Bully’s Blog

We don’t know how many wise men travelled from the east, but perhaps we can make a guess via God’s deliberate typology.

We do know there were three gifts. With Christ as the human Ark of the Covenant (most holy place), these three gifts correspond to the furniture in the “firmament” (holy place), the chamber housing God’s mediating government. As the Ark contained Word, Sacrament and Government (Hebrews 9:4), the response of these Babylonian elders around the throne was gold (Lampstand - Word), frankincense (Incense - Government), and myrrh (Table - Sacrament).

Even as an infant, Christ ruled over the wise men of Babylon. Like Daniel, He would set up new worship outside Jerusalem. So, as the Herods and their governments continually refused to enter the new Holy Place, faithful Jews and Gentiles became the new priesthood, the elders who came boldly before the throne.

The churches in Gentile cities are seen as seven Lampstands in Revelation 2-3.

The twenty-four angelic elders were the angels whose last acts would be the twenty-four judgments upon Judah throughout the Revelation: the twenty-four hours of the Day of the Lord. Her final destruction was in response to the Incense prayers of the elder-saints.

It was Nicodemus, the epitome of the Jews who would later believe, who brought myrrh for Jesus’ burial (John 19:39). These mourned for the one they had pierced, and entered the firmament vacated by the Old Covenant angelic ministers as a new government—under the scarlet covering of the Man-Table, the Word become flesh.