The Bible Code

You may have seen the sensational journalism which surrounded the discovery of the so-called Bible code.

Now in the first place we will again emphasise the uniqueness of this book. Undoubtedly, below the surface of its text lie hidden gems.

For example the book of Esther does not contain the name of God, and yet the Jews have identified its occurrence in acrostic form on 5 occasions. Although there is no mention of God in Esther, He is clearly over-ruling events and guiding affairs to their determined outcome and so its not unfitting that His name is hidden.

If we can demonstrate what is meant we can take the second acrostic in chapter 5 verse 4 where the translation read "Let the King and Haman come this day unto the banquet". Now the acrostic can only be read in Hebrew but if we were to try and and anglicise it we might read

Let O Royal Dine with Haman. The first letters L O R D then read Lord.

Hebrew characters are also associated with numbers, and again, for example it has been pointed out that the characters for 'Shiloh shall come' in numeric form total the same as the total for 'Messiah'. An apt and strange co-incidence. Numbers are very significant throughout scripture.

We will take just one more example, which relates to the number 153. In John chapter 21 we have the record of an appearance of Christ to 7 of his disciples at the Sea of Galilee. After fruitless toil Christ commands them to let down the net and they catch 153 great fishes in an unbroken net.

Had it been a round number such as 150 we would probably not have attached a great deal of importance to it. But the number is stated precisely as this mysterious number.

Certainly it indicates the impression which this made on the eye witnesses, but the fact that these fish were all known and numbered cannot but be of significance.

First its mathematical peculiarity.

1) To begin with 153 = 1+2+3+4+5+....+17
It is the sum of all the numbers (or inetgers) from 1 to 17. This makes it what is called a triangular number

eg to illustrate this - draw a triangle - draw some fish in it
17 on the bottom row, 16 on the next and so on
Each side of the triangle totals to 17

2) Secondly in mathematical terms
153 = 1!+2!+3!+4!+5! (factorial) 1+(1x2)+(1x2x3)..

3) 153 = 1³ + 5³ +3³

Mathematically this is an unusual number

The general significance of certain numbers is also well understood, e.g.
3 is associated with: completeness, strength and resurrection
6 with man
7 represents spiritual completeness, and
10 completeness of order

In 17 you have 7 and 10 combined

It has been suggested that by resorting to the number equivalents of Hebrew and Greek words that the phrase "Sons of God" in Hebrew totals exactly 153 and in the Greek totals 3x7x153.
The word for fishes totals 8x153 and the words for net totals 8x153

Now this miraculous catch of fish was used by Jesus to reinforce to the disciples their commission to catch men, and draw them to salvation, in the strength of divine power.

The number of the elect of God is fixed and pre-ordained. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (Acts 15:18); even the very hairs of the head are all numbered, and in the unbroken net, none of them will be lost.

Thus the seed, the people of God's choice are numbered - just as the stars of heaven, of which Isaiah says, God calls them all by name.

Now while these things confirm and increase the faith of the believer and reward the student, they are not necessary for us even to know.

The first essential is to understand the literal word, this will if we allow it make us wise unto salvation. The word of prophecy that is given is all that it is essential to know to understand what Jesus calls 'the signs of the times', and what is in store for the earth.

As regards the so-called Bible Code, while we would not be at all surprised that there is all manner of hidden treasures in the text, we are not convinced that it is the best use of our time creating giant word searches, pulling out words which may or may not be co-incidence.

For example the proposition that the word Syria is encoded in Ezekiel 38 is quite unsurprising to us and does not add a great deal to the plain prophecy of the nations to the north of Israel that will descend on that country and precipitate world war, the third world war, we believe.

There we must leave it for now - so What next.