Dreams In The Light Of God's External Word

We're looking at the Bible's peculiar worldview (at least to the modern world). To do that I'm focusing on the fact that we all dream and consequently ask what the dreams mean. Psychological answers vary.  Freud thought they are symbolical representations of unconscious desires and thoughts. Others say that dreams are one's interpretation of signals generated by one's brain. Out of this come many creative ideas. Still others say that dreaming is the brain's computer-like process of cleaning up the previous day's clutter. And so it goes. There's no modern single, unifying understanding of why we dream or what our dreams mean.

To assist us in interpreting our dreams you can find whole dictionaries of dream symbols and terms such as "An A to Z Dream Dictionary." Others offer dream interpretation, based upon years of experience. Still others, claiming to be Christians, tell us they can teach us not merely to study about God, but how to have direct experiences of Him speaking to us in our dreams. It all sounds most enticing. But is that what the written, objective Word of God as contained in Holy Scripture teaches? Recall Dr. Luther's comment about enthusiasm quoted in my earlier post: 

"We should and must insist that God does not want to deal with us human beings, except by means of his external Word and sacrament. Everything that boasts of being from the Spirit apart from such a Word and sacrament is of the devil."

What does Luther mean by God's external Word? He means simply and emphatically the Scriptures. The very words of Scriptures are God's words, all of them. The Holy Spirit always blesses and brings salvation in Christ through the Word. No preached or taught word not based upon the Scriptures is the Word of God. The Holy Spirit comes and reveals God and His will in the Word of the Lord Christ. Anyone, therefore, who distorts or blasphemes the written Word will be judged by God. This was Luther's sola Scriptura principle. This claim is further founded on the total truthfulness, reliability and
consistency of Scripture. One text of Scripture does not contradict another, regardless of how ridiculous it may seem at first. To that end I quote again what Paul wrote to Timothy:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. - 2Ti 3:14-17 ESV

 With that in mind, return with me to Joseph's dream experience as recorded by Matthew (Matt. 1:18-25). Joseph was of royal lineage, as Matthew emphasizes in the opening verses of his Gospel (Matt. 1:1-17). He traced that lineage all the way back to David and through David to Abraham himself. He knew of the promises recorded in the written Scriptures about the coming of the Messiah. He knew about the promised virgin birth of the One named Immanuel. A few examples:

To Abraham — "And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." - Gen 12:2-3 ESV 

And again to Abraham —"I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." - Gen 22:17-18 ESV 

To Isaac — "I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed" - Gen 26:4 ESV 

About the promised Messiah —"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins." - Isa 11:1-5 ESV

To Ahaz, one of Judah's anointed kings — "And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." - Isa 7:13-14 ESV

There are numerous other passages of Scripture. Joseph knew them. He was a righteous and just man who sought ever to conduct his life according to the plans and will of God. He believed in the promises of the Messiah as recorded in Scripture. Therefore it was not at all impossible for him to accept what the angel said to him in his dream about Mary's pregnancy and the promised coming of the Messiah. His dream was a confirmation of God's external Word and in no way contrary to it.

The best counsel to any dreamer is based upon this record of Joseph's dreams as well as other dreams in Scripture. If you believe God has sent His messenger to speak to you, then test it carefully against the written Word. Ask especially how what you have seen and heard in your dream relates to God's will and plan to lead men to salvation and eternal life in Christ. Remember as well that we are all members one of another. No one of us owns nor can he control the Spirit. Invite other members of Christ's body to ponder with you your dream in the light of God's revelation in Scripture. Seek confirmation from other members of Christ's body. And at the same time be very conscious or the fact that demonic powers are also at work to lead us away from Christ and distort God's Word.

Bottom line: There's more indeed to this world than what we can see, taste, touch, smell and feel. There's more than we can measure with our scientific instruments and theorize about with our mathematics. Scripture teaches that men have contact with that other world in dreams and visions. But—and this is critical—our first, primary and most significant contact with the Spirit of God is in the written Word of Holy Scripture. As Jesus emphasized in his criticism of the Jews of His day,

And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. - Jhn 5:37-40 ESV

Defining Faith

In the past two posts I have invited you to struggle alongside Thomas the Apostle. I stated that doubting is actually part of the process of arriving at a mature faith. Remember the quote from Barclay?

To believe in Jesus Christ is not simply to accept what he says as true; it is to commit ourselves into his hands, for time and for eternity.

But, having said that, I've not emphasized the fact that the Holy Spirit teaches that faith itself is always God's gift to us. Here is what the Apostle Paul writes.

But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. - Rom 10:8-17 ESV

Note the emphasis upon the word, the word of faith, the Scripture, preaching, good news, gospel, the word of Christ. 

