This Christian Fish Symbol Has a Shocking Secret

Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for being with us today. We’ve got a great message for you on the Christian fish.

Before the fish came to represent Christ, pagans used it to represent their sea god. And so this could be a controversial introduction already because the fish was a pagan symbol used to represent the sea god.

And then what happened is Christians now have adopted this. And so, but the Bible says clearly that we are to avoid any of their symbols or doctrines. We do not take any of anything pagan. We do not associate it into Christianity.

God was very clear about that to the Israelites. He said, “Do not associate with their gods. Do not accept any of that.” Yet, in the New Testament, we have taken this fish and incorporated it into Christianity.

Interestingly enough, the cross we have also made a Christian symbol, which was a symbol of Roman power, an execution device. Also, the cross, like a T-cross, was used to represent a false god, Tammuz, who was the son of Semiramis, wife and mother of Nimrod, which was all pagan-oriented, demonic, devil-worshiping.

And so what happened was they used to sacrifice people on this T-post or cross to the sun god, or to—it was also a symbol of Tammuz. Also, that letter T was used as a symbol for Jezebel. And so all of this stuff is like the occult, satanic origin, but yet we have adopted it into Christianity.

So that could be something else that we could talk about at another time: is that disobedient, or did we redeem those things and sanctify them by changing what they meant?

Like, for example, the rainbow is a Christian symbol. That is a promise from God. Yet the homosexual or alphabet-soup movement took it to represent pride. What is that doing? Satan is taking something God created to be pure and holy and is perverting it with his characteristic, the characteristic of pride. Satan’s original purpose. We have a sermon on that. Pride is what made Satan Satan. Pride made the devil the devil. Pride comes before destruction. He was destroyed.

And now the symbol of the rainbow, God’s promise, is now representing pride. And so these other symbols were pagan symbols that we have now captured and redeemed. There could be some discussion there as to what’s going on.

We’re not going to get into all of that today, but I just wanted to kind of inspire your thoughts because you can dive into that. You can look up verses and scriptures and engage in sermon discussions either in the comments on YouTube or on our Discord server. We have an entire room for sermon discussions.

But during the time of Jesus in early Christianity, fishing was one of the largest trades, and Jesus often spoke about fishing. People understood it. It was a way of life.

Matthew 4:19:

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”

Or, as original translations before the politically correct and non-sex- or gender-discriminating or differentiating language was, it said, “I will make you fishers of men.”

You see, because they were fishermen, and God said, “I will make you fishers of men.” Now, it says, “I will make you fish for people.” So we don’t really quite get that because we’re not fisher people.

We still call fishermen fishermen. And then some people say, “Oh, it’s a fisherwoman,” or, “I’m a fisher-people now.” But we know the term. The fishermen were of that day because the women didn’t fish then. So of course they’re called fishermen.

And Jesus said, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And they understood what that meant. They knew the meaning because they said, “Oh, we right now, we’re fishermen. We fish for fish.” But God, or Jesus, said, “I will make you fishers of men.”

Okay. Well, we get that. That means we’re going to go out and catch men. What that means, we have no idea how that’s going to happen. What are we going to do? Throw our net over a crowd of people and reel them in, and the men will be there and the women and children will be left? They didn’t get it, but they understood the concept.

Matthew 13:47. “Once again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.” Jesus used fishing in many parables because they understood fishing.

Fish was also a daily meal. Jesus even cooked fish for the disciples after the resurrection. Let’s go to John 21:9-14.

John 21:9-14 says:

“When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.

Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.”

That could be a whole sermon in and of itself. Jesus cooking for them, being a servant to them. Jesus feeding His disciples with bread and fish. He is the Bread of Life.

Also, 153 fish is a testament to who Jesus is because, in the Hebrew, “I am God.” You add that up, and in the Hebrew letters, like in the English alphabet, A would be one, B would be two, C would be three. If you add those up in the Hebrew letters, it equaled 153. Unbelievable!

“But even with so many, the net was not torn.” And so then what did it say? “None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord.”

How did they know? 153 fish. Well, they knew they had 153 fish. “I am God.” Maybe some of them caught on. Maybe people like Matthew, if he was with them, because he was a numbers guy, he might have said, like, “Wait a minute, 153 fish. Gematria, 153. This is God. This is the Lord, guys!” He might have known. It says they knew. They didn’t dare ask Him.

Also, He took the bread and gave it to them. They might have been like, “Wait a minute. Déjà vu. He did that at the Lord’s Supper. He took the bread, broke it, gave thanks, and gave it to us. Now here’s this man sitting here breaking bread and giving it to us. This looks like our Lord.”

