The Many Meanings of Scripture

A Primer on Reading the Bible (2 of 2)

Recognizing that the entire Scriptural witness is about Jesus Christ, in whom God dwells in the world and elevates man to share in that presence, allows us to understand the various “senses” in which we read Scripture. The hymnography of the Church is filled with connections between Scriptural narratives and theology that seem, at first glance, unintuitive. What, for example, does a ladder to heaven have to do with the Virgin Mary? The different senses of scripture only make sense in light of Christ- Christ is the Personal Word of God, Scripture is the written word of God. It is a symbol or expression of Christ.

The entire world was created through the Eternal Word, who is incarnate in Jesus Christ. Because all things in creation were both made through Him and are sustained in their existence through, all things in creation will ultimately, at the culmination of history, find their perfect fulfillment in Him. And since we ourselves are created in His Image, the Divine Word is our model or standard of living. It is in relation to Him that we become truly ourselves.

Classically, medieval interpreters saw there being “four senses” of Scripture: a literal sense, an allegorical or symbolic sense, a moral sense, and an anagogical or eschatological sense. Let’s look at these four senses in turn, with respect to the story of Israel’s journey through the Red Sea.

In Exodus, we read that Israel was pursued by the army of Pharaoh, and the glory of God went both behind them and in front of them, protecting them from the Egyptians and leading them forward through the sea which God divided in two.

The literal sense of this story is its historical meaning. Around 1500 BC, the nation of Israel really stood on the borders of Egypt and experienced what is narrated in this story. The literal sense is the foundation for everything else, because Christ really does uphold the real, true world. It is because of this that the other senses are important. The allegorical sense of the story tells us the deeper meaning of the story, but because it really happened, it tells us the deeper meaning of the world itself.

The allegorical sense of the story tells us what this actually means. Israel passed through the Red Sea- behind them was Egypt, where they were enslaved. Their physical energy and life served a king who despised them and wanted them dead. But the presence of God surrounds them, taking them through water: and then brings them to a mountain where they eat in God’s presence. And then they are taken to a land of milk and honey, where they rejoice in serving God. The allegory works in two directions – when Abraham came into Canaan, he went down into Egypt, where Pharaoh seized his wife. God struck Pharaoh with plagues, so that Abraham left Egypt with great spoils and came into Canaan. The connection between the exodus and Abraham tells us that Abraham’s life comes to a fulfillment- its greater meaning- in the exodus. And then it looks forward to Jesus and our baptism in Christ. When we are baptized, we are surrounded by God’s presence. We are taken out of our old self, where our energy served the devil, who hated us and wanted us dead. And then we are led forward to eat and drink in God’s presence through the Eucharist. And then God gives us the entire world as our inheritance, where we rejoice in worship and bring joy to creation.

This isn’t just an arbitrary reading- it’s not a cutesy bit of metaphor. The text itself points to this symbolic meaning! For example, early in Exodus, we read that Moses “fled from Pharaoh.” In the same context, we read that Moses’ staff became a serpent from which Moses “fled.” The connections within the text tell us that Pharaoh is a manifestation and symbol of our true enemy, the devil, the old serpent.

Then there’s the moral meaning of the story. It gives us an example of how to relate to God in our baptism and at turning points in our Christian life. Pharaoh was closing in on Israel- and they suspected that God brought them out to “kill us in the wilderness.” This is the primordial lie- that God has bad intentions for us. It’s what the devil told the woman in the garden: God prohibited the fruit because He wants to keep His life all to Himself. And God enjoins the people to believe in the LORD. In our baptism, we have faith that God is joining us to Jesus and forgiving all our trespasses. Even when we don’t feel forgiven, we believe that He has thrown our sins into the sea, and so we follow Christ and are liberated from soul-consuming despair. Then we believe this when we go to Holy Communion. The story tells us that what we see and feel may not be the same as what is real- we know reality by God’s promise.

Then there’s the anagogical or eschatological meaning. This is what the story tells us about the ultimate fulfillment of everything, when Jesus appears in glory and transfigures the physical creation, raising us from the dead and giving the Church the world as an inheritance. Here, the story isn’t just about the liberation of people in the world. It’s about the liberation of the world itself. We see this in Romans 8. In Exodus, Israel becomes the “Son of God” when they come out of Egypt and are led by God’s Glory to the promised land. In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul describes the entire creation being freed from bondage to death to obtain the freedom of the glory of the Sons of God- that’s the Church! And he describes how God’s Spirit leads us in walking through the world into our final inheritance.

In the crossing of the Red Sea, Israel, by faith, followed God to the mountain filled with His presence. We find elsewhere in the Bible that mountains symbolize the entire world united with God. We also find that Pharaoh- representing the devil- and Pharaoh’s armies- representing all who follow the devil- are drowned in the Red Sea. Going to the bottom of the sea in Scripture represents going into the pit of death. So we read in Revelation 20 that at the Last Judgment, both the devil, his angels, and all who follow him will go forever into the second death.

So, to sum up:

The Bible is about how God created the world to live in it as a home, with us. It’s about how He fulfilled that purpose in Jesus Christ and the Church which is Christ’s Body. And the crown of our relationship with God occurs in the Divine Liturgy, where He personally comes down to us and we share a feast with Him. He dwells in us and we dwell in Him. The rest of our spiritual life runs downstream of the Liturgy.

Within this context, we are to read the Bible as a text with many meanings, but these meanings hold together. They exist in harmony with each other and make sense in view of Christ. So when we read the story of Israel’s departure from Egypt, we can derive at least four meanings:

First, in the fifteenth century BC, the people of Israel were liberated from slavery in Egypt by a stunning miracle where the sea was divided in two and Pharaoh was destroyed and Israel was saved.

Second, when we are baptized into Jesus Christ, we are freed from sin and live to God, by God’s power, being delivered from the bondage to the devil.

Third, when sin encroaches on our life, we are to trust God and not believe the temptation to despair, knowing that God loves us and wills our salvation, and will do all in His power to bring that about.

Fourth, at the climax of human history, Jesus Christ will liberate the whole cosmos from slavery to death and fill it with His glory, permanently driving satan and all who followed his will out of the world.