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B.
DYBWAD BROCHMANN THE ART OF READING
THE BIBLE Chapter
16 How a scholarly and pious man of the Church,
with abundant artistic abilities, misinterprets The Bible due to lack of
awareness (light) about our own nature. The
author’s father, diocese priest I.H.H.
Brochmann, from Kristiansand S. (a city in the southern part of Norway),
was a scholarly researcher in the area of language and The Bible. He was also
a natural scientist, a botanist, and an astronomer with life and soul. At the
same time, he was a pious believer and a reverent public official with the
greatest respect for the Lutheran Church, which he served and belonged to
until his death. He was artistically talented in a variety of ways – a
lyricist, a stylist, poet, painter and quite a musician. I’m sharing all this
so the readers will see before them a well-equipped, very talented and well thought
of man of the Church, since this has meaning for what follows. He didn’t
look at the Church in only one-way; he also saw the weaknesses and negative
sides. There were disputes in the church between him and the reverent Bishop Heuch in Kristiansand S., in
addition, especially, about his Explanation of the Revelation of John,
where he clearly foresees and warns of the negative things happening in the Church and of its decay. We will
now quote from his explanation of the temptation of Jesus from “The Bible
with explanations, part 5” by I.H.H. Brochmann, pages 14-16, that refer to
Matthew 4:1-11. “After
the baptismal experience, Jesus feels a strong need to be alone to speak with
His heavenly Father about His great calling and to ask for clarity and strength
to be able to do that. Behind the spiritual inclination there lies a divine
reason – Jesus wants to have the greatest and most important struggles with
the devil undisturbed by the world, so that after being victorious He will be
clear and strong enough to meet the masked attack from people. It is a wise
idea for every young person, for example, after their confirmation, to have
some quiet time to be strengthened in his favor from God and to make
preparations against the temptations of life”. “Jesus
spends this time in such a way with the Father that He doesn’t think about
food or time, before He starts feeling very hungry. Where will He get food?
It’s a long way to people. At the same moment, the Tempter is there with Him
and shows Him a way out, namely that He can make use of His position as the
Son of God. You may not run aground. God won’t deny You the necessary food,
He will naturally that You shall use the capabilities You have received. The
Tempter is very cunning. Which was worse - to make bread into stones, later
on to make water to wine, or to make 5 loaves of bread to many in the desert?
We have to remember here that people sin more often with things that are
allowed. What is sinful is usually not in the action, but in the
circumstances, where it is done. What was false in the Tempter’s advice was
that if Jesus had followed it, He would have served Himself and followed His
own will, instead of laying all of His sorrows in the hand of the Father. It
is easy to see that had Jesus followed the way the Tempter showed Him, His
whole life would have taken quite a different direction than it should have. Then
He would have commanded the fig tree to give him figs, He would not have
wandered from place to place on His tired feet to find shelter, but arranged
for His own shelter. He would never have been able to say such things as the
foxes have holes, etc. Yes, He would even, as the Son of God, have come down
from the cross, or never even have been in that situation. However, Jesus
doesn’t make even the smallest little
mistake in that direction, so that He could learn from experience. His
life must have been very pure through His youth to have such a fine sense and
so great power against evil! He must have been thoroughly permeated with the
word of God and His Spirit to be able to act so quickly. (Deuteronomy 8:3).
His spirit of service must have been complete. A servant doesn’t make himself
comfortable, but waits until he receives something from his master”. (Luke
17:8). “The
devil has the power to take Jesus with him, but not to harm Him. (Compare
with Job 1:12), ‘You may not stretch out your hand toward Him’. The temple didn’t have a gable or a tower.
The basic text draws either the parapet round on its flat roof or maybe more
correctly the roof’s overhanging edge, the most outer decoration of the roof
of the temple. The devil follows closely the angel’s protection of Jesus, and
in a satanic way tries to tempt Him. He feels the strength Jesus has in the
word of God, and tries to talk in those terms in order to outwit Him. He gets
his speech from Salomon 91: 11 and leaves out on purpose the words ‘in all
thy ways’, (Compare with Luke 4:10), to even better hide his false use. Since
Jesus is filled with the Spirit of God, He notices immediately the strange spirit, which now speaks
trying to use God’s words. He rejects the Tempter, and will not get involved
with a dispute about the correct interpretation of the place, but powerfully
uses other words, (Deuteronomy 6:16) that undeniably show its limitations and
the correct understanding”. “Jesus
will be involved in other temptations where He uses His divine nature or
calls on the protection of the angels to protect Himself. The first victory
has strengthened Him against everybody. Jesus doesn’t go unnecessarily into
danger (Matthew 4:12, 14:13; John 7:1,11:54), but goes into danger for the
sake of others, and when His calling takes Him into danger, He doesn’t stay
away (John 11:8, 18:4-11), but leaves it up to God how He will be protected. If
He had demanded the service of the angels on the roof of the temple, He would
not be able to say: The Son of Man has not come to be served”. “The third temptation is open and uncovered.
