The Splendor of Thorns

[Lady Vizsla]

by Jud Davis

God wove even the harshest elements of the original Curse into His beautiful plan of ultimate redemption through Christ.

Can you imagine the Wal-Mart floral department offering a bouquet of thorns? Does the Garden Center ever advertise Acacia thorn bushes? Do carpenters choose two-by-fours made of thorn wood?

Except for our botanist friends, few people find thorns captivating. They are not beautiful. And they don’t seem very useful, though they do burn extremely well.

The negative associations of thorns are what make their appearance in the Bible so intriguing, for God weaves these very thorns into the revelation of His grace. He gives them a star role in the unfolding drama of His judgment and unbelievable mercy.

“Thorns and thistles” (a Hebrew phrase referring to the entire class of thorns) were not in the original creation (Genesis 3:1 cool . When man sinned, God cursed the ground with thorns—a negative, hurtful, even repulsive element that intruded into the original creation’s perfection.

Every pricked finger, every overgrown field, every ugly thornbush, reminds us of the frustrating pain of sin and its hideous blotch on the canvas of God’s masterpiece. Thorns have all the natural charm of Magic Marker on a Monet painting.

At first glance, the perfection of the pre-Fall world seems forever lost because of unsightly thorns. But God has woven these thorns into a beautiful plan.

Thorns appear next in the Bible as the burning bush.1

Both Jesus and Stephen use a special Greek word to describe this bush’s thorny nature. Stephen describes the scene in Exodus with these words: “in the flame of a burning thorn bush” (Acts 7:30, NASB). Jesus says the same thing in Luke 20:37.

So why did God choose to appear inside thorns at this dreadful mountain, where He later gave the Law—a law that serves only to remind us of our failure (Galatians 3:10–4:25; Hebrews 12:18–24)?

When God later visited that same holy mountain to give the Law, it was so deadly that any human or beast that merely touched the mountain would be killed (Exodus 19:12). So why didn’t the thorns—that combustible remnant of the Curse—explode in flame when the Holy One, in fire, first appeared to Moses?2

The whole event at the burning bush is almost a parody of the Curse in Eden. The One who appeared in the Garden and pronounced the curse of thorns now reappears in the midst of thorns, promising deliverance. Ultimately, He promises a land flowing with milk and honey. How can these things be?

The enigma of the thorns continues in God’s revelation. The next time we meet thorns, God instructs Moses to build a tabernacle.

The raw material of that tabernacle is Acacia wood (Exodus 26:29), a small tree or bush whose branches are covered with long thorns. God then directs that they cover this thorn wood with gold (Exodus 26:29).

Now, why would God take a cursed element of the Fall and beautify it with gold? How can thorns, fit only for fire, become the glorious dwelling place of the fiery pillar of God’s presence?

The last place Israel encamps before they enter the Promised Land was called Abel-Shittim, which means “the Field of Thorns” (Numbers 25:1; Joshua 2:1). Israel was living in the Field of Thorns because the lawgiver Moses had not fully obeyed the law (Deuteronomy 32:49–51). He must perish without entering the Promised Land.

Disobedient Moses could only gaze from afar, pining for that land, pleading with God in vain to go in.

The people of Moses thus languish in the Field of Thorns, longing for that promised Prophet, who was like Moses, but better—that utterly perfect prophet, priest, and king who would accomplish all things that other men from dust failed to do.

In the Old Testament, God foreshadows that One who will come after Moses. His Hebrew name is Joshua, “Yahweh saves.” Greeks would translate his name as Iesous (Jesus). God the Father points to this connection between Joshua and Jesus when He commands, “You shall call His name Jesus (Iesous), for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus is that promised Prophet like Moses, but much more than a prophet. He is the One to lead God’s people into Paradise.

Thorns find a role in the climax of this divinely crafted plan of redemption. Jesus, tortured in anticipation of crucifixion, was mocked while wearing a crown of thorns. The “thorns and thistles” of Eden’s Curse now became this mocking crown.

