In a Land from which Cainites were being dispossessed, Israel herself would not only judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood, but provide cities of refuge to the “firstborn” Levites as a gift.

The Avenger of Blood

Like Adam, Cain would not “bear” his sin. But unlike Adam, Cain was rejecting the covering of animal substitutes. As the “offspring” of the serpent (kinghood without priesthood), he only understood law as tyranny. There was no place for mercy (Atonement) because mercy required Covenant confession.

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“Just as Circumcision made impossible a global corruption,
so paedobaptism makes impossible a global Gospel.”

Part 1 here.

With so many young people leaving the Church, it is no wonder that there is a push to renew an understanding of biblical Covenant. Giving our children a profound sense of their “Covenant identity” is a crucial means of re-establishing the Covenant framework which has been neglected. Unfortunately, those pushing for these things are going about it in entirely the wrong way, because they are re-establishing the wrong Covenant.

Covenant Obligation

As Christian parents, we want our children to grow up to be like Abel, and not like Cain. The problem with using baptism to impart a “Covenant identity” is that this is not what baptism is for. Cain and Abel both had the same Covenant identity. Although their roles in worship differed, both were under a similar obligation when it came to faith. Abel was to offer blood to cover, once again, the sin in the Garden; Cain was then to offer the firstfruits of the Land. But Cain pushed in and made his offering first, apparently a refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. This was Pentecost before Firstfruits, kingdom before priesthood, a grasping of dominion without prior submission to God. It was the sin of Adam on a grander scale. [1]

Cain’s rebellion resulted in the establishment of a new identity, a pagan one. The curse upon him, though withheld, became a curse upon his children. The human race was divided into two tribes: a priestly clan which still recognised and worshiped God and a kingly order which did not. Intermarriage corrupted the priesthood and only one family remained submitted to God. The question is this: did those in the fortress of the Cainites no longer have any obligation to God? Of course they did, and eventually the entire civilization died in the Great Flood.

After the sin at Babel, humanity was headed for another flood, but God stepped in and divided the entire race in two through circumcision. A Covenant was established with Abraham and his offspring, with specific promises, that they might eventually be a blessing to the nations outside of this Covenant. Under Moses, the continuity of these promised blessings was bound through the Law, which meant that not only was Israel a “cultivated Land,” she would also be “pruned” from time to time, disciplined by God because of His great love for these children, His “firstborn.” Were the other nations under these Covenant obligations? Not directly. The nations surrounding Israel were blessed or cursed depending upon their treatment of Abraham’s offspring, but Israel was the focus. When Israel sinned, God also used these nations to curse and purify her. In all cases, this Covenant concerned only Abraham’s offspring until it was fulfilled. The Gentiles were under no obligation to either the Abrahamic Circumcision or the Mosaic Law.

Split Identities

Israel’s Covenant identity was not a removal of the obligation of the nations but an expansion of the office of Abel in worship, that is, the offering of representative blood. When it came to actual salvation, an Abrahamic “Covenant identity” simply meant that you were the first to hear. While this Covenant was in force, the Gospel always went first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. Likewise, when judgment came, it came first upon Israel and then upon the nations. But both were still under obligation to God.

The Jew was to hear and believe, and through Israel, Gentiles were also to hear and believe. When it comes to salvation, this has always been the case. Israel’s “Covenant identity” in Abraham was a corporate liturgical office, not salvation itself. Hence, the doctrine of “paedofaith” is a wishful contrivance, an illegitimate hybrid of the promise to the believer and this obsolete Old Covenant sacrificial office. As we see in the prophets, God’s blessings and curses came upon all those who heard Israel’s testimony. In all cases, faith, which came by hearing, would result in works, and God always judged their faith (or lack of it) by their works. Through the testimony of Jonah, Nineveh was saved. Despite the testimony of Nahum, Nineveh was destroyed. If their works were faithful, then they were obviously converted. Regarding their offices, they remained Jews or Gentiles, Abels or Cains, brothers with different gifts but both in the service of God. One could be a believer or an unbeliever regardless of whether one was commissioned to offer blood, or to offer fruits from the ground (kingdom riches). The Old Covenant identity was with regard to ministry, not salvation, just as Abel kept sheep and Cain worked in the field. Both were required to repent and believe. Once the offerings were made, these fulfilled offices became meaningless. Once Christ was offered as better Abel, and the Herodian order judged as greater Cain, circumcision and uncircumcision became meaningless.

A Division of Flesh

The cultural separation of Jew and Gentile was for the purpose of preventing the kind of unity of culture which destroyed the original world in the flood and threatened to destroy the new world of Noah. At a global level, it split humanity irrevocably into Church and State. The usurping of priesthood by kingdom, the co-opting of the Church by the State, was impossible without the breaking down of the “wall of enmity,” circumcision and the Law, the Covenant obligations of the Jews. Though similar sins were committed within the bounds of the circumcision, a global corruption was made impossible through the curses of the Law. The Law put a hedge around the ministry of Abel (Genesis 4), and prevented the “Cainites” from intermarrying with the “Sethites” (Genesis 6) or uniting to build a new Babel. Thus, the identity conferred in circumcision was a Covenant within a Covenant, Abrahamites as a priestly people within a Noahic world, Abels among Cains, sheep among wolves. When Israel’s priests, kings and people behaved like Cainites, God gave them over to the real Cainites for discipline and eventual purging. Just as animals died on Israel’s behalf, so Israel was judged on the world’s behalf. Israel would always die as the firstborn, a first fruits of blood separated from the rest of the world. But Israel, unlike the other nations, would also rise from the dead.

