Of course, God’s new golden-haired boy got things wrong, as all Adams do when given the opportunity of glorious kingdom. The metal man in his dream (the new “empire-Tabernacle”) only had gold at the head, but King Nebuchadnezzar’s obelisk was gold from head to foot. This new king, under whom Israel was now a “Covenant vassal,” would be taught by God that he, too, was subject to a higher authority.

James Jordan observes that the four “animal” empires correspond to the four cherubim guarding God’s throne. The animals do not match exactly, because symbols are relationships. The animals describe the relationship of each empire to the people of God.

A couple of years ago, I heard Al Stewart at the Katoomba Men’s Convention give a good summary of the first part of the book of Daniel. Unlike liberal scholars, he corresponded the four beasts with the empires beginning with Babylon, not the Medes (the liberals can’t believe that Daniel wrote about Rome because it didn’t exist at that time in history, so they have to make Greece number 4. They split Medo-Persia into two empires, which doesn’t work at all since they were contemporaneous.) When Al got to Rome, he told us that Daniel’s prophecy doesn’t match history. He didn’t do what dispensationalists do and tell us that God’s Jewish clock stopped, but he didn’t have an explanation.

The explanation is one you will only find in Jordan’s work. The Roman empire did continue to exist after AD70, but Daniel, and all the prophets, view the world as God’s Tabernacle. The characters on the stage are viewed by their respective Covenant callings as they contribute to the plan of God in history. They are priestly or kingly ministers in His court.

This is a crucial factor to understand. It solves the mystery of the identity of the sons of God in Genesis 6. It explains why the Revelation describes the destruction of the Roman “Sea beast” in AD70. And it also explains why, in God’s economy, there are no more Jews. Their calling as “sons of God” was terminated with the Temple. Or rather, it was transformed through death and resurrection into a new calling. As John says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God…”

Just like Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar came to a full understanding his calling as a vassal king through a process of death and resurrection. He was exiled by God as a Gentile beast into the wilderness and returned as a Man, an Adam, a Covenant head. Just as Joseph converted Pharaoh through his faithful service, Daniel converted Nebuchadnezzar.

The fact that these four Gentile empires were under God’s throne, vassal subjects in the kingdom of God, explains why their authority was transferred over the 500 year Restoration period. It was a form of “Covenant succession.” If the emperor cursed the people of God, the empire would be cursed, the kingdom handed over to another who would bring forth the fruit desired from their delegated authority, their Covenant calling. Belshazzar lost his kingdom overnight. Esther and Mordecai saved Persia from an unspeakable fate at the hands of God through the intentions of the serpent Haman. But Persia eventually fell to Greece, and Greece to Rome. The Revelation describes Rome’s “de-conversion” from a metal man back into a beast. The guardian put in place by God to provide a framework of law, protection, infrastructure and civilisation for the spread of the gospel was manipulated by Satan against the people of God. The family dog was turned against the children it was called to guard.

Rome did not cease to be an empire in AD70. Just as the calling of the Jews passed to the Christian church, Rome ceased to be a guardian for the people of God when the fifth empire arrived. Adam succeeded the animal kingdom on Day 6 and was supposed to be enthroned over it, rule over it, on Day 7. Jesus as Adam succeeded the animal kingdom—the Gentile empire—and took on the calling of the vassal emperors as guardian of the church. In these last days of the Old Covenant, God shook the world one more time, and the “times of the Gentiles” came to an end. [2]

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[1] Have you got The Handwriting on the Wall yet? You will find all this and much more in Jordan’s groundbreaking work.
[2] This is actually the context of the “sheep and goats” judgment of the nations in Matthew 25. It is history, although it was most certainly a microcosm of the final judgment at the end of the Revelation.

or Filling Up That Which is Lacking

After reading about the Bible’s use of robes as symbols of office (see The Dominion Trap by James B. Jordan), Tim Mitchell commented:

In Bible study we’ve been looking at John, so a few weeks ago was John 13. My Bible translated v.4-5 as “So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feel, drying them with the towel he had around him.”

So that recalled for me the couple of pages on robe imagery, and it seems to foreshadow what Jesus will do later on very well: He is willing to take off his authority and righteousness, and take on the dirt of our sin.

But then I got a bit unsure, since Jesus then goes on to say “you ought to wash each others’ feet” in v.14 and “Do as I have done to you” in v.15. So if the symbolism applies, how are we also supposed to take other peoples’ sin on us as Jesus did?

Firstly, what a great question. Many New Testament passages become so familiar that we often lose the ability to really think about their ramifications.

The structure of the Last Supper puts this action of Jesus at Atonement, the Laver (Day 6). Jesus is liturgically pre-enacting His role as High Priest. The Adam removed his glorious robes and wore linen for the Day of Covering. Jesus left this in the tomb with our sin on it. But that is not all the High Priest did. He approached the Most Holy twice.

The High Priest entered with blood for Himself and the priests. Then he entered again with blood for the people. The suffering of those bold first century saints, including Peter, as this second entry, completed the foundation of a New Jerusalem, and brought down God’s vengeance and an end to the rebels continuing the Old Covenant rites. Christians are never taught this history, so a great deal of the New Testament is read out of context. [1]

“As living Eve sacrifices, they were to
‘fill up that which was lacking’ in
the hidden Adam Temple sacrifices”

The age of the eagle, the four empires from Babylon to Rome, is referred to as the “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). After its restoration, all Israel was supposed to be a suffering servant like Joseph or Daniel, a priesthood working to fill the empire-Tabernacle with “bread”. Although animals were again sacrificed for the nations in Jerusalem, the outward sign of this was the servanthood of the Jews scattered throughout the nations. As living Eve sacrifices, they were to “fill up that which was lacking” in the hidden Adam Temple sacrifices (Romans 12:1; Colossians 1:24). Blood is always presented in the dark, in secret, and the Lord always rewards openly.

