No audio is available for these study notes

Silver’s Negative Application – Part 1

Introduction

Strong’s definition of silver is:

H3701 – – keseph – keh’- sef – From H3700; silver (from its pale color); by implication money: – money, price, silver (-ling).

Just as the base metals, lead, tin, iron, and copper, all typify what is refined out of the earth and yet are so plentiful that they have very little value and are considered to be common and cheap, so, too, the precious metals portray for us God’s view of the opposite end of the spectrum. Precious metals portray for us spiritually what is rare and expensive and highly valued by God.

There are just two precious metals mentioned in God’s Word. Those two metals are silver and gold. Our study this week is the spiritual significance of silver in scripture. As always we will start out with the negative application, the dark side of silver in the Word of God. Before we can show you silver’s subverted application, we must first establish silver’s primary precious and positive application as the symbol in scripture for both atonement and redemption and as a symbol of the righteousness of the saints through “Christ in you.”

Silver as atonement and redemption

Exo 30:15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when [they] give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.
Exo 30:16 And thou shalt take the atonement money [Hebrew: keseph, silver] of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.

Tit 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works [He was valued at thirty pieces of silver].

Mat 26:15 And [Judas] said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.

Silver as righteousness

Before we show the use of silver as self-righteousness, let’s first show its symbolism as righteousness. Silver is always associated with Christ and His righteousness.

1Co 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1Co 3:12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Co 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Rev 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

As we will see below, works are also typified by ‘fine linen.’

Rev 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

Silver’s negative uses and applications in scripture:

There is a false Christ, “another Jesus,” and there is self-righteousness. The scriptures point all this out to those who have eyes to see.

2Co 11:4 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].

Php 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

So when ‘fine linen’ and ‘silver’ are supported with “sockets of brass,” which are not allowed into the tabernacle or temple, the righteousness they typify becomes self-righteousness, as we will see demonstrated below.

As with all negative applications of God’s gifts, the positive is subverted into a negative, and “the light is darkness.”

Ecc 5:10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.

Unless our ‘silver’ is of and for Christ, our own works and our own doctrines will not satisfy either us or our Lord.

Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
Isa 1:20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken [it].
Isa 1:21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
Isa 1:22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:
Isa 1:23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

Eze 7:19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
Eze 22:18 Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they [are] brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver.

Just as light becomes darkness, silver becomes dross. We are all guilty and must see this in ourselves.

Mat 6:23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

Luk 11:35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

The ‘light’ of righteous, redemptive silver can so easily be the darkness of self-righteous, condemning, blood money.

Joseph’s ten brothers sell him into slavery for twenty shekels of silver, affecting their own redemption

Gen 37:28 Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.

Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

Christ was also sold for silver, affecting the redemption of all mankind

Mat 26:15 And [Judas] said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver [More about these thirty pieces of silver below].

Zec 11:12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give [me] my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty [pieces] of silver.
Zec 11:13 And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty [pieces] of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.

Mat 27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
Mat 27:6 And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
Mat 27:7 And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.

What came of Judas’ betrayal of Christ? Just as Joseph’s betrayal was turned into the salvation of all of Egypt and Joseph’s family, so, too, Christ’s betrayal was turned into the salvation of all mankind:

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

1Ti 4:10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

1Jn 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

How light is darkness – Why those in darkness never realize their light is darkness

Eze 16:8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
Eze 16:9 Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil.
Eze 16:10 I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
Eze 16:11 I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.
Eze 16:12 And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.

Where else in scripture do we find a woman wearing a crown?

Rev 9:7 And the shapes of the locusts [were] like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads [were] as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as the faces of men.
Rev 9:8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions.

Eze 16:13 Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment [was of] fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.
Eze 16:14 And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it [was] perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.
Eze 16:15 But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
Eze 16:16 And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: [the like things] shall not come, neither shall it be [so].
Eze 16:17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,
Eze 16:18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.
Eze 16:19 My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, [wherewith] I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and [thus] it was, saith the Lord GOD.
Eze 16:20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter,
Eze 16:21 That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?

We all usurp God’s words as our own when we construct our idols out of God’s words and take credit for our own salvation:

Eze 28:4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:

Hos 2:8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

Gold and silver first come from God, but after is is subverted it becomes “their silver and their gold…”

Hos 8:4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew [it] not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.

Hag 2:8 The silver is mine, and the gold, d is mine. saith the LORD of hosts.

Hos 13:2 And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

Zep 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

Joseph’s brother’s were self-righteous

Joseph’s brothers, who represent you and me when we were in Babylon, felt good about what they had done. Joseph was robbing Reuben of his birthright as far as they were concerned. They felt justified and were very self-righteous in what they had done. They sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver, two pieces for each of the ten brothers. Just look at how they had justified the murder of an entire city of innocent men:

Gen 34:25 And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.
Gen 34:26 And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went out.
Gen 34:27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister.
Gen 34:28 They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which [was] in the city, and that which [was] in the field,
Gen 34:29 And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that [was] in the house.
Gen 34:30 And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I [being] few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.
Gen 34:31 And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?

Here is Judah’s attitude towards Tamar:

Gen 38:23 And Judah said, Let her take [it] to her, lest we be shamed: behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her.
Gen 38:24 And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she [is] with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.
Gen 38:25 When she was brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff.

Joseph’s ten brothers and you and I, were, in our appointed time, very self-righteous. We have all swapped Christ’s righteousness for our silver:

Amo 2:6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes.

Amo 8:6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat? [false prophecies].

All of this is all of us in our spiritual infancy. All of this is us when first we had all of our Babylonian idols. We were very proud of all we had done and accomplished “of our own free will.”

Isa 48:10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

Psa 115:4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.

Even the redemption and righteousness of Christ in us is subverted into darkness which appears as an angel of light. Silver can and does symbolize, not only Christ’s righteousness but, also “the works of men’s hands,” which means we assume that we have something to contribute towards our own salvation, which also includes our idols of the heart.

It is the inability to forfeit the flesh which drives our desire for self-righteousness, which is nothing but Babylonian silver that turns light into darkness. The unrecognized attitude that drives Babylon within us, is that it’s all right to lie, cheat and steal if it gets you the silver and the gold of Babylon, which we, as the first Adam, value more than life.

We must live the events in our Eden before we can face the giants in the land or the fiery trials of returning from Babylon.

[The next study in this series is here.]