Why Symbols Are Actually Really Great
In our series in Revelation, we’ve heard a fair bit so far about symbols and symbolism, and I understand how those words can make some people uncomfortable. When they hear a preacher point to something in the Bible and say, “This is symbolic,” it can sound like he’s saying “that’s not real.” It can sound like a way to get around taking the Bible seriously.
Sometimes this can be the case. Throughout history, people have interpreted parts of the Bible symbolically that were not meant to be taken that way. For example, some early Christians said that the book of Joshua wasn’t mainly about the conquest of the promised land, but instead was about Jesus conquering our sin. Today, we seem to have the opposite problem: some conservative Christians appear to think that any appeal to a symbolic or figurative reading is a threat to the integrity of the Bible—when, in fact, sometimes the opposite is true.
At its most basic level, a symbol is a way of showing something that you can’t see with something that you can see. An example is a wedding ring. On my wedding day, I gave Aimee a ring as a symbol of my commitment to her and my love for her.
We needed a symbol because love and commitment aren’t things you can see with your eyes. You can’t measure out a square metre of love or a kilogram of commitment. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real. It just means they’re not physical objects, so we use a physical symbol to represent them.
The symbol is important, but the symbol is not the reality. If you asked Aimee, “What is Chris’ love for you like?” and she said, “Well, it’s kind of small, and round, and hard, with a shiny rock in the middle, and sometimes it gets stuck on my finger,” you’d say, “No, you’re getting the symbol mixed up with the reality.”
The same kind of thing is going on with the symbols in Revelation and other apocalyptic writings. There are unseen spiritual realities that God wants us to understand. We can’t see them directly, so He gives John—and Daniel, and Zechariah—visions full of images that represent these spiritual realities.
The symbols are important because they point us to unseen spiritual realities. But the symbols themselves are not the reality.
Think about the image of Jesus with the sword coming out of his mouth from Revelation 1:16. We know this is a symbol because of the callbacks to Isaiah: “He made my mouth like a sharp sword” (Isaiah 49:2). And the symbol points to the power of Jesus’ word. Just like God created the world with His words, so Jesus makes war with His words. He will destroy his enemies with the breath of his mouth (2 Thess 2:8).
That is an incredible truth, and it’s a truth we totally miss if we fail to recognize the symbolism. Because what’s greater: someone who got their tongue replaced with a sharp piece of metal, or someone who can just speak a word and take out all of their enemies at once?
See, understanding the symbols in Revelation isn’t about getting away from what the text is saying. It isn’t about taking the words of the Bible less seriously. It’s about entering into what the text is saying and really appreciating it in all of its glory.
So celebrate the symbols in Revelation. They are a doorway to wonders that we couldn’t see any other way.
