Similar and Equivalent Terms
Though there are no true synonyms in any language, there are words so close of kin and revealing such marked resemblance, as to seem mutual equivalents. Yet, even in such cases, differences are traceable which may be as important and instructive as the resemblances. Not only rhetorical significance, but ethical and spiritual teaching, may attach to the slight variations of meaning which thus separate similar and almost equivalent words and phrases. The Author of Scripture, like the Creator in Nature, shows His perfection in little things, and the student of His word, as of His work, needs the microscopic eye.
OUL” and “Spirit” are carefully distinguished in both Testaments. Nephesh and ruach in Hebrew, psyche and pneuma in Greek, (i Thess. v:23; Heb. iv:12.) ‘’Soul” is properly the animating principle of the body, and therefore common to the animal creation; it includes the appetites and desires both of flesh and mind, and the inclination and determination. The other words, properly meaning ‘’spirit,” originally signify breath or wind; but, in its higher application, a breath from God (Genesis ii); hence a mode of existence which is like His own and shares His nature. God is never set forth in Scripture as soul, center of bodily life, animator of a physical organism and inspirer of its appetites; but as Spirit, independent of material conditions and limitations and having affections and emotions of His own. Spirit in man therefore represents that which no mere animal, as such, shares with him. While soul links him to the whole animal creation, spirit binds him to God, and makes possible a divine nature and life and participation in the hoUness, happiness and glory of God.
Paul, in I Corinthians ii, iii, uses two words, both of which are rendered “carnal.” Meyer, the commentator, sharply distinguishes sarkinos (iii:i) as designating the unspiritual state of nature which the Corinthians still had in their early Christian minority, the Spirit having as yet so partially changed their character that they appeared still as fleshly; but sarkikos (verse 3) expresses a later ascendancy over the divine principle of which they had been made partakers by progressive instruction; and this latter is here the main ground of reproach and rebuke. Some would distinguish by the terms “fleshy” and “fleshly;’* the former denoting the carnality of the babe in whom the flesh as yet naturally predominates and preponderates, the mind being immature and undeveloped; the latter, denoting the carnality of the adult, full grown yet allowing the flesh to retain the ascendancy. The former word therefore carries rather the notion of tender pity for immaturity, while the latter is a term of reproach for inconsistency. This is a case in which not to grasp the delicate differences between words is to lose the point of a whole paragraph, and confound ideas which essentially differ.
In Galatians vi :2, 5, ‘’burden” and ‘’load” should be distinguished. We are to “bear one another’s burdens,” yet every “one should bear his own proper load.” When his load is too heavy for him to bear alone, others are to put their shoulders beneath it, not to release him altogether, but to relieve him, not to shift it from his shoulders to their own, but to accept as a common burden for both. God would not have any one seek to be rid of his own responsibility or liability, nor have others encourage his idleness and selfishness, but we are, all to do what we can to make others’ loads tolerable and bearable by sympathetic help and support. What a valuable ethical lesson is lost if these kindred words are confused.
Four words are used to describe the relations of men to God as source of life and being. They are alike but by no means identical, and respectively rendered “offspring,” “child,” “son,” etc. Compare John xiii 133; Acts xvii:28, 29; Romans viii:16, 17; Galatians iv:3, 5, etc. That they are not used indiscriminately will be plain from the passage in Galatians, already cited, where the argument turns upon the difference between a child — a minor, and a son, a child that has reached his majority.
The word “offspring” — genos — means literally one who has come to he — to exist, as a product of creative power, a human creature of God. “Child,” teknon, teknion, suggests one born, brought forth, properly referring rather to the mother, suggesting the maternal relation, hinting parental love and care; or little child, as a term of endearment, fondly used by the Apostle John. Nepios means literally one who does not yet talk — a mere babe, infant, hence one simple and unlearned. (Matthew xi:25, xxi:16.) But huios, strongest of all, expresses the higher filial relationship and fellowship — a word worthy to be applied to the Son of God Himself.
How even so-called “synonyms” differ will be seen by comparing such English words as “enough” and “sufficient,” “paternal” and “fatherly,” “reputation” and “notoriety,” or such kindred adjectives as “efficient,” “effective,” “effectual” and “efficacious,” where the diversity of meaning behind the most similar terms is both instructive and suggestive.
The Old and New Testament synonyms have found volumes of treatment from such pens as those of Girdlestone and Trench. The various terms used to express forgiveness, salvation, punishment, vengeance; the four words that convey the idea of time — aidn, time indefinite; chronos, time in actuality, making succession; hora, a definite measure of time; kairos, a fit or appropriate time — how helpful to catch such distinctions and how hindering to overlook them.
Where one English word is used as the equivalent of two or more in the original, both beauty and force are sometimes sacrificed. In our Lord’s last discourse (John xiv, XV, xvi), one root word is very prominent, and constantly recurs — it is mend — which means to stay, remain, abide or continue. Its central sense is thus connected with something enduring and permanent as opposed to what is evanescent and transient, and hence unsatisfying because unenduring.
If this word and its derivatives are followed in that matchless discourse, the whole of it is lit up as with a celestial light. Our Lord is about to leave them: even His presence is to prove, like all else only for “a little while,” and their hearts are “troubled.” Hence He calls their thought away to what is to last. The “mansions” are monai, abiding places (2); the Father abides in Him (10), the Holy Spirit is the abiding Spirit in them (17), the Godhead will come and in the believer make His abode (23). The very key to the great last parable, the Vine and Branches, is this word abide — “Abide in Me, and I in you.” And though translated “continue” (verse 9) and “remain” (verse 16) it is the same word throughout and should be uniformly rendered.