We don’t know exactly what was going on, but that Scripture hits on so many points that draw more out. And see, that’s what you need to be doing when you read the Bible. Don’t just glaze over it. “153. What is that? 153. No big deal.” No. All of this is a big deal. All of this means more.

And you say, “Oh, you’re just focusing too much on little things.” That is exactly what you’re supposed to do. God says, “Meditate on this day and night.” When you meditate on something, you don’t just read it. “Oh, 153 fish, yet the net did not break.” Keep going on and on. No, that’s reading it. That’s not studying it. That’s not meditating on it.

When you meditate on it, you dive into what the words mean. You look at the original Greek. You look at the Greek Septuagint, which would have been translated from the original Hebrew, and you dive in and you understand what was being said in that day and age. What did it mean at that time?

Not, “Oh, today, in my politically correct world, it would be fisher people and fishers of people. I will make you a fisher of people.” No, fishermen, fishers of men. Why? Because that is what it was in that day. And that meaning then still applies today. The meaning doesn’t change because today we have a different society.

No, society is not changing for the good. This world is not of God. So anything going on in this world, remember, you are of a heavenly Kingdom. You are not of this world. Do not start being like this world. This is what you are. You are meant to be of the Word of God. Do not pervert what God has made pure.

Fish was something everyone knew and understood. So the Christian fish, where did it come from?

Well, the original Greek word, again, Greek—get into this—the original Greek word for fish is ichthys, and it was spelled with the following letters: iota, chi, theta, upsilon, and sigma.

What did that mean? Well, each of those letters was used to represent something else. The Christians used the letters of the word fish, or ichthys, to create an acronym representing Christ.

And so then they knew, like, “Okay, Jesus talked a lot about fish. Jesus cooked fish for us. We deal with fish every single day. We eat fish every single day. A lot of us are fishing. We’re also fishers of men. We’re fishermen by trade, but we’re fishing men for Christ.”

Like, they had this in their mind. They knew it. They understood it. And so they made Christianity in terms that everyone could understand. They said, “Ah, let’s come up with something for that.”

So what did they come up with? Many of you maybe already know, but the first one, iota, represented the Greek for Jesus. Chi represented Christos, or the Greek for Christ. Theta represented Theos, or God. Upsilon represented huios, or Son, and sigma represented soter, or Savior.

So therefore, the spelling of the Greek word for fish was the acronym that meant Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. And so everyone could say, “Hey, who is Jesus?” Well, fish, ichthys, is Christos, soter. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. That is who He was and is.

The fish was their daily reminder of who Jesus was to them.

In addition, later on, under the Roman Emperor and under the Roman Empire, Christians were highly persecuted because Judaism was legal. It was allowed. But no other religion was allowed in the Roman Empire.

And so when Christianity became a new religion or a spin-off of Judaism, not only did the Jewish Sadducees and Pharisees and elders of the law hate it, but also the Roman Empire said, “No, there are no other religions.

You either worship what we tell you to worship, which is our gods or our emperor or the sun or the moon or our planets. You worship that, or you Jews, fine. You’re grandfathered in because we conquered your land. We have an agreement with you. But no one else.”

And so when Christianity became something separate from the Jews, it was okay in the beginning when they said, “Well, are these people Jews, or are they not Jews?” Then when the Jews said, “No, we deny it all. We deny everything with Christianity,” the Romans said, “All right, kill them. Get them out of here.”

And so that was bad news for the Christians. But what did Jesus say? He warned all the Christians, “When you see these signs, get out of the city.”

And then what happened? This is a little side note. What happened after Jesus’ death is when—when who? Titus, I believe. In Josephus, he has a historical work from about 35 AD. So after Jesus died and rose again, for the next like hundred years, Jerusalem was besieged and sacked. And then, in 70 AD, the Temple was destroyed.

But during that period of time, when Roman emperors were just laying siege to that city, over like a million Jews were slaughtered and killed, but no Christians. Why? Jesus told them, “When you see these signs, get out. Leave the city.”

So the Christians knew, and they got out. They fled. They went elsewhere. Now, of course, there could have been some Christians in that mix, but the point is the Jews got massacred because they didn’t recognize Christianity. They denied it all. They said no.

And so the Romans were first persecuting the Christians. Then the Christians said, “Hey, we got to get out of here. We got to recognize these signs.” Jesus said that they should get out, and then the Jews got annihilated practically. I mean, over a million Jews during that time of the Roman Empire, and just—I mean, it’s terrible.

But the point is, the Christian fish became a symbol for Christianity. The fish was a daily reminder of who Jesus is.

In addition, during that time of persecution, the fish represented a test. And so what people would do is, when they would be meeting with someone or when they would come up with someone, they would draw an arc like this or like this in the sand or on a piece of paper. They’d just draw, maybe it would look like that. So it would look like a smiley face.

