A form of expression that seems either self-contradictory or absurd, but it also expresses fundamental truth. It is often used to evoke deeper and critical thinking. It may be closely related to hyperbole (an exaggerated statement). Paradox includes a clear element of contradiction. The surprising nature of a paradox makes people stop and think carefully about what it means.
How Did Jesus Use Paradox?
Jesus used paradox in his teaching ministry. For example, he said grown persons must be born again. In John 3:4 Nicodemus asks, “How can a man be born when he is old… Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
Another example is when Jesus spoke to the rich people entering the kingdom of God. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (an impossible thing) than for a rich person to enter the kingdom (Mark 10:25). The point is not to focus on the literal statement or take it word for word but to understand its essential purpose. This statement is meant to surprise people and make them think differently. Jesus is forcing the wealthy to see how their attitudes toward wealth have excluded them from the kingdom of God.
Much of the use of paradox in Jesus’s ministry shows how the kingdom of God reverses the values by which people live:
Whosoever will lose his life will find it (Matthew 10:39).
The last will be first, and the first last (Luke 13:30).
Whoever would be greatest of all must be servant of all (Mark 10:43; Luke 22:26).
Indeed, the servant ministry of Jesus himself underscores this great reversal of the kingdom. After washing the feet of the disciples, Jesus says, “You call Me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, because I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet” (John 13:13–14).
Paradoxes in Describing God
Paradox is also a part of Christian expression when one attempts to speak of God using human language. Thus God is “before all time.” Even “God in flesh” is paradoxical yet profoundly true. People always use words from their own experience to talk about God, but God is much greater than human language can fully express. Thus, language is a limited instrument for speaking of God who is not limited.