The Sons Of Issachar: Knowing What Israel Should Do, Part 25

We saw last week that the biblical authors, under divine inspiration, frequently adapted the cultural forms (literary and artistic) to holy use, in the process cleansing and restoring these literary forms to their intended original use of the glorification of God.  This adaptation was based not only on redemptive grounds (since Jesus continues about the business of reconciling the world to Himself), but also on the ground of Creation, since God originally created all things to reflect and reveal His Persons and attributes: to reorient these forms is but to restore them to their true purposes.  Christian artists today should see the practice of the authors (and through them, the Author) of Scripture as a paradigm, or model for their own artistic interaction with the cultural forms that have been captured and perverted by the world system to satanic ends (Creation itself groans for liberation from its enslavement to Satan as Romans 8:19-23 tells us).  Christ has made the members of His body agents of liberation for the world itself.

From this we turn to a consideration of the implications of the fact that the Truth revealed in the Bible is revealed under a multiplicity of literary forms.  Scripture itself contains (at least) the following kinds of writings: narrative stories and histories, poetry and song, parables, letters, law, wisdom, apocalyptic (or prophetic) writing.

These sundry literary forms all communicate differing emphases by virtue of the different artistic forms embedded in their structures.  (We will, God willing, be examining in some detail these varying forms and each one’s implications for artistry in weeks to come).  What does the existence of multiple artistic forms in Scripture teach us?

Each of these various artistic forms emphasizes, by its form, different aspects of Scripture’s one Truth, and it is only by a process of understanding these varied emphases in their contexts that we can arrive at a balanced assessment of what that one Truth is.  This is one reason why the Church has historically (and scripturally) adhered to the principle that Scripture must interpret Scripture (we must not impose our fallen, solipsistic ideas on God’s inerrant Word).

This is also instructive in helping us realize that Christianity is much more an art than it is a science.  We must by the help of the Holy Spirit, see these various scriptural emphases in interlocking balance, rather than as some sort of uniform technique.

Scripture’s varied revelation of the one Truth also provides a salient antidote to our culture’s reductionistic quest for “the bottom line,” our tendency to see only one meaning for a thing (and that frequently seen in isolation), and to either not look for, or to devalue and discount any secondary meanings also revealed.  We’ve seen in past weeks that God has constructed Reality out of symbols, and that symbols inevitably possess a God-given multiplicity of meanings (though they all ultimately point to the Creator).

God intends for His truth to be seen symphonically, for us to see that any “bottom line” takes its fullest and most true meaning from all of its interlocking and balanced meanings simultaneously.  The melody of Truth is best appreciated and understood in a setting of Truth’s attendant harmonies, contrapuntal melodies, and rhythms, e.g., in Truth’s symphony.  (Anyone interested in pursuing this line of thought could do no better than to read Vern Poythress’ Symphonic Theology and John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, both of which address the subject with more insight and eloquence than I could ever muster.)

The fact that Holy Writ reveals the one Truth of God under various artistic modes is also illustrative of the triune nature of God, as He is One in His essential being, and yet exists in three differing Persons.  Even the very structure of the Bible reveals God as He is.

What does this all have to teach to the Christian artist?  At least three things: (1) It teaches us that God’s truth is so vast that it can only be revealed to limited, finite man under a variety of forms, since God in His infinity can never be circumscribed or completely summed up by any created thing or combination of created things.  This is why God constructed all of Creation to reveal Himself (and, after the Fall, gave Scripture as Special Revelation as a key to the Fall-opaqued Creation), though even the whole of Creation could not fully reveal God.  Nonetheless, God is so Vast that multiple modes of revelation were considered by Him good and necessary.  (2) God revealed Himself in Special Revelation under a variety of artistic modes.  This means that God, in His inspired and inerrant Word, chose to reveal Himself in His Word via Art.  This should fill artists with great confidence in using their artistic vocations to be vehicles for revealing God’s Glory (though not of course, inerrantly, as Scripture does; rather, we do so by ordering General Revelatory created artifacts according to the principles and patterns found in the Special Revelation of the Bible).  (3) God revealed Himself in Scripture under a variety of artistic modes.  This implies that the full range of artistic expressions (music, dance, architecture, literature, etc.) are legitimate vehicles for expressing and revealing God’s Glory.  God Himself caused a variety of artistic forms to be used in His Word, each highlighting a differing part of God’s truth and revelation.  All of this should inspire confidence and joy in using our artistic callings and God-given talents to glorify our God and King, Christ Jesus.

For more teaching on symbols and Art, see www.patreon/kempercrabb.com