Jesus’ New Broom
or Global Warning
An important tenet of James Jordan’s interpretation of the Revelation is that it shows the Old Covenant angelic government vacating the premises and a human government moving in as a new administration - in AD70. This sounds strange to our ears, but I have found that it does play out in many ways, which it should if it is the correct interpretation.
Now, this handover of heavenly government was a gradual process in the first century, but consummated at the marriage feast of the Lamb. But its outworking in history is gradual. Interesting stuff. Here’s some thoughts.
From Peter Leithart’s blog and my response:
“Thoughts from what Jim Jordan calls the ‘deep weird’: In Revelation, the angelic elders give up their crowns at the outset, and at the end of the book the saints are enthroned for a thousand years. Revelation depicts a transition from angelic to human government.
Angels, Scripture tells us, are somehow related to physical processes - winds and storms and so on.
What if the transition from angelic to human government of creation didn’t happen all at once? What if it’s still going on?
Maybe magic worked up to the sixteenth century because certain spheres of creation were still under angelic control, and humans had ways of accessing their powers; maybe medievals saw “fairies” (= angels) in the woods; maybe astrology had something to them for a time. Maybe the universe actually “worked” differently under angelic command than it does now.
Over time, more and more of creation is being handed to human beings. Once, we needed angels to send instantaneous messages across the globe. Now we can do it ourselves, and the angels kick back for a well-deserved rest. Once, we needed black or white magic (demons/angels) to levitate, but now O’Hara launches thousands into space every hour, and the market in flying broomsticks has accordingly collapsed.
Weber would be right: The world has been disenchanted. Perhaps that’s nothing to mourn. Perhaps that’s the way things ought to be.”
From Australia, reader Mike Bull responds to my earlier post:
“I recently heard a pastor from southern India speak, and it sounds like ‘enchantment’ is still as powerful as it ever was (although, despite his hair-raising stories, it seems the best Satan can do to the saints in India at the moment is intimidate). Perhaps the reason we don’t see it in the West is because with overt ‘magic’ Satan blows his ‘naturalistic’ cover.
Also, I think the change in government in Revelation is total by chapter 19. The angels, as OT angelic Nazirites, cast their crowns (ie. offer up their glorious ‘hair’) before God (the way John the Forerunner’s head was presented to Herod?) because their OT battle is over. All that remained to do was mop up on the way out. At the end of time, Jesus Himself will offer up the kingdom (His ‘hair’ - the governing elder-saints) to the Father.
Nature could still be governed by the angels, but underneath the government of the ascended saints. Although her dominion is progressive, the church is now definitively ‘Mother Nature’, the New Creation. The seventh bowl was poured out into ‘the air’ and disempowered the corrupt mediators - the powers of ‘the air’. The firstfruits church met the Lord ‘in the air’, between heaven and earth as a new mediator/firmament.”
All of which means that quite possibly the Apostle Peter is in charge of the tsunami department, and James and John, the sons of thunder, despatched Hurricane Katrina.
Related to this, see In The Air, Power on Her Head and Twelve Thrones.
