The Travail With Child Metaphor

[DavidT]

What is a metaphor or parable? In God's Word, it is usually something real that is used as a symbol for some other thing or idea. I see many brethren struggle with this concept that is used a lot in God's written Word. Lord Jesus used it a whole lot in His Gospel teachings, and His Apostles had to ask Him what He meant, because they had not yet been given The Comforter Teacher (Holy Spirit).

A metaphor is kind of like 'a picture that is worth a thousand words'. The metaphor comparison can go that deeper in how it represents the truth it is pointing to. For example, when Jesus said you don't put new wine into old wine skins, lest they burst, but you put new wine in new wine skins, so both are preserved. There's two ideas there required to grasp, one is about how newly fermenting wine needs room to expand in whatever you put it in, or the container will burst. So you put newly fermenting wine in a container that can expand, so both are preserved. OK, so know about that as just a fact of storing wine, what idea is Lord Jesus actually using that as a metaphor to point to?

Lord Jesus is talking about 'true understanding of God's Word, full strength' being given to minds that are ready to receive it and prepared to understand, so as to be able to keep and purify works for Him. I can hear you thinking, "Wow, Jesus said all that about new and old bottles for wine?" Yeah, He did, but in the form of a metaphor.

1. The old bottles (actually wine skins in His day) = minds stuck on the 'milk', men's traditions, folks that have closed their spiritual eyes and ears, and are spiritually hard of hearing the "strong meat" of God's Word. If you try to give them the 'new wine' (God's Word full strength), they will be like bottles that will break, their minds simply won't hold, and like Christ's parable of the sower, the devil comes and takes it away.

2. But you put the 'new wine' into new bottles = minds that are ready to receive the "strong meat", like the sower parable with those whose soil is plowed, all the stones and weeds removed, and ready to sow seed. Then much fruit is produced.

Thusly in Jesus' metaphor:
'new wine' = God's Word full strength, the "strong meat"
old bottles = those spiritually without eyes to see, and ears to hear, hard of hearing spiritually.
new bottles = those with spiritual eyes to see, and ears to hear.

Get ready for a deeper metaphor in God's Word about the idea of travailing with child...

(Continued...)

 

[DavidT]

Here is the 'travail with child' metaphor in God's Word.

It was first used as a metaphor for distress and tribulation, even used for men in distress, which is an easy way to know it is put as a metaphor...

Jer 30:3-6
3 For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

4 And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah.
5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
KJV

Apostle Paul used this travail with child metaphor also, about the deceived at the end of this world who will be saying, "Peace and safety", and then "sudden destruction" comes upon them...

1 Thess 5:2-4
2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, "Peace and safety"; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
KJV

Thus for the end of the world, that "as travail upon a woman with child" is for the wicked and deceived on that future day of "sudden destruction" on that "day of the Lord". That day is not to take us, Christ's Church, by surprise. That also means we are not to be in that "travail with child" condition on that day of Christ's future return on that "day of the Lord".

Apostle Paul covered what we, Christ's Church, are to be, in the 2 Corinthians 11 chapter, and it is part of this "travail with child" metaphor, which I will further explain later...

2 Cor 11:2-4
2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one Husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
KJV

We are to be metaphorically like "a chaste virgin" when Jesus returns in the future? Yes, according to Paul there. Where did he get that idea of being a chaste virgin? From The Old Testament Scripture.

This metaphor is simply about the idea of worship. So this explanation of the metaphor is all in the spiritual worship sense: If we remain 'a chaste virgin', it means we waited on our True Husband Jesus Christ to return, and did not fall away to another. If we are found instead 'travailing with child' when Jesus comes, it means we played the harlot, not waiting, and instead married another, and are found 'with child'. And this is a metaphor all in the spiritual worship sense.

In 2 Corinthians 11, Apostle was actually pointing to the parable in Isaiah 54 where he got the idea of remaining "a chaste virgin" waiting on Jesus. Lord Jesus also used the idea of 'virgins' to point to His faithful Church in Matthew 25 and Revelation 14. The part of the parable that is most often left out of most Churches teaching of it, is the part about those who are found spiritually "travailing with child" at the end of this world when Jesus returns, like those of 1 Thess.5:3 that Paul mentioned will be saying, "Peace and safety" just prior to the "sudden destruction" on earth that is to happen on the day of Christ's future return on the "day of the Lord."

(Continued...)

 

[DavidT]

Here is where Apostle Paul was pulling from with the "chaste virgin" analogy or metaphor.

Isaiah 54:1
Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.

Isaiah 54:5
For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall He be called.
KJV

This metaphor here is about the "barren", meaning those in Christ who do not travail with child. To not travail means those who remain spiritual chaste virgins waiting on Jesus' future return. Lord Jesus Christ is our True Husband in the spiritual sense.

God applies this Isaiah 54 metaphor to Jerusalem also. (See verses 2, and 11 thru 13).

The idea is simple, and again is a metaphor for worship. The "barren", those who did not bear, and who did not travail with child, are Blessed, because it means they stayed 'chaste virgins' waiting for their True Husband Jesus to return.

But the 'married woman' who did not remain barren, instead is found 'with child', and thus is found in shame. Remember what the Babylon harlot says of herself in Revelation 18:7, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Not a widow means she is married, and sitting as a queen points to her being married to a king (to the Antichrist). All this is in the spiritual sense, so it's important to stay focused on how God is using these natural ideas to point to worship. That Babylon harlot is about a "great city" we are told at the end of Revelation 17. It is about the city of Jerusalem for the end in a false worship condition.

So just as Christ Jesus used this metaphor in Isaiah 54 to point to His faithful Church, He also used it for the idea of His spiritual marriage to Jerusalem also.

In Luke 23 Lord Jesus even quoted this 'Blessed are the barren' metaphor to the daughters of Jerusalem that wept for Him when He was bearing His cross up to be crucified...

Luke 23:27-30
27 And there followed Him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented Him.
28 But Jesus turning unto them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

29 For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

30 Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us'; and to the hills, 'Cover us.' "
KJV

Jesus is warning the deceived in future Jerusalem how at His future return, they will say that, "Blessed are the barren, ..." about those who remained faithful chaste virgins, waiting on Jesus. But about themselves, they will wish for the mountains and hills to "Cover us", because of their shame on that day of His return and they were found travailing 'with child'. That is what Lord Jesus is revealed with that above.

The following Scripture, which is for the future time of "great tribulation", warns against being in that spiritual "with child" condition.

Luke 21:22-23
22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.
KJV

Most think the above is just about poor pregnant women of that time trying to escape persecution, but they have not understood the 'travail with child' metaphor that began back in the Old Testament Scripture, nor what Jesus warned.