Symbols and Reality

Most dictionaries say that symbols are objects, characters, or some other sort of concrete representations of ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. For example, here in Canada, a red octagon is a symbol for the traffic sign meaning “STOP” and a circle with a line drawn through it means “DON’T”.

Words are symbols too. Some of them represent concrete realities. The word “dog” means the animal, but it is not the real animal.

Symbols and symbolism can get confusing because many of them have a subjective element. While a stop sign means stop for everyone (or it should), the word dog might symbolize “joyful pet” to some people and “noise nuisance” to others.

This brings up symbolates. These are real objects that have symbolic significance. Wikipedia uses the example of a royal scepter. The scepter stands for the power of the person who holds it, before that person had any power, there was no power in this rod-shaped object. It was created by its use, by becoming a symbol for power. So by the act of symbolization this object is given power it did not possess previously.

In other words, an ordinary rod has no effect on a group of people, but a scepter does. Yet the power does not reside in the scepter; some of it is in the people who honor it, some in the king who uses it. Wikipedia goes so far as to say that “every perception is symbolic.”

For me and anyone else concerned with true vs. false, I struggle to wrap my mind around this. I know that a picture of a clock and a real clock are not the same, nor is a drawing of a person and the real person anything like each other. One is a symbol and the other is not. My perception does not make them different. A real clock (if it is not broken or with dead batteries) moves, indicates time, has form and shape. A real person has life, can hear and speak, and interact with the world. Symbolic representations cannot do that, even though they may cause a response in those who observe. A picture of a clock might remind me to get moving. A picture of a person might prompts me to miss them, call them, or pray for them.

More than one religious group believes that the events described in the Bible are mere symbols, that they didn’t really happen, that Christ was not a real person only a symbol for an idea or concept. They say this “symbol” is important because it represents truths about ourselves and about life.

Thinking this way about Christ makes the response I have to Him, rather than the Person Himself, into the limelight. How I decide to let this “symbol” affect me has more significance that Jesus does, the “symbol” in itself, is like a scepter and really has no power.

Obviously this is vitally important to Christians or those seeking truth. But confusion about symbols does happen. Consider the following passage from Colossians 2:11-14. It is filled with symbolism.

“In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

The symbols here include circumcision, body of sins, baptism, dead in sin, the cross and several other thoughts and images. As already said, some thing that Christ is also a symbol, not a real person.

If all these are symbolates, that is real objects with only symbolic significance, or mere symbols of ideas and concepts but not related to concrete objects or events, then Christianity moves into the realm of subjective interpretation rather than being based on actual, historical people and events and Jesus has no power other than the power my mind gives to Him.

Circumcision. Most know what that means. In the Bible, it is used both literally and as a symbol to represent cutting off or eradication of sin from the lives of those who believe in Jesus Christ. If this is only a symbol of that, then my freedom from sin depends on how strongly I react to the symbol. Knowing my own weaknesses and inability to fight sin, I’d say I have no hope; sin will certainly defeat me.

Baptism. Lots of disagreements here, but my understanding is that Jesus actually died, was buried, and rose to new life. No symbol. This happened in history, was a real event. Another real event in history is that one day I also died to sin and my old life was put to death (God did it). Then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I was given new life, the life of Christ. This is not a symbol because I didn’t choose it, think it, wish it, or otherwise control it. It happened and God did it.

Water baptism represents or symbolizes what happened to me. It has no power in itself to change my life, but it is an act of obedience to declare what God has already done. I was dead in sin—yes, still walking around, but in the Bible, the word ‘dead’ is symbolic for separation. I was separated from God and His blessings. But God, who is real and not a symbol (more in a minute), gave me new life and made me alive with Christ. That life is very real. I could never have imagined it nor could I live it in response to a symbol.

He forgave my sin and nailed it to the cross. These words are symbolic, but tied to reality. In those days, a list of the criminal’s offenses was nailed to the cross where each offender was punished. When the criminal died, “It is finished” was written across the list.

When Jesus cried out, “It is finished” He turned a real event, the act of justice against sin, into an eternal event. In dying for my sin, “It is finished” was written across my list of sins. The punishment I deserve for all that I have done and ever will do against God is declared paid in full, symbolized by the words but very real in my life.

Is God a symbol? If so, for what? Goodness? Dig deep. Did the idea of goodness come out of my heart? Not a chance.

Is He a symbol for my deepest longings? How can I long for something without having some idea about what it is? And if I have an idea of God, where did it come from? My imagination cannot fathom anything close to the God revealed in the Bible and in Jesus Christ. I’m too self-oriented to come up with an entirely loving but just Being, One who is powerful but merciful. I cannot conceive of an Almighty God who is also sacrificial. I’m not like that and any God I could imagine by myself would have to materialize out of what I know, or at least what I long for. How can I know or long for something that does not exist?

I couldn’t go head to head with these philosophers and so-called theologians that push Christianity entirely into the realm of symbolism. I just know that God describes Himself and what He has done with symbols to help me understand what their subjective interpretation can never do.

Jesus said if I know the truth, the truth will set me free. He also said, “I am the truth.” By knowing Jesus, I am set free from sin and its damning power. Words and symbols help, but the real power behind them is a real person, Jesus Christ.