The Covenant identity of Israel, conferred due to the personal faith of Abraham, was a sacrificial obligation which was fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the sacrificial flesh of Israel, offered in faith on behalf of all nations. The Jewish identity, the offering of the blood of the firstborn, finally ascended to heaven in Christ. True priesthood was finally accomplished and true kingdom could come, a dominion sourced in submission to God and priestly service. The end of Circumcision came because the Abelic ministry was completed in Christ. The end of the Temple avenged not only the blood of Christ but also the blood of Abel. The end of the Jewish identity necessarily ended the Gentile identity, as the submersion of the Land makes the demarcation of “sea” meaningless. All the kingdoms of the world, offered to Jesus at the hand of Satan, are now His at the hand of the Father.

Now that this division of offices is gone, the only Covenant identity which remains is the one common to all men, as it was common to both Cain and Abel, the obligation to repent and trust God. The New Covenant did not introduce a souped-up Abrahamic identity, a new division of fleshly offices. It fulfilled and exalted one which already existed: repentance and faith, something which was always available to both Jew and Gentile, who in the larger picture were under the same Covenant in Noah. This fact was the basis for the decision of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 (See A Change Of The Law).

Since the ministry of shedding blood is now fulfilled, there is no such “Covenant-within-a-Covenant” identity in existence. With the Old Covenant completed, there is no “Covenant identity” outside of the call to repent and believe. Since the world is no longer divided into the offices of Jew and Gentile, there is no need to signify separate obligations. Logically, baptism cannot confer a Covenant obligation, because we are all under the New Covenant obligation to repent and believe. Thus, baptism can neither make a “Covenant child,” nor confer salvation in any sense upon an infant.

A Global Covenant

Those who believe that baptism, whether of an infant, a child or an adult, puts that person “into Covenant with God” have not understood what makes the New Covenant new. Circumcision marked out a cultural “office,” the shedding of blood, an obligation which has now been fulfilled in Christ. Baptism marks out a personal response, the answer of a good conscience towards God, which has also now been fulfilled in Christ. But these are not the same. One is death, and one is resurrection. One is an objective execution, the other a subjective profession.

The idea that baptism puts somebody “into Covenant with God” in the way that circumcision put Abraham’s seed into Covenant with God, not only limits the scope of its obligation to the confines of the Church, it leads to the mistaken belief that evangelism is about unbelievers joining the Covenant with its obligations rather than responding to the Gospel because they are already condemned. Evangelism is not an extension of the New Covenant obligation across the world, as though the nations were joining some sort of renovated Old Covenant Israel. God forbid. Evangelism is for the purpose of a response to that obligation, a response which confers complete fulfillment of those obligations on one’s behalf by Christ.

So, how do we give our children a “New Covenant identity”? By teaching them of their “Adamic” obligation to Jesus, one which they possess simply by being born, and that this “death-note” was fulfilled by Christ. They are not born Christians, but neither are they born pagans, because the Gospel sees to it that the world is no longer divided in such a way. It challenges every identity by proclaiming the one common to all.

Using baptism to signify some kind of legal obligation between a child and God is an unwitting testimony that Christ has not come in the flesh, that the ministry of bloodshed is not complete, that the blood of Abel has not been avenged. It makes the Church a wall of flesh between God and the nations rather than a torn veil, a door open to the rebel in us all.

Paedobaptism gives to the world a false picture of both the work of Jesus and the prophetic office of each Christian, the profession of one’s faith. Paedobaptism puts the unbeliever outside the obligations of the New Covenant, which are repentance and faith. It basically tells the world to go and build a city, because God is concerned only with His “Covenant people,” and has not given all the kingdoms of the world to His Son. Thus, paedobaptism not only confers upon infants membership in a Covenant which no longer exists, and thus gives them a false identity by treating repentance and faith as though it were an inherited “office” like that of the Jew, it makes the Church a closed veil between the obligation of all people and the throne of Jesus, the Open Door who Himself is the New Covenant.

There is no “identity” which is outside of the New Covenant, and this is the basis for evangelism. Just as Circumcision made impossible a global corruption, so paedobaptism makes impossible a global Gospel.

NEXT POST: Raising Canaan

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[1] I believe that if Cain had not killed Abel, a third son would have been the Prophet, rather than Seth, a replacement priest. This incomplete architecture was fulfilled in the three sons of Noah. See The Last Sin.

My Federal Vision friends believe baptism is an important subject, from both theological and pastoral points of view. I agree, but for me it is also an issue of aesthetics. The Bible has a wonderfully consistent internal logic, and paedobaptism crunches the gears at every turn.

Peter Leithart just posted something concerning baptism, and it’s worth answering, not only “because somebody on the internet is wrong,” but also because it is an issue I’ve just finished dealing with in The Shape of Galatians. It should be noted that Trinity House is hosting some lectures on sacraments by a baptist, so Dr Leithart and his colleagues have a spirit that should be imitated by theologians everywhere. My own posts here are always bait in the hope of a bite, a friendly disputatio, so don’t take them the wrong way. If a friend has soup on his tie, or wax in his ear, or a fertility rite in his sacrament, what sort of friend isn’t going to point it out!?

Dr Leithart writes:

Paul calls circumcision a “seal of righteousness” in Romans 4:11, and that same phrase has historically been applied to baptism.

But what does it mean to be a “seal of righteousness”? A seal (Greek sphragis) is an identifying mark. The word is used to describe brands on animals, identifying tattoos on slaves, signs that identify a man’s regiment in the military. To be sealed is to be identified in some way.