To bring that age to an end, the disciples would “fill up that which was lacking” by passing through the same rejection and death as Jesus. His blood would be shed, but so would the blood of these disciples. In this gospel age, the Totus Christus, Jesus and church, is a corporate High Priest. [2]

The Land is always purified with blood. The kingdom is always bought with blood. I think that is what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said the first century Jews should enter the Holy Place boldly. It was certainly an expression of free access to the Throne of Grace, but such access is always mediatorial, governmental. That is the nature of both the Lord and His Creation. We are Esther standing before Ahasuerus. This is the nature of leadership according to the Bible.

The Ark and its two seraphic angels were the tomb of Jesus. The promised rest of Canaan is always entered over blood, by death, no less now that it is a heavenly country. We are to enter the Tomb boldly with our own blood for the next generation, not atoning, but demonstrating. We do this liturgically as we pass the cup to each other. [3]

We enter into death together, hidden from the world in the Holy Place, and leave church each week as resurrected saints rising out of open graves to conquer the world as living sacrifices. As broken bread and poured out wine, we feed and wash the destitute world as Jesus did, with discipleship and baptism, until all humanity is a priesthood standing with feet washed on the crystal sea.

As usual, there is also a negative side to this. The saints demonstrate the gospel of Christ by forgiving those who sin against us. But there is a final Day of Atonement coming when all the sin registered upon us will be avenged upon those who hardened their hearts as it was in AD70. [4]

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[1]  See How to Read the New Testament.
[2]  See Under Your Feet and Twelve Thrones.
[3]   See Places in the Heart.
[4]  See Right as Rain and No More Sacrifice for Sins.

“And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.”  Zechariah 14:4

Surprising as His ways are, the Lord always follows procedure. Like Ahasuerus in the book of Esther, anything that is done is done by decree. Although, in the case of Ahasuerus, he needed to consult his elders, whereas God only consults his maturing elders (like Abraham and David–and now the church) to bring us to greater maturity.

A decree is written in the Most Holy, the king’s garden court (head). The elders in the Holy Place respond with liturgy (body). And then they ride out into the world on the swiftest horses to incite a Holy War that divides the world to bring about a New Creation.

In the case of Christ, He is the Word from the throne made flesh. As the Word-Man, He spoke and an earthly priesthood gathered around Him, then rode out into the world and turned it upside down. Then Jesus returned to assess the infant New World and divide the sheep from the goats throughout the empire.

Whatever the Lord does as Word is carried out in His body. Jesus was the rock “divided” to allow living waters to flow into the Land of Israel, which was barren through her harlotry with Greek philosophy and Roman political power. As the husband in Numbers 5 brought his wife to the priest for inspection, Jesus not only sent the cup of testing, He was the cup, the bitter-sweet sword-water. A faithful remnant was made fruitful, a harvest of many children, and the rest were blinded–in fact, cursed with spiritual miscarriage forever.

What we miss is that this same scenario structures the book of Zechariah, and it helps explain one of the most debated texts in the Bible. I have already commented on it here, but have another point to add.

In Zechariah’s visions, a New Covenant (reviving the one made with David and Solomon) is measured out liturgically in the Garden court of the King. The High Priest is given clean robes by the Angel of the Lord, the preincarnate Christ. This results in a new priest-king crowned in the Land (as the High Priest becomes the caretaker of David’s crown until the Messiah comes). As with the consecration of Aaron, this imputed ‘clean’ came from the future death of Christ (as did the reckoning of Abraham’s faith as righteousness, etc). So there is a subtle reference to Christ as the rock broken in the wilderness to make revived Judah fruitful again. Remember, at the time of Haggai and Zechariah, Israel was again in the Land but still alienated from it.

Before the kingly vision, the prophet sees horses and chariots riding out into the New (Restoration) Covenant world between two bronze mountains. The old Ark-Israel has been split in two so the new Lampstand-Israel can govern the world as mediator. Solomon’s two bronze pillars have become Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, split to allow the living water in the Temple chariots to flow into the empire, which had become the new Promised Land, a bigger territory to conquer.

Chapters 12-14 of Zechariah follow the same pattern. Only here, in chapter 14, it is the fiery bronze legs of Christ, greater Solomon, that split the rock, and the rock is the poor old, worn out, abused and compromised Restoration Covenant, the final form of the Old Covenant ready to pass away.

Just as Christ was split to allow living waters to flow, so the Altar-rock of barren Judah was also split until AD70 to allow the gospel to flow into the entire World, as Jesus had promised. Sinai was finally thrown into the sea by the faith of the apostles (Matthew 21:21; Revelation 8:8).

The Word was spoken as a decree (Christ), echoed by the elders (first century church) and the Holy War culminated in a New World Order. And, as in Esther, all Israel was saved.

As the saints minister the gospel water and baptism throughout the world, we come from the side of Christ. The blood of Herod’s old Adam (High Priest) split in the garden was followed by a marriage feast.