Biblical Essays
Variations on a Theme
by C. Leo Jordan
“The Grandest Theme of All . . . Jesus Died to Save Sinners”
C. Leo Jordan
(1925-2000)
Variations on a Theme
A strong parallel exists between the way the themes of the Bible are introduced and developed and the way themes of a great work of music, such as a symphony or an oratorio, are introduced and developed. A master composer will invent a relatively simple musical idea, then invert it, reverse it, modulate it, counterpoint it with itself or a related theme, or otherwise transform it, often changing the character of the original so much that it seems to the uninitiated to be a totally new theme. The overall effect is one of profundity and unity, the hallmarks of greatness. Similarly, the great themes of redemption and salvation in the hands of the master scribes such as Isaiah, Solomon, Paul, or John, undergo many a transmutation that render them at times almost unrecognizable. But ultimately they are found to be simply restating the grandest theme of all: Christ died to save sinners.
(excerpt from The Voice of Melody by C.L.Jordan)
Intended Audience
"Therefore, for those who like myself have been dissatisfied with that body of doctrine called "Dispensationalism," I have tried to provide plausible interpretations for a few of these difficult texts. The present collection of essays is a part of that endeavor."
To be effective, an author must write for a particular "audience," and a major problem is to determine just who that audience is. After years of searching, I believe I have discovered mine to consist of those people who are dissatisfied with much of what fundamentalism has to offer but are unwilling to accept modern liberalism with its denial of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. These people have found fundamentalism, while loyal to the divinity of Christ, to the divine inspiration of the Bible, and to the supernatural origin of its miracles, to be much too literal in its interpretations, which are often seen to be juvenile, fantastic, and even contradictory. The "liberal" school, on the other hand, by denying divine inspiration, miracles, predictive prophecy, and the divinity of Christ, produces analyses of Holy Scripture that seldom bring that measure of consolation and edification the Christian desires and expects. The clash between these two extreme schools of interpretation often comes down to the difference between reading a passage of Scripture as either "literal" or "figurative." Fundamentalists frequently make the mistake of trying to accept at face value a saying which was intended to be symbolic, allegorical, or metaphorical. The "liberals," on the other hand, while seldom confusing the literal with the figurative, go to the other extreme and attempt to explain away many of the patently literal texts, especially those that involve an element of the supernatural.
Perhaps my studies will help those who, recognizing that the liberals do have a point, see difficulties in accepting everything in the Bible at face value. There are many passages in both the Old and the New Testament that have thoroughly puzzled countless Christians. As one who was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, I can sympathize with these people. I have never been satisfied with some of the clumsy attempts by certain Bible expositors to bring sense to these difficult texts. Being raised in a strict Christian family, I heard the Bible quoted daily, and thought I knew it pretty well. I was indoctrinated in a system of theology called "Dispensationalism" which has for its motto, "Literal unless explicitly stated otherwise." Eventually, I grew disillusioned with the doctrines of my church and quit attending for ten years.
However, my faith was subsequently restored by the goodness of the Lord. Then I was given to know that I needed to study the Bible. For the first time in my life, I began to read it seriously. As I did so, I discovered that the main tenets of Dispensationalism are false, and, if I were to continue believing that the Bible was the very word of God, I was forced to fill the void.
It wasn't long till I began to see a different set of answers to many of the doctrinal points that my church had developed. A number of puzzling passages of Scripture began to suddenly make sense, but only by regarding their language as largely figurative rather than literal. One revelation was the knowledge that usually every metaphor, simile, or parable in the Bible has its "definition" somewhere else. There are a multitude of parallel phrases that can be associated together in such a way that they are mutually enlightening. This, I firmly believe, is what Paul meant when he said to compare spiritual things with spiritual (1 Cor. 2:13).
Therefore, for those who like myself have been dissatisfied with that body of doctrine called "Dispensationalism," I have tried to provide plausible interpretations for a few of these difficult texts. The present collection of essays is a part of that endeavor.
9/22/92
Richly Inspried Original Biblical Essays by the late Christopher Leo Jordan
Lest Thou Dash thy Foot Against a Stone
How God's Celestual Messengers protect us from "Spiritual Accidents"
While playing in a brushy area near his home in southwestern Florida, twelve year old Mark Durrance was bitten by a huge rattlesnake. An extraordinarily large quantity of venom was injected directly into a vein in his foot. Losing consciousness rapidly, he knew he could never walk the 150 yards that separated him from the house. Nevertheless, his family found him on the living-room floor, unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital, where he lay in a coma for nearly three days. On the fourth day, after Mark regained consciousness, he told the details of how he had been bitten and how he had made it to the house. A white-robed figure appeared, took him in his arms, and carried him across the field and up the steps. The man told him, in a deep voice, that he would be sick but not to worry, that he would make it. Then he went up into the sky. Mark said he knew "it was God." He has fully recovered, except for some skin grafting to restore his badly damaged foot and leg.
Cut off Thy Right Hand
Spiritual Surgery
This is a true love story. Like all good love stories, it has an element of tragedy. But first. . .
One time many years ago, my father clipped out a news item that related how a young man had chopped off his right hand with an ax. He gave as his reason the words of Jesus: "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell" (Matt. 5:30). Jesus also admonished plucking out the right eye if it offended one. These words are found in the "sermon on the mount" in a warning against the sins of adultery and divorce. Apparently, the young man was condemned over some immorality he had committed.
