Hyperbole Fails

Hyperbole is a rhetorical device that uses exaggeration to make a point. It's quite common. A parent might ask his teen, "So, who was at the party?" and the teen might respond, "Oh, everybody!" The parent knows that's a lie because they weren't there. But we understand the device. You overstate something to make a point. This rhetorical device is so common that you even find it in Scripture. In Matthew 8:34 it says "the whole city came out to meet Jesus." In a woodenly literal manner, you'd have to conclude that every man, woman, and child was there. Hyperbole doesn't require that. Hyperbole also doesn't allow, "That means that one or two showed up." It doesn't require a literal "whole city" but it does require that "a large number of people from town" showed up.

We have a hard time, it seems, with this rhetorical device when it comes to Scripture. Let's look at some examples. In Romans we read, "No one does good, not even one." (Rom 3:12). Now, first, let's be clear. No one believes that to be the absolute truth. No matter how you take your Bible, we all understand that One did good -- Jesus. So this qualifies as hyperbole. So how much hyperbole? I would take it to mean "Everyone but Jesus." But others assure me, "Oh, no, lots of people do good. So this 'no one does good' means, effectively, that almost everyone does good." And hyperbole fails.

Here's another. We read, "The Natural Man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor 2:14). I understand that to mean that humans in their natural, unregenerate state don't understand the things of God. Indeed, they cannot. But a better reader than I -- most all of you, I would guess -- would say, "Oh, no, anyone can accept and understand the things of God." And hyperbole fails.

Here's another. Jesus said,

All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day. (JohN 6:37-40)

"That," many Christians will tell me, "is definitely hyperbole." How do we know? "Well, obviously, not all that the Father gives Jesus will come. Just as clearly, there are those who will be lost. So it is not actually true; it's hyperbole." So, I might ask, how often does that failure occur? How many don't come? How many are lost? "It's fairly common," they assure me. "God is a gentleman and He won't force anyone to come that doesn't want to." And hyperbole fails.

To read the Scriptures "literally" means to read them in the sense that they are intended with the message that was intended to be transmitted. That might include a variety of rhetorical devices. Poetic language, proverbial language, historical narrative, dogmatic language, hyperbole -- lots of ways of communicating. What you can not do is read the Scriptures "literally" by discarding the sense and message that was intended. And, yet, we do it ... on a regular basis ... to our own shame.