A Reply To A Brother
By John Gavazzoni

Hi (anonymous),

I took some time to mull over your question, and in doing so found myself clarifying my own thoughts....catching up, as it were, on the Spirit's renewing of my mind over the years. That renewal has included not a little correction and adjustment, I assure you. I'm going to take a rather general approach in my reply, supplying, I hope and intend, to provide a larger context in seeking the answer you're looking for:

The Word of God, in its instructive administration of the kingdom of God as it comes from heaven to earth, as we should expect, acculturates itself to things of the earth, including making use of certain literary genres. Something comes to mind in that regard that has stuck with me down through the years. During the time when, in the charismatic movement, quite a few Roman Catholic priests were experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit. John Hampsh was one of them. [He was not "Father" Hampsh to me, so I'm just referring to him as John, brother John, to be sure].

He clearly had a gift of teaching and was quite the scholar. He once commented that in God giving the gifts of the Holy Spirit, He raises natural gifts to a "supernal level." I think there's truth in that. Likewise, in the use of common, contemporary, literary genres, God raises those genres to a supernal level in scripture, that is, if we have/are given an ear to hear. (as Karl Barth dared say, "The Bible is the Word of God only when God speaks it to your heart.")

Going on: There's such a mix of the literal/actual/historical with symbolism, metaphor, hyperbole, type and shadow, parable, and allegory in the way the Bible presents its message, that it takes Spirit-enabled handling of the Word of God to reach a mature level of understanding. As an aside, it just occurred to me how, in some cases, not all, a truth conveyed allegorically is not all that different that one presented as a parable. In the case of parables, it seems that they don't contain reference to actual, historical people and events, whereas with allegories, sometimes they do, and sometimes not.

I find it very fundamental to Bible study that St. Paul was very allegorically-minded in his approach to scripture especially in respect to gleaning from scripture its edifying content. It may, for instance, be intellectually satisfying (and admittedly, in some measure, faith-confirming) to read the Genesis account of creation only from a literal perspective. But Paul evidently went deeper than that by being shown the allegorical level of that account, as one would notice when he wrote (from the Greek), "for God, who caused light to shine out from within the darkness, has shined into our hearts..." Evidently as "a Pharisee of Pharisees," he embraced the literal meaning, but by the Spirit of Christ within, he saw its deeper meaning.

It seems to demand the inference that when He was confronted by Jesus, as a bright, shining light, brighter than the sun at noonday, that, along with the Light confronting him externally (blinding him), there occurred simultaneously a burst of light out from the darkness within him. The external would have had no meaning for him without the matching internal. Also, Paul peered deeply into an allegorical content of the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden where God placed Adam and Eve, for he wrote, "ye are God's husbandry (Greek: tillage, planting), ye are God's building," and that we are to be "rooted and grounded in Christ." Seems that while Adam and Eve were literally in a garden prepared for them by God, they were that garden themselves, "(God's tillage/planting)." How does the serpent fit into all that when we consider that "the carnal mind is enmity against God"?

Of course, we have Paul's take on the story (certainly, I believe, a literal, actual, historical account) involving Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Hagar, and Ismael. He comes right out and tells us it is, most importantly, to be understood allegorically. So how ought we to apply all this to Luke's account of Jesus being "driven" (in one of the gospels) and/or "led" (in another gospel account) into the wilderness to be tempted (tested) by the devil? Here's an example of how the line between the literal and the allegorical can be blurred.

Sometimes the literal/historical is presented in a general way while within that general presentation, we should expect to find allegorical meaning in regard to some of the specifics. Some of Jesus' parables began with, "there WAS a certain....etc., etc." How should we compare that with Luke writing "He WAS led by the Spirit into the wilderness"? There was/He was. Might not Luke have been following in the parabolic tradition of parables, when He wrote that Jesus was led into the wilderness!

Again, I have no problem with the general, literal dimension of the account, but down to specifics, I have to admit, I find difficulty believing that Jesus was literally transported by the devil to a high mountain and to the pinnacle of the temple. That has, for me, an allegorical ring to it. While our Lord was exposed to a testing external circumstance, something was, so to speak, going on in His head. Was He, like John, on the Isle of Patmos, translated/taken up in the Spirit to see, and experience, things? As you might remember from one of the installments of my series, "Something Doesn't Add Up," I gave an account of how I was taken up in the Spirit to stand at the edge of a meadow as the Lord came back (in my consciousness) into my life.

It was a vision, but there is a real sense that in that vision, I was there. Well, I hope, if nothing more, the above will have some things for you to consider that will lead to being "built up in the most holy faith."