God first promised His people redemption when He appeared in the midst of thorns at the Mountain of the Law (Mount Sinai). To fulfill that promise, Jesus appeared in thorns again, but this time bearing the curse of Mount Sinai’s law. He wore the crown we earned by our rebellion in Adam and by the years of ratifying Adam’s choice as we sin every day.

The beauty of thorns is that they remind each of us of God’s lavish—almost foolishly lavish (1 Corinthians 1:23)—grace upon us. He died for us, absolutely guilty sinners, whose sin caused those thorns to so mar God’s creation and Christ’s brow.

Adam and Eve attempted to usurp God’s place as the only lawgiver in Zion. God would have been just to hang them on their tree of rebellion—like the rebellious kings of Canaan who were cursed by God for all Israel to see (Joshua 10:26).

But God had a different plan. God the Son stepped out of eternity. He took human flesh on Himself, lived under the law in perfect obedience, and then suffered all the punishment due Adam, and all of those who would ever come to Jesus.

God the Son wore the thorns. On behalf of rebellious mankind, He allowed Himself to be stripped naked and hung on that tree, cursed by God. Just like those kings of Canaan who were hung by Joshua, Jesus was hung and then His body was placed in a garden cave, with a stone over its mouth (Joshua 10:27)! But death could not hold Jesus.

God intends to transform us, the descendants of the rebels in Eden, entangled as we are with thorns. He will turn us into a kingdom of priests. In fact, we ultimately are a new temple, the heavenly temple, where the holy, fiery, triune God dwells with His redeemed people forever (2 Corinthians 6:16).

The story of the Bible is this. Adam comes naked to a live tree and spiritually murders the entire human race by a single act of disobedience. Jesus comes to a dead tree and allows Himself to be stripped naked. Then, in the ultimate act of obedience—His very death after a lifetime of full and total obedience to God—He makes alive all those who would ever by God’s grace repent of their sins and trust in Him alone for salvation.

As Eve had encouraged her husband in his rebellion against God, Jesus’s love for His bride, the church, motivates and enables her to obey God from her heart. Adam took from his wife food which kills. Jesus, by His death, provides all grace, enabling us to partake of eternal life.

Through Christ, thorns take on a whole new meaning because they focus our thoughts on God’s plan of redemption, worked out through the centuries. While Adam’s sin disrupted the beauty of God’s creation, the Son of God came to earth to set things right, which brings beauty even to thorns.  

[cristobela]

edited

I detected a couple of mistakes (and one affects the interpretation of the other):


About the Meaning of Thorns

The conclusion wasn't entirely correct.

Lady Kariel

God intends to transform us, the descendants of the rebels in Eden, entangled as we are with thorns. He will turn us into a kingdom of priests. In fact, we ultimately are a new temple, the heavenly temple, where the holy, fiery, triune God dwells with His redeemed people forever (2 Corinthians 6:16).

[...]

Through Christ, thorns take on a whole new meaning because they focus our thoughts on God’s plan of redemption, worked out through the centuries. While Adam’s sin disrupted the beauty of God’s creation, the Son of God came to earth to set things right, which brings beauty even to thorns.

✓ What's correct: He wants to transform us, from thorn-entangled plants into plants that produce fruit abundantly without being choked out by thorns.

• Mark 4:7 (NIV)
  
  7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain.
  
  
• Mark 4:19 (NIV)
  
  19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

✘ What's incorrect: suggesting that thorns ever become beautiful. The thorns need to be removed—not beautified—for the grain to grow and bear fruit; likewise when talking of the wood of the thorn bush itself and it becoming useful: for the wood to be acceptable / functional without hurting anyone, the thorns have to be removed (i.e. the acacia wood altar overlaid with gold; there the thorny bush was turned functional). Likewise, thorns are not left on acacia wood furniture, even if it's not overlaid with gold (thorns have to be removed regardless). [Acacia Wood Cutting Board][Acacia Wood Table and Chairs] Smooth. Thorns removed.

