22. Thoughts Which Transcend All Speech

Thoughts Which Transcend All Speech

Chapter 21

God could speak to men without finite speech proving at times too poor and narrow for infinite thought. At times the words, drawn from human experience, will be found too circumscribed for divine uses, and resort will be had to figures of speech, seeming exaggeration, superlatives and double superlatives, and words piled on words, in a vain attempt to convey what is too vast for its vehicle. We must therefore learn to think of terrestrial tongues as inadequate to express celestial conceptions. A few forms may be cited, in which these things, hard to be uttered, or understood, appear in Scripture:

There are six definitions of God, Who is so complex that no one definition can suffice.

• Psalms 36:9—“With Thee, O God, is the fountain of Life”

• James 1:17—“The Father of Lights”

• 1 John 1:5—“God is Light”

• 1 John 4:8-16—“God is love”

• John 4—“God is a Spirit”

• Hebrews 12:9—“Father of Spirits”

Taking these passages together, He is Life, Light and Love—all in one—somewhat as the sun sends forth life in the blue ray, light in the yellow, heat in the red, but all united in the one sunbeam of glory. He is essentially a spirit, invisible and disembodied, and the Father of all spiritual Being.

Some words are untranslatable and we have to resort to transliteration, which is transferring the word as nearly as possible into another tongue, letter for letter, as for instance, “Abba,” “Jehovah,” “Hallelujah,” “Selah,” etc.Sabbatismos is one of these untranslatable words. It occurs but once (Hebrews 4:9), and is translated “rest,” and usually taken to mean an eternal rest, or Sabbath keeping with God, which is no doubt its highest sense. But, as used in this connection, it has a specific meaning. It occurs in the midst of an argument proving a present rest, not in heaven, but on earth, into which God would have all believers enter now by faith and of which Canaan, the earthly inheritance of His people, was a type and forecast. Into this rest believers enter by ceasing from their own works as God did from His.

Probably to render this word Sabbatism would be a great advance, transliterating instead of translating. There was among the Hebrews a most elaborate Sabbatic system, as may be seen by comparing Genesis 2, Numbers 25, Deuteronomy 15, Daniel 9, Revelation 20, etc.

It was built up in a sevenfold structure, which is embodied in the very framework of the Old Testament. There was first a seventh day of rest, then a rest of the seventh week, month, year, seven-times-seventh year, seventy-times-seventh, or four hundred and ninetieth year; and a dim forecast of a final Sabbatic thousand years—the Millennium. The “Sabbatism,” here for the first and only time mentioned and represented by one word, probably included all these and what they separately and together signify and typify. Each seems to stand for some form of rest, from labor, care, selfish and sordid dispositions, exacting and vindictive tempers, and works of legalism, and together constitute the Sabbatism of God, the rest of subdued sin, banished anxiety, reconciled relations, peace with Him and fellowship with man, justification, sanctification, service, self-oblivious love; and in a word, the days of Heaven on earth.

Compound verbs, of uncommon force, are used to express the believer’s identity with his Lord. The plain design is to represent all His leading human experiences as involving the disciple in a joint relation and kindred experience. To convey this most vividly, some twenty-five different compounds are selected, most of which have no equivalents in single English words, so that we lose the close identity so expressed by these compounds. For instance, there are eight words that convey the fact of this identity—translated, “Crucified with Him,” “Die with Him,” “Buried with Him,” “Planted together,” “Raised up together,” “Sit together,” “Reign with Him,” “Glorified together,” etc. (Galatians 2:20; 2 Timothy 2:11-12; Romans 6:4-5; Ephesians 2:6; Romans 8:17).

There are other words referring to common intercourse, translated, “come together,” “gather together,” “assemble together,” “sit together,” “talk together”, etc., and yet others referring to results of such identity, such as “live with Him,” “suffer with Him,” “work together,” etc.

