Van Gogh’s work has been regarded by some as “hallucinatory,” however his letters show that few artists were as intelligent and rational. His work was not the product of his dark times but of his struggle against them.

“I am feeling well just now… I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible—and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger and makes haste in what he does.” [1]

William Cowper, who battled debilitating and often life-threatening depression throughout his life, and yet was the author of many famous Christian hymns and poems, was the same. John Piper writes:

“I live with an almost constant awareness of the breach between the low intensity of my own passion and the staggering realities of the universe around me, heaven, hell, creation, eternity, life, God. Everybody (whether they know it or not) tries to close this breach—between the weakness of our emotions and the wonder of the World. Some of us do it with poetry.

William Cowper did it with poetry. I think I know what he means, for example, when he writes a poem about his mother’s portrait long after her death and says,

And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief.

There is a deep release and a relief that comes when we find a way of seeing and saying some precious or stunning reality that comes a little closer to closing the breach between what we’ve glimpsed with our mind and what we’ve grasped with our heart.

It shouldn’t be surprising that probably over 300 pages of the Bible was written as poetry. Because the aim of the Bible is to build a bridge between the deadness of the human heart and the living reality of God.” [2]

I want to relate this to every Christian life. This fruitfulness from the darkness is a process that belongs to every child of God. At the very heart of it is the tension caused by challenges to unseen truth by an unbelieving world, and the desire for vindication and rest. This is one of the processes inherent in Covenant history, and an understanding of it helps us to persevere in the truth, even in the darkest times. The New Covenant is no exception. [3]

God calls a man
…..Separates him for duty
……….Gives him the rules
…..Tells him the consequences of his performance
Arranges for the next tour of duty

Of course, this is Ray Sutton’s 5 point Covenant pattern, and I maintain that it becomes 7 point when “played out” on the stage of history:

Creation: God’s call and anointing
…..Division: The man is sent to work

and this is where the distress of the Covenant comes in. The central point is split into three—LAW/LAW/LAW:

……….Ascension: He receives the Covenant Law (as above)
……………Testing: He is challenged by a false Law

This is where the rubber meets the road. It is the Starry Night of Day 4, the saints in the wilderness. Will we be rulers, or will we be ruled? Will we be filled with the law as burning bushes (Lampstands) like Daniel and his friends, or will we be incinerated like the sons of Aaron?

The test is that the world suddenly doesn’t seem to correspond to what God said. We can only see so far, and Satan and those who follow him maintain that what is beyond our sight is not what God said (which is also why evolution is not science but philosophy). How many Christians feel that God has abandoned them, or betrayed them, or failed to reward them for their faithfulness so far? The challenge is to understand that God is qualifying you for more responsibility, more servant-kingship, and of course, more glory.

God’s Word often seems to contradict reality. Imagine being instructed to build a very large boat on dry land, and to put up with the jeers and taunts of the scientists and philosophers of the day. Imagine being instructed to tell the rulers of Judah to submit to the king of Babylon. Imagine being a Pharisee instructed to eat with Gentiles, and form new Jew-Gentile synagogues across the empire. Imagine being instructed to tell the King of the Jews that it is, in fact, You Who are the true King of the Jews. Both Jesus and Paul were thought to be mad. Do you know that feeling? [4]

Of course, vindication came, in torrents, in every one of these situations. The Book of Hebrews is a plea to Christian Jews to hold out, to persevere with this “new Covenant,” despite the fact that the Herods were still building monuments of white stone and gold all over the Land (including the Temple) and Christians were being persecuted and slaughtered across the empire. The words of Jesus certainly didn’t correspond with reality, did they? But the elect, as Daniel predicted, shined like stars. They believed the Word spoken, saw the fulfilment of the promises by faith, although they were far off and not yet seen. Faith is not blind. It is long-sighted.

Faith is also attractive, especially when it rides against the zeitgeist. It is very striking for people today to come across Christians who not only know what they believe, but are also not idiots. I teach the Bible to high school students, and the testimony of someone who believes it from cover to cover stays with them forever. I know, because the Bible was taught to me by people just like that. Brave testimony, under distress, is the heart of the New Covenant.

……….Maturity: He repeats the Law, warns the Bride,
……….and there is great plunder

After obedience at Testing, there are always plagues and plunder. That’s what we see in Exodus. That’s what we see in the ministry of the Apostles and the Reformers and the great missionaries (and not-so-great).

How about you? Are you willing to submit to God for the sake of the plunder? For the New Covenant missionary, the plunder is people, even if he doesn’t live to see the result (like Jim Elliot). I read about a missionary who spent seven long years evangelising some remote tribes and died without seeing a single convert. But those who followed after him reaped the harvest. Unlike discipling your own children, teaching the Bible to other people’s kids seems fruitless at times, because the seed takes a while to germinate. We have faith that it will sprout and that God will give the increase. Many Australians trace their conversion back to Sunday School or SRE (Bible teaching in public schools).

