Door / Doorpost
Doorways are so common that at first they might not seem like good candidates for symbolic use. Then we begin to look for them in Scripture and note how they play a significant role at key times.
The first mention of a door in the Bible is immediately symbolic: “If you do well, won’t you be accepted? But if you don’t do well, sin is lying outside your door ready to attack. It wants to control you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7). In a freshly fallen world, God was warning Cain that sinful behavior is as real as the dangers that might lurk outside one’s house. The door represents access. It allows sin to have an exit from our hearts or an entrance into them. Doors throughout Scripture become significant places to meet God.
Doorways in Egypt
After the exodus, the doorway became forever connected with the Passover. The final plague that God used to measure out justice on Egypt was the killing of the firstborns. But the people of Israel were told to take specific precautions to insure that the plague did not visit their homes. The Passover lamb supplied meat for the final meal, and its blood provided a mark of protection:
Take the branch of a hyssop plant, dip it in the blood which is in a bowl, and put some of the blood on the top and sides of the doorframes of your houses. No one may leave the house until morning. The LORD will go throughout Egypt to kill the Egyptians. When he sees the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe, he will pass over that doorway, and he will not let the destroyer come into your home to kill you. (Exod. 12:22–23)
The last time the Israelites walked out of their houses of slavery to begin the journey to the Promised Land, they walked under the protection provided by the lamb’s blood on the doorways.
Doorpost Writing
When God revealed his law to his people during the wilderness trip from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, the doorway again took center stage. It became a symbol of the people taking seriously the guide to living that God had provided for them. Deuteronomy 6:6–9 says this:
Take to heart these words that I give you today. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you’re at home or away, when you lie down or get up. Write them down, and tie them around your wrist, and wear them as headbands as a reminder. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
God placed upon parents the burden of impressing, talking, illustrating, and exemplifying his commands throughout their lives and in the presence of their children. One prescribed way was to “write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (v. 9). The results of how Israel applied this final phrase can still be seen in objects called mezuzot on the doorways of devout Jewish homes. Taken from the Hebrew word meaning “doorpost,” a mezuzah is a plaque about 3 or 4 inches long by about 1 inch wide. It can be made of various materials and consists of two pieces that form a shallow cavity inside. The space holds a tiny handwritten scroll of the Shema (which means “hear” in Hebrew and refers to the first word in God’s Great Commandment from Deut. 6:4–5). Each time a devout Jew enters or leaves through the doorway, the mezuzah is touched and then the fingers are kissed as the individual speaks the words of the Shema. The concept of continually remembering God and his claim on our devotion has great merit as a lifestyle. As long as it does not become a mindless habit, the discipline of this doorway devotion points to ordered living before God.
Jesus said, “I am the door” (John 10:9 KJV), signifying that salvation comes only through him.
“I Am the Door”
Jesus used the door as a symbol for his role when he said, “I am the gate” (John 10:9). The Greek word thura, usually meaning “door,” can also be used for “gate.” Jesus was declaring himself to be the only passageway to salvation. Those who pass through that door are saved, but those who do not are shut out of salvation. He made this point again in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me.”
“I Stand at the Door”
In the first chapters of Revelation, Jesus instructed the aged apostle John to write seven letters to the churches in Asia (present-day western Turkey). At the close of those letters, Jesus mentioned a door (3:20). This passage refers to the kind of intimate fellowship that Jesus wants to have with us daily. The picture reminds us that Jesus never forces himself on us, but he provides numerous reminders (knocks on our door) to encourage us to spend time with him.
Revelation 4 opens with another door at the beginning of the visions that will make up the rest of this last book of the Bible: “After these things I saw a door standing open in heaven” (v. 1a). The future lies behind a closed door, but God knows everything behind that door. His Word reveals what he has chosen to let us know, yet much exists that we don’t or can’t know. For that, trust is required. For believers, one expression of our hope is to stop seeing death as a doorway through which we pass, for because of Christ it is no longer that. He is the doorway. Once we go through him, death is simply the access moment to eternal life.
Key Verse
Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. (Matt. 7:7)