The Gift (and Danger!) of Metaphor: A Meditation for Easter

Bringing our best thinking to Bible study (see last week's post - Bringing Our Best Thinking to Bible Study, 04/15/19) includes recognizing and honoring the use of metaphor in speaking of spiritual things.

In our effort to speak of spiritual things, we have only one language to use: our human language. We use human concepts and images to speak of God and the things of God. We use our understanding of the physical realm to speak of the spiritual realm. In other words (pardon the pun), we use the things we know (the physical) to talk about things we only partially know (the spiritual). Even at our best, we struggle for language to communicate the mystery that is inherent to spiritual things.

That's where metaphor comes in. Metaphor is like a signpost, pointing beyond itself to something greater. Metaphor belongs to the domain of poetry, not science. It is not exact. It is not precise. It always leaves room for mystery. Metaphor says "it's kind of like this, only more, only better." All biblical language, because it is human language, is metaphor.

For example, the Hebrew people used the concept of covenant to speak of their relationship with God. Covenant was a part of their human experience. It defined how two parties would live in relationship with one another. The Hebrew people used the concept of covenant (the human) to speak of their relationship with God (the spiritual). Their covenant with God defined how God would relate to them and they to God. (BTW, they misunderstood the concept and missed God's greater truth, but that's a topic for a different blog.)

In the same way, the Apostle Paul used common, everyday words from his culture to communicate the spiritual realities of what God had done in Christ. Our great biblical words - justification, redemption, righteousness, adoption - were not, originally, religious terms. They were human concepts chosen to communicate spiritual reality. No one term was adequate to communicate the full spiritual reality, so Paul piled up the images - the metaphors.

Metaphor is a gift. When we recognize and honor metaphor, it helps us gain an understanding of spiritual things. But our understanding is partial, at best. There is always more to the spiritual reality than what we understand. So metaphor opens the door to understanding while, at the same time, inviting us beyond that understanding to explore "the more." What we understand through metaphor becomes the first step to understanding deeper spiritual realities.

But there is a downside to metaphor - a danger. The danger lies in reading the metaphor literally. When we read a metaphor literally, we substitute the human concept for the greater, spiritual reality to which it points ... and generally miss the greater reality! Rather than being a tool to help us understand the greater reality, the metaphor becomes a fact to believe. This kind of literal understanding is generally accompanied by being rigid in our thinking. (Which came first, the literal reading or the rigid thinking?) We believe these facts in a quest for certainty. We want to be right. (More on that desire in another blog.)

Reading the Bible literally (which is how most of us initially read it) has a number of devastating side effects.

• We focus on facts to believe - what is "biblical." 
• We lose the sense of mystery - "the more" that is inherent to the spiritual realm.
• Our quest for certainty puts God in a box. Our understanding of God becomes limited and small.  
• We generally create God in our image. We dress our human ways in religious garb.  
• Our faith shifts from "faith in God" to faith in what we believe or to what the Bible says. 
• We often and unknowingly become unteachable. Clinging to what we believe, we resist anything that does not fit with what we already believe. Our belief becomes the standard for judging "what is true."

In the last 200 years, a literal understanding of the metaphor of atonement has become the common way of understanding Jesus' death. This understanding asserts that, on the cross, Jesus died for our sins. That is, he took our place. He experienced the death we deserved. Because he died for us, we can be forgiven. We only need to believe.

This literal understanding of atonement reduces Jesus' death to a belief-based transaction with God. It is a deal God makes with us in exchange for our belief. If we believe in Jesus, inviting him in our hearts/lives, accepting him as our Savior, God will forgive us. The promise of "going to heaven when we die" is generally tagged on, to sweeten the deal. This understanding of Jesus' death was probably what was preached in most pulpits this Easter Sunday. It is a man-centered version of Christianity.

Atonement is a strong, biblical metaphor that comes from the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle. Like all metaphors, it communicates a truth. Atonement is about God's forgiveness. God forgives our sin. Our sin no longer separates us from God. Because we are forgiven, we are free to live in relationship with God without fear or guilt. We can approach God with confidence. (This truth is the heart of the book of Hebrews.)

The literal understanding of this metaphor gets the theme correct: forgiveness. But it falls short of "the more." It follows human thinking, projecting that thinking onto God: "Jesus had to die to get God to forgive us." It keeps us stuck in our old ways of thinking and living because the greater reality is missed. It keeps us focused on "what's in it for us," not on God.

The "more" that the atonement metaphor proclaims is about God. God forgives us because of who God is, not because of what we do. Forgiveness is God's gift, given freely, lavishly. It is the way God deals with our humanness, our weaknesses, our failures, our sin. The metaphor of atonement points us beyond forgiveness to change how we think about God and, thereby, how we relate to God.

Atonement is not about "getting off the hook" or "not getting what we deserve." It is so much more. It invites us to ground our lives in something beyond our normal human experience. It calls us to deal with our humanness the way God deals with it - with forgiveness. Forgiveness sets us free. It sets us free from guilt and shame, from pretense and denial. It sets us free to be honest and authentic, to learn and grow and change.

I like the way Richard Rohr expresses "the more" of the atonement metaphor: Jesus didn't die to change God's mind about us. Jesus died to change our minds about God.