Faith is like time travel. In the midst of suffering, abandonment or persecution, we travel back in time to remember God’s faithfulness in the past, in our life, in the biographies of saints, and in the Bible. And we jump ahead in our head and hearts to the Conquest and Glorification that God has promised for the elect. The Psalmists did this (in both directions), and so did Christ and the Apostles. God is consistently faithful, regardless of how things might feel right now. How can we be trained to judge if there is no tension, no true and false witnesses presenting evidence? The question is, will you turn to other, short-term gods to ease the pain? [5] Or will you persevere and produce the abundant fruitfulness possible only through this process of pruning? Jesus said that if we judge ourselves, we will not be judged.

He shall see the labour of His soul, and be satisfied. Isaiah 53:11

Van Gogh sold only one painting, and died by suicide in poverty. William Cowper had the loving ministry of John Newton, and His God, watching over him. Imagine if Van Gogh and Cowper could see how their labours, the fruits of lives spent suffering in the dark, have been a blessing for hundreds of years to millions of people.

Faith, the substance of things not seen, is like time travel. By your obedience to the Word, and your fearless witness, you are a memorial to something that hasn’t even happened yet, and something that happened long ago. Like Noah, like Jesus, you are the incarnation of the past and a window on the future. Faith is the domain of the prophet, and in the New Covenant, all God’s people are prophets who know the end from the beginning.

So stick with it. Stand. Perseverance is just about everything. And vindication will come.
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[1] Quoted in Robert Hughes, Nothing If Not Critical.
[2] Listen to or read the transcript of Piper’s wonderful biographical sermon here. See also Seeing In The Dark.
[3] See A Lamentable Life.
[4] See Mercury Rising.
[5] See What Comes Out.

From James B. Jordan’s fascinating Thoughts on Jachin and Boaz [1]

“The Tabernacle and Temple were not only pictures of the kingdom of God. They were also pictures of the human person (John 2:21). We have noted that the High Priest had a chain around his neck, and pomegranates and bells encircling the ephod. Without any difficulty we can see the 1-cubit collar of the pillar as a neckband, the lily as the head, and the bronze shaft as the trunk. The size and proportions are roughly equivalent to those of a 5’ man.
This suggestion is strengthened by the fact that legs and feet are symbolized as bronze in Scripture (Rev. 1:15; 2:18; 10:1). In Daniel 10:6, both arms and legs are bronze. Ezekiel’s man with the measuring rod was bronze-like in total appearance (Ezk. 40:3). It may be noteworthy that Goliath is described as armored from head to food in bronze (1 Sam. 17:5-6), since Goliath is surely an archetypical strong man in the Bible, and the pillars speak of strength (Boaz = Strength). Could the pillars in part be pictures of God’s people as true giants, true Goliaths? It was David, of the house of Boaz, who defeated Goliath and showed himself the true giant in the situation.

In terms of design, I stated above that it is simplest to see the lily as the head, the collar as the neck, and the shaft as the trunk. In terms of analogies to the High Priest, though the proportions will be different, it might be more accurate to say that the lily corresponds to the turban and golden plate, the collar to the ephod as a whole, and the shaft to his bare feet. (The Tabernacle/Temple was holy ground, and shoes were not worn.) Thus, the ephod as a whole corresponded to the collar and the Holy Place. We note that the ephod had a ring of alternating pomegranates and bells at the bottom, a breastpiece of jewels in the middle, and a chain of gold around the top. The Holy Place was also decorated with chains and jewels, and with palm trees and gourds, visually equivalent to pomegranates (1 Kings 6:18; 2 Chron. 3:5-6) .As we have seen, the collar corresponds to this.

The fact that the golden plate on the High Priest’s turban is called a crown (Ex. 29:6) certainly indicates that this was the highest point of his attire, and creates an immediate association with the Holy of Holies and the pillar lily. Beyond this, we have to point out that the pouch in the center of the ephod also corresponded to the Ark in the Holy of Holies, being in the center, its shape square, and its contents two tablets of stone. We see from this that the Ark and the Holy of Holies speak of both the head and the heart. The lily of love at the top of the pillar also speaks of both head (topmost, leadership) and heart (love).

Since the pillars represent persons, we ask if they represent just any Israelite citizen, or someone in particular? The answer is a simple yes. The pillars do represent every Godly citizen, but they also represent two persons in particular, as we should expect…

[Get the paper for this bit!]

…Since the imagery on the pillars was that of love and marriage, we see that true leaders love their people, and regard themselves as married to them, bound to them, and obligated to them.”

*       *       *       *       *

“…We must also take note of the fact that many scholars today believe that Jachin and Boaz may have functioned as incense altars. This is what the bowl on top was supposedly for. This suggestion easily squares with the facts and meaning of the pillars, as we shall see. It does leave unexplained how the priests got up the pillars to burn the incense. It also does not explain how often and when such burnings took place.

To see the rationale for this suggestion, we have to bring together several things. First, the shape of the pillars, 23 x 4 x 4, is that of a column, but a fat one. It is similar to the shape of the incense altar in the Temple, which was 2 x I x 1, and contrasts with the bronze altar of the courtyard, which was much wider than it was tall (Tabernacle, 3 x 5 x 5; Temple, 10 x 20 x 20).

