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Symbols
& Metaphors Someone recently asked: << Josephus (37 – c. 100 AD) who
has written extensively about the history of the Jewish history, why didn’t
he mention Jesus Christ in any of his history books? >> My highly esteemed and dearly beloved
friends, In the eighteenth chapter of the
Gospel of Saint John, the trial of Jesus is described. The simple story in
its naive wording is one of the most sublime pieces of world literature and,
without intending it, grows into a tragic symbol of the antagonism between
what is human and what is divine. Pilate- -consistently-proceeded in a
democratic way by putting the decision of the case to a popular vote, He went
out to the Jews, relates the Gospel, and said to them: “I find in him no
fault at all. But you have a custom that I should release to you one at the
Passover. Do you wish that I set free to you this king of the Jews?” Then cried them all again, saying: “Not
this man, but Barabbas.” The Gospel
then adds: “Now Barabbas was a
robber.” The Roman governor, after washing his
hands from any responsibility, gave the Jewish people to choose what they
should do with Jesus. When he asked
the crowd, “… what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” They
shouted back, “Crucify him!” “Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime
has he committed?” But the mob roared even louder,
“Crucify him!” (Mathew 27:23) The blind man that received sight was
not there to defend Jesus. The deaf
that received hearing was not there.
The five thousand guests that Jesus fed, with five loaves of bread and
two fishes, were not there. Not even
the one that was dead and received life was there to defend Jesus. Nobody
defended him. If these miracles were literal, what was their purpose when
Jesus performed them? If a dead person
is resurrected, what is the use since he will die again? If a blind receives sight, what is the use
since he will be blind again, that is, after he dies he will be blind again
forever? If the purpose was to convert people
to follow Christ, well, it also has failed.
Where were the people upon whom miracles were performed, or the people
that witnessed these miracles, when Jesus was being crucified? Where were they? Moreover, we are told, it was some 300
years later “[w]hen the Roman Emperor,
Constantine the Great, embraced Christianity, the population of the
whole Roman Empire, including Egypt,
was by decree forced to renounce all other religions and adopt Christianity.”* Therefore, my beloved friends, these
miracles are symbols and metaphors and they should not be accepted
literally. The metaphor that the blind
receiving sight means, the spiritually blind receiving spiritual sight; and
the deaf receiving a spiritual hearing; and the spiritually dead resurrected
spiritually. The meaning of the five
thousand guests who were fed by Christ is that they were fed with the
spiritual Teaching of Christ.
Therefore, these expressions are symbols, metaphors, allegories, and
mystic explanations. However, since
the leaders of Christianity did not understand them, they simply took them
literally. If these miracles are metaphors, then
we can say Jesus was just a simple man.
The New Testament mentions that there were many scribes, teachers of
the law, and rabbis. But none of them
wrote anything about Jesus. Why would
Josephus or other writers write about Jesus when in the eye men, He was
considered to be as one, poor, lowly, and without many supporters? If all these miraculous events took place
literally, historians or other writers would have recorded it. However, despite the fact Jesus was
alone to die on the cross, since his Cause was the Cause of God, Christianity
spread everywhere until it has reached in every corner of the Earth. Furthermore, without a doubt, whether they
are believers or atheists, Christianity was the foundation of the entire
European civilization. The purpose of the coming of Jesus’ of
Nazareth is to teach love. When He
was brought before Pilate, He admitted that he was a king, he said: “It was
for this that I was born, and for this that I came to the world, to give
testimony for truth,” Whereupon Pilate asked, “What is truth?” The Roman procurator did not expect an
answer, and Jesus did not give an answer to this question; for it was not the
right place or the right time to give testimony for truth; but the essence of
his testimony at that time was His divine mission as the Messianic King. He
was born to give testimony for justice, the justice to be realized in the
Kingdom of God, and for “this justice he died on the cross. Thus, behind the question of Pilate, “What
is truth?” arises, out of the blood of Christ, another still more important
question, the eternal question: “What is justice?”. The kingdom of God is not children’s
game where one asks one miracle and the other another miracle. Jesus did not come to perform
miracles. It was for justice that
Jesus had to die on the cross. In the Psalm 118:22, it is written
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;”. Then, on
