The Importance of Understanding Jewish Idioms
In order to properly understand a foreign language it is important to understand the idioms that are common to that culture. You can imagine how someone who isn’t from America might react if they were told they needed to “butter someone up” in order to gain their favor, or that dinner at an expensive restaurant was going to cost them an “arm and a leg.” Without knowing the true meaning of such phrases, the uninitiated is left to take them at “face value.”
This same kind of miscommunication can happen when Scripture, which was written from a traditional Hebraic mindset, is translated into English. If the reader is unaware of the idioms employed, confusion can follow. As one Bible software executive observed:
It’s all too easy to read Scripture as if it was written yesterday. But when we read the Bible through a modern lens, we open ourselves up to major misinterpretation. If we want to understand the Bible, we need to see it through the eyes of someone from the culture in which it was written…. You can’t understand Christianity without a proper understanding of Judaism…[1]
While there are many Hebraisms found in Scripture, the focus of this post will be to examine the following idioms: to “come into the world,” to say someone or something is “not of this world,” and to be “sent into the world.” These expressions are often used to support the idea that Jesus pre-existed in heaven before coming to earth. But as we’ll see, they mean something entirely different.
When you read the following passages, what do you understand the phrase “into the world” to mean?
John 3:17 (NASB) “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (emphasis added)
1 John 4:9 (NASB) By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. (emphasis added)
1 Timothy 1:15 (NASB) It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. (emphasis added)
Because we have been taught that Jesus pre-existed in heaven as the logos or word of God before being incarnated in the womb of Mary, many Christians interpret the above passages, and ones like them, to mean that Jesus literally came from beyond the upper atmosphere into our earthly realm. But is this what the Biblical authors meant to communicate? What would first century Jews have understood when they heard that Jesus “came into the world?”
Pre-existence vs Pre-existence
The Biblical Hebraic concept of pre-existence–that things pre-exist but only in the sense that they exist in mind or foreknowledge of God–is very different from the concept of a literal pre-existence held by the Church Fathers. Author and Church historian, Kegan Chandler writes:
What we will call the classical Jewish view of pre-existence is much different [from the literal pre-existence of Greek philosophy]. The oldest Hebrew conception was not in the literal and ontological sense of the Greeks; rather it was an existence only in the “foreknowledge” or “foreordination” of God. In this sense, important figures, objects, and symbols first “existed” in heaven with God before being made a reality at their appointed times. All of these things did not literally and physically dwell in some far removed dimension, but were personally envisioned by God in his eternal plan for the universe.[2]
Many of the Church Fathers subscribed to the teachings of philosophers such as Heraclitus[3], Plato[4] and Philo[5], who taught that all things literally pre-exist before they exist. For example, all souls are immortal and pre-exist in heaven before being incarnated[6] and coming into the world.
Another proponent of the literal preexistence of souls was Justin Martyr, the second century Apostolic Father,[7] was the first to interpret Philo’s teaching of the eternal, non-personal Logos as being the pre-incarnate Jesus. However, for the early Church, the logos of God was simply God’s thoughts, ideas, plans, purposes, wisdom, etc. expressed in words. Furthermore, the idea that God would incarnate himself in the womb of a virgin was contrary to traditional Hebraic thought. The Encyclopedia of Ethics and Religions states, “There is in the Old Testament no indication of distinction in the Godhead; it is an anachronism to find either the doctrine of the Incarnation or that of the Trinity in its pages.”[8] Furthermore, Michael Goulder, professor and Biblical scholar writes:
It is the bias of orthodoxy constantly to overlook middle terms. The earliest church [did not view Jesus] as God the Son, but as the man whom God raised up and [assigned] the Holy Spirit to pour out upon the church (Acts 2:33).[9]
What then did the first century Jews and Christians understand the phrase Jesus “came into the world” to mean?
Come into the World
To the Biblical Hebraic mind, “come into the world” was a figure of speech that meant to come into existence; to be born. For example, Jesus employed this idiom to compare the sorrow and joy his disciples would experience after his death with the emotions of a new mother.
John 16:21 (NASB) “Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. (emphasis added)
Obviously, from the context we see that “into the world” is associated with being born. According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, this idiom is used by English speakers today.”[10] However, when we read it in association with Jesus, the meaning defaults to that of the Church Fathers’ Platonic-inspired view of Jesus’ literal pre-existence in heaven.
We also see this figure of speech used by Paul in his letter to Timothy:
1 Timothy 6:7 (NASB) For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. (emphasis added)
Here the meaning is the same: to be born. In another example, Jesus once again uses this phrase when he appears before Pilate:
John 18:37 (NASB) Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (emphasis added)
In this passage, Jesus uses a literary device known as a “synonymous parallelism” which Encyclopaedia Britannica says “involves the repetition in the second part of what has already been expressed in the first, while simply varying the words.”[11]
For this I have been born [first part] and for this I have come into the world [first part repeated using different words]
In other words, being born and coming into the world are synonymous. Another example of this Hebraism is found in Jesus’ encounter with Martha just before her brother Lazarus’ is raised from the dead.
