This, a moment's reflection will enable us to
expect. However high and wonderful the things to be stated are, in order
to be brought within reach of human understanding _they must be
expressed in terms of human thought and experience_; and these are
imperfect and essentially inadequate. Hence it is, that many truths have
to be brought before us in special or peculiar ways.
How, for instance, are we told of the temptation and fall of man? How
are we to understand what was meant by the Tree of Life or the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil, or by the Serpent speaking and beguiling
Eve? We are at a great loss to give a precise explanation, though the
practical meaning is not difficult.
The facts may be none the less true, though from their transcendental
character it may have been necessary to put them down in mysterious,
possibly even in merely allegorical, language. Another instance of this
might be given in the account of Satan in the presence of the Lord as
described in the Book of Job, or of the lying Spirit described by
Micaiah when prophesying before Ahab. It maybe that these narratives
describe to us transactions in a world beyond our own, which _could_
only be conveyed to us in figures or in imperfect form. When St. Paul
was caught up into the third heaven, he "heard unspeakable things" which
it was not _possible_ for him to utter--the medium of expression was
wanting.
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