Second, God manifested Himself to Israel as a pillar of cloud and fire. This is occasionally thought to be two pillars, like the legs of God, but almost certainly it was one pillar. The vision of God in Ezekiel 1 is that of a cloud having fire within. At night the fire would be visible, while in the daytime the cloud would be seen. At the same time, each of these bronze pillars might represent God’s presence, since they were to reveal the interior of the Temple to the people. God’s glory was enthroned there, in the cloud. Perhaps these pillars were also cloudy on occasion. As Albright wrote, “At night the burning wicks of the gullah [bowl] and in the day the smoking incense might well be associated” with the pillar of cloud and fire.

Third, in that the pillars signified holy mountains, it is perhaps significant to note that Mount Sinai was covered in smoke when God was there (Ex. 19:18).”

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[1] Occasional paper, available from www.biblicalhorizons.com See also Landing Gear.
Art: Firmament by Seve, Galerie d’Art.

From James B. Jordan’s Trees and Thorns: [1]

The water in the ground of the garden is associated with Eve.

What Adam was to guard was the Garden, and preeminently Eve, its mistress. This is precisely what he refused to do. Later in the Bible, new Adams meet their Eves at wells, and defend them there. Eliezar met Rebekah at a well, and brought her home to Isaac (Gen. 24:11ff.). Jacob met Rachel at a well, and unsealed it for her — a sign as it turned out of his coming marriage to her (Gen. 29:10-11). Good Shepherd Moses met Zipporah at a well and defended her against bad shepherds (Ex. 2:16-19).

All of these women were outsiders, who were married by representatives of the Messianic line (compare also Joseph, Samson, Solomon, etc). The spring in Eden flowed out to other lands; the messiahs of the Old Testament married foreign women. In fulfillment, Jesus spoke to an outsider Samaritan woman at a well, asked her about her husband(s), and in so doing offered Himself as True Husband to her and her people (John 4:1-22). He associated the water He offered with the Spirit whom He would give (John 4:10, 23-24; 7:37-39).

I discussed this marital imagery briefly in connection with the Laver of Cleansing in Chariots of Water: An Exploration of the Water-Stands of Solomon’s Temple (available from www.biblicalhorizons.com). Here let me add that meeting earthly wives at wells (ground water) is part of the first creation. In heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, for all are married to the Divine Husband. Thus, the well at which Jesus meets us is heavenly water, the Spirit. As the spring watered the Garden and grew the fruitful trees, so the marriage of woman and man is to be fruitful on earth, and the marriage of Jesus and God’s Daughter (humanity) is to be fruitful unto eternity.

Lastly, the care with which a gardener directs water to cause plants to flourish should be seen as instructive of how a husband should care for his wife and family. One does not grasp or force water, and neither can a man grasp or force his wife.

________________________________
[1] James B. Jordan, Trees and Thorns: A Commentary on Genesis 2-4. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com
Art: Eden, 1930 Lithograph by Abel Pann.

From James B. Jordan’s Trees and Thorns: [1]

The land and garden of Eden were watered by a spring. Why call attention to the fact that God did not send rain? Why not just mention the spring and leave off the statement about rain? The reason, I believe, is to call our minds back to Genesis 1:2-9. We find in Genesis 1:2 that there was an ocean over the original earth. Then God created the firmament, and separated the waters above from the waters below. On the third day God gathered the waters below into areas below the surface of the land.

Now we have a clear distinction between waters above the firmament, the source of rain, and waters below, which would have to come up from under the earth. Both Genesis 1:2-9 and 2:5-6 set up the distinction eschatologically; ground water comes first, and then heavenly water.

With this distinction in mind, we can begin to see rather clear associations between ground water and the first creation, which is earthy and Adamic, and heavenly water with the second creation, which is heavenly and Last Adamic: “The Spiritual [world order] is not first, but the natural [world order]; then the Spiritual [world order]. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second Man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:46-48).

Ground water is associated with the first world, the world defiled by sin. Originally the land of promise centered on the “circle of the Jordan,” which “was well watered everywhere—before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar” (Gen. 13:10). This Edenic spot was chosen by Lot, who went for the obvious blessing of ground water—so much more reliable than rain, which must be prayed for. Notice that Gen. 13:10 interjects the statement that God would soon destroy this area. Why is this stuck in here? I believe it is to point to the fact that ground water is not going to be the place of salvation. The waters below, the original garden of Eden, cannot be recovered. We shall have to move forward to the eschatological waters above and the heavenly Jerusalem.

Just so, Moses contrasts the old land of Egypt, watered from the ground, with the promised land, which is watered by rain: “For the land, into which you are entering to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you used to sow your seed and water it with your foot like a vegetable garden. But the land … drinks water from heaven’s rain” (Dt. 11:10-11). Moses quotes God’s promise, “I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain” (Dt. 11:14).

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[1] James B. Jordan, Trees and Thorns: A Commentary on Genesis 2-4. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com
Art: Firmament by
Lebbeus Woods, architect
Kiki Smith, artist
Henry Urbach Architecture Gallery
New York, New York

“The early taverns were not opened wholly for the convenience of travellers; they were for the comfort of the townspeople, for the interchange of the news and opinions, the sale of solacing liquors, and the incidental sociability; in fact, the importance of the tavern to its local neighbors was far greater than to travellers.”

B’s and V’s get swapped a lot, in Hebrew particularly. Our Old English word tavern (a meeting place) derives via Old French from the Latin taberna, a hut or a dwelling. It is also possibly related to tabula, a table or board, from traberna, which is in turn related to timber beams from trees.