A “seal of righteousness,” it would seem, is a mark that identified the one sealed as “righteous.” That’s true for Abraham: He trusted Yahweh’s promise, Yahweh counted it for righteousness and thus considered Abraham to be righteous, and the seal of circumcision imposed that status on Abraham’s flesh. Abraham would have explained his circumcision as a seal that Yahweh considered him righteous.

But then that same seal is applied to the infant Isaac, and then many other infants, on the eighth day. It’s still a “seal of righteousness.” Changing Isaac’s nappies, Sarah could have seen Isaac’s circumcision and thought, “Yahweh sealed my little son as a righteous one! Praise to Yahweh!”

When we apply this logic to baptism, as paedobaptists are wont to do, what are we to conclude? Is baptism a “seal of righteousness,” also for our children?

Firstly, what does Paul actually say in Romans 4? Abraham became the father of a priestly nation because he believed. He believed first, and then received the Circumcision. The question here is this: if Abraham and the men in his household believed before they were circumcised, why wasn’t Isaac required to believe first? Because Abraham was sealed as righteous, and through him all Israel were given promises. It says nothing about Isaac being sealed as righteous. He was the fulfillment of the promise.

Notice that Dr Leithart doesn’t mention males, but infants. That’s the classic bait-and-switch. Circumcision wasn’t about child rearing but child bearing, about a physical seed. Yes, Sarah would have praised God every time she changed Isaac’s nappy. She would also have praised God every time Abraham was naked before her. Circumcision was a reminder of their previous barrenness, which was removed because Abraham believed God. Both the birth and circumcision of Isaac were a sign of Abraham’s righteousness, and nobody else’s.

So, why were Abraham and Sarah barren in the first place? Because they were a new Adam and Eve, the beginning of an “Edenic” nation which would carry the curse for all nations. Abraham plants trees and buries Sarah in a tree-circled grove. Thus, Circumcision was about the Land and the womb, the firstfruits and the firstborn. It was about cutting off Cain and cutting off Canaan. It was inherently Edenic, because the original promises were given to Adam and then distributed by Noah.

God promised fertility to Adam, constructed Eve, and then qualified Adam to receive that fertility as a gift. The Land and the womb would not be opened until Adam was qualified. He sinned, but the shedding of blood allowed God to bless him still with a fertility in Land and womb that was tempered, not cut off, by a curse. Circumcision was likewise a shedding of blood that would allow God to give a faithful Man a fruitful Land and a fruitful womb. But things had progressed, because although death was mitigated in Eden, human blood was still shed. The mitigating blood in Circumcision was now human blood. In a sense, every male Israelite was cut off as an Abel that he might not be a Cain. Isaac himself was a son offered as an ascension sacrifice. He was symbolically slain as a Cain and “born again by faith” as an Abel, hence the constant battle for Covenant Succession between firstborn and secondborn sons, right up to Christ and the Herods, upon whom all the righteous blood from Abel would be avenged.

Because of his faith, righteousness was counted to Abraham. Working through Galatians I noticed a structural correspondence between Paul’s reference to this counting, and the counting of the sons of Israel. The name of the book Numbers refers to the two censuses which bookend it, the generation which came out of Egypt (“my firstborn son”) but died in the wilderness, and the new uncircumcised generation which took possession of the Land. The children of Israel are numbered so many times it gets boring. But the point is that they are counted. As Dr Leithart has himself noted, Revelation 7 alludes to Numbers when it counts out the 144,000, the “firstfruits” of the Land, the first Jews who believed the Gospel. But notice that the Gentile believers are not counted. They are count-less, like the stars in the sky or the sand of the seashore. To be “counted” is to be a sacrifice, an ascension offering like Isaac. The counting of righteousness to Abraham resulted in the counting of sons and their inheritance in the Land. Israel’s physical and agricultural fertility were evidence of the faith of Abraham in the promises of God.

But the third promise was this countless blessing to all nations. The nations, generally speaking, were never under such a curse of barrenness. Their offspring were always countless, and their swarming hordes were held back by God when Israel was faithful, and brought by God upon Israel in a “flood” of judgment when faithless. And the famines also seem linked to the presence of Abraham and his sons. Indeed, it was the very fruitfulness of the nations (in both Land and womb) which deceived Israel into worshiping their gods of fertility, the Baals. Just as it was in the Garden, Molech was simply another dragon hijacking the offspring of the woman with an offer of certain food. [1]

So, what kind of sons is Paul talking about when he refers to Gentiles who have Abraham as their father? Obviously, it is those who believed.

Paedobaptists take this faith as “household by household” to tie it once again to offspring, but for Gentiles it was never about offspring, or the Land, which were always tied together, just as Abel and the ground were tied together. This question is answered by taking note of the nature of this great blessing for all nations. Once again, it takes us back to Genesis. Just as the Land and womb were opened by the mitigation of death, so also the curse upon Land and womb was swallowed up in the defeat of death. The resurrection of Christ made Circumcision, the Jew-Gentile distinction, redundant. [2] This is why the writer of Hebrews works his way from slavery to death (World), to the children of Abraham (Land and womb), to Adam’s temptation (Garden), in Hebrews 2:14-18. Jesus was a better Adam, then a better Abel, and then a better “son of God,” [3] a priest king after the order of Melchizedek, a priesthood of all nations:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

So, the blessing upon the Gentiles was not a fertility which they already possessed. It was the removal of the fear of death. Israel bore their barrenness as a substitute, and then Jesus, as Israel, bore their death as well. The significance of the womb of Sarah and the tomb of Sarah were united in Christ. The very Land itself shook with birth pangs at His resurrection, and again just before the first resurrection, as Jesus predicted. There was never any need for a sign upon infants. There was a sign upon all Abrahamic males as  Cains who received God’s mercy and subsequently enjoyed the restoration of the fruit of the Land.