Satan asks Jesus right out about a trade. He arranges for everything the
world owns of glory and enjoyment to fix their alluring eyes on Him, to see
if He possibly can be lured away. Winning is apparently important and is the
prize, and genuflection apparently not so important. This temptation clearly shows the Tempter who He is – ‘the prince of the world’. He has to
step away after this defeat. ‘Get away from me Satan’! The faith of Jesus and
His desire to be of service are not to be shaken. He strikes the Tempter for
the third time with the word of God. (Deuteronomy 6:13, 10:20). “All
three words that Jesus uses are taken from Deuteronomy. Researchers can say
what they will about the time and origin of this book; Jesus has at least confirmed that these are the words of God. May
God use what is necessary to bring us His word. When it is certified for us
that it is God’s word, during a time of difficulty, that is all we need to
know”. “The big, exciting struggle between two
princes, the
prince of this world, and the prince that God has anointed and dedicated for
His kingdom on earth, was over for this time. Satan was conquered by the
miracle God sent to us, a human condition in our flesh and blood. The angels, whom we can think of as
being spiritless spectators during the struggle, now dare to rush forward and
serve the winner. ‘To serve someone’
is often used in the New Testament to mean to wait on, to bring food and
drink (Luke 10:40, 12:37; John 12:2), and this meaning is also the best one
here. Compare 1 kings 19:5. Jesus has experienced this same thing, walked
along this way, which was the correct way for Him, and He experiences the
truth and the fulfillment in the words that God provides His angels to care
for Him”. “The
person who is victorious in a deciding struggle with the Tempter can also
feel a joy, like the companionship and service of God’s angels, even if his
eye isn’t as open as the Savior’s to see them”. Comment: 1. People have asked about how to
understand the event, if it was only wisdom, an inner spiritual occurrence,
or a real outer experience. Evidence against
the first opinion, is the simple, straightforward story and the
occurrence that angels brought Him what He needed, food and drink. Evidence for the same opinion shows both the
moving to the roof of the temple, since you can’t assume that these two
shapes were noticed by people who were present, and in addition the showing
of all the riches in the world and their glory, ‘in a moment’, as Luke says,
since this isn’t seen from any mountain top in the world. It’s clearly stated
here that the Tempter came, and took Him with him and went, and that Jesus
saw, heard, and answered him. This reminds me of an occurrence in a vision
when He didn’t care about how he looked or how things were going with the
moving to the temple and the display of the world’s riches and glory. The
thing is that it is not possible to distinguish
between vision and reality, but that it is a reality with a visionary
character, or a vision that has real contents. You can compare the occurrence
with what happened with the baptism, where Jesus, with the Baptist also as a witness, saw the open heaven and the
Spirit and heard the voice from heaven. It was an invisible kingdom of the Spirit that showed itself for his senses. The
spiritual struggle in the desert was also such a physical reality. 2. People
have asked if it was possible for Jesus to be tempted. One way to understand
it was, that it was not possible, because someone who had so completely given
Himself to God, as Jesus had done, and had God with Him, can’t be tempted. Jesus
shows us the truth that, who has Jesus with him, has God with him, but no one
can have God with him, in the same way that Jesus can, unless he also has
Jesus with him. He is certain of victory, and that the power of darkness will
fail. On the other side, we have to be careful for the interpretation that
Jesus could not be tempted, that He was not receptive for temptation, in such
a way that He didn’t need to struggle to win a victory, and that the whole
temptation was only an apparent temptation. That would lead to the old so
called Docetism, which taught that
the suffering and tests of obedience of the Lord were only superficial, and
it only looked like He suffered. (That the sufferings of Christ were an
illusion, was a teaching especially widespread among the Gnostics. – from
Wikipedia). Then He
wouldn’t have been a real person, not a real second Adam, and the human
family would not have risen again in Him, after its fall. We have to stay
with the idea that His pure nature was without sin and was receptive for
temptation, in the same way that Adam’s nature was without sin, and that
during all of His earthly life, He had to continually be alert, pray and
struggle with the flesh in order to submit to the Spirit. We see a good
example of this in Gethsemane where the Spirit’s struggle with the flesh is
so difficult that His body sweats blood. We also see there that it is a
mistake if we think that the Lord’s struggle with temptation is easier than
ours, and that ours is worse because the Tempter has an ally in our sinful
