March 11th, 2009 by Kristi Stephens

I am currently reading Christianity in Crisis by Hank Hanegraaff. I’ll be posting a review about it in the near future so I won’t go into it much today, but the focus of the book deals with “Faith theology,” a horribly twisted and perverted understanding of God and His Word that is being promoted by many recognizable preachers/teachers in our day and age.

One of the more ridiculous errors being promoted by teachers such as Kenneth Copeland and Jerry Savelle is based on a misunderstanding of the use of figurative language in the Bible. Allow me to quote a few paragraphs from Hanegraaff’s book:

“Kenneth Copeland claims that ‘God is not some creature that stands twenty-eight feet tall, and He’s got hands, you know, as big as basketballs. That’s not the kind of creature He is.’ Rather, according to Copeland, God is ‘a being that is very uncanny, the way He’s very much like you and me… a Being that stands somewhere around six-two to six-three, that weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of hundred pounds, little better, [and] has a [hand] span of nine inches across.’

Where in the world does Copeland derive this monstrosity from? The answer is that he tortures the words of the prophet Isaiah. When Isaiah, using a common figure of speech, says that God marked off the heavens with His span (40:12), Copeland takes out a ruler, measures the span of his hand, finds it to be eight and three-quarter inches, and speculates that God’s hand must be about a quarter of an inch larger than his!

Copeland should know that Isaiah 40:12 cannot be interpreted literally. If it were, Isaiah’s words would reduce to absurdity: God would not only have body parts, but He would be holding a basket full of dust and would be weighing mountains on a gigantic set of scales.” (144)

Misunderstanding the use of figurative language in the Bible creates all kinds of confusion and even pure heresy. Add to that the tendency to explain away hard to understand things (which are stated literally) as figures of speech, and we have a big mess. This is a very important aspect of Biblical interpretation to grasp!

Figures of speech are used often in poetry, Hebrew poetry included. Although language is figurative, that does not mean that it is not true! For example, let’s consider the Seed promise which we have referred to frequently during our Old Testament studies.

[God speaking to the serpent]

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15

(notice that in your Bible the type in Genesis 3:14-19 is center-justified; that is a nice signal that the editors have given you that we’re reading poetry at this point!)

In this verse, God states that the serpent’s head would be crushed by the promised Seed, and that the serpent would strike the Seed’s heel. This is a true statement given in figurative language. The serpent (Satan) would have a crushed head (fatal blow), while he would strike the heel (wound, but not fatal) of the Seed (Jesus.) In the end, Jesus will have full victory – Satan will be defeated! As we discussed in “The Power of His Word,” Adam understood that this was a true statement, and his faith in that promised victorious Seed was the basis of his salvation.

In order to discuss figurative language in poetry more clearly, take a look at Exodus 14-15. As stated above, Bible editors have done us a favor and highlighted poetry to us by using center-justified text. Looking at Exodus 14-15, you’ll notice that chapter 14 is left-justified, signaling prose, while chapter 15 is center-justified, signaling poetry.

These two chapters cover the same event, the crossing of the Red Sea. Chapter 15 is still completely true, but it is a more figurative description of the same event. Chapter 15:1 says, “The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.” Did God literally “hurl them into the sea?” Well, technically, they were already in there and God just hurled the water on top of them! We understand that this is a figurative description.

For another example, take a look at Judges chapters 4 and 5. Again, chapter 4 is left-justified (prose) and chapter 5 is center-justified (poetry); this is a description of Jael’s brutal assassination of Sisera (remember “Women and their deadly nails“?). Chapter 5 contains a soothing, poetic description of this event,

“At her feet he sank, he fell; there he lay.
At her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell-dead.”

I’m sorry, but that wording always makes me laugh!

My inappropriate laughter aside, did Sisera technically “sink to her feet” and die? No! He laid down and she drove a tent peg through his head while he slept! Ick! Does that mean that the Bible is somehow contradicting itself? Of course not! We understand that this is a poetic description of what is stated in the prose account.

To test your interpretive skills, take a look at Joshua 10:12-14, the account of the sun standing still while Joshua fought against the Amorites. [Make sure you either click on the link and read that, or look it up in your own Bible!]

Did you read it? :)

Now, can you argue that the sun standing still was figurative speech? Why or why not? Think about that and post a comment!

To be continued…