So, we can loosely stitch together a meeting place, alcohol, tables, timber and trees. The Feast of Tabernacles was also known as ingathering, and it involved a lot of expensive meaty sacrifices, and lots of strong drink, with willing strangers welcome to be “ingrafted” as branches into the holy Tree: the perfect picture of the New Covenant Church of God.

This is the theme of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. A ‘Covenant literary analysis’ uncovers some pure gold in the structure of Jesus’ words.

Then Jesus answered and said:

Creation (Sabbath defiled):
“A certain man (an Adam, a Jew)
…..went down (delegation)
……….from Jerusalem to Jericho, (Covenant mission)
……………and fell among thieves, (the serpent)
……….who stripped him of his clothing, (Adam’s nakedness)
…..wounded him, and departed, (un-Atonement, un-covering)
leaving him half dead. (no succession)

Division (human delegation - un-Passover):
“Now by chance a certain priest
…..came down that road. (Delegated)
……….and when he saw him, (Covenant Eyes - false Judge)
…..he passed by (Sanctions: Judged as cursed - ironic passover)
on the other side.

(A five-point stanza indicates a Covenant unfulfilled. The Covenant fulfilled in history has seven points as a New Creation.)

Ascension (Covenant head - un-Temple):
“Likewise a Levite,
…..when he arrived at the place,
……….came and looked, (Covenant Eyes - false Judge)
…..and passed by
on the other side.

(Again, a five-point stanza. Again, no healing atonement, just a passing by.)

Testing (the true Ruler):
“But a certain Samaritan,
…..as he journeyed, (Exodus)
……….came where he was. (Nearbringing)
……………And when he saw him, he had compassion. (Law of Love)

(This is a deliberate three-and-a half. It indicates a failure of old Adam. Old Israel dies in the wilderness. The Old Covenant ends in the fire on the Altar - the Spirit)

Maturity (brothers / Gentiles / resurrection of the body):
So he (the new Creation body)
…..went to him (delegation by Spirit)
……….and bandaged his wounds, (true Priesthood - sin covered)
…………pouring on oil and wine; (a New Covenant - Holy Spirit)
……….and he set him on his own animal, (faithful Gentile donkey/peacemaker)
…..brought him to an inn, (pass through, not pass over)
and took care of him. (rest)

Conquest (Day of Atonement):
“On the next day, (Sabbath - Ark)
…..when he departed, (Passover - Veil)
……….he took out two denarii, (Firstfruits - Altar)
……….gave them to the innkeeper, (Firstfruits - Table)
……………and said to him, ‘Take care of him; (Pentecost)
……….and whatever more you spend, (Trumpets)
…..when I come again, (Atonement - two approaches)
I will repay you.’ (Tabernacles - Rest)

Glorification (Commission):
“So which of these three (Transcendence)
…..do you think was neighbor (Hierarchy)
……….to him who fell among the thieves?” (Ethics)
…..And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” (Sanctions)
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Succession)

Jesus’ literary structure condemns the first century Jewish leaders as Covenant breakers. It also indicates that the faithful Gentiles would be the salvation of the faithful Jews, restoring a future to Israel through a New Covenant Jew-Gentile body, just as in the Book of Ruth. The Samaritan was a surrogate for barren Naomi.

But back to the theme of the tavern. Broken people frequent bars for a sad counterfeit of fellowship. Imagine if they felt just as welcome at our love feasts, where the wine and oil are not only free but symbols of something even better — the Spirit between us.

.

One thing that has struck me since becoming a preterist is how much evangelicals play down the badness of the baddies in the New Testament, i.e. the unbelieving Jews and Christian Judaisers.

Evangelicals would never believe that Jesus and the apostles were mistaken in their warnings of an imminent judgment (and let’s face it, this imminence is a facet of the New Testament that is inescapable). So the only other option they see as viable is a position that defies logic: an event that was near, at the doors, yet could happen at any time over next few millennia.

Of course, there is another position: preterism. The event of which Christ and His delegates warned came to pass. If you are willing to entertain this wild idea (temporarily) as you read the New Testament, all of a sudden a great many problem verses fall into place. And so does a secondary great truckload of verses which seemed somehow slightly disconnected from the reality of our experience. You suddenly GET WHERE THE APOSTLES ARE COMING FROM. It’s like you’ve been driving on outback dirt roads all your life and finally run across some bitumen. The New Covenant scriptures cease to jar.

Thus, evangelicals refuse to interpret the New Testament in context. They think they are interpreting it, but they are, in fact, only applying it. Like the rest of the Bible, the New Testament was written for us, but it wasn’t written to us.

Once you have the film actually aligned with its historical sprockets, the texts become a lot easier to interpret. The modern church’s failure to understand the significance of AD70 in redemptive history means that one has to cover a lot more ground to answer the tough questions.

One example, as Peter Leithart mentions in The Promise of His Appearing, is the problems caused by reading Reformation-era debates back into the epistles of Paul. Paul wasn’t actually dealing with Roman Catholics, regardless of how helpful his words might be in debating them. His epistles must interpreted correctly before they can be correctly applied.