So, thorns still retain their same old meaning. Unacceptable. The thorns don't get transformed but removed. If—after having come to Him and being nourished by Him—we continue producing thorns, thus produce nothing fruitful, and are not transformed into something useful, then we get burned.

• Hebrews 6:4-8 (NIV)
  
  4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen[a] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. Hebrews 6:6 Or age, 6 if they fall

Thorns are still undesirable and ugly (not beautiful, nor pleasing). Acacia thorn bushes (not treated furniture, but the plants themselves) retain their thorns, and thus continue to be a symbol for sin and everything that is wrong with the world. So, for instance, Jesus wasn't sinful, but sin was placed on Him (thorns placed on Him). And God's presence is still there even in the midst of a cursed, hurtful, prickly, sinful creation (i.e. being in midst of a thorn bush). Thorns don't hurt Him; they hurt us. Thorn bushes, with their prickly spines still intact, are consistently a symbol of sin and cursed creation, from the beginning to the end of the world. Christ didn't change the meaning of thorns.

Though the "burning bush" was a special case, every other thorn bush is still destined for literal burning / removal because of their uselessness. And even though the acacia bush is called a thorn tree, some varieties don't have thorns at all, and they're definitely different than your typical thorn bush.

Compare & Contrast:

Thorn bush


[source]


[source]


VS.

Acacia Tree

[source]


[source]

Compared to out-and-out thorns, which are totally useless (thus why they're destined for burning), the acacia tree obviously has some uses. So we have to correctly identify which type of thorn we're talking about and not unstably group them all together. Whatever the altar overlaid with gold was made out of, it was NOT made out of your typical thorn bush, but a tree. Comparing the Acacia tree to other thorns is not stable.

Likewise, the people who exist like thorns—despite coming to Jesus, being in-dwelled by His Spirit, and nourished by God's Word—they will be burned for producing thorns instead of producing fruit. He is enabling them to bear fruit, so they should be bearing it, but they are choosing not to, being distracted by other things. Like the wicked servant.

• Matthew 24:48-51 (NIV)
  
  48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We don't want to stay entangled in thorns, in the cares of this world. They're not beautiful. Thorns are still a curse. We should want them removed. And we should not bear them, but bear fruit. The meaning of thorns is still consistent throughout Scripture. They do not take on a new meaning.

---

About Mt. Sinai vs. Burning Bush

I understand that he's drawing attention to the symbolism of a plant, which represents the curse and sin, being so near to a Holy God and it not being affected. However, the following is an unsound comparison...

Quote:

When God later visited that same holy mountain to give the Law, it was so deadly that any human or beast that merely touched the mountain would be killed (Exodus 19:12). So why didn’t the thorns—that combustible remnant of the Curse—explode in flame when the Holy One, in fire, first appeared to Moses?2

This is an unsound comparison because "exploding into flame" was never the threat to anyone—whether we're talking burning bush or people and animals at Mount Sinai. But by asking that question, he is implying (and making the reader think) that it was to be expected as punishment in either case.

What was the actual repercussion:

• Exodus 19:12-13 (NIV)
  
  12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. 13 They are to be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long blast may they approach the mountain.

So, he's asking "why didn't this happen", but it was never the threat to begin with, nor something to be expected to happen to the people and animals on Mount Sinai. The other people would have to make a deliberate effort in stoning them to death (or shooting them to death with arrows). Eliminating them from afar ("not a hand is to be laid on them"). Too dangerous to touch. No exploding upon coming too near to God's presence. Yet the author of this article is making the reader think that exploding into flames was the threat here [at Mount Sinai] but not there [at the burning bush incident], and that it should have happened if not for the symbolism. That's false.

Second of all, on Mount Sinai, no threat was spoken against plants at all. So, essentially, he's taking one instance where condemnation of plants is not mentioned nor illustrated, and comparing it to another event where, yet again, a plant is not depicted as suffering the consequences of being in God's presence. In both examples, God's presence did not make any plants explode into flames and burn to a crisp—be they symbolic of cursed creation or not.

