It rains, it snows, the sun blazes down, it is foggy, it is snowy... Each weather option speaks something about God -
a. rain. The Holy Spirit is often spoken of like rain. Believers pray that He might "rain down' on us. Rain is needed for there to be life. Rain cleanses the countryside of dirt. It is an apt picture of the infiltrating work of God's Spirit among us.
b. sunshine. A clear metaphor of how God brings things into His light, and how He illuminates what has been in the dark. In Him is light, and there is no darkness at all. Sunshine always suggests the pure and holy nature of our God.
c. Fog. This is how we often think- unclear, confused, not sure where we're going. Fog is a good illustration of how we are apart from God's grace. C.S. Lewis pictured hell as a foggy place, always at dusk, just about the rain with lots of fog (The Great Divorce.)
d. Snow. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow Isaiah prophesied. Snow is welcomed by a few (at least in December) and it is a good picture of the believer's state un der the blood of Christ. We are clean, robed in white, dressed in Christ's righteousness, the Scripture says.
Another testament to the unfailing language of the Bible. None of its metaphors fall short - so fascinating to consider!!
ReplyDeleteJonathan Edwards wrote,
ReplyDelete"'Tis very fit and becoming of God, who is infinitely wise, so to order things that there should be a voice of his in his works instructing those that behold them, and pointing forth and showing divine mysteries and things more immediately appertaining to himself and his spiritual kingdom. The works of God are but a kind of voice or language of God, to instruct intelligent beings in things pertaining to himself. And why should we not think that he would teach and instruct by his works in this way as well as others, viz. by representing divine things by his works, and so pointing them forth, especially since we know that God hath so much delighted in this way of instruction?"