chapter 14 The Spirit of God uses language with divine discrimination, not only when erecting bold landmarks and limitations, but in drawing lesser lines of demarcation and distinction. Matters which seem minute may not safely be overlooked or disregarded, for minor particulars often help to define and explain major statements. Only by tracing these lesser features, both of thought and language, do we avoid confusing things that differ, or missing delicate shades of meaning which evince the work of a divine artist. The law of critical thoroughness should govern all biblical study. Nothing should be deemed unimportant in the sacred narrative. To know the parties in a transaction, the place, time and circumstances, the causes and consequences of an occurrence—all are needful. “The historical what, its chronological when, and its geographical where, make history, chronology and geography substantiate the truth of a statement” (Rev. G.L. Wilson).
Dr. Howard Osgood, a most thorough student, who searches the scriptures with microscopic eyes, in the following summary gives an example of minute investigation:
Exclusive of proper names, the Hebrew Old Testament contains 6,413 different words; of these 1,798 are used but once; 724, twice; 448, thrice; 3,443, more than thrice. In the New Testament, Greek, there are 4,867 different words; of these, 1,654, used but once; 654, twice; 383 thrice; 2,176, more than thrice. Thus the Bible contains in its vocabulary only 11,280 different words. Isaiah uses altogether but 2,186 of which 1,924 are common, and only 262 unique—so brief is the scripture vocabulary, and so simple its dialect.
Mr. Newberry reckons the names of God as found in the Old Testament, taken together, 10,900 times; Adhonai, 290; El, and Elohim, 2,833; Jehovah, 7,000, etc.
What an extraordinary book that must be that makes even such masters in literature feel compensated for such painstaking precision in examining into details! It is superficial acquaintance with the Holy Scripture that makes erroneous interpretations so easy and perilous.
It is the aggregation of the littles that makes the whole. “Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle,” as said a great artist. As a great door swings on small hinges, a single adverb or preposition, article or even particle, may help to give definition or direction to a thought of God, or, like a delicate stroke of a pencil, assist in the delineation of a portrait. We are not competent to judge what is of little importance in the inspired Word of God, and nothing should be so deemed in such a study; we should mark minutely the force of particular words or phrases, believing that the Spirit of God selects words with full understanding of their meaning and chooses unerringly and with a reason. Those expressions should be specially noted which He uses to convey great leading thoughts and so lifts to a high level of importance.
Critical thoroughness is the only worthy way of studying the Word of God. The exact language of Scripture often proves a comment, if not a commentary, on the truth taught; indeed divine discrimination is the more needful because of the fixed ideas and associations connected with human speech, that men may not be misled into transferring to divine things the imperfection and infirmity inseparable from the human.
Some examples of scriptural precision may help to exhibit this exactness and illustrate its moral uses. For instance, our Lord never addressed disciples as “brethren”—adelphoi—until after He had risen from the dead, who was Himself “the first born from the dead,” “the first fruits of them that slept.” Not till then were believers made “sons” and “heirs of God through Christ,” and so prepared to claim full privileges of such sonship. Hence also the marked change of language from “children” to “sons,” as in Galatians 4:5-7. In Psalms 22:22—which Psalm He appropriates to Himself—after He had been delivered from His sufferings, He claims the “great congregation”—the “many sons” of Hebrews 2:10 as His “brethren;” and, on that first Easter morning, for the first time, He says, “Go tell My brethren”—“go to My brethren, and say unto them, ‘I ascend unto My Father and your Father’” (Matthew 28:10; John 20:17). In 1 Corinthians 9:21, Paul describes himself as “not being without law to God, but under the law to Christ.” Here the original words are anomos and ennomos—a delicate and designed contrast—literally, “not an outlaw but an in-law.” The two words convey the contrasted ideas of being outside of all legal restraints on the one hand, and voluntarily within them on the other.
Discrimination in terms is often very significant and important.
Lazarus, “the beggar, died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.”