Now that the seed had come, and the old Land had “given birth,” a new sign was required, a sign which pictured a new Land rising from the abyss, a heavenly country. The New Covenant, and its sign, are not about the fertility of Christian wombs but about the fertility of Christian tombs. This is not hard to understand.

Baptism has nothing to do with physical fertility, but that is where the baptismal regeneration of the Federal Cision, er, Vision, takes us. A Federal Vision friend recently celebrated the birth of another child, and commented that this birth was another victory against Satan. That floored me, but this is surely the next logical step. The second and third generations of the Federal Vision are not going to be scared to claim the crazy things that the first generation would be reluctant to say out loud.

To claim that a baptized infant is “righteous” is not only to misunderstand and misrepresent baptism (and thus misrepresent the Gospel itself) but to misunderstand and misrepresent Circumcision as well.

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[1] See “Kids in the Kitchen: Passover in the Motherland” in God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink.
[2] The New Covenant didn’t institute a refurbished distinction concerning offspring and territory, which is why paedobaptism historically has always been perverted into religious nationalism, the “Cainite” kingdom of the Herods, and indeed the very same offer which Satan made to Jesus in the wilderness. The reason this will always occur is because it is inherent in the “tribal”nature of the rite.
[3] Genesis 6 concerns the priestly line of Seth intermarrying with the godless, autonomous Cainite kingdom, which brought about the end of all flesh.

God loves His architecture. The first chapter of the Bible is architecture. The books of Moses and the book of Revelation are filled with architecture, and the same floorplan underlies every book in between. Most Christians don’t understand the Bible’s architecture and modern Christians not only do not understand it, they do not care for it. But God loves His architecture. To love the Bible one must love its architecture. To understand the Bible, one must let the architecture inform one’s understanding.

Regarding the “architectural” relationship between the family and the Church, Peter Leithart writes:

Christian political thought has historically gotten off on the wrong foot through misinterpretation of Genesis 1-2. Adam and Eve are taken as “family,” and hence the family becomes a “natural” institution. Families band together and soon there are cities and kingdoms, also natural institutions.

Augustine says this, and so, following him, does Isidore. And everyone of course follows Augustine and Isidore.

The church comes later, a top layer on nature, the supernatural society.

But the garden is not “home” but sanctuary; Adam and Eve are not “family” but worshiping community, created and placed in the place of God’s presence and offered the fruit of the tree of life.

There is no more natural society than the church.

Any discussion of the nature of Church, family and state must be founded upon the architecture which informs all Scripture. These three institutions correspond to the Garden, Land and World, a three-level “Creational” Tabernacle. I agree with most of what Dr Leithart says above, but the floorplan of the primeval world leads us in reality to a different conclusion than the one he reaches.

Dr Leithart leaves out Genesis 3, which is a grand mistake. Genesis 1 moves from the Creation of the World to the filling of the Land. Genesis 2 takes Adam from the Land to the Garden. Genesis 3 concerns Adam’s Ethical qualification. To take possession of the promised Land and the World, he must first take dominion of the Garden. Dr Leithart knows the architecture, but his claim that the Church is “natural” is misinformed by his erroneous view of baptism. Adam’s life did not begin in the Garden but in the Land. He was “lifted up” into the Garden as the initial Firstfruits. In the Garden, he would receive a “super-nature,” that is, an office. He would be enthroned over the animals officially, then divided, and given the role of protecting and leading his wife.

Dr Leithart also leaves out Genesis 4 and 5, which are crucial for understanding the complete architecture. Why is this? Because Genesis 1-5 give us the complete Covenant structure.

The action moves from the natural gifts (Being) to a delegated office (Knowing) and the beginning of rule (Doing). These are Physical, Social and Ethical. But from the Ethical we move back out into the Social and Physical as ministers of the Spirit. In Genesis 3, the promised blessings upon the Land and womb are limited, but not withheld, by curses. Instead of holding a “super-natural” office, a robe from heaven covering the body, Adam’s clothing is earthly. The events in the Garden are not natural at all. They took nature and cut it into pieces. Like Adam’s body, the family, the corporate body, was intended to be nature clothed in “super” nature, Spirit-filled and covered in righteousness, held together by a greater bond, based upon faithfulness in the Garden. Instead, it remained natural. Failure to shed blood in the Garden led to bloodshed in the Land. This is “family” allowed to remain natural because the Church remains natural.

This is where the wheels fall off Dr Leithart’s conclusion. His ecclesiology is natural with a pretense of the supernatural. He believes that baptism is somehow capable of infusing the natural with the Spirit, rather than cutting it up with the Word, placing it on the Altar, incinerating it, and transforming it into something “beyond death.” A Christian baby is thus a baby Christian. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is Cainite thinking, because despite its high view of the Garden, it actually exalts the Land over the Garden. It seizes the promises without reference to the Ethical requirements of God.

There were no children in the Sanctuary. It was the children who were at stake in the Sanctuary. [1] The path from World to Land to Garden and back out again is the path of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement (and the shape of the book of Leviticus). [2] He temporarily laid aside his glory for the sake of the nations that he might take it up again in a greater way, with a greater office, a greater Body. The entire purpose of Adam’s qualification was to make him a mediator for his children before God (as we see in the case of Job). The Garden was never a “natural” place in that sense, and neither is it today. It is the Most Holy Place, the place of death and resurrection. This is why circumcision was all about the removal of the curse upon the Land and the womb. It had to do with the promises in Genesis 2 which were forfeited in Genesis 3. Baptism is about Sanctuary access, which is why the coming of Baptism entailed the blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zechariah being avenged upon the Land. This is why the fivefold pattern above can be overlaid perfectly upon the events of the first century, with the Ascension of Christ as a new Hierarchy (AD30), and the first resurrection, the Ascension of the Firstfruits Church, at Sanctions (AD70). The Church is indeed central, as Dr Leithart observes, but it is by no means “natural.” The Church is where the natural, “all flesh,” dies. The natural ties that bind us (blood) are not “sacralized” and exalted in the Garden. It is the place where Adam and Eve are qualified for the promise of Land and offspring. Land and offspring are not welcome in the Garden, only their representatives.

