Veiled Speech and Parables

Jesus knew the staunch belief of Judaism in one God was true. He had opportunity to promote trinitarian teaching, but he never did. The problem was that when Jesus taught, those listening to him rarely understood exactly what he was talking about.

Jesus spoke in parables most of the time. Mark’s Gospel tells us: “With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything” (4:33-34). In Matthew 15:15-16 Peter asked Jesus, “Explain the parable to us.” He had no idea what Jesus was talking about. Jesus responded, “Are you still so dull?”

What is a parable? In the Old Testament, proverb and parable are translated from the same Hebrew word, mashal (maw-shawl’) meaning a story of deep wisdom or prophetic significance. According to the Complete Word Study Dictionary of the New Testament, a parable, is “a short story under which something else is figured or in which the fictitious is used to represent and illustrate the real. This common oriental method of teaching was much used by Christ in the first three Gospels, but not elsewhere in the NT….In a wider sense, a figurative discourse, a dark saying, i.e., obscure and full of hidden meaning.”

If you look at the parables of Jesus, he told stories, used analogies relating to the Kingdom of Heaven. In Matthew 13, after Jesus taught using the parable of the sower (farmer) planting seeds, “His disciples came and asked him,

“Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?” He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them. That is why I use these parables, For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand.

This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that says, ‘When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes— so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.’ “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it”( Matthew 13:10-17, NLT).

Then Jesus explained to the disciples the meaning of parable. In general, if Jesus did not explain the meaning of the parables he used, the listeners were clueless to what he was talking about. Nicodemus, in John 3, was lost to what Jesus was talking about and there is still disagreement about the meaning and application of being born of water and spirit because Jesus did not fully explain it. The woman at the well of Samaria (John 4:6-26) had no idea what Jesus meant in verse 10 when he offered “living water” to her.

The discussion with the women at the well soon turned to the worship of God. John 4:21-23: Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

Jesus continues speaking to the woman in parables, analogies, stories with hidden meaning. Je­sus refers to “the father” in one instance and “God” in another. Is it appropriate to assume that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, referring to the first per­son of the Trinity? He does not tell anyone in this encounter that he is Emmanuel, God with us. He makes no mention here that Isaiah 9:6 proclaimed him to be the “Mighty God and Everlasting Father.

Jesus confirms to the world that the Jews had it right about God. In verse 22, Jesus says “We know what we wor­ship for salvation is of the Jews.”  Jesus was a Jew himself. He knew that the doctrinal stand of the Jewish nation was one of absolute monotheism (belief in only one solitary God). To a Jew there is no plurality in the nature of God, never had been, never would be.  Jews have been unable to accept Christianity because the doctrine of the Trinity is polytheistic to them (belief in more than one or many gods). Jesus is saying, We know what we wor­ship; he is not correcting the theological under­standing of the Jew­ish nation.  He is saying the Jews are correct in their the­ology. If Jewish theology was incorrect, we could expect Je­sus to say:  The Jews worship God; they just don’t understand that God is three in one? But he did not do that! Je­sus’ state­ment, “We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews” en­dorsed the theology of the Jewish nation and its under­standing of God’s solitary nature.

This endorsement was strengthened and repeated when Jesus was asked by a Jewish scribe, “Of all the com­mandments, which is the most important?”  And his reply was, “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Is­rael, the Lord [Kurios] our God, the Lord [Kurios] is one. Love the Lord [Kurios] your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Remember that Kurios is the New Testament translation of Adonai which replaced yhwh (Y^ehôvâh), the Hebrew tetragrammaton for the personal name of God). There is no command­ment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31. This text has been re­peated several times and it bears re­peating sev­eral more because Jesus said it is the most im­portant of all com­mandments.

There is no question of plurality here. Would Je­sus, God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16), God with us (Matthew 1:23), say “The most impor­tant one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord [Kurios/Yehovah’] our God, the Lord [Kurios/Yehovah’] is one if God was plural in na­ture? Absolutely not! He would be a false prophet, a faulty teacher and a liar to say such a thing if God were triune.

Jesus spoke of God, his Fa­ther, as though he was separated from him when he spoke to the woman at the well. Then he declares in John 14 that the Father was living within him. More hidden meanings. Jesus cer­tainly is not talking as we ex­pect God Almighty to speak, or the second member of a triune Godhead. Philippians 2:5, 6 says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not rob­bery to be equal with God.” (Who, although being es­sentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the full­ness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or re­tained (Philip­pians 2:6, Amplified Bible).  Jesus did not at­tempt to prove to every­one that he was God manifest in the flesh by flaunting the prowess of his nature in the man­ner that Satan did during his attempt to become like God. Je­sus took on the form of a servant unto death. That is why he spoke so submis­sively of his father.

But he will not always be so submis­sive and veiled in his speech. 1 Timothy 6:15, 16 “Which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate the King of kings, and Lord [Kurios] of lords [Kurios]; Verse 16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can ap­proach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power ever­lasting.”  John 16:25 “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.”

There were times when Jesus gave us a glimpse of who he was. John 14:1, “Let not your heart be trou­bled: ye be­lieve in God, believe also in me.”  How could he tell us to put the same faith that we place in God, in him also, if he were only a man. He could not! He explained his ex­act position in Verses 9 and 10: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. If there ever was a death nail to the doctrine of the Trinity, it is my opinion that this passage would be it. Jesus declaring that the God of creation resides within him sheds fresh light on the name Emmanuel, God with us, assigned to Jesus. Isaiah 9:6 provides new insight to just who Jesus is, the Mighty God and Everlasting Father.

There were times when Jesus allowed himself to be wor­shipped as God. John 20:27-29 tells us his first encounter with Thomas after his resurrection: “he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord [Kurios] and my God[theos]!” (Paraphrase:  The Y^ehôvâh of me and the God of me). Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Jesus was fulfilling the plan of God that had been made from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). He taught with stories containing hidden meaning that, by design, kept some in the dark. He was a servant, he is a Saviour, he is the mediator be­tween God and men but Jesus Christ is no Trinitarian.  He loves Trinitarians, he died for Trinitarians, and he wants them to know him for what he really is: Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). The King of kings and lord of lords. Some day he will return to show all who he re­ally is. When that day comes there will be no doubt, there will be no questions, there will be no time to recon­sider your opinion of Who Jesus Really Is!