All my life, and especially since I embarked on the path of the serious writer, I have been drawn to metaphor in a big way. This is how the Holy Spirit often communicates deep things to me–in figurative, metaphorical phrases and images.
Metaphors are one way that Scripture comes to life. It seems the Holy Spirit who authored the Scripture likes them also, because they are ubiquitous in the Bible.
One metaphor that seems appropriate to examine as we begin a new year is that of doors. If you are like me and enjoy making a psychological and spiritual shift at the beginning of a new year, perhaps you might see it as a pass through a new door to your future.
This is the first day of the rest of your life. It can also be a fresh doorway to the rest of your year.
Characteristics and uses of doors
Physical doors can be made of glass, wood, metal, plastic, or other natural or manmade materials. They can be flimsy or strong and impenetrable. They can be opened or shut, forcefully or voluntarily.
Most doors have hinges that allow them to swing open and shut. If they don’t have hinges, doors are pushed or pulled out of the way, as with pocket doors, sliding barn doors, or garage doors. If a door can’t be opened and shut at will, then it’s a wall, and not a door.
Doors have to be tall enough for a fairly tall person to walk through without bending. They also have to be wide enough for a fairly broad person to pass through. If a door is too short or too narrow, it will not give equal access to a variety of sizes of people or animals.
Doors keep some things in and other things out. They are barriers of protection, giving the owners of said doors the choice of who is allowed to enter. Some doors have locks on them, which provide an additional layer of security against trespassers.
There are 154 references to doors in the Old and New Testaments. Many of these refer to literal doors, but many biblical authors use doors as metaphors to illustrate spiritual truths about entering, exiting, opening, closing, welcoming, or excluding.
Take a look with me.
The Door of Sin
The first reference to a door is in Genesis and relates to the problem of sin. Early in the Genesis account of the first family, God accepts Abel’s sacrifice but finds Cain’s unworthy. Cain complains that God is unfair in his assessment of his offering, and God replies:
“If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” (Gen. 4:7)
Just outside the door of Cain’s heart crouched a roaring lion of sin, ready to pounce. Cain opened the door, and it led him to murder his own brother. He had to live the rest of his life as an outcast and fugitive from a life-giving human community.
Since sin came and marred the perfection of God’s garden, sin has been crouching at the door of the human heart, ready to pounce. Even after we place our lives in God’s hands and he saves us, we still must often deal with this unwelcome trespasser who crouches at the door. Will we open the door, as Cain did, or say, “Get behind me, Satan,” (Mt. 16:23) as Jesus did, and shoo him away?
A Door of Protection
The next big reference to doors applies to the Israelites just before their exodus from Egypt. Their ability to save their firstborn sons from sudden death was to apply the blood of a lamb to the doorways of their homes.
Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. (Ex. 12:22-23, NIV).
The doorframes daubed with blood were the key to distinguishing those who were to be saved from the devastation Egypt’s final curse. After their exodus and the receiving of the Law at Sinai, Moses instructed the people to remember perennially the blood that saved them at the feast of Passover.
The Door of Truth
The Israelites were also to write all of the commandments of God “on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Dt. 6:8).
Moses’ prescription then is still worth following today. As we come and go from the relative safety of our homes to a larger world, we are wise to post reminders at the doors of our homes and our hearts.
Religious Jews hang mezuzahs next to their doors. These contain small scrolls imprinted with Scripture. They lovingly touch or kiss the mezuzah when they enter and exit the home, expressing their devotion to the God they serve.
As a new believer living in New York, I tacked a piece of paper with Romans 12:2 inside the door of my apartment. This became a life verse for me, reminding me not to conform myself to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I learned back then, and still believe that I am responsible for guarding the doorway of my heart and mind. I must choose wisely what thoughts to keep and what to keep out when I venture out into the wild world.
The Door of Holiness
As the Jews began their long sojourn in the wilderness, guarding the tabernacle of worship required the commissioning of Levites as doorkeepers. It was essential that the sacred space inside would not be defiled by the profane atmosphere and activities outside.
There is always a doorway separating the sacred from the ordinary. Our places of worship should be honored and kept holy. And because God seeks worshippers who will worship him “in spirit and in truth,” (John 4:24), our bodies and minds need also to be kept holy and set apart. We are to guard the doors of our hearts from physical, spiritual, or cultural elements that might make us unclean.
A favorite Psalm verse reads,
“Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Ps. 84:10. NIV).
When given a choice between the peace and honor of serving humbly as a member of God’s household or partying and luxuriating with the sinful and scornful, which will we choose? Door number one or door number two?
The Door of Words
Sometimes the door in question is the door of our mouths. A psalm of David includes the prayer, “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (Ps. 141:3). Just as God’s physical sanctuary required doorkeepers, the sanctuary of our hearts must be guarded at the door of our lips.
This corresponds to Jesus’ teachings about how the words of our mouths reveal the contents of our hearts. What have we been letting in and what have we been keeping out? Our words will reveal both, for better or worse.
Regarding words of prayer, Jesus taught,
“When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matt. 6:6).
Behind the doors, in our private space, is where our individual relationship with our Lord and King is nourished and cultivated. It is a secret sanctuary. Jesus wants us to be satisfied with our intimate, private conversations with God and not require the validation of humans.
As we pray for provision, wisdom, understanding, or divine help, Jesus exhorts us to “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). Prayer opens the doors of heaven, and God pours out blessings.
Doors to the Kingdom
Doors also figure in some of Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. The virgins who had not brought oil for their lamps found themselves shut outside the door of the wedding feast (Matt. 25:10). God forbid we are unprepared and locked out.
Jesus describes worthy servants as those who watch for the return of the Master, ready to open the door for him upon his return (Luke 12:35-37). We are to be near the door, alert, watching for him, quick to welcome him.
Doors of Religion
A negative reference to doors describes “teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites” when they “shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to” (Matt. 23:13, NIV).
Ironically, it is this kind of arbitrary and cruel religious tyrant who will find the door shut in their faces when Jesus fully establishes his glorious kingdom.
The Narrow Door
Jesus stated unequivocally that those who are saved are those who “enter through the narrow door.” Many travel the wide way and when they reach their destination, “many…will try to enter and will not be able to…you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us,’ but he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from’” (Luke 13:24-25, NIV).
So…we started in Genesis, and it is fitting to end with perhaps the Bible’s most profound statement about doors, found in Revelation:
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Rev.3:20).
Jesus stands faithfully at the door. Will we open it to him? And when we finally come to his door, will he open it to us?
This depends on our choice, our clear decision that we want to be in his company always and forever, and then living consistently in ways that demonstrate our choice.