nature. It’s exactly the opposite, where the opposition is weakest, the
struggle is less, and where the opposition is strongest, the struggle is the
most difficult. A miserable wretch can’t
struggle as much as a giant. We aren’t put into such difficult ordeals by
the faithful God, as those our Lord is tested with, if we are going to be
victorious. (1 Corinthians 10:13). What comparison is there between Adam’s
test of obedience, to leave a tree alone, when he had a lot of others, and
with our Lord’s obedience test to not take any bread, when He was close to
starving to death! In the same way, the scruples and struggles for a more
developed believer are more difficult than that of a new beginner; the last
temptations for Abraham and Job were more difficult than when their life of
faith began”. “The
letter to the Hebrews speaks clearly about our Lord’s temptations and tests
of obedience. For example in Hebrews 5:8, it says that He ‘learned obedience
by what He suffered, and when He was accomplished,
that became the origin to eternal salvation for them who obey Him’; this was
the Lord’s human development to perfection during what He had to go through. When
it says that He ‘must be like His brothers in everything in order to be a
merciful and faithful high priest,…..He is able to help those who are tempted
since He has suffered and been tempted Himself’ and ‘have compassion with us
in our frailties, because He has been tested in the same ways that we have
been tested, although not with sin’. In Hebrews 2:17; 4:15 it says straight
forward that in temptation He was in the same position that we were, and the
only difference was that he walked away from the temptation without falling”. ------------------------------------------- The
reader will easily see here the big difference between the pious theological
interpretation of The Bible and our earlier psychological “explaining” of The
Bible’s imagery. My father’s faith
was correct and, above all, his will
for truth was present. The spirit was also “good” in the biblical meaning.
However, this was not enough. The
pastor’s interpretations of the temptations of Jesus are inadequate. What does he know
about the “stones” that give bread, or about the centripetal drives with the
masses needing a visual leader, and
a big and powerful king outside of themselves? He has
some suspicion about the conventional temptations of life on the high
mountain, and he is somewhat acquainted with the spiritual prostitution when
we see his careful explanation of the revelation of John, where he doesn’t
keep quiet about the truth about the “bride of Christ” (the congregation) and
the church have become like harlots, according to John. He discusses the
possibility of the devil being visible or allegorical, or if they were only
“visions”, i.e. inner experiences. In an
explanation of the same thing (in Luke 4), the pastor says (page 267 in the
same theological work) among other things: “In the
words of Matthew: ‘The Tempter came to him’, he has concluded that the
Tempter came to him in a visible shape; and then asks, in which shape he was
shown (as an angel, a scholar, etc)? This kind of thing is hardly found in
either the words of Matthew or Luke. For example, you notice that Matthew
doesn’t say the devil, but the Tempter, as if to avoid a presentation about a
visible shape, and that Luke says that the devil left him for a while (verse 13). Therein lies
the thought that he came again, but we don’t hear about him being visible
during later temptations. The words: ‘but of every word of God’ are missing
in the oldest handwritten records and are therefore left out by many critics.
It’s possible that it was easily added after Matthew. Many of the youngest
handwritten records have directly copied Matthew: ‘but of every word that
comes out of the mouth of God’”. “Took him up to a high mountain and, in a
moment, showed him all the riches in the world, meaning for his inner
eye. There is no other way he can see from a simple place and in a moment all
the riches of the world. That would also mean that the climbing of the
mountain and being taken to the temple was something that happened in the
inner eye. It is delivered unto me;
this is not a lie. Jesus calls him ‘the prince of the world’. (John 12:31,
14:30, 16:11). It is almost as if the world has come into his power when the
world allowed him to enter. That doesn’t exclude God sanctioning his power
and giving him his power, like in the old pact when He turned over Israel to
the power of the heathens, when they went into an alliance with them. (Compare
other places as in Romans 1:24, 26:28, and Thessalonians 2:11). Shall everything be yours; for how
short a time the devil is able to give these glories of the world, he doesn’t
say, as usual, when he tries to tempt someone with it. The world, and its
desire, comes to an end. (John 2:17). Jesus is not like the fool in John
12:20”. “The temple mount. Look at the
explanation in Mathew 4:5. Newer interpretations mean that this doesn’t mean
the high roof of the real temple building (the holy and most holy, temple),
but the temple wall over the dizzy depths down in the valley toward the east.