Matthew 21:43, Jesus, having quoted these strange words, adds: “Therefore the
Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation
bringing forth the fruits thereof.” The Latter means, progress and
civilization will be taken away from the Christian nation and given to
another nation. We can learn this pattern from the
history of religions. The prosperity, progress and civilization of Egypt sunk
into an ocean of ignorance after the Revelation of Moses –this is the meaning
of the symbolic story of the Pharaohs and his armies perishing into the Red
Sea. Had they listened to Moses and accepted monotheism instead of
polytheism, they would not have sunk into the ocean of ignorance. Therefore, the parting of the Red Sea,
and the sinking of the Pharaoh and the annihilation of his army in the high
seas of the Red Sea are all metaphors. Ancient Egyptians were well known for
documenting everything. Many archeologists and scholars have uncovered many
documents, idols and images; however, after meticulously examining them, they
could not find any evidence or proof of the existence of the Jews in Egypt,
let alone any of the miracles mentioned in the Bible. The story of Noah and His Ark is also
symbolic. That Ark is the Religion of God. The different animals that came
into the Ark were the people that were enemies with each other became united
under that Religion of God. Those who refused to enter the Ark simply perished
into the ocean of ignorance. Similarly, when Mohammad came with the
gift of Islam, the Europeans (as well as other Christian nations) rejected
Him. Consequently, they all sunk into
the ocean of ignorance while the nations under Islam progressed. That's the
meaning of the "…the Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and
shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”. It is also a historical fact that while the
Islamic Civilization prospered in the Middle East, the European and other
non-Islamic civilizations sunk into the Dark Ages. Perhaps,
the fast decline and fall of Islam with the coming of Bahaullah will be
remembered as the most astonishing historical record in the history of the
world. Archeologists
and scientists agree that the world has been in existence for millions of
years and human beings have lived on this earth for millions of years.
However, it is only during the past 170 years or so (i.e., ever since
Bahá'u'lláh has come) that this world has been transformed with the lightning
speed. The world has suddenly shrunk
into a neighborhood. Now, look
at the world around us. The nations
that opposed Bahaullah have been fast declining while those who welcomed Him
and His followers in their nation have been prospering. The Muslim
nations that betrayed Bahaullah and His message are fast withering and
dropping as dead leaves. What we are
witnessing is the sinking of the Islamic nations into the ocean of ignorance,
just as the Jews became exiles after the coming of Christ, Egyptians sunk
with the coming of Moses, and the Europeans sunk with the coming of Mohammad. Among the
biggest signs of the Day of the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth
prophesied by all three greatest Middle Eastern religions (Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam) are: 1. The
rolling up of the heavens. 2. The
darkening of the sun 3. The
darkening of the moon. 4. The
falling of the stars from heaven. 5. The
resurrection of the dead from their tombs. 6. The harmony
of vicious animals with grazing animals. 7. The
children will play with poisonous serpents. Since the
literal fulfillment of these prophecies would mean contradictory to nature
and science, the hermeneutics of these verses that leave open a different
interpretation seems more viable than their literal fulfillment. The Resurrection of the Dead Let's say
for example, there were some cannibals in some remote islands. Let's say,
those first Christian evangelist that went there to preach them the gospel of
Christ were all cannibalized. On the second attempt, the second group of
evangelist were able to convert the cannibals to accept Jesus. The
question is, who will be resurrected on the day of the resurrection --The
cannibals or the evangelists that were eaten by the cannibals? In fact,
not too long ago, BBC reported
that in the island of Erromango, the aborigines asked for forgiveness
from the descendants of the Christian missionaries whose ancestors were eaten
by their cannibal ancestors. Therefore,
the resurrection of the dead doesn’t mean the physical resurrection of the
dead body. There are compelling evidences in the Bible that support to the
spiritual meaning of the resurrection. Thus, whenever Jesus says
"dead", He only meant "spiritual death", not
"physical death". We read in
the gospel: "...another
of His disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my
father. But Jesus said unto him,
Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead." --(Matt. 8:21-2) This verse
does not mean physically dead people burying another dead man. It only means spiritually dead people bury
their physically and spiritually dead man.
