GOD OPENS AND CLOSES DOORS

This is another one of the pervasive themes in the Bible, as you can see from the following examples.

Genesis 3:24     This example does not specifically mention a door but it certainly refers to an entrance of some sort or other. It is when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden of Eden and an armed guard is posted to make sure they never return to eat of the tree of life. Victor Hamilton notes this picture infers that “reentry into the garden is only through an opening on its east side, much as the entrance into the tabernacle/temple complex was by a gate on the eastern side. In such a capacity the cherubim function much like later Levites who are posted as guards around the tabernacle, and who are to strike down any person who encroaches upon the forbidden sancta (Num. 1:51,53).”

Genesis 7:16     “And those that entered [the ark], male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.” Several commentators note the very personal and loving touch at this point in the story.

Job 38:8-10     God asks Job, “Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? – when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling hand, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors.” Hartley says, “The picture is that Yahweh, the sea's Creator, determined the sea's every characteristic. Since he brought it into existence, he never had to subdue it in mortal combat as the ruling gods Marduk or Baal in ancient Near Eastern mythology had to do.”

Job 41:14     God asks Job rhetorically concerning the sea monster Leviathan: “Who can open the doors of its face? There is terror all around its teeth.” Seow points out, “Though Leviathan reigns supreme on earth, he is but a plaything to God (cf. Ps. 104:26)” Therefore the answer to the question is that obviously God is the only one who can open his jaws (“doors of its face”) safely.

Psalm 78:23     This psalm states, “Yet he [God] commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven.” Although 'gates of heaven' and 'windows of heaven' are elsewhere said to have been opened by God, usually referring to blessings such as rain, this is the only place where 'doors of heaven' appears, and it refers to God's provision of manna for the Israelites in the wilderness.

Psalm 107:10-16     God frees the prisoners (i.e. those who had rebelled against God) by shattering the prison doors. In the New Testament, we will see several literal examples of God freeing prisoners.

Isaiah 22:22     see comment on Revelation 3:8

Isaiah 60:1     “Isaiah describes the renewed splendor of Zion when Yahweh becomes her shining light: her gates will always stand serenely open and never shut.” (B.T. Arnold) The fulfillment of this promise is found in Revelation 21 in the description of the New Jerusalem. And that final mention of open doors in the Bible is an exact reversal of the exclusion of Adam and Eve from the garden in that now all the redeemed will have free access to the fruit of the Tree of Life.

Matthew 7:7-8     In reference to prayer, Jesus tells us to “knock and the door will be opened for you.” This saying is also found in Luke 11:9-10.

Matthew 25:10-12     In this parable, the ten foolish virgins were shut out of the kingdom. “The foolish were shut out because the bridegroom did not know them in a personal way (cf. 7:21-23).” (Nixon)

Matthew 28:2 is the only Gospel account that describes the actual opening of the door to Jesus' tomb. But if you read the account carefully, you can see that the intent was not to allow Jesus to escape since He was already gone. The intent was so that the witnesses could attest to that fact.

Luke 13:25 comes from a very similar parable. Marshall says regarding it, “The kingdom is like a house with a 'narrow door' offering limited admission; it is shut when the feast begins (Mt. 25:10), and then it will be too late to seek entry. It will be no use pleading acquaintance with Jesus if there has been no response to His message.”

John 10:7-10      Speaking of limited access, in this passage Jesus compares himself with a shepherd who stands at the opening of the sheep pen and only lets one sheep at a time come in, after first examining whether he is one of his flock.

John 20:19,26      As a sort of replay of Jesus' escaping from a locked room in Matthew 28:2, in these passages of John we read of Jesus entering a locked room in the same manner.

There are three notable prison escapes in the book of Acts. In 5:19 an angel of God opens the prison doors for the apostles; in Acts 12:1-11 the same thing happens to Peter; and 16:25-28 describes an earthquake which opens the prison doors for Paul and Silas. In regard to the first event, Stott notes: “William Neil speculates that this was 'a sympathetic warder' or 'a secret sympathizer among the guardroom staff', who came later to be seen as 'an angel is disguise.' But we have no liberty to demythologize what Luke evidently intends his readers to believe was a heavenly visitor.”

F.F. Bruce relates a strikingly similar narrative occurring in more recent times in which the Christian missionary Sundar Singh was miraculously released from a locked dry well in Tibet by a man who subsequently vanished. Singh immediately resumed his preaching and the authorities could not understand how he had been able to escape since they had the only copy of the key to the door.

Acts 16:25-28 differs from the other prison stories in the book in that a “natural” event was responsible for this release. It is best to view it as several other biblical miracles as a miracle of timing in which God used natural phenomena within His control to accomplish His will.

Acts 14:27     In addition to the above literal uses of “door,” we also see a metaphorical utilization of the word in this verse where we are told that God had opened “a door of faith for the Gentiles.” That figurative meaning of the word appears in Paul's writings as well.

I Corinthians 16:8-9      “But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentacost for a wide door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” Hughes states, “The metaphor of the door is both natural and graphic, and one for which Paul seems to have had some partiality...The opening of a door has a twofold effect: it enables the evangelist to enter with the message of the Gospel, and it also makes possible the entry of that message into the minds and hearts of his hearers.”

II Corinthians 2:12-13     “When I came to Troas to proclaim the god news of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord, but my mind could not find rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said farewell to them and went on to Macedonia.” Paul's seeming disregard for the open door God provided is explained to the Corinthians as due to his extreme anxiety as he waited for recent news of their church from Titus. This verse prompted Calvin to say “the fact that he was so anxious about them that he had no rest anywhere...argues a singular degree of attachment to the Corinthians.” It also serves as a reminder that evangelism by itself tends to be ineffective if we do not provide spiritual nourishment to the converted.

Colossians 4:3      “At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison.” Note how Paul does not covet prayers for the opening of his prison doors, but for the opening of the hearts of those to whom he is witnessing right there in the prison.

In regard to the above three passages, The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery notes, “these references hearken back to Hosea 2:15, which speaks in salvific terms of a 'door of hope' that the Lord will provide.”

Revelation 3:8     The message to the church in Philadelphia begins: “There are the words of the holy one, the true one who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. I know your words. Look, I have set before you an open door, which on one is able to shut.”

The first portion of this passage is a near quotation from Isaiah 22:22 which speaks of Eliakim being invested with power. Ford explains, “The speaker [Christ] appears to have unlimited sovereignty over the city of David, the new Jerusalem, and can grant or deny entrance to it in the last age...The open door may represent missionary work. It may also be associated with conquering the assembly of Satan (vs. 9)...”

Revelation 3:20     At the conclusion of the letters to the seven churches, we read these words, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” Beale explains, “This is an invitation not for the readers to be converted but to renew themselves in a relationship with Christ that has already begun, as is apparent from v 19...It is also possible that v 20 has been modeled on the parable of the returning master in Luke 12:36-37: when the master returns from a wedding feast, the servants are to open [the door] to him when he comes and knocks...”

What strikes me about this passage is that whereas the resurrected Christ had no trouble passing through literal doors that were locked close, he refuses to impose his presence on us in the same way spiritually without our agreement.

Revelation 4:2 Very interestingly, just two verses later we see a different usage of a door: “After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open.” Concerning this door obviously opened by God, or at his order, Mounce says, “John sees a door standing open in the vault of heaven. In Ezekiel the prophet reports, 'The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God' (Ezek 1:1).' Whether John goes through the door into heaven or only to the door to look within is not certain...In any case, we must remember that we are dealing with symbolism and guard against the tendency to read into the text more than there is.”