Another example I came across today, beginning Peter Leithart’s recent commentary on the epistles of John, is the identity of the false teachers in 1 John. Understanding that the final letters are warnings to Jews concerning the impending end of Judaism allows us to find answers to many nagging questions much closer to textual home.

“…This background helps clarify some of John’s major concerns. John, for example, mentions “antichrist” several times. In 2:18, he writes, “It is the last hour, and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.” Where did they hear that antichrist was coming? They perhaps heard it from John, or from another apostle or preacher. But where did the apostles learn about antichrist? If John had already received the visions recorded in Revelation, that might be one source. Ultimately, though, Jesus’ own teaching is the source, especially the sermon recorded in Matthew 24 and its parallels. Early on in the discourse on the Mount of Olives, Jesus warns that “many will come in my name saying ‘I am the Christ’ and will mislead many” (Matt. 24:5). Again in 24:24 he adds, “false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” Similarly, John warns about antichrists and “false prophets” (2:18-19;4″1). John is saying that antichrist has come, just as Jesus predicted. As Jesus warned, the appearance of antichrist is a sign of the approaching end of the age.

Can we be more specific? Can we identify the specific kind of false teachers, false Christs, and false prophets threatening John’s churches?

Many commentators on 1 John believe he is opposing an early form of Gnosticism and Docetism…

In his first epistle, however, John doesn’t give a great deal of emphasis to the fleshliness of Jesus. He mentions it in 4:2, and it is implicit in the opening verses of the letter, but John does not indicate that it is particularly characteristic of the false teachers’ theology…

Does John appear to be responding to gnostic Christology? John’s positive teaching about Jesus is that he is “the Christ” (5:10), that he came in the flesh (1:1-4; 4:2), that he is the Son (repeatedly), and that he came “by water and blood” (5:6). That is a thoroughly anti-gnostic Christology, and the church was right to cite 1 John in later debates with Gnostics. Identifying the heretics of 1-3 John as Gnostics gets us close to the truth, but in my judgment John’s focus is elsewhere.

What then? What false teaching are the false teachers teaching? We can begin by how John defines “antichrist.” In 2:22-23, the antichrist is the one who “denies that Jesus is Messiah,” and this denial of the Son is also a denial of the Father. Though this might describe gnostic Christology, it is just as accurate as a description of anti-Christian Judaism. Many Jews, obviously enough, denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the Anointed One from Yahweh. In fact, John’s description of the views of antichrists applies more precisely to Jews than to anyone else. What sense does it make for a Greek to deny that Jesus is “Messiah”? Did they expect a Messiah in the first place? Wouldn’t they simply be indifferent, as Pilate was, to the internal Jewish debates about messiahship?…

John’s opponents, I submit, are primarily Jews or Judaising Christians. If this is the case, what do we make of the gnostic echoes that so many commentators have heard in the letter?

Here is a hypothesis: Gnosticism is, in (perhaps large) part, a product of Judaism and, more specifically, of Judaising. On the face of it, this is a bizarre thesis. Gnosticism is a radically dualistic system, while Judaism affirms the goodness of the creation from the very first pages of its Bible. Counterintuitive as it may seem, several lines of evidence link Judaism with Gnosticism…” [1]

It makes me cringe when smart Christians insist that we are in the last days, the same last days that the first century writers of the New Testament insisted were a reason for the Jewish Christians throughout the Roman empire to remain faithful and not slide back into a corrupted, rebellious, Satanic distortion of the faith delivered to their fathers.

Yes, we should also live holy lives today, with all the fear and reverance due to our God, and no fear of men. But that is not interpretation. It is application, and selling it as interpretation makes a great deal of the New Testament mysterious to modern Christians.

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[1] See also How to Read the New Testament.
[2] Peter J. Leithart, The Epistles of John Through New Eyes: From Behind the Veil, pp. 10-13.

A critic wrote that Mel Gibson, with The Passion of the Christ, invented a new cinematic genre: the religious splatter film. This was intentionally disrespectful, but of course there is some truth to it. Perhaps more truth than we realise. God desired a world covered by blood.

I checked out the online writings of some famous Rabbis last week, expecting some profound insights, and, well, perhaps I need to look further. It takes the Spirit of Christ to interpret the Old Testament, and we even struggle with Paul’s commentaries on it! Part of the problem is our unwillingness to learn the Bible’s consistent language of “symbol.”

Another vindication of James Jordan’s approach is his interpretation of the ascension rite in Leviticus 1. If anyone else worked this out before he did, I’d be interested to know. The rite follows the steps of the Creation week. But in this rite, God renews the world by covering it in blood and setting the bodies alight.

“The ritual of the Ascension Offering (incorrectly translated as Burnt Offering) of Leviticus 1 is a symbolic recapitulation of Genesis 1. It portrays the sacrificial ritual as way of moving from a fallen to a new creation, and sheds considerable light on all the sacrificial rituals, as well as on the work of Jesus Christ, whose death made the New Creation possible.”

Day 1 - Leviticus 1:4. The Spirit comes into the world, bringing light. The sacrificial animal, made of earth (Genesis 1:24), represents both man and also the cosmos which man represents before God. The offerer laying his hand on the animal parallels the Spirit coming into the creation to work with it.

Day 2 - Leviticus 1:5a. The animal is slain. Appointed as a covering (v. 4, mistranslated as “atonement”), becomes a firmament between God and man, covering man’s sins from God’s eyes.

