Jesus’ reference to Daniel 7 in Matthew 26:64 (and Mark 14:62) is a source of some confusion. To figure out what is actually going on in Daniel’s vision, we have to go back to Leviticus 16. James Jordan writes:

…when Jesus calls Himself “the Son of Man,” He is referring to Ezekiel, not to Daniel 7 (except perhaps indirectly). Jesus is the Greater Ezekiel. Christians are those who are “like the Son of Man,” like Jesus.

The Day of Coverings: Coming With Heavenly Clouds

Turning from Ezekiel, there is another passage in the Bible with which the Jews were very familiar, that is farther in the background of Daniel 7, and that is Leviticus 16. On the Day of Coverings (of “Atonement” in English Bibles), the High Priest took off his glorious garments and dressed simply in linen in order to remove the sins of the people once a year. Then, after finishing this work, he was reinvested with glory, and once again took up his position as spiritual ruler of Israel.

Two coverings happened on the Day of Coverings. First, the Ark-Cover was sprinkled and thereby covered with blood. This was a covering for propitiation, justification. Then the High Priest put back on his garments of glory and beauty. This was a covering for glorification.

Now, removing sins is not in view on Daniel 7, but other aspects of the ritual are. We have seen that Ezekiel was a kind of high priest, and it follows that in Ezekiel “son of man” is a title for the High Priest, the spiritual ruler of God’s people. Adam was priest in the Garden of Eden, and the “son of adam” is a new Adam, ruling in the symbolic sanctuary garden of the Tabernacle and Temple. Hence, “son of Adam” or “New Adam” is entirely appropriate as a title for the Chief Priest of God’s sanctuary.

An examination of the ritual in Leviticus 16 will clarify aspects of Daniel 7 for us, aspects that would have been much clearer to Daniel and his friends who “meditated on the law day and night” and who had observed this ritual annually before they were deported to Babylon.

The ritual is delineated in Leviticus 16. We read in verses 12–14 that the High Priest was to take coals from the fire of the Bronze Altar in the Courtyard. Then he was to fill the hollow of both his hands with incense, place it upon the coals, and carry this incense into the Holy of Holies directly before Ark-Throne of Yahweh. This incense was most holy, or “holy of holy” (Exodus 30:34–38). Its ingredients were prescribed by God and it was used only in the Tabernacle/Temple, which was a symbolic model of God’s heavens. The cloud of incense, thus, was a symbolic cloud of the heavens. Being “most holy” this incense could travel into the Most Holy room. [1]

As the High Priest walked from the Altar on the earth upwards (symbolically) through the heavens and into the highest heavens, he did so accompanied by this heavenly cloud. Inside the Holy of Holies, the High Priest held the incense pan in one hand, and a bowl of blood in his other hand, from which he flicked with his finger blood toward the Ark-Throne. This blood was to cover his sins and those of the other priests (Leviticus 16:11).

After this, as a second ritual, the High Priest did the same thing with a goat slain for the sins of the people, taking incense into the Holy of Holies and sprinkling the blood of the goat before the Ark-Throne (Leviticus 16:15).

After all the rituals were completed, the High Priest took off the garments he had been wearing, and put back on his garments of glory and beauty (Leviticus 16:23–24). These garments included the twelve tribes engraven on his shoulder stones and also on his twelve-stoned breastplate. In other words, the High Priest was given the kingdom on the Day of Coverings — he put the kingdom back on himself.

Now if we look back at Daniel 7:13–14, we see the same sequence. We see someone like Ezekiel, who was a kind of high priest for the exilic community. This High Priest approaches Yahweh with the clouds of heaven. Then he is given a kingdom that will never pass away.

We must remember that the High Priest represented the people. The High Priest is the son of man, and the people are those who are like this son of man. In Leviticus 16, the High Priest comes with heavenly incense clouds first for himself, and then he comes a second time for the people. Thus, there are two cloudy ascensions in Leviticus 16, the first of the son of man, and the second of those who are like the son of man.

In Daniel 7:13, the one like a son of man does not come riding upon heavenly clouds. He is not a cloud-rider. He is not a “divine figure.” No, he comes with heavenly clouds, and can be recognized as the High Priest, or rather, as those who are like the High Priest. In Daniel 7, the Ancient of Days, the Cloud-Rider, has already arrived.