The Bible’s teaching on baptism cannot be separated from its architecture. Paedobaptism and baptismal regeneration are an erroneous paradigm which conflate the natural with the supernatural. The Bible never puts these together but “in series,” as in the process of sacrifice, given to us to teach us about death and resurrection. Any house which confuses circumcision with baptism calls Cain a Christian because he was “born” a Christian. It is office without qualification. The sword will never depart from such a house. Presbyterians will continue to cut each other to ribbons, and condemn and alienate baptized unbelievers as apostates, because this problem cannot be solved without submission to biblical baptism.

The church indeed comes later, a top layer on nature, the supernatural society. Baptism is for those qualified to be Shepherd-Kings and Queens. Dr Leithart’s baptism is not for mature sword-bearers, the guardians, but for the children under the sword, the guarded. He gets off on the right foot but then wanders into the wilderness by exalting family in a more subtle way.

“Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” (Numbers 14:3)

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[1] Jesus’ words concerning the “little ones” are misunderstood when viewed with paedobaptistic expectations. His point is that He is a better king than Herod, being the true Shepherd, the Priest-King. Baptism is not for the infants but for the ones who protect and lead them, the ones who “put on Christ” as a robe. To claim otherwise is to do violence to the architecture of the Bible and the world.
[2] See Leviticus As Literature.

ART: Léon Spilliaert, White Robes, 1904

“What is the meaning of ”one is taken and the other left’? This is commonly thought to refer to the rapture — one taken up into heaven, and the other left on earth to kick himself for not praying the sinner’s prayer when he had a chance. On the bright side, there will be a lot of free, unmanned cars available” (Heaven Misplaced, p. 104).

Matthew 24 is a prediction of the Covenant curses falling upon Judah for the last time. One being taken and the other left has to do with displacement. Titus enslaved the best Jews and took them in ships to Egypt.

“And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.” (Deuteronomy 28:68)

It’s one thing to get the historical fulfilment correct, but there’s a whole lot more going on here. In His speech, as the fulfilment of Israel, Jesus is working through the Bible Matrix, a combination of the Creation week, the weekly and annual Feasts, and the process of Dominion. This means that He is using examples of all the previous historical Covenant structures to make His point. The Covenant cycle has snowballed through history and picked up a lot of events on its way.

At this point, He’s using Atonement symbols (Covenant Sanctions). So (if you have a copy of Bible Matrix) you can see how He’s linking many previous Sanctions events together to describe the oncoming storm. [1] Visually, it looks like this:

Atonement concerns the distribution of the Covenant blessing and the Covenant curse. It is a two-edged sword, vengeance and redemption, two goats. Jesus’ words looked forward, but they also looked backwards in time. Based on that, what can we see beyond the (now) historical fulfilment?

Who were the first two men working in the field? One slew the other, but only the slain one was left behind. The other was exiled as the second goat. The blood of Abel would finally be avenged — and on that generation.

Then we have two women grinding at the mill. This is often a euphemism for sex (as is the threshingfloor – Pentecost. At the first Pentecost, Israel committed Covenant harlotry.). The question is, who is the true Bride? Lamech failed to decide. Jesus, like Solomon, wasn’t going to fail to pick the true mother.

We have a choosing of the true Adam (working the Land) and a choosing of the true Eve (the childbearer), head and body, the two approaches of the High Priest on the Day of Coverings. God was coming to judged the Temple, and, as in Eden, there was nowhere to hide.

It’s architectural, too. Adam is outside the house, Eve is inside. All these types are wrapped up in Jacob and Esau. Esau took two wives (“daughters of men”) and he worked outside. Jacob, who did not despise the Covenant, was inside the tent: Esau the bloody bronze altar and Jacob the fragrant golden altar, who had to wear goat skin to smell like… the field.

Matthew 24 is about the end of Herodian, that is, Idumean (Edomite), worship. It was the end of Cain, the end of Lamech, and the end of Esau. Jesus would return as the True Husband to single out the true mother and the true brothers.

Structure and architecture aren’t everything. But for Moses, the prophets, Jesus, the apostles, and their audiences, they were the first thing to be aware of not only when composing a text but when hearing a text. Sadly, often it’s the last thing we look at, so we have trouble figuring out what room we’re in and whether something is a bed or a table.

It’s the reason many speeches are so long. The prophet is building a house. Here, Jesus is tearing it down.

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[1] Another example discussed elsewhere on here is Jesus’ reference to vultures gathering. It is an ironic take on the Feast of Booths (aka Ingathering). Because Israel would not put food on the table for the nations, she would be the food on the table. The Gentiles would be unclean scavengers instead of footwashed guests.)

Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. (1 Corinthians 15:46-49)

We’ve been talking about “intuition,” which is something ascribed more to women than to men. If we relate it to hermeneutics, does this mean women make better Bible interpreters, or is there something deeper going on?

Adam was formed out of the dust, then filled with the “breath” of God. It wasn’t the indwelling Spirit of God. It was a physical breath, the “spirit of man,” if you like. But, like everything God does, it pictured something greater to come. The “earthy” anticipated the “heavenly.” Adam would be filled with the Spirit of God (as a qualified representative) if he was willing to “come and die” under the Law of the Covenant. He was to risk his life to save his bride.