(Page 119). Here we see that the basic texts of both Mathew and Luke do not
speak about temple (naos), but
about hieron”. ------------------------------------------ The
well-meaning and sincere explanations from my father speak for themselves! If
he had experienced today’s mental research, his explanation of the temptation
of Jesus would have been fairly different, richer and much more factual,
positive, and human. The
difference between my father’s interpretation of The Bible and mine, is only
that my father had to be satisfied to believe and only glimpse partially,
while I don’t only believe, I am
completely conscious that I have experienced all of the temptations of Christ.
When you know something, you have
come longer than when you believe without seeing! Blessed is he who still
does not see, but yet believes fully and completely. Everyone
who tries to help the world along on the right path, and has such strong
power of the spirit that they win support and what people call “supporters”,
will experience the temptations of Jesus as an objective reality. Then the
devil will come to us by himself, inside of us like voices and outside of us,
as well meant tips and good council. The world
has to see about coming further than only having faith. We have to wake up to
the consciousness about the deep contents of The Bible and about the meaning of life! We have
to learn to experience the Mental Savior of the World inside of us, so that
Jesus Christ can come out of the theological “cloud”, where He has been
hidden from us. We need to see the glory of the Son of Man so that the Savior
is living inside of us, in spirit and truth, in reality and practice. We have
to grow past the religious limitation. We also hope that the book about human
nature shall give us new light over ourselves, over the Savior, and over “the
temptations”. --------------------------------- THE
GOSPELS “The first three books in the Gospels make a group by
themselves. If they are compared with John, it is striking how the first
three books are similar to each other. At first you could think that the
similarity wouldn’t be difficult to explain, but when you get down to it, it
is easier to understand differences with various authors, than similarities. Either
there has to be something in common between the narratives of the three first
evangelists, or they must have known each other’s writings and used them, or
both things have taken place. Researchers have painstakingly attempted to
explain the relationship between the three first evangelists, however up to
now, they haven’t provided complete clarity and agreement. The following
basic features are the main result of the examinations and can be mentioned
to illustrate the case. “None of
the evangelists sat down right after the ascension of Jesus to write about His life and deeds. In the
beginning, they satisfied themselves with verbal stories about Him in the
congregational gatherings. These spoken traditions build the foundation for
the later written versions in the three first gospels and can explain the
similar basic type that these share. “To begin
with, it wasn’t so important to know exactly when each event happened in each
individual occurrence. The exact time and the exact order of things is, when
a few years have passed, not so easy to remember either. The events, and
especially the spoken word, are much easier linked together according to
their inner relationship, than to their chronological order. It is easier to
remember different places, than different times when an event happened; and
the event is often dependent on a place, and is understood only from the
place (the synagogue, the sea, the desert, the temple, etc). In addition, it
was natural that the stories of what Jesus had said and done in Galilee were
told in Galilee, and the same thing was the case with the congregation in
Jerusalem. In that way, the stories at each place were mutually linked
together, and afterwards for an evangelist to tear them apart from each
other, in order to put them in consecutive order, would have done more harm
than good. In this way you can explain the grouping of stories, which is
common for the three first Gospels; the events in Galilee and Jerusalem were
told together. “The
earliest verbal records of the
congregation’s gatherings, in most of the first three Gospels, share a short
and rounded off form (which has, among other things, made them so suitable
for use as the Sunday text in the Church). And by repeating it over and over
again, a story receives a concentrated form. “On the
assumption that the spoken traditions were the foundation, one can still
understand why they prefer to relate the outer, practical side of the life of
Jesus, which is commonly seen with the three first evangelists. First and foremost
His actions, and then His words are most to the point, and most suitable to
adhere to. However, John, who has released himself from the usual verbal
records, doesn’t systemize as Matthew, but turns back to his own personal
memories, renders Jesus’ exchange of words in a much richer simplicity,
partly with the people, partly with the apostles, and includes many more
passionate words of Jesus. “Finally,
