The Literal and Spiritual Meaning of Language.
By Editor
IT has become quite common in these days to say that the language of Scripture has two meanings, or a double meaning, a literal and a spiritual. So common has it become that the statement is put forth with the utmost confidence, as if the saying were an axiom—so evident as to require no proof. But it is more nearly a self-evident absurdity than a self-evident truth. Language is used literally and figuratively, but it cannot therefore be said that language has a literal and figurative meaning. The figurative use must conform to the literal signification, otherwise we could no more judge of the correctness of the figure than if the terms used had no meaning. We have lexicons to define terms, and a word may have several meanings, yet any one is as literal as any of the others; that is, it has only literal meanings. No man would ever attempt to convey the idea of a figure which was the opposite of the idea conveyed by the literal meaning of the words employed. Or should it be attempted it could not succeed; and we could only catch his idea by a change of the language. Figures must be expressed by terms that are understood. What, then, shall we say of the spiritual meaning of words? It is either identical with the literal meaning, or it is not. If it is identical with the literal meaning, there is then no such distinction in reality. But if it is not identical with the literal meaning, how is it to be determined? There could be but one way to determine it; we should have a spiritual dictionary to give us the true spiritual definitions, otherwise we should be under the necessity of guessing at the meaning, which is rather a poor method to settle disputes about language! But who ever heard a person claim a spiritual meaning for language that had anything but guess-work in his effort? Were any two persons ever known to agree in regard to the spiritual meaning of terms? If such a distinction exists, would it not be well to establish a spiritual school and employ a professor of spiritual language to give instruction, so that somebody may become qualified to read the Bible understandingly? From some observation on this subject we think the following may be adopted as the first and chief rule of spiritual grammar. The spiritual meaning of words is the opposite of the literal. This may not be of universal application, but is doubtless more nearly universal than any other. The next in importance will be the following: The spiritual meaning must always be taken in preference to the literal. The conclusion from the above is easily arrived at, but, in the absence of a lexicon, grammar, or any other spiritual standard literature, the following will probably be the wisest and safest course to pursue to arrive at the spiritual meaning of language, to wit, when you read the Bible believe it means anything except what it says! Now we do not pretend to have settled this question very definitely (and who can?); but where we have erred, we are ready to be corrected. Will some one of that faith be so kind as to point out the errors in the above rules, or give us better ones? As there are many who set up that claim, and some of them are eminent men, no doubt, correct and definite information may be obtained on this subject.