The Lord “called” Adam as Day 1, giving him one law (light). He divided him as Day 2 and built Eve as a Holy Place, a firmament to be filled with stars (godly offspring). As Day 3 He made a new covenant and married them, the first nearbringing. Adam as the Bronze Altar (dust elevated from the Land) then became the first High Priest, the Table. In his obedience, together they prefigured totus Christus.

Day 4 follows. As Adam represented singular light, Eve was plural light. She was the holy fire on the altar, the glory of Adam. [1] Day 4 is the Lampstand. Day 4 is also the wilderness. If Eve was seduced, it was because Adam’s priesthood was corrupt. There was strange fire on the altar, the biblical theme of harlotry. In the garden, the strange fire was the false lightbearer who filled the “firmament” with darkness.

With that background, look at how this plays out in Daniel 7. It also supports James Jordan’s assertion that the fact that the beast’s body is “feminine” carries some importance. [2] The false church is the body of totus diabolus, the locust swarm gathered as a tabernacle by the fallen head. Daniel seven is the history of the first century church as the Woman in the wilderness. But the faithfulness of the new Adam brought an end to the priesthood of the sons of Aaron.

From Totus Christus:

Creation – Ark – Light – Sabbath
The Lord sends the four winds of His Spirit in His saints

Division – Veil – Firmament – Passover
The four winds of the breath of God divide the Sea…

Ascension – Table – Dry Land, Grain & Fruit – Firstfruits
…into Land beasts which carry the saints. Ancient of Days, our High Priest (Adam, the Man-table), ascends to His throne (as Sinai) and the book of judgment is opened

Testing – Lampstand – Lights – Pentecost
The Herodian beast makes war against the saints. This serpent/dragon is destroyed, and “her” body is burned [2]

Maturity – Incense – Birds & Fish – Trumpets
The triumphant firstfruits church is mustered and ascends before God as an army in a cloud of incense 

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.  (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the [Land] will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates [the place of judgment]. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.  (Matthew 24:29-34)

Conquest – People & Priest – Land Animals & Man – Atonement
Greater Eve receives an everlasting dominion over the beasts…

Glorification – Rest – Booths
…and a kingdom that shall not be destroyed (as Zion)

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1. See Ish and Isha and Fighting over the Children. See also The Fall Guy.
2. “The fact that the Little Horn’s body is burned up is one more indication that the Little Horn represents the apostate Jewish/Herodian faction. The word “living creature” or “beast” is feminine, and so the “it” and “its” in Daniel 7 are really “she, her, hers”. So, translating completely literally, verse 11 would read, “she was slain, the beast; and he was destroyed, her body; and she was given into the burning of fire”. Whether or not it is legitimate to give much weight to the feminine pronouns, it is still interesting how the feminine pronoun links with the allusion to Leviticus 21:9. Since the Little Horn beast is a body of people, its death means the destruction of that body. The Horn is the head of the body, and it (she) is killed and burned. What almost happened to faithful Jews in Daniel 3 now does happen to faithless ones, who reject the one like a Son of God (Daniel 3:25).” James B. Jordan, The Handwriting on the Wall, p. 400-401. 

“Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1

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Two days ago, we saw the Lord take Jeremiah through the Creation/Tabernacle pattern as He anointed him. Here’s some more thoughts on the Babylonian “seething pot” using the Tabernacle pattern as a guide.

Usually, the Lampstand is at the centre of the passage (Pentecost). But the almond tree/Lampstand here is at Firstfruits. The Land of Day 3 is the Bronze Altar, but the grain and fruit (the Table) is replaced here by the almond).

Jeremiah, as a sign to Israel, is made the incarnation of Yahweh. The seven-eyed “watching tree” is actually Jeremiah, and the Lord continually asks him to “see.” As the prophetic Lampstand watched over Israel (the Table), so Jeremiah would watch over her destruction.[1] The Table seems to be covered by Nebuchadnezzar!

