DREAMS

DREAMS

An Article by brother Gordon Wilson

My maternal grandfather was one half Cherokee, his mother having walked the trail of tears from Tennessee to Indian Territory. His two daughters, my aunt and my mother (both now deceased), attributed his interest in dreams to his Cherokee background. He believed that dreams were the stories that the Old Master (his name for God) told each night. Every morning at the breakfast table he related last night’s dream –in great detail. 

  Unlike Pa, I was never much of a dreamer. They say one dreams every time he sleeps, whether he remembers it or not. As a boy and on into old age, if I dreamed at night except very rarely, I did not remember having that experience. Lately that has changed, but my dreams are mostly just meaningless and not worth the telling. But a few nights ago I did have a dream that seemed so communicative that I got up, grabbed a Bible dictionary and started trying to refresh my mind as to what the Good Book has to say about dreams and dreaming. I do not intend to tell that dream in this article; just mentioning it as the event that got me interested in the subject.

The common Hebrew word for “dream” occurs about 65 times in the Old Testament. Ordinarily it just refers to the images that pass through one’s mind during sleep or perhaps even in moments of extreme drowsiness.  This is clear from the use of the word in  Psalm 73:20 and 90:5, where people or things that are short-lived or temporary, or seem to have an unreal quality to them are compared to a dream. I like what the prophet Isaiah says about those who made war against Ariel (Jerusalem): And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night. As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating, and awakes with his hunger not satisfied (Isa 19:7, 8). In these passages dreams do not have any significance within themselves, but the quality of a dream furnishes a figure for life experiences. However, attention is called to the fact that what a person dreams of may be influenced by something he is thinking or experiencing before he goes to sleep. Sometimes we can identify a relationship between waking experiences and the contents of dreams. Sometimes we cannot. Sometimes dreams are just a series of unconnected scenes. At least that is how they seem to us, and there is nothing in the Old Testament that requires us to find an interpretation to dreams generally.

However, in the Old Testament we do have many examples of God communicating with people through dreams. This should be expected, for God spoke to those of old in many different ways. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son… (Heb 1:1, 2). Adam heard the voice of God calling to him as he walked in the garden in the cool of the evening. God spoke to Moses in a bush that burned but  was not consumed. He spoke to Balaam through a talking donkey. He spoke to Elijah in a still small voice. Samuel heard God calling his name during the night. God showed Himself to Isaiah in a vision. He appeared to Abraham through angels in the form of men. And so He communicated with some individuals in dreams. 

The first case mentioned in the Bible of God giving someone a message in a dream is found in Genesis chapter 20. The recipient of the message was Abimelech, king of Gerar. Abraham had lied to the king, telling him that Sarah was his sister. I hope no reader will try to get Abraham off the hook on the ground that Sarah was in fact the half sister of the patriarch, He was deliberately hiding the significant fact that Sarah was his wife out of fear for his own life. Abimelech did take Sarah into his harem with the intent of having carnal relations with her. But God had special plans for Sarah as the bearer of Abraham’s son and the one through whom divine promises would be fulfilled. So God warned Abimelech in a dream that he was a dead man for taking another man’s wife. Fortunately, Abimelech had not yet approached her, so was able to plead innocent . God, as a matter of justice, spared the king’s life.  Others outside His covenant people to whom God spoke in dreams were Laban, Egyptian servants of Pharaoh, Pharaoh; all recoded in the book of Genesis. Much later, in the book of Daniel, we are told of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in which the Lord revealed the future history of His chosen nation and foretold the setting up and spread of the eternal kingdom of Christ.

Among those within His covenant people to whom God revealed Himself in dreams were Jacob (Gen 31:10, 11); Joseph (Gen 37:5-20); Saul (1 Sam 28:6, 15); and Solomon (1 Ki 3:5, 15). He also spoke to the people by prophets to whom He had expressed His will in dreams (Nu 12:6). But there were also false prophets who claimed that God had spoken to them in dreams. These were severely rebuked by God, who put them in the same group with diviners, fortune-tellers, sorcerers, and prophesiers of lies (Jer 27:9, 10). The Lord declared, “Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams”  (Jer 23:32). God accused them of relating false dreams, giving “empty consolation” to the people, and leading  them astray (Zech 10:2).

 Since dreams were a regular way by which revelations came in the Old Testament, the power to supernaturally interpret dreams was a gift vouchsafed by God to certain chosen men. Sometimes God explained the meaning of a dream Himself. But we have examples of God placing in certain chosen persons the ability to explain what dreams meant. The two best known cases are those of Joseph and Daniel. The former was able to give the meaning of dreams to Pharaoh’s former cupbearer and baker. This eventually resulted in his being brought to the attention of the king, who had a dream that troubled him. Joseph’s ability, given him by God, to interpret the dream ended up being the means by which Joseph was exalted to a high position and was able to bring his family to settle in Egypt; thus fulfilling a prophecy made by God to Abraham three generations earlier. Daniel’s ability to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s  dream (after relating the dream itself, which the king could not recall) also resulted in the exaltation of Daniel, placing him in a position to protect God’s people while in captivity and to reveal what lay in their future.

 Important as dreams are in the old covenant Scriptures, this is not the case in the New Testament. In fact we have no record of God speaking to anyone in a dream after the commencement of the new covenant. The Gospel according to Matthew is a part of the New Testament Scriptures because it was written years after the new covenant became effective. But it is a record written by a New Testament apostle of things that happened before that testament went into effect. In Matthew 1:20 an angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph to tell him to take Mary as his wife inasmuch as her pregnancy was an operation of the Holy Spirit. He told Joseph to name the child Jesus. In 2:12 the magi who had visited the newborn child were warned in a dream against returning to Herod. Joseph was again, in 2:13, visited by an angel in a dream and instructed to take his family and flee to Egypt.  An angel again spoke to Joseph in a dream to tell him to return to the land of Israel (verse 19). At verse 22 a warning in a dream led Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Galilee and settle in Nazareth.

When Jesus was being tried before Pontius Pilate, the governor’s wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream’ (Matthew 27:19). This dream too was before the blood that dedicated the new covenant was shed. Actually, we are not told that this dream came from God. Pilate’s wife may have been influenced to dream of the obviously innocent man as the result of the tumult going on all around the praetorium. But regardless of where the dream came from, it is recorded by Matthew as one of the reasons Pilate was reluctant to crucify our Lord. This just emphasizes his cowardice and guilt when he gave in to the demands of those he knew were demanding the death of Jesus out of envy (verse 18).

In Jude 8, the inspired writer says that the false teachers who had snuck into the church were relying on their dreams. Here it is clear that these dreams did not come from God. In fact there were probably no dreams at all, but Jude uses the word to stand for their imaginations, stimulated by their wicked desires.

What can we conclude? When God spoke in former times to the fathers in various ways, dreams were one of the ways by which He spoke. Now He speaks by His Son. The Son revealed the Father by His life and teaching while He was here among men, then sent out ambassadors to speak and write, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, everything that God has chosen to reveal about how to please Him and be saved from sin. Some of those ambassadors saw the Lord Jesus Christ, both in person and in visions. That is the end of the story as far as the Bible is concerned. So tell me your dreams if you wish; I may find them entertaining, or puzzling, or even suggestive and helpful. But if you tell me that they contain a revelation of God for us today, please be prepared to show me the passage in the Good Book that so teaches.