“The rich man also died and was buried” (Luke 16:22). No “burial” for the beggar, but a stately burial for the rich man—the pauper’s body hustled into a hole without ceremony; the rich man’s corpse attended to its costly sepulcher, by a funeral cortege and worldly display. But, beyond the earthly—what a contrast again—a convoy of angels for the beggar—but what of the other! Had our Lord no intention to suggest all the contrasts here so singularly exhibited? The word in John 20:7, “Wrapped together,” fails to convey the true significance. The original means rolled up, and suggests that these cloths were lying there in their original convolutions, as they had been tightly rolled up around our Lord’s dead body. In John 19:40, it is recorded how they tightly wound—bound about—that body in the linen cloths—how tightly and rigidly may be inferred from the necessity of loosing Lazarus, even after miraculous power had raised up the dead body and given it life (John 11:44). This explains John 20:8, “And he, John, saw and believed.” There was nothing in the mere fact of an empty tomb to compel belief in a miraculous resurrection; but, when John saw, on the floor of the sepulcher, the long linen wrappings that had been so tightly wound about the body and the head, lying there undisturbed, in those original convolutions, he knew nothing but a miracle could have made it possible. Is there not an important moral and spiritual lesson here? Is not the believer to see here a type of his own deliverance in Christ, from the previous habits of sin which have so tightly wrapped their restraints about him that he is powerless to walk with God? They are to be regarded and treated as cerements of the sepulcher, what pertains to the old man, and left behind in the place of death—put off by divine power that the new man may put on the new garments of a resurrection life.
Delicate shades of meaning, often disclosed only by careful study, in many cases convey salutary suggestions in holy living. In James 1:6, a wavering disciple is likened to “the surge of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed.” The sea, when agitated by the wind has two marked motions: one, to and fro, which is called “fluctuation;” and another, up and down, which is called “undulation.” To both of these the writer refers. A sea wave cannot stay anywhere—if it is propelled forward, it recedes backward; if lifted upward, it sinks downward. And so a half-believing soul; whatever onward or upward impulse he gets he cannot retain. He relapses and returns to his former position and condition. He has no staying qualities. And it is the surge of the sea that is here referred to, the most frothy, the least substantial and stable, of anything about a wave. It is light, swept hither and thither by the wind, and forms and disappears again rapidly. What a simile to represent inconsistency and inconstancy in a praying soul, that can neither hold fast God’s promise and faithfulness, nor maintain any advanced position of faith when once it is secured?
Words that seem unimportant, and even particles that appear insignificant, have their place and use. It is another disadvantage of not being familiar with the original that the force of many of these “jots and tittles” is not easily transferred to another tongue. For instance, in Php 3:8, five small particles occur in succession—“but, indeed, therefore, even also do I.” How hard to convey the significance of all these little words! Especially emphatic are two, “en de,” in Php 3:13, translated “but this one thing I do;” what Paul says is, “but one.” The very brevity of the phrase leaves no more room for the imagination to invest it with meaning: it suggests not only what he does, but what he desires, aims at, sets before him, as the all engrossing object and goal. In Mark 13:14-32, two words continually recur (tauta and ekeinos), translated, “these,” “those,” “that.” They indicate, however, two classes of events, one nearer at hand, the other more remote, the former preparing for the latter. When we read how: “The Lord commended the unjust steward because he done sagaciously” (Luke 16:8)—it is not the Lord Jesus, but the lord of the steward—his master, that is meant. “Shall He find the faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). The definite article here must indicate definite faith—some think, the faith in a prayer-hearing God; others, the faith in a divine avenger and retribution; others, the faith in the Second Advent. To make the faith specific and definite, not general, vague and indefinite, gives point to the parable.
Some scholarly student might do great service by a treatise on the use and force of such words as “wherefore” and “therefore,” especially in Paul’s epistles. They are the connecting links in argument; one connects it with something already stated or demonstrated; the other with what is to follow. The “Wherefore” in Hebrews 12:1 links the lesson on affliction with the whole preceding history of triumphant faith: and in Romans 12:1, the “Therefore” sums up the whole argument of the eleven chapters that go before.
“The preposition, ‘en,’ is applied to the Holy Spirit when it is about the disciples that the statement is made; but ‘dia,’ when it is about Christ.”