Also, it's not that animals and people can't approach God—ever—because on other occasions, God (or the angel of God)—whichever (both were present in the burning bush)—would approach people and animals, and there would be no exploding, no command to stone them nor shoot them with arrows for physically getting too close.

First, to identify that God and the angel of the Lord are one and the same:

- the burning bush incident:

• Exodus 3:2-4 (NIV)
  
  2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
  
  4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
  
  And Moses said, “Here I am.”

There are other occasions, just like this one, where God / the angel of the Lord approaches people and they don't have to be put to death nor shot with arrows for physically getting too close to His presence.

Elijah, getting touched by the angel of the Lord


• 1 Kings 19:7-8 (NIV)
  
  7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

Balaam, his servants and his donkey


• Numbers 22:22-31 (NIV)
  
  22 But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road.
  
  24 Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides. 25 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat the donkey again.
  
  26 Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. 27 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. 28 Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”
  
  29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”
  
  30 The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”
  
  “No,” he said.
  
  31 Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

No one had to be put to death here, neither Elijah who was directly touched by the angel of the Lord, nor the donkey, Balaam, and any of his servants.

Even though God was angry in the latter example, neither beast (donkey) nor man (Balaam and his servants) were condemned to death for getting too close to the angel of the Lord.

So, it is unstable to compare what happened on Mount Sinai to the burning bush event as if the burning bush event is the unique instance, when it's not: most interactions are like that (like here with Balaam, his donkey and his servants, or here with Elijah [in 1 Kings 19, directly being touched even]).

Whatever was happening on Mount Sinai, examples before it and after it have God interacting with people and animals up close, not being shot with arrows or condemned to death for getting too close. So, he shouldn't be insinuating that this is the consequence to expect in every case when an animal or person gets too close to God's presence. Let alone a plant that doesn't come near anyone at all.

However, what I'm noting is the actual difference: Mount Sinai does not seem to be an interaction with God's angel, the way the burning bush is, but the Father Himself, no bodily incarnation whatsoever; ergo, why nothing can be seen of Him unlike the other three examples (burning bush, Elijah, and Balaam).

• Exodus 19:18-19 (NIV)
  
  18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain[a] trembled violently. 19 As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.[b]
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. Exodus 19:18 Most Hebrew manuscripts; a few Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint and all the people
  b. Exodus 19:19 Or and God answered him with thunder
  
  
• Deuteronomy 4:15 (NIV)
  
  15 You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully,

Perhaps this is why the people would have to be put to death, similar to the Mount Sinai incident, when dealing with the Father's presence elsewhere; they're not interacting with an angel or bodily manifestation of God in the following and the consequence is exactly like that at Mount Sinai:

• Numbers 1:51 (NIV)
  
  51 Whenever the tabernacle is to move, the Levites are to take it down, and whenever the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall do it. Anyone else who approaches it is to be put to death.
  
  
• Numbers 3:10 (NIV)
  
  10 Appoint Aaron and his sons to serve as priests; anyone else who approaches the sanctuary is to be put to death.”

And like the above examples, the same thing was allowed at Mount Sinai when Moses and the priests could approach and not be put to death:

• Exodus 19:20-22 (NIV)
  
  20 The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up 21 and the Lord said to him, “Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord and many of them perish. 22 Even the priests, who approach the Lord, must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them.”

Conclusion:

All of that considered, the person who wrote this article never actually answered the question (why there was a difference between Mount Sinai and the burning bush incident). But tried to make a symbolic link anyway. That was not the smartest thing to do. We have to understand what is literally happening if we're going to make an accurate symbolic interpretation of a thing. Not surprisingly, he wound up at the wrong conclusions (thinking that the meaning of thorns has changed, when it hasn't). Thorns are still a sign of cursedness, sin, and unacceptable-ness. And the difference in God's manifestation changes the consequences of coming too close to Him.