That God is a poet in addition to being an engineer and lawyer doesn’t mean there are no “little boxes”; rather it means those little boxes are the most beautiful boxes. As you’ve demonstrated in Bible Matrix, Scripture has a definite structure. Not only do we need to put flesh on that skeleton we also need to make sure the parts of the skeleton are in the right order. And to make sure they are in the right order means we need to have some clear and consistent definitions so as not to confuse one part with another. We naturally bend to chaos which is why “maximalism” can be so dangerous.

Of course, God’s goal has not changed. Earth will image heaven just as man images God and, ultimately, He will have His glory. The Old Covenant was a necessary step in the process of humanity’s maturity, like adolescence is a necessary step in the process of becoming an adult. But you can’t ever become an adult by staying in the “stage” of adolescence (I trust you will agree that age is not necessarily a determining factor in differentiating between an adolescent and an adult). And the stage of adolescence, while part of the singular process of maturing, is not the same as the stage of adulthood. To say that adulthood is just resurrected and glorified adolescence isn’t quite accurate. I hope the analogy isn’t too much of a stretch. There really is disparity between the two covenants so that calling them “one” because they are both parts of the same process injects confusion into the discussion and impedes development of the terms.

Thanks for the comments.