Paul is talking about righteousness, the righteousness of God. To be righteous is to be like God, to live, think and act in full accord with Him and His commands. Who lives like that? Who can? Nobody.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So what hope does Paul offer?

. . . all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. - Rom 3:23-26 ESV

He's talking about God's righteousness again. God demonstrates or shows His righteousness in a most peculiar manner. Instead of condemning us sinners, He sent Christ Jesus, His Son, into the world. He put forward His Son as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Wait, what's that all about? We need to return to the Old Testament and the Old Covenant Tabernacle or later the Temple. The Greek translation of the Hebrew (The Septuagint) has the word Paul uses here in Exodus 25. The word is hilasteyrion. This is the word for the cover or mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Covenant.

You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. - Exd 25:17-18 ESV

The Ark was kept in the most sacred part of the temple, the Holy of holies. No one other than the high priest was ever allowed in that room. And he entered it but one time each year on the Day of Atonement. On that most sacred day the High Priest sprinkled the blood of the sacrificed bull and goat on the mercy seat or atonement plate. The writer to the Hebrews explains how this relates to the sacrificial death of Christ. He tells us that Christ offered himself and his blood once and for all to "purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:11-15). He thus became the propitiation or hilasteyrion that Paul writes about in Romans 3.

This is the Good News, the Gospel, the Word of Christ. As this Word is proclaimed, preached and taught God does what He always has. He creates. In our case He creates faith in our hearts. As Paul said, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17).

This is why the church has always emphasized the grace of God, that free and undeserved mercy and forgiveness God gives to us in Christ Jesus. This is why we stress the truth that we are saved from judgment and declared righteous in God's eyes by virtue of His grace. We receive and welcome this good news in our hearts by putting our trust and hope in Jesus Christ. This is why we stress that we are saved by faith. This is the message of the Scriptures from one end to the other. This is why we stress that we have no other source and authority for the message, the good news, other than Scripture alone.

Jesus, The Center and Substance Of Our Communication

I'm sitting here in the library at Pagosa Springs, CO. with my laptop, waiting while my wife volunteers to re-stack books. As I sit here perusing my email I came upon one ad urging us Christians to be more active on the internet. The site I refer to is called Internet Evangelism Day. They've just sent me another of their monthly bulletins, this time inviting me to join a conference up in Grand Rapids, MI. the middle of October. I'm interested, but find that I'll be out of town and not available when the conference happens. Nevertheless, I do believe that we Christians are only beginning to learn how to make use of this priceless tool to reach millions around the world. 

In doing a Google search I came across an organization called World Association for Christian Communications. Here's a quote from them: 

"Information and communication are drastically changing the world. Instead of establishing solidarity, public communication tends to reinforce divisions, widening the gap between rich and poor, consolidating oppression and distorting reality in order to maintain the status quo. Yet communication remains God's great gift to humanity, without which citizens cannot be truly human, reflecting 'God's image’. Nor can they enjoy living together in groups, communities and societies steeped in different cultures and different ways of life without communication."

Information has always changed our world. As the quote says, "public communication tends to reinforce divisions." I'm not sure I know what the authors of the site mean by public communication. I assume they refer to communication available to anyone, like a newspaper or TV broadcast. So I see political parties pushing their own particular agendas as we approach yet another presidential election. This communication is not uniting our country, by any means. We are living with various tensions as we approach the problems facing us as a nation. 

And the information is usually skewed to whatever views the communicators hold. 

All this posits quite a challenge for those of us who seek to communicate the Gospel. How shall we best do this so that the Holy Spirit of God may use our words to convey the Word of God to the hearts and lives of those who happen to read, see or hear our communications? I see a variety of answers to that question popping up in the Christian community. 

I offer yet another. My answer is that we who are Christians must be absolutely certain that we understand what that Word of God is. There is vast confusion among us about that issue, especially in a day and age when the Holy Scriptures are not universally reverenced and respected in the Christian community. 

I invite you to ponder one Scripture quote from the English Standard Version: 

"The Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life" (John 5:37-40). 

You may be a pious student of the Scriptures. You may even believe them inspired word for word, in contrast to what many Christians understand these days. But if you are like the Jewish leaders and teachers of Jesus' day who rejected Him as their personal Messianic King and Savior, you really have nothing to communicate. My point remains fairly simple and to the point. Before you can call yourself a Christian communicator you must have a personal faith relationship with Jesus, God's very Word communicated to us. And how did God speak to us? In the life of Jesus, in His miracles and teachings and above all, in His sacrificial death upon the cross of Calvary and His totally surprising return from the dead. This same living Christ continues to communicate to us through the Scriptures and through the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 

Not only do the Scriptures bear witness to Jesus as the Christ, but we ourselves must ever make Him the center and substance of everything we communicate.