Not Fantastic, Please!

by R. Darke, Victoria B.C. | Category: General | Oct 1974

Words can be used, ill-used, and abused. The use of words can also be misleading; that is why people speak of near-truth and truth, lies and white lies. In this advanced age of advertising, new words and phrases are coined which appear to inflate or exaggerate the performance of certain products, and the authorities are insisting in many cases that claims made be substantiated by facts. Because we live in such a busy, commercial world, and can be so easily influenced by its environment, Christians have to be careful not to absorb too readily the world's vocabulary. We cannot isolate ourselves, but we can insulate ourselves as a protection.

It is so easy for words and ideas to penetrate our minds and become part of us. A good example of this is the abuse of the word fantastic. Preachers speak of the Lord Jesus as being a fantastic Person; the Bible as being a fantastic book; Calvary as a fantastic place; and eternal life as being a fantastic thing. Are all these comments valid? Or is an adjective being used completely out of place? Dictionaries associate the word fantastic with phantasy, phantom, ghost, apparition, spectre, whim, fancy, wild, odd, grotesque, bizarre. unreal. Yet another definition is: "A mental image or a sequence of mental images. usually pleasant in nature, often seeking to fulfil a need not gratified in the real world." This in reference chiefly to the human imagination.

Fantastic things have to do with the unreal, the imaginative, and not with the spiritual and divine. The miracles of the Bible are not fantasy but fact. The means used to perform them were divine means. They are miracles only to man, but not to God. Eternal life is a real, vital gift from God, not a figment of the imagination. Calvary was a real place, and the death of Christ was a real, valid accomplishment on His part to deal with the sin question. His sufferings, His heart-break, were no fantasy.

Paul wrote to the early churches of the word of grace (Acts 20:32); the word of faith (Rom. 10:8); the word of God (10:17); the word of wisdom and knowledge (1 Cor. 12:8); and the word of truth (2 Cor. 6:7). But Jude (v 16) and Peter (2 Pet. 2:18) warn of the use of "great swelling words," which are words blown up out of all proportion. Christians should avoid such words, and resort to "sound words" (2 Tim. 1:13), and "wholesome words" (1 Tim. 6:3, AV), for these are healthy, uncorrupt, and true words. In so doing we glorify God and His Christ, and we elevate the divine message to the high place it deserves.

R. Darke, Victoria B.C. | Oct 1974
General