Even though the Holy Scriptures are communicated in words, those words are full of imagery, types and shadows, and things that go beyond what is simply intellectually understood alone.
This is one of the reasons the religious leaders of Jesus' day knew the letter of the law but could at the same time influence the government of that day to unjustly crucify Jesus Christ; even when all the parties involved knew he was innocent of the charges placed against Him.
Jesus Christ entails all of what God ever wants to say and reveal to
man, and encompasses much that can only be understood through revelation and experience.
Simply knowing the scriptures intellectually is far from being enough to understand and take in all that God has revealed to us in Christ, which of course won't contradict the scriptures in any way.
In my experience, revelation and view of Jesus Christ, I've seen that there needs to be a much more comprehensive revelation of Christ that helps to shed light on who He is and what He is doing in His people. It also references what He expects of His people, and why they are a people in the first place.
This all has to do with the eternal purpose of God, which existed before the creation of man, and stands outside of sin and the need for redemption - as important as understanding those things are.
The finality of God's eternal purpose is to have a mankind built in the image of Jesus Christ Himself. It is nothing less than that, and entails much with it.
All of that is important because communicating that reality and all that it entails is vitally important, and we need another side of the makeup of man to do that. And that's referring to the creative side, where Christ and who he is, what he wants, and what he expects of us, is expressed in a way different than simply the letter of the word, but also in the spirit of the word.
Contemplate the immense variety of the elements of the visible and invisible realms that are used to reveal something of Jesus Christ to His people. It boggles the mind what is available, and we've barely scratched the surface of all that is involved with that.
For example, you have various colors meaning certain things in the Bible, as well as numbers, rocks, mountains, rivers, trees, stars, moon, and a host of other interesting - but in some cases - baffling images.
Add to that the invisible things of heaven which interact with the things of the visible creation, and it adds even more to the extraordinary number of things used to reveal the amazing Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Okay. So what is the point of all of this? It's that we need to grab hold of the creative side of our humanity and allow the Holy Spirit to use it to uncover and express an entire other side of Jesus Christ that few people know, because few people have seen or experienced it. After all, you can't give what you don't have. You can only give what you have.
That's not to say there aren't teachings about all these things out there. But that's not what I'm talking about. We don't need more teachings about it, we need more ways to take what's already been said and weave it together in ways that will help the followers of Jesus Christ to see Him in a different light.
We need to see writers inspired to write about the Lord Jesus Christ in ways that tell a story using many of the tools used by the Holy Spirit in the Bible.
A few people have done this, but other than Bunyan, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Gene Edwards, and a few others, there has been little in the way of literature that has been produced to show us the majestic things of Jesus Christ expressed in creative but understandable ways which help us to reveal and know Him better.
There has been a quiet move in the speculative fiction Christian realm that has started to take hold, but it's in its infancy, and some of the more well-known writers in Christian fiction in general tend to wallow in the end-times stuff that has been regurgitated over and over again.
We need Christian fiction with some bite to it; something that people can use today, not created for the purpose of selling books because of the popular prophecy genre. Other than telling a decent yarn, there isn't much there to help believers in Jesus Christ where they are today.
Also important is the creation of video stories. But that must start with understanding a lot of the symbolism of the Bible, using that as a launching pad to create from the hidden, but invaluable characteristics of God revealed in His visible and invisible creations, i.e. heaven and earth.
Some good examples of this are a few books written by Gene Edwards. One named "The Day I Was Crucified," deals with the Lord going to the cross from the perspective of the heavenly realm, and what some of the things were that were ended and brought in with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Others written in a similar style include "Christ Before Creation," "The Beginning," "The Birth," and "The Divine Romance," among others.
Christ Before Creation: Introducing Christ and the Unseen Realm
The Beginning
The Birth
The Divine Romance (Inspirational)
These are important because they open a door to a different way of writing about the things of Christ than most people are used to, drawing upon the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Spirit to express them in a much more creative and unique way than most Christians have experienced.
I would recommend getting hold of these books and others like them written by Edwards in order to get a feel for the writing style and so you can grow from there into your own.
Even if you're a published author, especially in the Christian fiction segment, it's worth reading the books of Edwards to see how he is able to take disparate themes and things about Christ and turn them into a compelling story that helps believers see their Christ from a different perspective.