Individual words bear very close study. For example, in Hebrews 4:2, the word rendered “mixed,” refers primarily to the process whereby, in the animal system, food taken into the body for nutritive purposes, is mixed with those secretions intended by nature for assimilation and appropriation to bodily wants, which is a threefold process: 1. Mastication, whereby food is mixed with saliva; 2. Digestion proper, whereby in the stomach it is mixed with bile and transformed into chyle; and 3, Absorption, whereby in its passage through the alimentary canals, it is taken up by the lacteal vessels and actually mixed with the blood, becoming a part of the body, displacing waste tissue by new material.
Upon this threefold process everything depends, strength and health, vigor and even vitality. And, in fact, if the aliment be not so mixed with ptyalin, bile, pancreatic juice, etc., it is harmful instead of profitable, a source of disease and death. How striking the lesson as to the need of mixing the word heard with meditation and prayer and holy examination of self, that it may be incorporated into practice, and affect our whole habit and frame of mind and heart and conscience and will, and reappear in our speech, conduct, frame of spirit, and whole life, becoming an integral part of ourselves! (comp. Psalms).
Another example of the need of observing the exact language of the inspired Word is found in the threefold parable of Luke 15. Usually even commentators fall into the error of reckoning here three parables, instead of one in three parts. But the record is explicit: “He spake this parable unto them” (Luke 15:3). The whole chapter is one parable: subject, “The Lost, found.” There are three divisions, closely interrelated; the lost sheep, found by the shepherd; the lost silver-piece, found by the woman; the lost son, found by the father. The point of unity is thus easily seen. But why the parable is threefold will appear on further examination. In the finding of the lost there are two great aspects: first, the divine side, and second the human. The first and second parts show God seeking man, man being passive. The sheep is found and carried back by the shepherd; the silver-piece is found and replaced on the woman’s necklace. Did the parable end here, man might infer that he had nothing to do but wait for God to seek and find him. Hence a third part of the threefold parable in which man’s part in his recovery is seen. It is now God who is comparatively passive and man who is active—he who wanders from God, finds himself and goes back to the father. It is only as both sides are seen that the whole truth is apprehended.
Possibly there is another reason for this threefold arrangement: the shepherd seeking the lost sheep may represent the Son of man seeking the lost sheep of the House of Israel; the woman, seeking her silver, the Spirit, in the church, recovering backslidden members; and the Father and son may represent the wider relation of God the Father to his universal human family. The exact order of words often contains in itself a valuable lesson.
It may seem unimportant whether we read 1 Thessalonians 5:23—“Your whole spirit, soul and body,” or body, soul and spirit. But there is a reason—there may be many—for the inspired order. Not only is the spirit the highest part in man’s complex being, but it is here that the God of Peace begins when He would sanctify us wholly. He illumines man’s spiritual being with His Light of Truth, quickens it into new energy and vitality by His Eternal Life, and renews it by His Love. Then through the transformed spirit, He reaches the soul with its emotions, desires and propensities; and through that, reaches downward and outward to the body with its appetites and lusts. Man’s mistaken method is too often the reverse. He begins with the body, and hopes by improving the physical conditions and material surroundings to prepare the way for mental improvement and culture and so finally uplift and enlarge the spiritual being. God’s way is to begin with the highest and work toward the lowest. A Hebrew scholar, a Jewish Rabbi, has said that curiously enough, the names of the ten representative patriarchs of the first ten generations suggest a sort of redemptive sentence, scarce any word needing to be supplied to complete the sense, thus:
“Adam—‘Red Earth,’ Seth—‘Hath appointed,’ Enosh—(unto) ‘mortal man,’ Canaan—‘Wailing-for-the-Dead,’ Mahalaleel—‘Why Praise God’? Jared—‘He shall descend,’ Enoch—A ‘mortal man,’ Methusaleh—‘Dismissing Death,’ Lamech—(bringing to) ‘the Weary,’ Noah—‘Rest.’ Another similar sentence is suggested by the root significance of these words: “Man, placed in a fallen condition, the Ransomer, Light of God, descended, teaching his death brings the stricken, rest.”
Here both the meaning of individual words and their order are essential to make this continuous redemptive sentence.