Cauldrons are big bowls suspended over a fire. Here, at Day 4, instead of the Lampstand being the fire on the altar (the ruling lights on the land), there is a foreign laver suspended between heaven and earth. This ties in with the floodgates of heaven being opened. The laver tipped water down and the fountains of the abyss burst open to cover the Land/Altar. Israel, as the mediatorial uplifted land, was about to go under. The fact that the Babylonian cauldron tips down upon Israel perhaps refers to the exaltation of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom by God to the place of the sun, moon and stars, the firmament. Isaiah 13 uses this imagery concerning Babylon’s demise.

Being suspended between heaven and earth, the cauldron is a mediator. On top of all the Temple vessels, the Lampstand itself had seven separate bowls that sat on the stems. The structure of the seven bowls passage in Revelation also puts these at the centre of that passage. The final seven angels are the seven spirits of God putting holy fire on the sons of Aaron.

“And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is from the face of the north.”

We seem to have Jeremiah in the south as the Lampstand looking north, and the cauldron in the north tipped southwards. The references to face align Nebuchadnezzar with the “Man” face of the cherubim. With the failure of Israel’s kings to be men instead of beasts, King Neb became the servant of God against them. As a substitute Table, he was an ironic altar from the abyss, a payback for Israel’s slaughter of innocent children to foreign gods.[2] Babylon was actually in the east, although the armies entered Israel from the north apparently. Nebuchadnezzar, as God’s servant, was also an incarnation of Yahweh. 

“Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.” Jeremiah 25:9

“And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant.” Jeremiah 27:6

Because of Israel’s failure to be a laver of living water overflowing into the Gentile nations, Yahweh brought the frothing abyss to the boil and unleashed it as a lake of fire upon the whole world.

Pentecost is the step where the Law is opened to Israel. Here the curses of the Law are poured out to bring death and resurrection. Israel was being “served.”

Perhaps there is also the form of a pregnancy, which is common in this pattern. Israel’s harlotry was coming full term, and the offspring of this was not a man but Leviathan. Dinner was being served, too. Instead of bread and wine there was death in the pot.

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[1] Ezekiel, too, was made a watchman. 
[2] See articles on this horrific biblical theme here.

If we don’t get Genesis right, we’ll get much of the Bible wrong. In Through New Eyes (PDF), James Jordan identifies a three-level “cosmos” in the Creation, which is reflected on the earth. There is the Garden Sanctuary, the Land of Eden, and the Outlying Lands, or Garden, Land and World.

This is reflected, not only in the ark of Noah, but also in the Tabernacle. The image is dual, one in heaven and one on earth:

Heaven: The Most Holy Place (God), the Holy Place (Angelic Mediators) and the Laver (Crystal Sea).
Earth: The Tabernacle (God), the Bronze Altar (Israel), and the Gentiles (Sea of Nations)

I can’t quite get my head around the relevant diagrams in Through New Eyes, but here’s how I see it, with a diagram from my book.

Garden, Land, World corrpespond to Father, Son and Spirit. In Genesis 1-6, the three territories are corrupted. Jordan writes:

Man’s first fall, in the Sanctuary, prevented his going into Eden and resulted in his being put in a Homeland that was not a Throneland. The second fall, of Cain, expelled him from a Homeland into a world of wandering. The third fall, of the Sethites, removed the sinners from the world through the great flood.

…these rebellions constituted stealing the gift of the Father (sacrilege), murder of the brotherhood of the Son (fratricide), and resisting the marital gifts of the Spirit (intermarriage or compromise).[1]

An understanding of this pattern is crucial when it comes to Bible prophecy. But it undergirds some other areas that are very familiar. For instance, Jordan observes that Jesus was condemned at the house of the High Priest (Most Holy – Garden), then by Herod (Holy Place – Land), and then by Pilate (Court – World). In fact, Pilate washes his hands of the incident in a Laver.

Paul was also judged at the house of Ananias the High Priest, by the Chief Priests and Elders, and then by Felix the Governor.

