“One might go even further and say …” (Heb. 7:9, RHM)
Remember that the last teaching discussed the story in Luke 10, through which we pointed out that the Word in no way states that Jesus says that we must have faith like the proverbial child, and that the process of third dimension faith is a deeply committed search to the complexity of communication in different ways and on different levels. IF YOU SEEK HIM, YOU WILL indeed find Him (Matt. 7:8). This is however not a process that simply falls in your lap. Read the periscope – concerned with how the disciples come to Jesus with great joy because the demons had subjected themselves to the disciples’ authority – again. Jesus explains to them that because of the high calling in Christ, the collective opponent is crushed under their feet.
As key to what it means that “their names are written in the heavens”, a handful of things are spelled out in the verses that follow that clarify a spiritual principle, which is concerned with the fact “that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.” The word “good” here can in Greek also be translated with “purpose”! The ESV and the NET thus translates it as: “for such was your gracious will”; the NIRV notes: “This is what you wanted.” The word is used in the same context as in 2Thess. 1:11: “fulfill in you the virtue which his good pleasure has purposed” (The Complete WordStudy Dictionary).
The great mystery however lies in the use of the phrase: “You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.” The phrase “wise and prudent” is most likely used in an ironic manner, a figure of speech that is not that strange when considered within the pattern of Jesus’ larger discourse. What Jesus wants to emphasize in this section, which is concerned with the revelation (apokalúptō) of hidden things, is especially the fact that He turns to each disciple individually, and privately (which means that He spoke to SEVENTY men in private), and that the common message is: “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.”
What could this revelation be that is both collective, but also individual? He is most likely speaking about “our common salvation” (Jude 1:3), and as we explained in the teaching of Day 1667-1668, from Jude 1: 12-13 – Peter notes that angels desire to see what we see, and that we must thus gird the loins of our mind, be sober and place our hope on the grace that we have are granted with the revelation of Jesus Christ (verse 13). Most likely He revealed each person’s word in God’s poem to each one of them.
The original word nēpios in Greek, which is here translated as children, is found in fourteen instances in the New Testament. Elsewhere it is also beautifully translated as “foolish” (Rom. 2:20), and in all the other instances to point to people who are “unskillful in the Word” (Heb. 5:13, KJV), and who speak and argue about the things of a child (1Cor. 13:11). That it is not necessarily concerned with young believers who have just been born-again (first dimension), or with believers who experience “the newness of the Spirit” (Rom. 7:6) and try to read things in spiritual terms (second dimension), is indeed the case, as Paul explicitly calls them, in 1Cor. 3:1, “babes in Christ” (third dimension). This child’s tongue “clings to the roof of its mouth for thirst” (Lam. 4:4). These children have never seen the light (Job 3:16). If one understands these last two Old Testament Scriptures in symbolic terms, as one should, and you read it in the light (!) of Ps. 119:130, then the deeper meaning of the word children becomes clear: “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple (children).”
Prepare for an absolute shock! The word children (nēpios) is derived from the root word in Greek, epos, and this word also means word! For a long time, we have distinguished between the two related words for the Greek word word, namely logos and rhema, but this is a third variant! This word is only found once in the New Testament, in Heb. 7:9, and is thus a key Scripture for understanding it: “Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak …” This phrase is translated as follows in ALTNT: “as a word to say [fig., so to speak]”. Various other translations allow us to better understand this phrase: “as literally to speak” (ABP), “might even say” (AMP), “One might go even further and say …” (CJB), “as it may be said” (DRB), “in a sense” (HCSB), “Ultimately you could even say …” (MSG), “it could be said” (NET), and: “Moreover, in a sense …” (TCNT). The closest direct translation is in Rotherham: “And—so to say a word— …”
The fact that this word is only found once in the New Testament and is part of a set expression or idiom (Vine’s Greek New Testament Dictionary), may have one think that it is not an important word, but this is absolutely not the case. This word word is actually hidden, especially because it functions as a type of intermediary word – it stands between logos and rhema. The Bibleos Interlinear Bible beautifully translates it as “a word to speak through”! The example in which this word is used, is then thematically concerned with the genealogical transfer across generations (here between Abraham and his descendant Levi), and concerns the mediating work of the mysterious Melchizedek. Now the Godly process can begin that the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in his The Prayers of Kierkegaard (p. 147), so beautifully describes as “Now I will become myself with the help of God.”
It is of course not at all strange that this word in Greek also corresponds with the English word epic, which, according to Dictionary.com, means “a group of poems, transmitted orally”. It originally derives from Latin and Sanskrit, where it also points to word, song or then: poem!
In Kurt von Fritz’s article ‘The Discovery of Incommensurability’, in the book: Classics in the History of Greek Mathematics (red. Jean Christianidis, p. 218), he makes this immensely important statement: “Epos means … the word which appeals to the imagination and evokes a picture of things or events. This is the reason why it is also specifically applied to epic poetry.” The word ‘incommensurability,’ which became very well-known with Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 epoch-making text: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, means, vastly simplified, ‘no common measure’, and points to the necessity of absolute individuality and identity, despite the fact that it is woven into a collective concern. Remember 1Cor. 12:12: “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.” Our own definition of simplify can serve as a word with the simultaneous meaning of: simplicity, multiplicity, folding in, unfolding, one, manifold, as well, and especially, compact. [Remember: “both cherubim were of the same size and shape” (1 Kings 6:25).]
• Selah: Try to understand the unexpected link to the cherubs.
• Read: 1Sam. 22-27
• Memorise: 1Sam. 26:11 (what would this mean in prototypical terms?)
• For a more in-depth understanding: Read one of the books/articles mentioned above.