We discussed how Adam failed to anticipate the will of God in the destruction of the serpent. From many later events, where the people of God got the same test right (typologically), we can see that it is most likely Eve who would have provided that “intuition.” The Bride is attacked by the serpent, the Bridegroom steps in and repeats the Law so she is not deceived (as the elect body), then, as co-regent, co-judge, she stands with him and calls down the Covenant curses upon the exposed serpent. [1] Adam obeys and receives the Spirit, which He sends to the Bride. Then Eve obeys and receives the Spirit. We see this exact pattern play out in the first century. Those who hear and disobey the gospel receive an evil spirit from the Lord. Those who hear and obey eventually judge angels.

But let’s take things beyond Genesis 3. How does this observation affect our interpretation of the minimalist narrative in Genesis 4? Genesis 1-3 is a continual process of “forming (dividing) and filling,” except that Adam failed to “fulfill” the Covenant Law. In Genesis 4, Eve has two sons, a new “division.” Eve anticipated the future in the names of her two sons. In his commentary on Genesis 2-4, James Jordan observes:

Cain (Qayin) means “smith,” and relates to the firmness of the earth, while Abel (Hebel) means “mist,” and relates to the heaven – but to which heaven? It is clear from what follows that Abel links with the firmament made on Day 2. So let us look back at Genesis 4:1. Adam knew his wife, and this links with God’s sending His Spirit into dust to make Adam. The “adam” that Adam makes with Eve is Cain, and Eve’s statement that she has acquired a man with Yahweh brings this first event to a close. Cain is the new Adam. [2]

Recently, Eric Greene suggested “a little tweak” for exegeting Gen. 4:1. [3] Eve’s two sons are a new heaven and a new earth, but in “social” terms:

JBJ says that Mr. Vapor/Breath (Abel) signifies heaven. To help substantiate this I would argue that he was named after God’s fatherly vaporous breath. Cain means Mr. Smith-worker, working the metal from the ground, like the Kenites (compare 4:22). I would argue that Cain is named after the motherly earthy dust. Cain and Abel are named after their “Grandparents” for they are some of the “descendents of the heavens and the earth” (2:4).

After God heals their marriage, forgives, and promotes them out of the garden, Eve knows that the Promised Seed is meant to replace her husband. Her husband failed to kill the Serpent, but she knows the Seed will arise replacing her husband in that redeeming/conquering role. It is quite clear from the text that the Redeemer will be the Adam-Replacer; replacing and surpassing what Adam failed to do.

Jordan again:

Similarly, and more interestingly (since we all know that it is not the snake but Satan who is to be crushed), the word “heel” means “replacement.” Thus, Jacob’s name was not just “Heel” but “Replacement” (see Genesis 27:36). Thus, the phrase can be translated, “You will bruise his replacement.” Who is the Replacement for the seed of the woman, if not Jesus? It is each replacement, each new “heel,” who is bruised in the Biblical narrative: Abel replaces Adam and is bruised. Isaac replaces Abraham and is bruised. Ultimately, Jesus replaces all the seed of the woman, and is bruised. Then, as Jesus ascends to heaven, the Church replaces Jesus and is called to be bruised, to carry forth His suffering for the life of the world. [4]

Greene again:

Since the word “heel” means “replacement” we can easily see the poetic point: the Redeemer-Replacer will be struck on His Replacement. Without getting into what that implies, I think Eve would have had the wisdom to put one and one together. The Messiah to come would function as the Mighty Replacer, even expecting His own heel to be bruised.

It seems plausible to me that Eve would have known that her first-born son would not been a messiah/redeemer. According to blueletterbible dot org, “Cain” is a play on the word “cana” (possession), since Eve said, “I have possessed a man…” Cain is also the root word for the Kenites who were metal “smiths”, hence you are right, Cain also carries the meaning for “spear”. Thus, Tubal-Cain dug up iron ore from the ground to make “spears” as a “metal-worker”.

Jordan again:

“The first son of Adam and Eve was named Cain. The name Qayin means “smith, metal-worker,” and recurs in the name Tubal-Qayin, the father of the forge, in 4:22. There is also a pun on his name, since Eve associates the name with something acquired (qanithi). Metal is but hard ground, and so Cain as one who serves the ground is also one who forges metal. Digging up the ground so as to plant crops is close to digging up the ground to find ore to forge into metal. “Cain,” thus, is a name that connotes strength. Adam was set to serve the ground (2:15, “to serve and guard” the garden). As we saw last time, Cain is the new Adam, the first from Adam, the continuation of the generations of the heavens and the earth.” [5]

Greene again:

So, she named Cain, associating him with earth, thanking God that He multiplied her conception, saying, she “acquired a man from the LORD”. Then, implicitly, she named “his brother” associating him with the hope of God’s vaporous heavenly breath.

Anyway this makes me think that while Eve was first pregnant she said, “Hey sweetheart, Adam, let’s name this baby ‘Cain’ – since our Yahweh made you from dirt. The baby can work with the hard dirt and make things. But, darling, let’s name our second-born ‘Abel’ – since our Yahweh breathed His heavenly vapour into your dust. Maybe when this life-breathing child grows up he will replace you and his brother by killing that Devil.” Then Adam, said, “Eve, you are very wise, and even right this time!”

Ironically, he came to symbolize the brevity of life, not the life-giving power of God’s breath. And yes, later, even Eve’s hope in Replacer-Abel was replaced with Seth.

