Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is certainly the primary focus of the Bible. But some students go astray in their efforts to find Him on every page. I ran across this recent example as I prepared a lesson on Genesis 14.
Jeremy Myers shares how “...certain teachers of the past have twisted Genesis 14:14 to get it to be a reference to Jesus Christ. This teacher noticed that the consonants of Abram’s name add up to 318. Then he took the number 318 and converted it into the Greek alphabet, kind of like Roman numerals. The Greek letter tau stands for 300, the iota for 10 and the epsilon for 8. And then they say, “Oh wow! The tau looks like the cross, and the iota and epsilon are the first two letters of Jesus’ name in Greek, Iesus, and so here in Genesis 14:14, we have a prophecy that Christ will die on the cross. The man who taught this wrote, God “...knows that I never taught to anyone a more certain truth.””
He goes on to warn that we must guard “...ourselves against all such forms of Scripture twisting and treating the Bible like a magical incantation book full of secret codes and magical formulas. It is not a book of Christian horoscopes. The Bible is not to be treated like Tarot Cards.”*
I whole-heartedly agree. Numbers did occasionally have significance in both the Hebrew and Greek languages. But sometimes (perhaps more often than not) a number was just that -- a number. When we go assigning a meaning to a number when that meaning isn’t revealed in Scripture, we are in uncharted and untethered territory. When we head down that road, we can end up wherever we want. The illustration above proves it. The 318 fighters in Abram’s army suddenly becomes a prophecy that Christ will die on the cross. Something not clearly taught in the Bible suddenly becomes a “certain truth.” Imagine that!
God loves you!
Mike
*https://redeeminggod.com/sermons/genesis/genesis_14/
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