Well, that’s background. My point is that this pattern solves the question of the timing of the second coming of Christ. I believe that the texts that imply an imminent coming should be taken as imminent. This is not how most “partial preterists” think, and the full preterists are right to point out their inconsistent hermeneutic. But if all was fulfilled in AD70, the full preterists have to deny a future judgment, and redefine the meaning of the last enemy, death. And I am right with the partial preterists on the consequences of this subtle shift. It can lead to many other heresies, including gnosticism and universalism. The only other solution is to propose that Christ’s coming was imminent, but it was postponed. This is not how God works. Judah was divided in two in history in AD70, as Jesus promised. The Covenant curses fell upon Israel for the last time. That is exactly what all the “comings” in the Old Testament are like.

“So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.”  Exodus 3:8

Any complaint about Jesus not “coming down” visibly in AD70 is ignorant of the Old Testament, or at least applying a different hermeneutic to the New. He came down just as he did to judge Nimrod’s tower (Genesis. 11:7), but it was Herod’s Babylon.

For me, the solution is that Jesus as Adam was judged in the Garden by the Father (for Adam’s sacrilege):

“Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.”  John 12:31

Judah was judged in the Land by the Son (right across the oikoumene) for the sin of fratricide (and note that all the innocent blood shed from Abel fell upon that generation:

“that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the Land, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.” Matthew 23:35

“from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.”  Luke 11:51

“By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.”  Hebrews 11:4 (in the context of Hebrews being an urgent seismic alert to all the “tribes of the Land” (Rev. 1:7)).

“…to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”  Hebrews 12:24

With both the Garden and Land purged and replaced with new worship and new mediators (a heavenly human government), what remains is the end of the New Covenant, the judgment of all nations after a final rebellion described in Revelation 20. The pattern says this should be a judgment by the Spirit but we never read of judgment by the Spirit, only conviction of judgment (John 16). The Spirit builds the church. He is the mortar of true Babel, the empowerer. The final judgment will be carried out under Father and Son by the Church.

“Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?”  (1 Cor. 6:3)

These three judgments correspond to the missions of Noah’s dove. After the first recce, the world is still formless. After the second, the Spirit carries the Branch (totus Christus), and after the third, the Dove-city finally finds a clean place to rest her foot. She takes Dominion over Garden, Land, World, and the earth is finally, truly, a Tabernacle for God. [2]

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1. James B. Jordan, The Production of the New Testament Canon: A Revisionist Suggestion, BIBLICAL HORIZONS No. 56, www.biblicalhorizons.com
2. See also Three Resurrections.

See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the Land, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the Land but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:25-29

The context of Hebrews is AD70. The destruction of Jerusalem meant that the saints had received the kingdom (Daniel 7).

The writer refers to the destruction of Judaism as a sacrifice – a consuming fire in which the animal is purified and ascends to God in glorious clothes of flame. Divided by the sword of the gospel, Judaism was cut in two (Heb. 4:12) to the joints and the marrow. Following Lev. 1, Christ ascended first as head, then the saints ascended as body, by water (Laver) and fire (Altar). The Altar was a symbolic mountain of God.

“The sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.” Exodus 24:17

After the saints received the kingdom, rebellious Judah, prefigured by Judas, would be shortly sent by the ascended Christ (speaking from heaven) to destruction. Atonement is always the outworking of Passover. For those who rejected Passover, there was no more sacrifice for sins. They were un-covered before the eyes of the Lord (Gen. 3:10; Luke 23:30; Rev. 6:16).

Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. Revelation 8:8

For the individual, this ‘division by Covenant’ is completed at death. I don’t believe there will be the same ‘fear’ we experience now. His presence, by His dividing Word, brings death to the flesh. We fall down as dead men and are raised up by His right hand. (In liturgy, this is the confession at the beginning of the worship service).

A believer is covered by Christ’s Passover. My personal Jericho/Atonement finishes the mortification of sin begun in my call from Egypt. The tearing of flesh is again a door to a new Land, and while the traitor is exiled forever to Azal, the disciple eats with Jesus, clothed in ‘consuming fire’, and being like Him, seeing Him as He is (Tabernacles).