Just like his name, “Cain” himself also became a “spear,” the bloody sword that comes out of the smith’s furnace. This would mean that the two sons are knife and fire, forming and filling, earth and breath, Old Covenant (the time of knives) and New (the time of fire). The New Covenant could not fully arrive until all the innocent blood that was shed from Abel to Zechariah was avenged upon the Land. Only then could knife and fire be united as a flaming sword in the hand of a new Adam. The “filling up” of the sufferings of Christ in the saints completes the sacrificial process (Colossians 1:24).

But back to Bible interpretation. God speaks, Adam listens. The serpent speaks. Hopefully, nobody listens. Then Adam speaks, Eve listens. Eve curses, Adam strikes. She is his intuition. This is exactly the process we see in the first century, presented as liturgy in the Revelation. The martyred saints know that their redemption (resurrection) can only occur through vengeance upon their murderers.

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the [Land], and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and a [Land]quake. (Revelation 8:3-5)

So, Jesus is the Church’s obedience, and the Spirit-filled Church is then the “intuition” of Jesus, the “friends of God,” courtly advisers ruling the world through worship and prayer. As His body, our blood is Jesus’ blood. As His body, our corporate foot is Jesus’ foot. [6] And this crushing foot is gathered, united and enabled by the Spirit.

Interpreting the Word correctly comes gradually as a result of the Spirit of God. And if I were the devil, watching the Church figure things out over the centuries would make me even more disturbed. Indeed, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

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[1] See Esther and the Ten Words.
[2] James B. Jordan, Trees & Thorns: A Commentary on Genesis 2-4, Volume 12, N0. 132. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com. Documents also included in the complete James Jordan library, available from www.wordmp3.com
[3] From a discussion on the Biblical Horizons forum. Reproduced with Eric’s permission.
[4] Jordan, Volume 9, No. 96.
[5] Jordan, Volume 11, No. 123.
[6] See Under Your Feet.

Art: Eowyn and the Nazgul by bluefooted.

“Jesus does what no medicine man
or witch doctor is able to do.”

And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man,
the one who had had the legion, sitting there,
clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. – Mark 5:15

Rich Bledsoe’s old blog is a goldmine. Here’s an excerpt from The Dysfunctional Family of the Gadarene Madman.

A friend of mine who is a Christian clergyman, and is from India, and has demonstrated gifts of exorcism, tells me that the power of the witch doctor is the power of being able to command lesser demons to leave by the power of a greater demon. But the demons are never banished. They just transfer place or position. In the case of this text, the demons of the village were all put on this one poor man who became a representative demoniac, and bore the pain and agony of the entire community in himself.

There are four descriptors around the demoniac that we need to look at.

First, he is chained, but in his madness is so crazed that he breaks the chains and cannot be restrained. He is the recipient of the accusations of the demons of the village. The very character of the devil is that his is “an accuser” (Revelation 12:10, Zechariah 3:1). Accusation is the most galling of all experiences, and he is accused day and night by the devils who have taken possession of him who used to accuse the community. Now along with the demons, the whole village also accuse him.

Secondly, he is naked. (Luke 8:27, Mark 5:15) This is a symbol of shame, and he thus bears the shame of the entire community.

Thirdly, the text says that he cuts himself with stones (Mark 5:5). In the Greek, the term is “autolapsis”, which literally translated means “self stoning”. In other words, the madman executes himself by stoning, which in the ancient world was a ritual form of execution. Hence, he is executed on behalf of the community as well. Finally, he lives amongst the tombs, (Mark 5:2, 5) which as a fulfillment of the other curses on him means that he is already dead. He bears death and damnation in himself for the whole rest of the community.

The demons immediately begin to beg that they not be sent out of the country, and beg instead that they might be sent into a herd of swine that are nearby. Now, this is ambiguous. The swine are in fact a mirror image of the village. There are about 2000 pigs (Mark 5:13), and in fact the demons may be begging to be allowed to re-enter the people in the village, for whom the madman is a surrogate. To the demons, the people are as unclean as the pigs, and either allows for their occupation. But Jesus mercifully does not send them back to the village people, but instead sends them into the nearby pigs, and they, driven mad by the incursion into them, rush off of a cliff and into the Sea of Galilee.

To fall into the sea is to fall into the abyss. In doing this, Jesus does what no medicine man or witch doctor is able to do. He does not just exchange one demon for another from one place to another, and that in a temporary fashion, but Jesus banishes them forever, and sends them back to the abyss.

I recommend reading the entire article, and its sequel, The Gadarene Madman and the Modern World. Bledsoe demonstrates that the relationship between the demoniac and community are exactly the kind of “triangulation” observed by Edwin Friedman to be the problem in all dysfunctional relationships, whether personal, familial, institutional or corporate.

Of course, I have to tie this to the matrix, at least its “festal” strand. The first chapters of Matthew follow the Feasts, and place this event at Atonement. [1] This means that the communal dysfunction of scapegoating (as expounded by René Girard, particularly concerning the treatment of Job by his advisors [2]) is Man’s unjust, twisted method for obtaining corporate healing without reference to the mercy of God. It replicates the reaction of Cain to God’s atoning mercy (an event which also appears at Atonement within the narrative of Genesis 4). The scapegoat in the end was not Abel, although that was Cain’s intention. Abel himself became an acceptable offering. The scapegoat was Cain himself, who could not bear his shame and so rejected the mercy of God. The community he founded was a primeval “Gadara,” and Lamech continued to deal with its demons through bloodshed. The blame shifting continued until the entire culture was cutting itself. [3] The bloodletting continued and  increased until the Great Flood.