And if the other person completed that circle, so if I drew an arc like this and then we’d be talking, it might just look like I’m drawing in the dust. But if you knew what that meant, you would finish it like that, making the Christian fish. You would make that symbol.

You would complete that symbol, and then I would know, “All right, I’m safe. You are one of me. We are one people. We are both Christians. We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”

That is what Christianity meant: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

Nowadays, everybody’s, “Oh, I’m Christian.” “Oh, that’s a very Christian thing to do.” Wait a minute. A very Christian thing. A very what? A very Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior thing. Because you’re not acting like that. You’re swearing. You’re being mean. You’re backbiting. You’re gossiping. You’re being negative. You’re definitely not acting like a Christian. You’re not being not of this world.

Change who you are. Be a Christian. You are Christ’s ambassadors. It says in the New Testament, you are a representative. We’ve talked about this in many of our sermons. If you haven’t seen them, go back a few weeks, start watching. Go back a couple months, start watching, and go back years, start watching. Dive into this because we are hitting it home.

You are a new creation. When you become a Christian, act like it. Be it. Step into it. Your old self is gone, dead. You are now a slave to Christ.

“I don’t like slavery.” Too bad. We are not of this world. We are of a different Kingdom. Your job is to bring that Kingdom here. We do not assimilate.

We are different. And we want to impose our Kingdom on this world. No holds barred, no pulled punches, no remorse, no regrets. Taking ground, building the Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven. We want Heaven to be here. We are bringing it here.

The Kingdom of God is in us when we have Jesus Christ in us. And we represent Jesus Christ to the world. We do not bring people to Jesus. We bring Jesus to people. Get on board with that. Be a Christian.

So that’s what that fish meant. People would draw it, and if someone wasn’t a Christian, no big deal, because it just looked like I was drawing in the dust. Oh, maybe I was drawing a smiley face. Maybe I drew a line, and then someone else put a couple eyes up there, and I’d be like, “Okay, yeah, cool.” You know, no big deal. Or I drew a frown, and someone was like, “Oh, what’s wrong today?”

All right. I know you’re not a believer. It was an easy way to determine if a situation was safe, if I could invite someone to a meeting.

There were also those secret symbols on doorposts or things like that, so they knew that if someone was seeking refuge, they’d be like, “There, there’s one. Let’s get in there. We know we’ll be safe.”

The fish was a daily reminder of who Jesus was to them and who Jesus is to them. They encountered the fish multiple times a day. So it was a perfect tool. They used what they had available to increase their devotion to God.

It was a good cover. Pagan religions were allowed. As we mentioned, Romans had sea gods. Pagans had sea gods. So it was allowed. It was a good cover for that. Christianity was not allowed. And so having fish as a representative was easy. Slip right under the radar.

But over time, the meaning was forgotten. Many people today don’t understand the significance of the fish. They don’t know that it meant Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

Remember that, ichthys. Redeem that symbol and know what it represents, but then use it to direct your life. If you claim to be a Christian, are you really a Christian? Do you really believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior? That’s the movement of Christianity.

Because, as Paul says, if you do not believe Christ rose from the dead and is your Savior, then your entire faith is worthless. So other religions that don’t believe that, they are worshiping in vain. It is worthless.

Like Jesus says, they’re honoring with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They are following not the doctrines of Him, but the doctrines of men or the doctrines of religion, false doctrine.

On that day, many will say, “Did we not do this in Your name?” And He will say, “Away from Me, you evildoers!” because they did not do what He said to do.

Yes, they may have tried. They may have done it in His name. They may have thought they were upholding the law. But Jesus said, “No, I have come to fulfill the law. Believe in Me, not the law. If you believe in Me, you will keep the law, because I am love, and all of the law hinges on one word: love.”

613 mitzvot in the Old Covenant. The 613 laws to follow. Moses said 10. Jesus said love. Love God. Love your neighbor. Follow Him.

So every time you encounter a fish, remember Jesus Christ is the Son of God, your Savior. Believe in Him and be saved.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank You so much for this message, for this little history lesson on the fish and where it came from, and these symbols in Christianity and how we can use them to reach people and to educate others, because sometimes in conversation that might be something that they’ll be willing to talk about, and it could lead into a salvation message.

Give people the insight to recognize and pick up on the cues and the patience to wade through the conversations and to get people to You. They have to lead them to You. And this could be a great way.

A lot of people say, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.” LORD, we know we can make a horse drink every time. Do exactly what You did. Give them salt. And if we do that and be the salt, they will drink Your living water.

Inspire us and encourage us, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I’m serious. Get out there. Be the light of the world. Be the salt. You can lead a horse to water, and you can make them drink the living water every time.

Have a great week, and God bless.