Bully's Blog

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Some more thoughts on New Covenant Virility.

The minute details of the Bible matter. What was the Ethiopian eunuch, keeper of the queen’s treasure, reading, and why? In sacred history there are no accidents.

Isaiah 53 is about the barrenness and woundedness of God’s Man. He is circumcision epitomised. Like a eunuch, He is judged by men as unfit for Tabernacle service, judged in the gates (kingdom doors shut) and sent outside the city. He is “stricken,” or afflicted with stroke, God’s “lash” of plague, as unacceptable-for-priesthood as a leper.

“…and who will declare His generation?” Here is an important detail. What does this mean?

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When Ahaziah, king of Judah died, his mother Athaliah wanted to be queen. She ordered all her grandsons to be slaughtered. Only one escaped. The nanny Jehosheba hid baby Joash in the Temple of God for six years.

When he was seven, Jehosheba’s brother, the High Priest, called the royal bodyguards and escorts and showed them the king’s son. Athaliah was executed and the temple of Baal was torn down (2 Kings 11).

The Bible gives us a family tree, with a single “royal” bloodline from Adam to Jesus (see Matthew 1). If Joash had died with his brothers, that bloodline would have been severed, making impossible the fulfilment of God’s promise in Genesis 3: the offspring of Eve would crush the serpent’s head.

King Herod also slaughtered innocent children. One escaped: Jesus. He too would be anointed King and tear down all false worship by dying as payment for the sins of mankind. This task continued with the destruction of Herod’s Jerusalem in AD70 and will continue until all His enemies are under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:25-26).

“And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight — if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven…”  (Colossians 1:21-23)

Merry Christmas from the Bulls. Thanks for reading! Catch you in 2010…

and the Usefulness of the Blood of Abel

“…you have come… to the blood of sprinkling that speaks [more useful, more serviceable, more advantageous] things than [that of] Abel.”  Hebrews 12:22-24

In Biblical Horizons newsletter 203, James Jordan argues that since Cain’s “exodus” to build a city occurred around 130 years after the Fall, he was publicly humiliated before thousands. He would have been accompanied by at least 1000 people, so he didn’t build the city on his own.

This means that Adam, like Solomon, was father to a divided kingdom. 1 Kings presents Solomon as a new Adam, even down to his naming of animals in his biological studies. Cain was like Jeroboam, shown mercy, given a chance, but who then caused Israel to sin.

What does Genesis give us after this? Continue reading