Ccel: Water as Torah
The real meaning of Torah is more than just the written word. It is everything that God has revealed. You are proper to identify the mist as Christ. He is the living Torah. In it's form in Genesis the primary metaphor is that of General revelation. All of creation testifies.. Ro 1:20.
The word for mist אד is a pun to testify עד. We might go so far as to pair them and say that hte mist is the spiritual testimony... that which is written on our hearts and in our DNA, and the other is the physical testimony. The word also means 'again', so when Jesus said "You must be born again" he also said, "You must be born to testify".
In it's later form we see that it rains on the just and the unjust. The generalized revelation takes on a more particular form.
Mt 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
(This passage refers to Christ as the just, and us as the unjust as referred to in 1Pe 3:18)
The water is the whole living Torah and includes holiness and love. Consider how to make wine from water. Wine represents mercy. To obtain it from water, you must remove judgement. The axe represents judgement. Elisha as a type of Christ removes judgement from the word, the same as Jesus prepared himself by removing judgement from his heart and choosing to provide grace. He turned water into wine.
2Ki 6:5 But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed. 2Ki 6:6 And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he shewed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast [it] in thither; and the iron did swim.
Like the fire, water can destroy or give life. Fire and water are two representations of the same thing. Fire represents the refining by the Spirit, and the Water is the purification by the Word/Christ.
In one of the first posts, I think on John 1, I showed that Elohim has three puns, 'not dark', 'life', and bread. And that John 1.1-4 can be derived from word play around the first three words of Genesis 1.1. The Hebrew hermeneutic has several types of word play, the word for heaven can be seen as "the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters". John uses the same metaphor in 1 John.
In this case, the word for mist is a pun to the word for testify. The mist is a testimony of God in general revelation.
As similar word play occurs in John 3 when Jesus tells Nicodemas that he must be born again. The word for again in Hebrew also means testify, and it is used in close proximity to being born of the water. You must be born to testify.
These are only a few examples of 'dark sayings' or riddles, but they are systemic to the whole. It appears that every verse of every chapter participates in painting a picture of Christ by using such word play and riddles.
The Greek hermeneutic will have nothing of it. It is too childish. However, this is not free-for-all allegory because the metaphor is based in the word play, and will be the same everywhere it occurs. So if you find a place where water does not represent the word once the hidden layer is unpacked, then it is an error everywhere it was used that way.
When we get to the 'garment of skin' the word for skin is the same as the word for light. Light represents holiness, so God gave Adam a garment of holiness. The popular typology is a memory of this without the source.
So enjoy the word play and check the theology against what is know of Christ in the literal. You will see before too long that no man could invent this, we can only observe it in awe. I suspect these are the kinds of things he taught on the road to Emmaus. As we go, I will highlight verses that show that Jesus and the apostles also used such riddling and word play.