John 11:25-27 (NASB) Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.” (emphasis added)
Notice that Martha declared Jesus to be the Christ (anointed one), the Son of God, which was a Messianic title[12]. Like other traditional Jews, Martha did not subscribe to the second century notion espoused by Justin Martyr that Jesus pre-existed in heaven before being incarnated. This view was anachronistic and foreign to Scripture. Rather, Mary understood Jesus was the Jewish Messiah whose time had come, not that he traveled through the cosmos to earth.
In addition, the crowd of several thousand, whom Jesus miraculously fed, did not hold the Platonic view that pre-existent souls traverse time and space to dwell in the earth. Instead they understood that the prophet whom God had promised to send[13] had been born and was even now, in their midst.
John 6:13-14 (NASB) So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. 14 Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
To come “into the world” is also used figuratively to describe the “birth” of sin. Paul writes:
Romans 5:12 (NASB) Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— (emphasis added)
Sin did not literally dwell in some remote inter-cosmic space, Paul simply used the phrase as a metaphor to illustrate the entrance of sin into God’s pristine creation.
Not of this World
A phrase similar to “come into the world” that some misinterpret as proof of Jesus’ literal pre-existence is the phrase, “not of this world.” We see it employed by Jesus in what has been called his “high priestly prayer.”
John 17:14-16 (NASB) “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. 16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (emphasis added)
Notice that there is actually no reference to heaven in this passage. Rather the context reveals that Jesus used the phrase to mean that he does not belong to or operate according to this world’s system. How do we know this? Because in whatever way Jesus used the phrase, it also applies to us for he said that his disciples are “not of the world even as (i.e. in the same way) I am not of the world.” Thus, “not this world” can’t mean that Jesus literally came from heaven because that would mean we literally came from heaven as well.
Sent Into the World
Another phrase that is similar to the idiom came into the world is the phrase to be “sent into the world.” Instead of meaning that God sent Jesus into the world from outside of the world (i.e. heaven), the phrase simply means to be sent out geographically to do the work of God. For just as God sent Jesus into the world, so we too, have been sent out to do the Father’s will. Jesus prayed:
John 17:18 and 20-21 (NASB) “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world…20 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; 21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. (emphasis added)
Jesus’ prayer was that believers would go into the world “as” (in the same way) Jesus was sent by God into the world. In other words, empowered by God to do the will of God. [14] Indeed, we have been commissioned to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”[15]
In conclusion, certain Jewish idioms like “came into the world” when viewed through a Platonic filter of a literal pre-existence seem to imply that Jesus pre-existed in heaven before coming to earth. However, with the proper Hebraic framework in place, we see that these idioms carry a more logical explanation, and one that better fits with the Scriptural view of pre-existence: that Jesus, who preexisted in the mind or plan of God, at the proper time was born into the world to save sinners.
1 Peter 1:20 (NASB) For He [Jesus] was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you. (emphasis added)
1 Timothy 1:15 (NASB) It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. (emphasis added)
[1] Kaleb Cuevas, “Reading Scripture Through the Proper Lens,” Logos.com, July 21, 2015, accessed 04-29-19, https://blog.logos.com/2015/07/reading-scripture-through-the-proper-lens/
[2] Kegan A. Chandler, The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma, (McDonough, GA: Restoration Fellowship, 2016), p. 342.
[3] “Heraclitus,” Philosophy of Religion, accessed 5-11-19, http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/plato_forms.htm
[4] Plato, Timaeus, and Phaedo, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed 05-08-19.
[5] “Soul, Philo’s Views” The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906 ed.; accessed 04-29-19, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12340-preexistence-of-the-soul#anchor2
[6] Some early philosophers may have not used the word “incarnated” to describe their beliefs.
[7] The Apostolic Fathers, not to be confused with the apostles of Jesus, were theologians who lived in the first and second centuries. They were called “apostolic” because they were said to have known one or more of the twelve apostles or to have been influenced by them.
[8] “God,” Encyclopedia of Ethics and Religion, ed. James Hastings, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Vol. 6, 1919), p. 254
[9] Michael Goulder, Incarnation and Myth: the Debate Continued, (Eerdmans, 1979), p. 143.
[10] “to come into the world,” Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, online accessed 4-28-19 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/come%20into%20the%20world
[11] “Ketuvim,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed 04-17-19, https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/The-Ketuvim#ref1096330
[12] See John 1:49 where Son of God and king of Israel are used as a synonymous parallel.
[13] Deuteronomy 18:15; Acts 3:22; 7:37.
[14] John 20:21-22; Luke 24:49
[15] Mark 16:15