These are all compound words and not phrases in the original; and for only four or five are there any English equivalents. We can say “co-work,” “convene,” “consult,” “co-heirs,” etc., but not “co-die,” “co-rise,” “co-reign.” In some cases superlatives are used, and even piled up like mountain upon mountain, in a vain attempt to express the inexpressible. This is one of the most fascinating departments of Bible study.

Paul’s writings especially abound in these superlatives, and most of all, the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, where are to be found the mountain peaks of the New Testament. It is here that we meet such expressions as “the exceeding greatness of His power;” “the working of the strength of His might;” “far above all rule, and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come; the exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us;” “the unsearchable riches of Christ;” “the manifold wisdom of God;” “to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God;” “able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think,” etc.

It is very plain that the writer finds his theme too transcendently great to be crowded into the narrow compass of human words, and vainly seeks to stretch the meaning so as to make it more comprehensive by joining word to word, each of itself a superlative.

Man’s superlatives are sometimes signs of weakness, carelessness, excitement. But God’s superlatives, instead of going beyond, fall short of truth. They show both the poverty of earthly speech and the riches of heavenly thought, hinting an overflowing fullness of conception which no chalice of language can contain. We give some biblical examples of superlatives: The verb, hyperballo and the noun, hyperbole, as applied to divine things and matters pertaining to redemption, are not easily translated. They really convey the idea of throwing or shooting beyond a given mark or limit, and hence the notion of surpassing excellence, a sort of excess; not exaggeration, like the English word, hyperbole, but rather something that passes the limit of language, defying description.

There are in all thirteen cases of the use of this verb or noun.

Classifying these cases, we have the following significant result:

1. God’s view of sin: It passes all description for its guilt, enormity, and deformity. And so does the enlightened soul see sin—as Paul saw his persecuting violence.

2. God’s view of His own attributes and perfections: (1) His power, as exercised toward us; (2) His love in Christ; (3) His grace—and its riches; (4) His glory, the sum of all the rest.

3. God’s view of man’s highest excellence and ecstasy: (1) Love as the highest of graces; (2) Knowledge of Himself as the highest of Revelations; (3) Glory of His likeness as the highest result of affliction.

Again, the Climaxes in Scripture suggest what defies description, leading from level to level of thought and revelation of truth, as, in ascending a mountain, the successive points of prospect command wider horizons and larger landscapes, one view preparing for another, and greater, till all the possibilities of present prospect are exhausted. When King Amaziah remonstrated against the loss of money involved in a change of plan, the man of God replied: “The Lord is able to give thee much more than this” (2 Chronicles 25:9). In Romans 5:6-21 this phrase “much more” occurs five times and unlocks the whole passage (Romans 5:9-10; Romans 5:15; Romans 5:17; Romans 5:20), outlining what Christ does beside dying for us.

1. Justified by His blood—much more kept safe from wrath through Him.

2. Reconciled by His Death; much more kept safe in His Life.

3. Dead by offence of one. Much more receiving gift of righteousness by One.

4. Under the reign of Death. Much more made to reign in life.

5. Sin abounded in Ruin. Much more Grace abounded in Righteousness.

Here is a steady advance. We are saved from condemnation and kept safe; reconciled after alienation and kept reconciled; we died in consequence of Adam’s sin, but are made alive in Christ, as the Second Adam or racial Head. Once, under the reign of sin and death, are made to reign over both; and all this is a triumph of grace thro’ Righteousness, not a tame compromising laxity on the part of God; a forgiveness, purchased by atonement, and not at the expense of righteousness. In Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul labors under a weight of conception that no powers of expression can sustain, praying that Ephesians may be able to comprehend dimensions which are infinite and take in a measureless immensity and an endless eternity; to know a love that “passeth knowledge,” all it is possible to know of which is that it is an unfathomable depth. God, he adds, is able to do what we ask, what we think, all that we ask or think, above all, abundantly above all, exceeding abundantly above all, that we ask or think, “unto all the generations of the age of the ages.”

Paul especially deals with these transcendent topics, probably because his rapture into the third heaven unveiled to him these unutterable wonders (2 Corinthians 12).