Probably not many of us would take Jesus' words that literally, for common sense should tell us that surely he, who went about curing all manner of deformities, would not advise us to mutilate our body. And why would Jesus emphasize only the right hand? Wouldn't the left hand be just as much at fault?
Mary Magdalene and the Last Temptation
Rabboni, My Lord, My Master
AS I WRITE THIS, a moving picture called "The Last Temptation of Christ" is making the rounds. Based on a novel, it supposedly portrays Jesus with the same passions as the rest of us, specifically, love for a woman. I have not seen the film, but reviewers have stated that it features a scene showing Jesus on the cross dreaming of making love to Mary Magdalene.
The movie has been severely criticized by Christians as being blasphemous. While I am not supportive of the film, we ought to be fair and look at the evidence for the assertion that there was a romance, or the possibility of one, between Jesus and Mary. I suppose most Christians do not believe that Jesus had those kinds of feelings. Apparently they cannot imagine that he ever was interested in marriage and raising a family.
Yet we are told that he was tempted in all points like as we but without sin (Heb. 4:15), a point the producer of the film does not let us forget. Nor does the Bible condemn marriage and the marriage bed, but rather honors it as a holy institution. Since Jesus was in all other respects a normal Jewish male, could it have been that he was interested in some woman? Specifically, Mary Magdalene?
Essays Continued
Did God Work on the Seventh Day?
Or Was He Looking for a Place to Rest?
An article in a recent issue of Bible Review begins as follows:
The first chapter of Genesis describes how God created heaven and earth and all that is therein, ending with the glorious fashioning of humankind on day six. Then in Genesis 2:1, we read that "The heaven and the earth were finished; and all their array." It is a bit surprising, therefore, to read the following statement in the very next verse: "On the seventh day God finished the work which He had been doing" (Genesis 2:2).
If the work of creation had been completed during the first six days, what was God doing finishing His work on the seventh day? Wasn't the seventh day supposed to be a day of rest?
The article goes on to explain how this anomaly has been a source of difficulty through the ages. Some translations, for example, the Septuagint, the earliest known (circa 200 BC) translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into another language (Greek), reads, "And God finished on the sixth day his works. . ." However, the received Masoretic Hebrew text definitely says it was on the seventh day. According to ancient rabbis quoted in the Talmud, the change from "seventh" to "sixth" was intentionally introduced by the translators of the Septuagint. One famous ancient sage, Rabbi Shlomo Ben Itschak (often abbreviated to Rashi), explained it this way: Rest was created and came into the world on the seventh day, thus completing the work of creation. Such an important thing as rest, Rashi says, could not have been in existence when God was at work--and the world was obviously not completed without it![2]
Lazarus: One Man or Two?
Was one a Parable or both the same real Man?
The name Lazarus appears in the New Testament in two contexts: as the name of a beggar in a parable (so-called) who died and as the name of a friend of Jesus whom he raised from the dead. Are these two men the same individual or two different persons?
The casual reader might get the idea, since both subjects died, both are named Lazarus, and there are no others of that name mentioned in the New Testament, that they are the same. I thought so for years. Yet most commentators declare in emphatic terms that they are two individuals. The following remark is typical: "The name was common among the Jews, and is given to two men in the New Testament who have nothing to do with each other." But absolutely no reasons are given for this dogmatic statement. After very carefully searching out the Scriptures, I have come to the conclusion that I was right all along and that the Lazarus of the "parable" is the same man whom Jesus raised from the dead. I won't be able to prove this to everyone's satisfaction, for the evidence is circumstantial, but I think I can give some very plausible reasons for that conclusion. Though I have long held this view, it was a recent archaeological discovery that prompted me to write it down.
Why is it important? There are several Christian sects who believe that death is oblivion, that the dead "know nothing." A frequently given reason for this belief is that Lazarus, who was resurrected after being dead four days, gave no account of his experience. (Here is an argument from silence, and such arguments are about the least effective in establishing a premise.) But if, as I believe, the two subjects are indeed the same man, then it is quite easily possible that the "parable" Jesus told is the story Lazarus told him of his death experience.
Was Jesus Rude?
Sometimes it Sounds Like it.
Was Jesus ever rude? Of course not! But there are a couple of incidents that might cause the casual reader to get that impression.
For example, as Jesus was visiting the coasts of Tyre and Sidon (Matt. 15:21-28), a Canaanite woman besought him to cast a devil out of her daughter. "But he answered her not a word." His disciples asked Jesus to send her away because she was "crying after" them. But Jesus answered, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The woman worshipped him and begged him to help her. Jesus said, "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." To which she replied, "Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Jesus said, "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Her daughter was healed that very hour.
In contemporary thinking, Jesus would be accused of gross racial discrimination. After all, he was refusing a Gentile woman's plea simply on the grounds that the good things belonged exclusively to Israel.
But I really can't believe that. For Jesus eventually did grant her request for healing. He even complimented her on her great faith. Consider that in another similar incident (Matt. 8:5-13), he pronounced the faith of a Roman centurion, who also requested healing for his servant, as greater than any he had found in all of Israel. He even prophesied of the inversion of the order of things: Gentiles would come from all quarters of the earth to enter the kingdom of heaven, whereas the Israelites, the "children of the kingdom," would be thrust out.
Earlier Works (to be added soon)
Though Leo was literally born in a church building and had heard "the Word" preached daily while growing up, it was not until a time of discouragement, disillusionment and searching in his adulthood that he began to seriously study the Bible. The list here is his very first studies. Oh, if he were still alive today. . . .what insight he could expound to us regarding the beauty of Christ our Lord!