Day 3 - Leviticus 1:5b-6. The altar symbolises dry land. Blood is dashed against its side and dribbles down to its base, as the waters ran off the earth on Day 3 and at the Flood. Then the animal is skinned and cut into pieces. The fruit trees and grain plants, the foundations of wine and bread, parallel the blood and flesh of the animal.

Day 4 - Leviticus 1:7. God establishes His hearthfires on the firmament over the earth: sun, moon, and stars. The priests put the holy fire, which came from heaven (Leviticus 9:24) on the altar.

Day 5 - Leviticus 1:8. The head and fat, the clean outer and inner parts of the animal, are burnt and turned into smoke (multitudes) as food for God.

Day 6 - Leviticus 1:9a. Animals and men are made from earth. The guts and legs, the unclean inner and outer parts, are baptized and then offered. These represent most fully the offerer, restored by baptism, and thus correspond to the creation of Adam and Eve on Day 6.

Day 7 - Leviticus 1:9b. Sabbath. The offering ascends as food, as a soothing (restful) aroma to Yahweh. [1]

Animal sacrifices were a costly process. Animals were valuable items of property. Besides being a covering for sin, keeping the Law allowed God to bring further abundance. Israel mediated for the world, and this was more costly still. One of the most abused (or least kept, I think?) festivals was Tabernacles, which involved the slaughter of seventy bulls for the Gentile nations. This allowed the covering mercy of God for Israel at Atonement to flow across the entire world and make it new once again.

There are many instances of this bloody “new-making” in the Bible, and it relates to what we observed in Psalm 114. The old world and its worship have to be scattered and die for there to be a new world. Cain murdered his priestly brother and founded a godless new kingdom. Gideon established a new altar by destroying the old pagan one. Gideon’s son Abimelech slaughtered all his brothers on one stone to establish a new order. Joshua’s army killed every man, woman and child in Jericho—firstfruits to God—as the foundation of a new government, a wisdom which Solomon also executed when he took power. And when I begin a new Bible class, the discipline code for the first lesson is Zero Tolerance. Stalin famously said that if one wishes to make an omelette, one must break some eggs. Nero and the Herods would have agreed wholeheartedly with this statement had they thought of it. They founded their future glory on the blood of innocents. But…

“Whenever a dictator uses Stalin’s quote of ‘breaking eggs to make an omelette’, they are demanding ‘your eggs’ be sacrificed and broken, not theirs.” (Unsourced)

Of course, any evangelical will tell you that Jesus turned this all around by allowing His own blood to be shed, and that all this barbarity, God-initiated or otherwise, was for earlier, more primitive times. Jesus ended the need for violence. As discussed elsewhere here, [2] that is only half the story. Jesus covered the sins of the world with His blood. But Jesus also wept over Jerusalem as a mother hen over her wayward chicks. He knew that the New Worship He established would yet break many more eggs, and they were all His. Yet He came in judgment and inaugurated a New “bridal” Jerusalem over the death of the Old harlot. The earth-shattering Covenant blessing/cursing of His own death and resurrection split the rocks in the Garden and then split the Land. And the blessing still flows into the world. [3]

Then Zadok the priest took a horn of oil from the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. And they blew the horn, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!” And all the people went up after him; and the people played the flutes and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth split with their sound. (1 Kings 1:39-40)

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[1] A summary of James B. Jordan, Re-Creation in the Ascension Offering. Notice that the Tabernacle furniture itself, of course, also aligns with this structure of events, being a microcosmos.
[2] See Half the Blood.
[3] See also The Whole Bloody Bible.

Doug Wilson recently made a distinction between what usually passes for hypocrisy in Christian circles, and the kind practiced openly by the self-righteous:

One of my central pastoral responsibilities is that of keeping Christians away from hypocrisy, of the kind described in the New Testament. But this task, not surprisingly, is often misunderstood — and the reason it is misunderstood is that there are always lots of people who don’t want to be kept out of that kind of hypocrisy, and misdirection is that name of the game.

Of course, personal and sinful inconsistencies are hypocritical. If a man cruises around in PornDeluxe.com for most of the week, and shows up for worship Sunday morning, all bright and shiny, that is hypocritical. The same for a man who tyrannizes his wife and family, and is gentle and soft-spoken in the sanctuary. God hates this kind of stuff, and we generally know that God hates it.

But the kind of hypocrisy that the New Testament lampoons is what we might call the Hypocrisy Parade. Jesus nails not only the private sins, but also the very public ones. He mocks those who shop at the Wide Phylactery Warehouse. He skewers those whose robes flow behind them like trails of woven glory. He sends up the Rev. Drs. and rabbis and such, and pops the assembled theologians like they were so many balloons. There is a species of hypocrisy that does not fear exposure, but rather stands on the street corner, palms facing outwards, awaiting the expected applause. And it does not await such applause in vain. People do this because it works. [1]

Wilson’s full article is dealing with something else entirely, but I think it can be easily attached to a strategy practiced throughout history by those who hate God and His people, beginning, as always, in the Garden, God’s lawcourt.

“Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Matthew 23:28

Once we realise that the Lawless Man Paul refers to is none other than the reigning Herod, a great deal of information falls into place. [1] The word lawless/ness is used around twenty times in the New Testament. If we immediately think of delinquents and rioters, we have got it all wrong. That is not the heart of what Paul and the apostles were dealing with. They were dealing with leaders who made a show of being team-spirited but whose track record evinced a long history of throwing not just enemies but friends under the bus. [2] God began history by tearing things in two. He moves history forward by tearing things in two, usually His prophets. But the lawless sacrifice others instead, sometimes on the political right but mostly on the political left.

Outwardly, the Herods were not at all the marauders we would associate with the phrase “lawless,” but well-whited tombs. These lawless men were actually lovers of the law. It was their favourite tool to achieve ungodly ends.

“Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death…” Acts 2:23

Herod the Great decreed the death of the innocents. In the book of Esther, Haman used legislation in his attempt to murder every Jew from India to Ethiopia. Both Jesus and the apostles knew what it was to be victims of stacked courtrooms. Jesus and Paul targeted the leaders because they were to be held to stricter judgment. Their sins were high-handed and murderous, and misled many, but publicly they bowed to pragmatism and declared that moral decisions were above their paygrade. They refuse to take costly stands, like the Lamb.

This misuse of legislation began in Eden. God allowed it to occur to qualify Adam. Adam was to rule over the serpent and stand at God’s right hand. Satan usurped that role using attractive legislation to mask his murderous intent. He was a murderer from the very beginning, and throughout Biblical history we see right-hand men who are good and those who are evil.

So, lawlessness is a serpentine sin—it is subtle. It is the outrageous hubris of a man who would stand boldly in God’s courtroom and declare that his own voice is the voice of God. He will change the times and seasons, decree the shedding of innocent blood, and slowly but surely silence the witness of the true Adam by binding the Church of God with lawless laws.

As it was in the first century, and during the Reformation, today many of these lawless leaders are within the church, calling for tolerance and then bringing their ridiculously unbiblical grievances before unbelieving courts to silence believers who dispute against them. This is public, proud hypocrisy. But they have another judge:

“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:23

Satanic legislation against the people of God always backfires. God allows such persecution to force His people to witness when they become too comfortable. This was exactly the response God desired from Adam—lawful witness to Eve. Reminded of the true law, Eve was to identify herself with Adam, the law-bearer. Persecution in Jerusalem scattered saints out into the empire as witnesses. In Esther, the queen identified herself and then so did all the Jews across the empire. And we know what happened to the Herods and to Haman. The lawless men were destroyed with one little word (2 Thess. 2:8). As Luther wrote, the same fate awaits the evil one.

Attempting to criminalise the Kingdom of Heaven is always futile, and always allowed by God to bring His church to maturity. So don’t fear; just continue to witness. There’s only so much cotton the children of men can string around Gulliver before He awakes.

“Stir up Yourself, and awake to my vindication, To my cause, my God and my Lord.” Psalms 35:23

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[1] Doug Wilson, Wide Phylactery Warehouse.
[2] Here’s a crash course on Herod the Great.
[2] See The Man of Sin.

Psalm 114 is one of those weird passages of Scripture that makes you wonder if the author was high on something. Without an understanding of the significance of the place of this song among these seven Psalms, the lyrics appear to be either the overly-clever, sophomoric crypticism of an ancient Bono or the fragmented derivatory prattlings of a madman.

But we are at the centre of the seven Psalms. Psalm 114 is Testing, and so contains references to Israel’s corporate death and resurrection in the wilderness. The nation of Israel was a new Creation. In the grave of Egypt, God formed a new house in Joseph. In the furnace of slavery, He filled a new house under Moses. But Israel’s failure to enter the Land meant the process would be carried out once again. Those who left Egypt would die in the wilderness, and a later generation enter the Land.

This central Psalm, the fourth, corresponds to the book of Numbers, the fourth book, and Pentecost, the fourth festival. It concerns death under the Law, and resurrection filled with Law.

But its construction is still cryptic. And like the words of the best poets, I believe there is method to the apparent madness. I believe the entire Psalm contains a symmetry, but that there are also two matrix cycles within it.

Praise the LORD!
…..When Israel went out of Egypt,
……….The house of Jacob
……….from a people of strange language [lip?],
……………Judah became His sanctuary,
……….Israel His dominion.
…..The sea saw and fled; Jordan turned back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
The little hills like lambs.

What ails you, O sea, that you fled?
…..O Jordan, that you turned back?
……….O mountains, that you skipped like rams?
……….O little hills, like lambs?
……………Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
……….At the presence of the God of Jacob,
…..Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
The flint into a fountain of waters.

Psalms 114 (NKJV)

Praise the LORD!
(Creation) Transcendance of God.

When Israel went out of Egypt,
(Division) The separationof Israel, to whom authority was delegated.

The house of Jacob
from a people of strange language [lip],
(Ascension) Tabernacle (tent) reference. Also a reference to the false Tabernacle of Babel. The people were no longer of one “lip.” [1]
Firstfruits is also a microcosm of Booths. Here we have the priesthood (proto-Jew) as princely Head and the (Gentile) Nations as Body; bread and wine, Land and Sea (Day 3). This is echoed and fulfilled at the end of the Psalm, veeeeeeery cleverly.