As for storytelling, I believe we must go beyond the way we tell stories about Christ and Christianity, and bring it powerfully into the realm of fiction, where creative believers can, along with the help of the Holy Spirit, show forth Christ in ways and depths we have yet to see.
It's the story that helps bring these things to pass. I'm not talking about new revelation, I'm talking about new ways to communicate and explore that revelation through the telling of stories that intertwine disparate elements and make sense out of them in fictional worlds, fictional characters, and stories that are compelling to read.
The number of stories told can be endless, and we need to go beyond only the ways of everyday life all of us know and be taken to places and people that in the light of Christ are involved with all sorts of amazing journeys and experiences which help to show forth the great depth, width, height and length of the Lord Jesus Christ we serve.
That will be done when we go beyond the letter into the reality and then face the challenge of creatively expressing that in the spoken word, pen, photos and video.
But it all begins with a great story, and great stories of the Lord will only help if we steep ourselves in Biblical imagery so we can draw upon it to creatively make worlds, universes and characters which people learn to love and readily identify as one of the Lord's, while also expressing something of the purpose and nature of the Lord in all their fantastic escapades they participate in.
Anyone Out There?
Having said all this, are we at stage zero waiting for someone to take the first step in our generation, or has it already begun?
In fact it already has begun in the Christian fantasy and science fiction genres, with my favorite publishing house being Marcher Lord Press.
It's a boutique Christian publisher which understands the market very well, as well as the challenges faced in the current Christian fantasy and science fiction climate.
Most importantly, founder Jeff Gerke, who is an award-winning author in his own right, is committed to not only quality works, but more importantly, to keeping the novels represented by the imprint within the parameters of Biblical Christianity.
If you're wanting to explore this area and have a burden to write, this is one place you should check out quickly.
A secondary website run by Gerke called "Where the Map Ends," provides more in-depth material on Christian speculative fiction, fantasy and science fiction, with a list of authors, artists and websites related to the genre.
You can also read a bunch of interviews with close to seventy authors that are leaders in the field at the site.
With all the depths of Jesus Christ there is, there is a crying need for the people of God to step forth and bring wholesome and quality speculative fiction to the marketplace in a way that reveals something of who Jesus Christ is and what He is after.
Creative people need to rise and reveal Jesus Christ from the side of the symbolic, types, shadows, and ultimately, into the reality of who He is, using the specific creative tools of the trade.
Once this grows and expands, we'll then start to see movies and shows made from Christian fantasy and science fiction source material that sorely lacks at this time.
Other Creative Elements to Consider
Besides the type of fictional writing mentioned above, including the quasi-fictional writing of Gene Edwards, which wraps a story around the truth of the events that happened in the scriptures, there are other areas of creativity and importance that need to be explored.
For example, we're in the midst of some extraordinary events over the last century or so which includes the formation of the Federal Reserve, Keynesian economics, entitlements, socialism, fascism, and a number of other ideas that have made an amazing impact on the world, and by extension, the Christians living in it.
We need more people to develop a world view involving these types of things and weave them into amazing stories. These types of stories can have a terrific impact on those reading them, while at the same time being instructive while spinning a great yard.
Again, the stories must come first before the art and video, as the full impact is never felt unless it has a story, great characters, and a powerful lesson or lessons to be learnt in the face of powers pressing in upon us.
This article is a call for Christians to rethink where we've been creatively and delve into the many sided wisdom of God, one that is the very creative, which can be expressed in a myriad of ways.
Not only that, but to develop the art of drawing from the scriptures many of the symbols and shadows that express the underlying reality of Jesus Christ.
Finally, and probably most important, is the quest to know this other realm so often mentioned in the Holy Scriptures: a placed filled and permeated with the person of Jesus Christ. So much so, that we are exhorted to pray that His kingdom will come and will be done as earth in the same way it is in heaven. That demands creative people to search out and explore this invisible realm where everything is as it should be, and how we can mine the treasures from there and reveal them in our creative works.
All that we should do can be nothing less than that, and hopefully a growing number of people will heed this holy call and become part of those that follow the Lamb wherever He goes.
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