When believers are called “the temple of God” a peculiar word is used, one of two, both meaning temple, (i Cor. iii:16, 17, etc.) One, icron, embraces the whole structure and its precincts, sometimes used for the courts alone; but the other, iiaos, of the fane itself, with its Holy of HoHes and shekinah flame of God’s presence; and it is this latter which is used to describe a believer in whom dwells the Spirit of God. How marvellous this selection of the stronger and more hallowed term! The sacrifice was offered in the larger ieron, but the naos proper was the place where the blood was applied, where stood the furniture that represented the forms of communion and service, and the ideal of fellowship with God. The very word therefore hints that, while the believer has no part in the atoning work, with the blood from the altar he comes “to God’s very mercy seat, and himself becomes His Shrine!”
Here spiritual truth is illuminated when the exact significance of one word is caught. The body of a believer becomes a shrine and the Spirit of God its inhabitant. While he has no share in the atoning work of the Lamb of God, he has a full enjoyment both of the access to God it secures, and the fellowship with God it makes possible. He learns also how precious in God’s sight must be even the body of a disciple which is held sacred as His temple.
Canon Girdlestone calls attention to four principal words used as names of men, and which represent him in four apparently inconsistent aspects: as Adam, of the earth, earthy; as Ish, endowed with immaterial personal existence; as Enosh, weak and incurable; as Gever, mighty and noble. (Comp. Gen. 1:26, ii:23, vi:4; Exod. x:ii.)
How useful such distinctions are only investigation will show. For example, Ish first occurs in Genesis ii :23 — ‘’She shall be called IshaJi because she is taken out of Ish,” Here ish is first used when the man finds a second human being of his own kind and springing from him: hence it marks the man when first he sees himself as one of a kind and having his first fellow-feeling with another human being. Ish is therefore a human being, a husband as contrasted with a wife, and hints at a higher manhood connected with race origin, mastery and supremacy. Thfs suffices to illustrate the importance of Old Testament synonymns. The Vulgate singularly keeps up the kinship of Ish and Ishah by rendering vir and virago.
Ten similar words occur as in Psalms xix, cxix, etc., such as “Law,” “Testimonies,” “Ways,” “precepts,” “statutes,” “commandments,” “judgments,” “Word,” “counsellors,” ‘’fear.” All of these apply to the Scriptures as containing the Divine Code; but they present that code in ten different aspects, which together give a complete viewpoint.
First of all it is a Law — that is, the expression of the mind of the Lord. Again, it is a Testimony, bearing witness to His character and will. Again, it is a Way, marking out a distinct path for man to walk in. Yet again, precepts, or definitely prescribed rules of duty. Again, statutes, which express permanent, unchangeable principles. Again Commandments, having the authority of a legislator. Again, judgments, or laws having sanctions of reward and penalty. Again, they are the Word of God, or His expressed will in language. Again, they are counsellors, or ‘’men of counsel” advising in crises. And once more the Law of God is ‘’fear’ — i. e., fear producing — calculated to produce reverential awe.
Thus taking the ten words together, the Divine Code is seen at so many separate angles and aspects, all of which help to develop and exhibit its perfection.
A good concordance, in which the exact force of similar words is presented and the shades of meaning indicated, is of immense help to the studious reader. Such men as Cruden, Strong, Eadie, etc., have taken great pains to trace these exact differences of significance, and an examination of their work is often a most helpful comment::ry. Thus what variety of truth is suggested by such kindred words as “sin,” “iniquity,” “transgression,” in Psalms xxxii, as also “forgiven,” “not imputed,” “covered,” ard “acknowledge,” “confess” and “not hid,” in the same psalm! Three aspects of evil doing, as transgression of law, sin against God, and essential iniquity; three aspects of divine grace, in forgiving, covering, not imputing; and three more, of man’s acts, not hiding, confessing (to God), acknowledging (to man).
The changes of words, where at first no sufficient reason is apparent, are often due to the nice and delicate discrimination of the Spirit.
A noticeable example is Micah. vii:2o: “Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to Abraham which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.”
Jehovah was under no obligation to enter into Covenant with Abraham and promise blessings to his seed which He confirmed with an oath: but, having once made such covenant promise, He was under a self imposed obligation to keep it; hence what had originally been mercy to Abraham became truth to Jacob.
Precisely similar is the use of language in John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,” etc. What have faithfulness and justice to do with forgiveness? It is rather the part of a faithful and just Judge and Ruler to punish and condemn, for loose clemency puts a premium on crime. But God had promised that ‘Svhoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy” (Prov. xxviii:13); and that if we “look up to Him” whom He hath lifted up on the cross, we shall “be saved.” Therefore what vv-as originally merciful and gracious is now faithful and just — namely, to forgive and cleanse a penitent and believing sinner. For, having promised to forgive, His faithfulness is at stake; and having laid the load of guilt upon Another, justice forbids a second exaction of penalty.
So the change from “propitiation” to “Paraclete” (i John ii:2) is necessary; for while He is the propitiation for the whole world, He is the advocate, or Paraclete, only for those who are believers and whom as clients He represents in Court.
The word “fool” is used mainly in two senses — first of intellectual folly, or one destitute of understanding, perception or wisdom, as in Prov. xv:2i; xvii:25; Eccles. i:17; x:i; 2 Cor. xi:i. And second, of moral folly, perverseness of heart, enmity against truth and God, as in Psalms xiv:i; Prov. xxvi:io; Josh. vii:15.
The two senses are not dissimilar but closely related: for nothing shows greater want of understanding than the commission of wickedness. The greater the value of virtue and the reward of piety, the greater the folly of vice and impiety: and the larger the endowments the more consummate the foolishness of misusing or abusing God’s gifts in the service of sin.