Picture Language

In 1961, after the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin made the first journey round the world on the edge of space, he famously said, “I didn’t see God up there.” Now of course he didn’t see God up there, because when we say that God lives in ‘heaven’ we are using picture language. We are not saying that God lives in the sky 62 miles above the earth. We are saying that God pervades the universe.
 
There is an old proverb which states that a picture is worth more than a thousand words. We regularly use picture language because it helps us to understand things that otherwise would be difficult to understand. For the same reason the Bible also uses picture language in many places. For example, it tells us that God has eyes (Psalm 139:16), ears (Psalm 130:2), and a heart (Genesis 6:6). This is meant to remind us that God knows us and cares about us. He has hands (Psalm 10:12) and feet (Deuteronomy 33:3) and walks on the earth (Genesis 3:8). This emphasises that he is there to guide and support us.
 
The account in Genesis chapter 1 of the creation of the world poses an interesting question: is this literal language or is it picture language? Some Christians believe the seven days are literal days and others that they represent long periods of time. Whichever answer you prefer, I have always been intrigued by the fact that the order of events described in Genesis 1 is remarkably similar to the order of events described by the theory of evolution, and was even more remarkably written thousands of years before Darwin wrote his book ‘On the Origin of Species’.
 
The classic examples of picture language in the Bible are the parables of Jesus, in which he illustrates spiritual truths with scenes from everyday life. For example, the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates what God’s great love is really like in practice (Luke 15); the parable of the Sower illustrates how different people react to the preaching of the gospel (Mark 4); and the parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates the kind of behaviour that is expected from the followers of Jesus (Luke 10).
 
As far as our ultimate future is concerned, because it is impossible to know exactly what it is going to be like, the Bible inevitably has to use picture language for this. The pictures suggest that it will be like being present at a wedding feast (Matthew 22); it will be like being in a beautiful city (Revelation 21); it will be like relaxing in a delightful garden (Luke 23:43). The nearest the Bible comes to describing literally what the individual Christian’s future will be is that “we will be with the Lord for ever.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17) But the details of this have to remain in pictures.
At the heart of the Christian faith is the most powerful picture language of all: the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. Because the deep meaning of the death of Jesus is really beyond our understanding, he gave us this simple but amazingly helpful pictorial way to show us what his death means for us: “This is my body given for you; this is my blood poured out for you.” (Luke 22:19,20)
 
So, in the light of all these examples, we thank God for the picture language in the Bible, because it provides an appropriate way for us to begin to understand its many important spiritual teachings.
Howard Gordon