A snowy white dove with an olive branch in its beak has become a universal symbol of peace and reconciliation. Sometimes diplomats are described as carrying an olive branch on some important mission of peace. The connection of doves with olive branches must stem from the ancient biblical account of Noah's Flood. According to the story, the terrible Flood had lasted almost half a year. but after 150 days God remembered Noah and the animals, and He made a great wind to blow, and He stopped up the fountains of the great deep, and closed the windows of heaven to stop the rain. Then the waters began to subside, and after seven months the Ark rested on Mt. Ararat. Then after three more months, the mountain tops appeared. Noah opened a window in the Ark and looked out on a vast expanse of water with only a few peaks showing. He waited another forty days and sent out a raven, but the raven just kept flying around and didn't come back. So Noah sent out a dove, and it soon returned, and Noah knew that there was no landing place. Then after seven days he sent out the dove again, and it returned with an olive leaf in its beak. Noah waited another seven days, and again sent the dove out, and it didn't return, so he knew that the water was mostly gone. The dove was the first creature to set foot in the new world.
But God has used doves at other times to discover new worlds, to announce His plans, and to pronounce His blessing. In the late 15 th century the world was beginning to emerge from centuries of spiritual and intellectual darkness. The reformation was about to dawn, and man was beginning to question some of the Greek myths; was the earth really flat or was it round as suggested by Copernicus; was the solar system geocentric or was it heliocentric as suggested by some avantgarde star gazers? Portuguese and Spanish navigators pushed farther east and west and returned safely. One obscure Venetian sailor by the name of Columbus, which comes from the Latin word "dove," questioned the "flat earth" theory, and sailed west into the unknown; his crew threatened to mutiny, but he said, "Sail on;" his crude navigation instruments only gave him latitude but not longitude, but he said, " Sail on, sail on;" his magnetic lodestone compass was grossly inadequate and he picked the wrong star as the North Star, in other words, he was lost, but he shouted, "Sail on, sail on, and on." The man whom God chose to cross the ocean and discover a new world was a man of prayer and great faith, and he really believed that he was on a God-ordained mission, and his name meant "dove."
The book of Jonah is an interesting and puzzling story of a man whom God had selected to carry a message of warning to the city of Nineveh, the capital city of ancient Assyria, a warning of judgment and destruction. It is interesting and coincidental that the word jonah means dove. Here again, God chose a dove to accomplish a certain work of warning for Him.
Jesus had grown up helping His father in the family carpenter business, but now He was in His late twenties, and it was time for Him to be about His Father's business. He began His ministry for the salvation of mankind by going to where John the Baptist was baptizing in the Jordan River. John recognized Him as the "Lamb of God," and when Jesus came up out of the water, a dove in the "form of purest light" (DA 112), and "like burnished gold" (5 BC 1078, TMK 58) descended upon Him, and a voice declared, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). So, God used a special dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit in the anointing of Jesus. As a result of this experience, Jesus was able to say:
"The spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. To preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Luke 4:18,19.
So God's doves have discovered new worlds, they have delivered messages of warning and impending judgment, and they have anointed men for a special work. In a sense we are a part of the dove story. Perhaps we have been destined as gentle doves to bring back an olive leaf to Him, to give a warning to a dying world. Perhaps we, in this modern age, have been anointed to preach the gospel, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to open the eyes of the blind, to liberate the oppressed, to preach the acceptable day of the Lord. Jesus told us to go as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves. So perhaps we are "God's doves."