These primeval events were similar expressions of blame-shifting. “Shifting” is the work of the witch doctor. It’s a form of “cooking the books.” Rather than take the shame and blame and be forgiven, fallen corporate Man (Greater Eve) can’t take vengeance upon historical Adam, so she finds someone else to take the rap. Of course, the time came when the Man she found to vent her fury upon, in a demonic hysteria, was her One True Husband. This led to unfathomable mercy, but also to the avenging of all the scapegoats in the history of atonement, beginning with Abel, in AD70. The Revelation tells us the story of their enthronement.

In the end, it is God who cooks the books. Jesus is the Great Medicine Man, the White Witch Doctor. But He removes our sins from us as far as the East is from the West.

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[1] See Why Jesus Healed Some.

[2] James Jordan writes:

Job is clearly some kind of king. He is the leader of his community. He is the Chief Cornerstone, while Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are his “three mighty men,” the other corners of the realm. It is because Job is the king that the other men arrive to try and force him to step down.

(The Hebrew word for “army commander” is “corner.” For other examples of chief corners and three other corners, consider David and his three mighty men, Daniel and his three friends, and Jesus with Peter, James, and John. On “corners” and “three mighty men,” see Biblical Horizons 121. Compare also Jesus with the Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate, as discussed above.)

Job as king is the “greatest of the men of the east” (Job 1:3). He employed hundreds of people and fed the poor. The disaster that overcame his household was, thus, a disaster upon the entire realm. The poor were starving, and hundreds of people were either killed or out of work. The sores on Job’s body were a sign of the lesions on the body politic of which he was the head, a point no ancient reader would miss.

This realm or political “house” has fallen because the Chief Corner, Job, has fallen. The other three corners, thus, step in to try and repair it. Their fallacy is not in seeking to restore their society, but in the way they seek to do it. Their desire is for Job to step down by admitting fault, so that one of them can replace him. God’s intention, however, is to take Job and this society through judgment and resurrection, and to reconstitute a new and better society afterwards (as happens in chapter 42).

Job’s position as king or leader of his people has been skillfully analyzed by Rene Girard in Job: The Victim of His People, translated by Yvonne Freccero and published by Stanford University Press in 1987. Despite the many flaws in this book, it makes clear that the attack upon Job came not because he was an ordinary person, but because of his preeminent position in this community, which had fallen into chaos seemingly as a result of God’s judgment upon Job, their “king.”

The book of Job, then, is not just about the sufferings of a righteous man, though it is that in part, and can be preached that way. It is also about chaos in the body politic, and the position of the suffering king within that chaos.

James B. Jordan, Was Job an Edomite King?, Biblical Horizons Newsletter No. 130.

[3] The innocent victims in our society are most obviously the unborn. But perhaps this sheds some light on the growing problem of self-harm in our culture. Biblically, we should also remember the priests of Baal on Carmel cutting themselves. Paul ties this factor to the Circumcision in the first century, those who considered it to be somehow redemptive rather than simply signal.

2 Samuel 12:20

*The fifth speech in Exodus 25-31 concerns the garments of the High Priest. This is also the point at which Adam clothes himself in Cainite “plant” clothes, and Esther put on her royal robes to approach the Emperor. Perhaps there is a connection to the atoning “vegetable” linen which gets left behind in the tomb, sprinkled in the blood of Abel.

I am Habakkuk the prophet. And this is the message that the LORD gave me. Our LORD, how long must I beg for your help before you listen? How long before you save us from all this violence? Why do you make me watch such terrible injustice? Why do you allow violence, lawlessness, crime, and cruelty to spread everywhere? Laws cannot be enforced; justice is always the loser; criminals crowd out honest people and twist the laws around.
Habakkuk 1:1-4

[Part 1 here.]

Perhaps there is more to this idea of “suing God” than a mere Puritan quote, especially when God Himself fails to keep His own rules, when God Himself appears to break Covenant.

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“So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘Skin for skin!
Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.’” Job 2:4

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

Part of allowing the Bible to interpret the world for us is to see the significance of things. Modern evangelicals generally pass off the weird references to things like bone, flesh and skin as though they were part of an outmoded worldview. But modern scholars are themselves still made of bone, flesh and skin. These things are significant in the created order. They communicate something to us. Bone is structure, flesh is life, and skin is glory. It is a three-level Tabernacle: Garden, Land, World, or Word, Sacrament, Government. [1]

There was some discussion recently on the BH forum about the “skin” that the Lord used to make “tunics” for Adam and Eve. The Hebrew word is singular, so James Jordan thinks it was a single animal, a single mediator picturing Christ. He is probably right, but I recently said that I thought it was likely a bull was killed for Adam and a goat or two for Eve, prefiguring the Day of Covering (Atonement). It would then have been the Lord as the Single Mediator, the High Priest making two approaches: one to cover the head, and another to cover the body. This means there would have been blood shed twice. Can this be linked to the death of Christ? Yes, it can, and in a way that few Bible expositors see because they won’t recognise repeated patterns.

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[1] Some thoughts: Just as Heaven has three levels, and its reflected glory in the Earth has three levels, so too does the Mediator. A human is mind (Word), body (Sacrament) and movement (arms and legs: Government). But the Body itself, as Mediator, has three levels, bone, flesh and skin. The Body is the Tabernacle mediating between Heaven and Earth. The Israelites were a nation of mediators of living Sacraments. Concerning priestly duties, even the purity of their skin mattered (Leviticus 13).
But there is the third level, Government, so we still require clothing. In the Bible, robes are the skin on the outer Government to others. They are signs to men, and our roles in the World of men in which we live and move. A robed man is a judge, a husband and a father.
[2] See Half the Blood
[3] See Healing in His… Tassels?
[4] See High as the Horses’ Bridles.
[5] See The Whole Bloody Bible