OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 36 - JULY 2007

Dear Friends:

It is July 5 as I write and on this Saturday our date will be 7/7/07. By time you receive this letter, that date may have passed, but I have noticed that its coming is not going unnoticed in the Christian world. Why? Because in the Bible we find that numbers sometimes have meaning or significance. And we know that the number s even is the most frequently occurring number in the Bible and seems to represent perfection or completeness.

For example, the creation accounts tell us that God created on six days and rested on the seventh. His work was done, he could now stop working and enjoy rest. In giving the law to Moses, God made it clear that his people, too, were to follow his pattern, working six days and then resting on the seventh. In the prophetic book of Revelation there are seven seals, seven trumpets, seven churches, seven vials, seven thunders, and seven years. Also, we are told that the Holy Spirit is the seven-fold Spirit, the perfect Spirit, perfectly complete.

So, when Christians see a number like 7/7/7 come up on the calendar, our minds cannot help being turned toward God, his perfect plan for this world and for our lives. That day should be for us a day of worship and praise of the perfect One!

And, while we are thinking along those lines, let’s talk about some other significant numbers in the Bible. We should note that scholars caution us not to put too much stock in numbers as used biblically, but to be aware of it and to use this knowledge in conjunction with other, more proven, Bible study methods. Most such scholars do agree, however, that there are mathematical patterns in Scripture that mostly likely are not random, but planned in God’s overall design of His unique Book. I find the subject interesting and sometimes helpful and thought you might, too.

In addition to the number seven, here are some numbers in Scripture that seem to carry consistent significance:  

Ten
The number ten biblically seems to signify completeness, as does the number seven. We have, for example, Ten Commandments and they represent the entire or complete moral will of God. There are details fleshed out in Scripture, to be sure, but these ten summarize everything that God requires. There were ten plagues in Egypt and ten kings in Daniel’s prophecy concerning the history and future of the world. Both seven and ten are often associated (but not always) with judgment.

Seven and ten combined Because seven times ten equals 70, there seems to be a significance concerning completion in that number, too. For example, seventy is the n umber of years that the people of Judah were captive in Babylon. Another interesting calculation is seventy times seven, which is the number of years in Daniel’s vision of the history of the world.

Another combination of seven and ten, of course, is adding them together to get 17. This number, biblically speaking, seems to be connected with God’s grace toward mankind and/or eternal life. For example, the Genesis flood began on the 17th day of the month and its purpose was to cleanse the earth from sin. But, combined with that cleansing, we find that Noah and his family were delivered by God’s grace. The ark landed on the 17th day of the month, five months after the flood began.

Here’s another: The Passover is held on the 14th day of the month. The gospel accounts tell us that Jesus was crucified on Passover and rose three days later which, of course, would be on the 17th.

And, here’s one for fun: Romans 8:35-39 is a great passage telling of the security of our relationship to Jesus and it lists 17 things that will not separate us from God. Go ahead and count them!  

Twelve
The number 12 also indicates completeness, but particularly as such completeness relates to divine government or control. Here are some examples: The Earth’s cycle around the sun is 12 months (and, of course, months are calculated based on the moon, not the sun). There are also 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, and 12 foundations of the New Jerusalem, a city which has 12 gates.

Six
The number six is one short of perfection and, as such, represents man without God. The creation account in Genesis tells us that man was created on the sixth day. Then, we find that the flood that destroyed the earth came in the 600th year of Noah’s life.

Further, the writer of Revelation tells us that the mark of the Beast at the end of the world will be 666. John takes care to explain that 666 is the number of his name. His original audience knew what he meant because, in Greek, letters of the alphabet were assigned numerical values, so you could actually write out a person’s name (in Greek, of course) and then add up the total to find the “number of his name.” This mathematical focus in Greek and ancient near east culture gives credence to the possibility that numbers had significance in the literature of the Bible.  

Eight
Remember the perfect number? Well, the number eight is that number plus one. So, as it is over and beyond the symbol for perfection, eight speaks of a new beginning or eternal life. It is primarily associated with Jesus as the one who brings new life. We just talked about the Greek letter/number value system. When you take the name Jesus in Greek, the total of the numerical value of the letters adds up to 888. That’s kind of interesting! Jesus was raised on a Sunday which is the next day after the seventh day – eighth day.

Twenty two
There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and, as Hebrew was the language in which the Old Testament was originally written, the number twenty two, in Scripture, seems to symbolize God’s revelation to man. This applies specifically to the Psalms. As you may know, chapter divisions in the Bible were not part of the originally transmitted text, but were added later by those with left-brained organizational skills in order to help readers find passages, engage in joint study, and so on. However, the only book in the Bible for which chapter divisions are part of the original transmission is the book of Psalms because it is a compilation of numerous poems, hymns, and prayers each in itself a separate unit of literature. Therefore, it is interesting to note that Psalm 22 is one of the most quoted psalms as being a foretelling of the coming Messiah, whom many believe, is God’s ultimate revelation of himself to mankind.

In addition, the 119 th Psalm (the longest chapter in the Bible) is an acrostic containing 22 divisions, with each segment represented by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each segment has eight verses, and we remember that eight is the number representing new beginning or eternal life. The theme of that psalm is praise to the word of God. Every single verse refers to God’s revelation through word, law, commands, precepts, and other similar terms.

I like studying biblical number patterns because they give credence to the fact that the Triune God truly is responsible for putting the entire Bible together. There is congruity in its message even though its writing spanned 15-plus centuries and was done by 40 different authors. The kind of internal consistency and coherence we see in the text, even just through looking at numbers, helps us to understand and believe its message.

Probably the most important things we need to remember about numbers, though, is that whether the day on our calendar is the 5 th, the 7 th, or the 28 th, each one matters. We want to live each to the fullest knowing that no date can ever be retrieved. It will come and it will pass – we have only one chance at it! Moses understood this when he wrote, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

Blessings on your numbered day today! Make it count!

Bev

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