Moreover, in John, we read the following words: "Whoso
eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him
up at the last day. For my
flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that
eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him. "
--(John 6:54-6) Now, is
Jesus talking physical blood and physical flesh or spiritual? This obviously
does not mean that the disciples were eating Jesus' flesh and drinking His
blood. St. Paul
has also written: "But
is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath
abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the
gospel" --( 2 Tim. 1:10) Even
though in this verse it says that Jesus "hath abolished death" with
the light of the gospel, all Christians have been dying ever since the
beginning of Christianity. Then
again, we read: “Jesus
said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will
live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never
die. Do you believe this?’” --(John 11:25). Furthermore,
while hanging on the cross, Jesus told to one of the thieves: "Today
you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43) How is
that possible to enter into Paradise before the Second Coming of Christ and
the Day of the Resurrection? All these
verses indicate that if we believe in Jesus, we will never die (spiritually).
Therefore,
the meaning of resurrection is the raising of spiritually dead people and
giving them a spiritual life. With these
explanations, the meaning of "The dead shall arise from their
tombs" is the spiritually dead people arising from their tombs of
heedlessness. The rolling up of the heavens,
darkening of the sun and the moon and the falling of the stars On Mathew 24,
as the signs of His return, Jesus had predicted that the rolling up of the
heavens, darkening of the sun and the moon and the falling of the stars. These
prophecies are symbolic. For example,
Jesus "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the
world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
light of life." -- (John 8:12;
see also John 12:46) From the
above verse, we can see that Jesus is a spiritual light and the truth.
Similarly, these prophecies about the sun, the moon and the stars should be
symbolic. Therefore,
when Jesus says the sun will be darkened, He is not speaking about turning
the physical sun into complete darkness. The sun shall be darkened is meant
the truth will disappear. Now that we
have over
40,000 Christian divisions each claiming to interpret the truth, this
prophecy has been fulfilled. If that
was to be fulfilled literally, i.e., if the sun was literally turned in to
darkness, there would not be any life left on this planet. Moreover,
after the sun goes down, it is the moon and the stars that give us the
natural light. So, after Jesus died, it was the priests and the preachers
that were giving us the spiritual light. Therefore, the meaning of 'the stars
shall fall from heaven' means the priests, that were heavenly and spiritual,
will fall and become earthly and physical. Since the moon does not have its
own light and since it only reflects the light from the sun, once the truth
disappears, it means, the preachers and the teachers shall not teach the
truth. When Jesus
says “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." (Jn 9:5),
obviously, He is not talking about the physical light. He is talking about the spiritual
light. Therefore, the darkening of the
sun means the darkening of His spiritual guidance. Out of these 40,000 sects and denominations
of Christianity, which one of them is teaching the Truth? Adding the
meaning of these metaphors together, the rolling up of the heavens also means
the rolling up of religions and their being cleft asunder into many
divisions. Otherwise, if we take the darkening of the moon literally, if the
stars fall on earth and if the sun stops giving light for even one second,
the entire solar system will disintegrate and there will not be earth anymore
–even if one star falls on this earth. Where will then be the kingdom of God
established? Shall the lion dwell with the lamb
in on abode? "The
wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the
kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little
child shall lead them." --(Isaiah 11:6) By their
nature since these animals cannot mingle and associate with each other in
kindness and love, therefore, this prophecy symbolizes unity and agreement of
races, nations, and peoples. It means the agreement of races, nations and
peoples who will come together in attitudes and intelligence, illumination
and spirituality. It means ferocious
and contending religions, hostile creeds and divergent beliefs will reconcile
and associate overcoming their former hatred and antagonisms. Having
explained these symbolic prophecies, we all can see now that science and
religion are not necessarily contradictory.
In fact, science and religion are like the two wings of one bird. They both are neither static nor
exclusive. Both are progressive and
universal. It is just the
misinterpretation of what the prophecies mean with our limited understanding
of them that they seem contradictory.
If religion is without science, it becomes superstition and if science
is without religion it becomes materialism. All these
conclusive proofs, unmistakable evidences and clear texts from the Holy Bible
are indicating that the hour has at last struck. This takes
us to the next topic: The
Day & The Hour Salutations! End
note: *'Abdu'llah Suhrawardy's Sayings of Muhammad,
Wisdom of the East Series, E. P. Dutton, M.Y., 1941; 17- 46). In 312, Constantine the Great was
proclaimed emperor by his troops at Eboracum (York) in 306. He embraced
Christianity after deciding that he owed victory in the battle of Milvian Bridge
to the Christian God. He had earlier served in the court of Diocletian,
though, at a time when Christians (rather than Christianity) were being
spread about the place! Salutations! Barnabas (Barnie) Yohannes "So powerful is the light of
unity that it can illuminate the whole earth." ~Baha'u'llah |