Isaac, Ishmael, Allegory, and the Christ Story

Luke 24:27

"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."

1 Corinthians 4:6

"I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers and sisters, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another."

John 5:39

"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."

John 5:46

"If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words."

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The story of the significance of Jesus's life is fully contained in the Jewish Scriptures, or the Old Testament. But you will never be able to perceive it if you only read the Scriptures literally. For centuries, Christians have primarily relied on the teaching of the New Testament to communicate their message about Christ.

But the earliest members of the church didn't have a New Testament. It hadn't been written yet.

Paul didn't have the Gospels. They hadn't been written yet.

So when the writer of Luke has a resurrected Christ explaining the significance of his life and resurrection, it is the Jewish Scriptures - Moses and the Prophets - that Jesus uses to help them understand.

When Paul warns the Corinthian church to "not go beyond what is written", it is the Jewish Scriptures that he is referring to, for Paul was the earliest writer of what became the New Testament and not even the Gospels had yet been written.

If we want to come to an understanding about the life and significance of Jesus of Nazareth, it is imperative that we understand his life through the lens of the Jewish Scriptures. And I don't simply mean verses that were applied to Jesus after his death.

We need to understand the narrative. We need to grasp the story arc. We must understand it as the early church would have - allegorically - not literally.

Even the Apostle Paul himself viewed Scripture through an allegorical lens. In Galatians 4:21-31, he tells his readers that to comprehend the message properly, they must read it allegorically. He teaches that Abraham had two sons - one born of a slave and one born of a free woman. He applies that teaching to the church, to instruct them about their own nature and being born of the Spirit.

But if you go to a church on Sunday, and if they happen to teach how Jesus fulfilled prophecy from the Old Testament, you'll likely hear a listing of pinpointed verses from the Book of Isaiah or Micah or The Psalms. Yet in all my years of going to church, I don't once recall a teaching about the story arc of the Old Testament being fulfilled through the life of Jesus of Nazareth as evidence that he is the Christ.

The reason for that is we've been indoctrinated by a western, literalist theology that is taught in Bible colleges, seminaries, and then down to the pews. And it is blinding people from perceiving the true message of the gospel and substituting it with a diluted, literalist version.

The truth of Scripture has been held hostage by western minds trying to understand eastern ideas. The literal version of the Bible is not usually the most accurate portrayal of its meaning. But you have prominent pastors and theologians in the Evangelical church who want to die on the hill of "the Bible is either 100% true or not true at all", and they think they're being virtuous. In reality, their "virtue" is veiled arrogance and fear.

And it's the people they're supposed to be leading that suffer. As Jesus says in Luke 11:52, "For you have taken away the key to knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering." By demanding that the Bible be 100% historically and literally true, these leaders do not allow their followers to enter the truth of Christ's teaching.

So, when Luke has Jesus explaining to the two followers on the Road to Emmaus "the things concerning himself" from the Jewish Scriptures, what might he have been saying?

I doubt that he was quoting Micah 5:2, that prophesied the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, and saying "Guess where I was born?"

I doubt he was quoting to them Isaiah 53 about the Suffering Servant and then saying "If you think that's bad, let me tell you about my Friday night."

And it's not that these aren't relevant Scriptures that point to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah; it's just that the story is bigger than that.

He is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. We have to understand the allegorical story of the people of Israel, from the Abrahamic promise to enslavement in Egypt to the entry into the Promised Land. Just as Jesus famously taught that the Temple built by man was not the true Temple of G-d, but that you and I are the Temple of G-d and that the kingdom of G-d is within, not without. So too, should we understand the story of Israel as a metaphor for the life and teaching and existential reality of Jesus of Nazareth becoming the Christ.

There's too much to write in one post, so I'll plan to write additional posts on this topic. But to get started, let's look at the story of Abraham and his sons.

Abrahamic Promise and His Two Sons

The story of Israel starts upon G-d's promise to Abraham to make him a great nation. But for most of his life, he was without a child. To become a great nation, a person is going to need to have a lot of offspring at some point in their lineage. Yet, Abraham does not lose faith (well, he did a little). When he was 85 or 86 years old, his wife Sarai basically said, "Hey, Abraham. This isn't going to happen for us. Take my servant as a wife and try with her." Abraham does, and conceives a child, Ishmael (which means "G-d hears"), by his wife's servant Hagar who is Egyptian (remember that).