Judah became His sanctuary,
(Testing) Judah was the kingly tribe, the Lion. This central point often refers to thrones and rulers. Numbers named so because Israel is counted and arranged in military ‘constellations’ around the throne of God.

Israel His dominion.
(Maturity) Israel corresponds chiastically to Jacob, but is the “Body” of Jacob as “Head.” It refers to the tribes as armies, the warrior bride. The use of names also shows us that the Tabernacle was only a symbol. The true house was God’s people.

The sea saw and fled; Jordan turned back.
(Conquest) The waters parted as the veil at Atonement, to allow God’s new Man to pass through, protected inside a blood-covered box. As usual, the water also refers to the Laver.

The mountains skipped like rams,
The little hills like lambs.
(Glorification) This is the main “on-drugs” verse. I checked commentaries on this, all the best ones, and they had no idea whatsoever, other than this might refer to trees on mountains blowing in the wind, or sheep-covered hills. One thing you learn from James Jordan is to ask WHAT ARE RAMS AND LAMBS FOR? They are sacrificial animals. Same goes in Daniel 8.
A symbol similar to mountains and hills skipping away is used again in the Revelation, where the world’s existing High Places fled from the new mountain of God established at Christ’s ascension. The Jewish mountains and the Gentile islands disappeared. The pagan gods stopped talking (and they did!) Once the priesthood was centralised, there was only one High Place, the place of the High Priest, the Tabernacle. Just as rams and lambs are sacrificial, mountains and hills are Altars, like Sinai. The new Altar scatters the old ones.
What does this have to do with Glorification? One symbol that applies here is certainly the mountain of God. Instead of rivers of water, here it is rivers of old blood. But the Psalm is not done yet. The Psalmist has deconstructed the old temples (death). Now he raises up a new one (resurrection).

What ails you, O sea, that you fled?
Creation - Word (here it is a question) as light on the dark waters (the Ark)

O Jordan, that you turned back?
Division - the waters divided (the Veil)

O mountains, that you skipped like rams?
Ascension - 1 - the Land formed (Bronze Altar)

O little hills, like lambs?
Ascension - 2 - the grain and fruit - the Land filled
(Table of Showbread - firstfruits lamb)

Tremble, O Land, at the presence of the Lord,
Testing - Governing lights (Lampstand - fire from heaven)

At the presence of the God of Jacob,
Maturity - swarms (Incense Altar - tribes)

These last two, knowing they refer to Christ, should bring a tear to your eye.

Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
Conquest - Mediator (the Laver). The veil of flesh opened. [2]

The flint into a fountain of waters.
Glorification - Shekinah (New Eden)
The reference to flint is beyond brilliant. This final point is Tabernacles, a party thrown at the cost of Jews for the 70 Gentile nations. Seventy bulls were sacrificed.
Flint refers to the Circumcision, the new House of God. Israel was a nation under the knife. As Peter Leithart observed, the cutting off of Abram’s flesh with a knife averted God’s cutting off all flesh with another flood. [3]

Just as old Israel died in the wilderness and a new one inherited the promises, this verse also predicts a future Israel would be cut off and die for the life of the world as Covenant Head, and the miraculous waters of baptism would flow to the nations as Covenant Body. Forming and filling, blood and water, Jew and Gentile, in one tight, crystalline verse.

At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.” Joshua 5:2

“For the Lord GOD will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; Therefore I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.” Isaiah 50:7

“Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.” Ezekiel 3:9

But just like the Circumcision that attempted to assassinate Paul, Israel would pervert her mission into elitism. Paul refers to the Circumcision as the mutilation, prophets of Baal who cut themselves as though this justified them before their god. They bloodied their private parts but neglected the one that mattered. Unlike the Jews who believed at Pentecost, they were not cut to the heart by the words of the Christ or His Apostles. In fact, they turned their hearts into murderous knives, as their fathers had done before them. And for this, God would again destroy the House and raise up a new one. How IRONIC is this verse?…

“Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.” Zechariah 7:12

The family of true Flintstones, the Jews who were cut to the heart, fulfilled the words of Christ:

“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:38

In a sense, their Words became knives also, as they shared the gospel. The living Word of God is always a sharp knife. John saw the witness of the church as soldiers made out of Tabernacle:

And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of the horses [were] like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three [plagues] a third of mankind was killed — by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which came out of their mouths. Revelation 9:17-18 [4]

Finally, both cycles of the Psalm combined together show a basic symmetry. Forming and filling make a New Creation.

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[1] See Confused Lip.
[2] See Walking on Water.
[3] Peter J. Leithart, Cutting Off Flesh.
[4] See Totus Christus for my exposition of these details!

James B. Jordan on Bible Matrix:

This is a full 225-page exposition of the basic seven-point pattern of history and revelation that begins in Genesis 1 and recurs over and over in the Bible. Full of charts and helpful illustrations, this book distills into popular form a great deal that we have been teaching at Biblical Horizons over the last 20 years. Twenty-six short chapters make this a fine tool for a Bible study or Sunday School class. I can say that Mr. Bull has added a good deal to my own thinking, and I highly recommend this book.

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If you haven’t listened to Jordan’s Bible lectures yet, you’ve missed the boat. And I don’t say that lightly. The Grand Master sees all. You can start your training here.

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