based on the same assumption, one can also securely explain which human
seasonings of a foreign Spirit are kept out. The Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ
was very strong in the first congregation. Face to face with the first congregation,
nothing false could be put down without it being felt and later corrected. The
stories are tested by the congregation’s use of them, and of course it could
be said that the inspiration of the Gospels, namely with Luke, not
exclusively is the individual evangelist’s inspiration. Earlier
the Spirit has also used the congregation to organize the material and to
lead the way to the truth. “Little
by little, as the stories went further, beyond the oldest circles, and were going to be delivered to the
coming generation, the danger of
distortion arose, and thereby the need for a written record was
necessary. “One of
the oldest authors in the church says that Mark didn’t want to leave out or
to add anything; and although not in a strict chronological order, he wrote
down exactly and carefully what Peter had preached about the words and deeds
of Jesus. “The same
author writes about Mathew saying that first of all he wrote a collection of
what Jesus had said in the Jewish language. It is reasonable to
think that this is the oldest written recorded Gospel. It was lost when he
later wrote his complete Gospel in Greek, which is what we now have. It looks
like the Gospel of Mark, with his last work, has served him as a model and as
supplementation, if the reverse isn’t true that the plan in the original
Hebraic from Matthew had been Mark’s (Peter’s) model. This is also possible. “Luke
tells in his record about why he came to be writing. The most reasonable
understanding seems to be that he knew the Gospel of Mark, and used it. There
are too many similarities in small things, that it can be explained only from
a joint record. Complete clarity and unity about this and how things were
borrowed earlier, has not been reached up to now. “Luke has
carefully researched everything and tries to tell in chronological order what
he has gathered from reliable stories of eyewitnesses, and he has done this
with great concern and fidelity. But, for someone who had not personally
known and followed Jesus, it wasn’t possible to write the way that John did
later on. Luke only gives a glimpse of Jesus’ repeated visits in Jerusalem
(Luke 13:34). The last is also true for Matthew”. --------------------------------------- This is
the end of I.H.H. Brochmann’s testimony about The Bible. I am not
sure if the misunderstanding and falsifying first happened later in history,
as my father maintains. I don’t think that it would be difficult to see how
the human insufficiency already began to make its mark from the same moment
that the disciples were left to “themselves”. We will come back to that in
greater detail in a later book, when we discuss “the deeds of the apostles”
and the historical fall of the church of Christ. I have
often thanked my father for his view on the gospel of John in my younger
years, and as an older person, the Gospel of John has become a whole bible by
itself. It is on a much higher level than everything else that exists in the
word of God. -----------------------------------------------
I would
like to end this chapter of The Art of Reading The Bible with the
following words, which I have partially borrowed from Johan Keppler: O Father
of Light! You, who with the rich variety of nature and the eternal light of
day has awakened the longing in my soul after the light of truth! I thank
you, my Creator, from my whole heart, because you have delighted my soul and
got me to admire the work of your hands, as seen in your flower garden. You
have taught me to think because of the strong words of your prophets, and you
have awakened me to a higher consciousness than that I was born and grew up
with, because of the dramatic contribution of Jesus Christ to human life. Please
see how I try, as long as my abilities and my light stretch, to work in your
vineyard, and to pay interest on my pounds with all of the powers and angels
of light that live in my soul. I also try to orient others to the glories of
your works, and to praise your highest, creation, the Son of Man, who the
religious unbelievers try to slander with all means and opportunities. I am
trying to imagine our endless possibilities as your children, as the
legitimately born offspring of Spirit. If I, as a
limited and still inadequate person, have written or spoken something that is
not worthy of You, or have tried to seek my own honor at the cost of truth,
please forgive me, You who knows me, and who knows that it has happened
unconsciously and unknowingly, because my view is still imperfect. Please
understand Lord, your legalities and order of life are my desire and joy to
research and explain. I throw out the devil and all of his deeds and all of
his being, because I know that his entire kingdom can only continue until the
light of truth has clarified everything for all of us, and everything that
belongs to human life. This is the way I understand my life’s calling. You
strengthen me in the name of Jesus. |