The angel of the LORD visits Hagar and tells her that she is pregnant and also provides a less than flattering prophecy for the child. The NRSV translation puts it like this: "He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin."

He's going to be a strong willed child for sure.

G-d then makes the covenant of circumcision with Abraham, declaring "You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you." The sign of the covenant is cutting of the flesh. I will explain the significance shortly..

After the birth of Ishmael, G-d reassures his promise to make Abraham a great nation through Sarah and his offspring and tells them that by next year, Sarah will give birth to Isaac, who's name means "he laughs."

Both Isaac and Ishmael will be made into great nations. But it is through Isaac that G-d will establish an everlasting covenant, for He says "Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him." He also promises to make Ishmael a great nation, but reiterates that it is through Isaac that the covenant - the everlasting covenant, mind you - will be established.

After Isaac is born, Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, are eventually cast out from the growing tribe at the behest of Sarah, Isaac's mother. Sarah had perceived that Ishmael was mocking her and her son and demanded they be cast out. Ishmael grows up in the wilderness and eventually takes an Egyptian wife and becomes a nation of people.

So, let's take a step back and summarize what's going on. It's easy to get lost in the details of the story and fail to see the narrative. We have two children that are of the same father. Ishmael is wild in his nature, and is "an expert with a bow." (Gen. 21:20). Isaac is the inheritor of an everlasting promise. Ishmael is cast out into the wilderness. Isaac is the one with whom G-d covenants the Promise Land, the sign of which is circumcision.

If you wanted to overlay a metaphor about human nature, I think it would fit well. We all have two natures. We have a lower mind that is concerned with survival and we have a higher mind that is self-sacrificial. We have a lower nature that is animalistic. We have a higher nature that is altruistic.

Both of these natures are within us. They are of the same father, so to speak, just as the two offspring of Abraham, while very different in their nature and destiny, are still both sons of Abraham. A single source, but two very different natures. The point of the story, whether it is historical or not, is that our purpose in life is to transcend the lower nature and ascend to the higher nature. If we want to be in union with G-d, we can only do so through the higher nature - or the higher mind/higher consciousness. This is what the story is telling us.

Why do you think that circumcision is a sign of the covenant? It is because to realize the promise of G-d, which is to enter the Promised Land (eternal life), you must separate from the flesh (the lower nature). The story is about ascending into the higher consciousness of G-d, which we can only do if we let go of the lower consciousness of the flesh and ego. This can be challenging to do.

Circumcision is the act of taking a blade to the most sensitive area of a man's body.

Do we really think that cutting the flesh from the tip of the penis was an arbitrary decision?

It's because it is the most intimate and sensitive part of the male body.

So too, is the lower mind - or what can be called the ego. It is our identity and how we make sense of the world. The meaning of circumcision is to let go of the lower mind/ego and raise your consciousness into the higher consciousness of G-d. You have to leave the lower things behind. They must be cut off.

And this is the accomplishment of the Christ. In his life he was able to transcend the flesh and ascend to the Consciousness of G-d. When he said that he and the Father are one, this is what he meant. He transcended the lower nature and the ego and lived through the Consciousness of G-d. He cut off the flesh. Even to the point of death.

If Jesus would have just recanted from his teaching, he could have avoided death. He was killed because he refused to recant. He refused to deny the truth. He taught in order to set people free from their lower minds. He showed them the way to live in unity with G-d. His life and teaching were about transcending the lower nature and living as the inheritor of the promise that G-d made to Abraham and to Isaac, that their descendants would one day live in the land of promise. Not a physical territory, but one that transcends the physical.

Jesus taught that the kingdom of G-d is within you. Only by going inward and overcoming the lower mind through the Consciousness of G-d will one enter into the kingdom of heaven - the promised land of G-d.

The story of Isaac and Ishmael is a story of the dual nature of your consciousness.

One that is enslaved to the physical world.

And one that is able to freely receive the promise and rise into the Consciousness of G-d.