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physical water with spiritual refreshment (John 4:6-14) and the Jews confused physical bread with spiritual bread (John 6:26-63). In the synoptic Gospels the disciples confused the leaven of bread with the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:5-12; Mark 8:14-21).

What this tells us is that we need to ensure that we are not confusing spiritual things with physical, so that if birth, water, bread, leaven, etc. are spoken of in Scripture we make sure we get the meaning that was intended by the speaker. If Christ’s body is spoken of we need to see that we distinguish his physical body of humiliation in which He walked about when here on earth, with the glorious body which he has now (Philippians 3:20/21). There is also his emblematic body which we eat at the Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23/24) and the assembly which is his spiritual body here on earth (Ephesians 1:22/23). Then we find that in 1 Corinthians 12:12 we have it said: “So also [is] the Christ”; the context showing that Paul is speaking of Christ’s assembly (his body) here on earth, not Christ personally in heaven. It is like what Christ said to Paul on the Damascus road: “Why dost thou persecute me ?” (Acts 9:4) when it was Christ’s assembly he was persecuting. Thus Christ and his assembly are identified. Again, John the Baptist was Elias, but not literally (Matthew 17:10-13).

Taking Scripture literally can sometimes lead to confusion and be a source of error, as can spiritualising away passages of Scripture that clearly should be taken literally. Poetic parts of Scripture should not always be taken literally, such as Psalm 19:4/5. It is not literally true of the Sun: “he rejoiceth as a strong man to run the race”. However, the early chapters of Genesis are clearly intended to be taken literally and not just treated as poetry and the factual statements explained away as poetic licence.

In John’s Gospel we get many statements like “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), “I am the door” (John 10:9), “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11) and “I am the way” (John 14:6). No sensible person believes that these passages mean that Christ was physical bread, a physical door, or a literal shepherd of sheep; neither that he is a literal path. Christ was all these things in a spiritual sense. The same is true of other passages. When it speaks of Christ as the Word it does not mean that He was an utterance of God’s

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