Spiritualizing by W. Laing

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1875

Spiritualizing.

By W. Laing

THE proper use of language is the communication to others of what we feel, think, or purpose; the words we speak are the symbols of what we think or feel; and, in order that the means may accomplish the end contemplated, it is indispensably necessary that there be a common understanding between speaker and hearer, or writer and reader, as the case may be, regarding the import of the terms employed. In conversation, any defect in this matter can be remedied by explanation; but written language, to convey the ideas of the writer correctly, must be used and understood in a sense that is settled by usage and common consent; otherwise it would be impossible to have the conviction that we understood what the writer meant to express. These observations, of course, are as true of the language of Holy Scripture as that of any other writings; yet it is simply by acting otherwise that there are so many conflicting meanings put upon words spoken by the messengers of God to men.

If the Bible is a revelation of the mind and purposes of God, we surely ought to understand its terms in the same sense we would understand the same terms in any other book; yet, strange to tell, men, apparently by common consent, treat the words of the Scripture as if they were those of an enigma, rather than those of a revelation; and modes of interpretation the most capricious, empirical, and fanciful, have been applied to the blessed book; hence those whom it was meant to enlighten and save have been perplexed, bewildered, and led astray.

There are only two senses in which ordinary language is understood, namely, the literal and figurative; but interpreters of the Bible affirm that its language is sometimes used in a third sense, which they call the "spiritual,"—a sense never sought for in the language of any other book. And what is meant by the spiritual sense? Not the figurative, which is as apparent, where it is used, as the literal; for where language is used figuratively the figure is either expressed or implied, and every term in such a sentence must have a literal signification; because a figure of speech does not consist in the terms of a sentence, but in their application to subjects to which they do not properly belong. For example, in the sentence, "Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield," all the terms must be understood in their literal sense before the import of the figure, evidently used in the language, can be properly apprehended. Neither does the spiritual sense mean the symbolic, which differs somewhat from the figurative, and is sometimes used in the sacred writings.

The spiritual sense is the mystic, which is no way expressed, but rather concealed, by the terms used. Its character will be more apparent by a few examples. Thus one interpreter affirms that the language, "Behold I create new heavens and a new earth," means, "Behold I am about to give my Church a new and beautiful form, by introducing a new dispensation of grace." When Jehovah says, "Behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing," "Jerusalem" means the Church of God under the New Testament dispensation. The prediction, "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox," is resolved thus: "The wolf" means the fierce, rapacious enemies of the flock of Christ; "the lamb" means the disciples of Jesus; "the lion" represents the blood-thirsty foes of the Church; "the ox," the preachers of the gospel; and "the straw" is the Gospel itself!

This mode of treating the word of God was introduced among the adherents of the Christian faith in the third century, by Origen, who is often styled "the father of biblical criticism." Deeply imbued with the neo-platonic philosophy, and the puerile allegorizing of the Jewish Rabbins, whatever he found in Scripture that contradicted his notions of truth and propriety, he explained according to, what he termed, the spiritual sense. He affirmed, that "as man consists, according to Plato, of body, soul, and spirit, so Scripture has a three-fold sense,"—that is, the literal, intellectual, and allegorical, or mystic. By this means he got rid of the garden of Eden, the serpent, Adam and Eve, or whatever he found in Scripture contrary to his philosophy. This is the man who, in our day, is styled "the father of biblical criticism and exegesis," by theologians who, with filial faithfulness, follow his track in accommodating the true sayings of God to their systems of theology.—W. Laing.