Thursday, March 03, 2022

Speaking Anthropomorphically

 

Our Need – The Soaring Eagle

 

There are times in the Bible

When seeming contradictions appear

And God’s use of humanlike terms

Is troublingly unclear.

 

Genesis 6:6

 

Before He had flooded the earth

God repented he had created man

And again, when He made Saul king

As the reign of Israel’s kings began.

 

Genesis 18:21

 

One time he said he’d go down

To see if something had actually happened

Couldn’t He tell from where He was

What was happening in Sodom?

 

He told Abraham, “Now I know,”

As though he didn’t know before,

And you’d recall the case with Hezekiah

Where he lived fifteen years more.

 

God had said he would die

But seemingly changed His mind

When Hezekiah pleaded his case

And God gave him more time.

 

Numbers 23:19 - Bible verse (KJV) - DailyVerses.net

 

Numbers 23:19

 

But God cannot change His mind

The Bible stoutly affirms,

He is not a man and cannot lie

As we note in human terms.

 

So, what do we make of these cases

Where he speaks in humanlike terms?

He is speaking anthropomorphically;

That’s a huge word to learn.

 

Speaking as a human speaks:

That is all that this term means

And it makes for a clearer understanding

As we view these panoramic scenes.

 

Isaiah 46:10

 

God knew he would flood the world

Before He had created man

And this flood was an historic event

Even before time began.

 

That which was unfolding in time

God already had seen,

He declares the end from the beginning;

The entire timeline is “has been”.

 

1st Samuel 8:10-18

 

He had explicitly told Samuel

What a human king would do

But the Israelites demanded a king

That they could physical view.

 

Not long after this revelation

Saul repeatedly played the fool,

All of Israel’s kings and most of Judah’s

Were used as the devil’s tools.

 

Genesis 22:12 by Jeremy Brown on Dribbble

 

Genesis 22:12

 

God knew Abraham’s faithfulness,

He knew exactly what he would do

But hindsight is where we are at;

It’s from that vantage point we view.

 

Abraham’s witness was for us

God had known it all along,

To treat God’s “Now I know” as humanlike

Is most definitely wrong.

 

Isaiah 38:5

 

God knew when Hezekiah would die

But Isaiah was sent with a word,

God knew how Hezekiah would respond

So, his time was not really deferred.

 

Isaiah saw the action in real time

God had seen it long before,

Ignorance is not one of God’s traits

He knew Hezekiah had fifteen years more.

 

Speaking anthropomorphically

Does not relegate God to man,

Instead, it raises the level of man’s thinking

And helps him to better understand…

 

The purpose for God’s intervention

In the affairs of human society

Through the panoramic plan that unfolded

To make us His eternally.

 

Genesis 3:15 - The First Prophecy of Christ's Coming – Revealed Truth

 

Genesis 3:15

 

To this end, each and every scene

Pointed to the suffering of the Christ,

Neither the good, the bad nor the indifferent

Could prevent this sacrifice.

 

It is finished, three victorious words

Resonated across Jerusalem,

The Word incarnate had come in human flesh

To make the whosoever God’s children.

 

Repent! There’s that word again

But totally different from God’s usage,

Calling the penitent to turn from their sin

And heed the Gospel message.

 

Numbers 23:19

 

God is not a man, that he should lie;

Nor the son of man, that he should repent:

Hath he not said, and shall he not do it?

Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

 

The next time you encounter a scripture

Like those of the foregoing,

Just remember that God, the Father is:

Omnipresent, omnipotent and all-knowing.

 

Stewart Russell © June 2020

 

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