We are not surprised, then, to read that the one like a son of man is identified not with any particular person, such as the coming Messiah, but with the saints (Daniel 7:18, 22, 25). Now, Daniel would not have been aware that the Messiah would be the incarnate Yahweh. Hence, he might well have seen the one like a son of man as the Messiah coming to Yahweh to receive the kingdom. That is, Daniel could have seen this figure as both the people and their Messianic head. At the same time, as we have seen, the clear allusions to Leviticus 16 might have complicated things for Daniel, because there are two ascensions, one of the son of man and one of the people of the son of man. We, however, cannot be confused. The Ancient of Days is Yahweh, and taking his seat must be the ascension of Jesus and the opening of the books seen in Revelation 4–7. The one like a son of man, like Jesus, is the saints, who ascend to receive the kingdom in the year AD 70.

For Christians today it is not so clear, because the background of Daniel 7 in Ezekiel and in Leviticus 16 is not well understood. They see Jesus ascending to heaven in the clouds (Acts 1:9) and they think that is all there is to it, forgetting the second cloudy ascension in Leviticus 16. But Leviticus 16 makes clear that first the High Priest ascends in a heavenly cloud, and then afterwards the people (represented by the goats and the High Priest) ascend.

Similarly, Christians have been too quick to read the various statements in the New Testament about the “son of man coming in/with clouds” to refer to Jesus Himself. In some passages this may be the case, since Jesus is the Son of Man and He did ascend in the clouds. But in other passages, it seems that it is the second ascension, that of the saints, that is in view. We shall conclude this chapter by examining these passages.

_______________________________________________
[1] Frankincense in the system was “holy,” but compound incense, being a mixture, was “most holy.” Mixtures are always holy, which is why the layman was to avoid them. I have treated this matter fully in James B. Jordan, The Law of Forbidden Mixtures. Biblical Horizons Occasional Paper 6 (Niceville, FL: Biblical Horizons, 1989).

(James B. Jordan, The Handwriting On The Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, 337-340.)

Jordan’s discussion of the “cloud-coming” passages in the New Testament is enlightening, as is the rest of his must-have commentary on Daniel, available here.

And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11:17)

The same word is used of the men crucified alongside Jesus in Mark 15:27.

And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

Is this merely coincidental, or is there something deeper going on? Is there a link between the “white collar” Temple crimes and the “blue collar” criminals?

The word itself derives from booty or plunder, so the connotation is theft from the vulnerable.

The link between the Temple and the thieves at the crucifixion is implicit (not explicit in the text as such) but obvious once we take sacred architecture into account, which is a foreign idea to moderns, but nonetheless a consistent type as far as the Bible is concerned.

The original theft occurred in the Garden of Eden, in the first Sanctuary. It was theft from God, with consequences outside the Garden, that is, in the Land then in the World. The Temple itself replicated these three domains: the Most Holy (Garden), the Holy Place (the Land/Israel) and the Gentile Courts (the Nations/World).

Because the Herodian High Priesthood had usurped the authority of God’s commandments, the outflow corrupted the sacrifices and then Israel’s Covenant witness to the nations. The imaging of Yahweh to the nations by His people (as a kind of corporate “Adam”) was inaccurate, corrupt.

We can see this reflected in the structure of the Ten Commandments, which echo the events of Genesis 1-3. Adam stole from God, and God asked Adam for a legal confession of what he had done, that He might show mercy. Theft and legal witness are consecutive commands, followed by commands concerning “house and contents,” or Israel as a shelter, a “Booth” for the Gentiles. (Remember also the true testimony of Jesus and the false witnesses brought against Him by the priesthood.)

The same architecture is inherent in the crucifixion, where the two robbers are “blessing and cursing,” two Covenant witnesses. Christ is the High Priest and these two men take the roles of  Cain and Abel, sons of thieves (and also of the two goats on the Day of Atonement [1]). The one who humbles himself “unto death” in a priestly fashion is the one who will be exalted in the kingdom. The other, who exalts himself as a usurping “king” against the Son of God is the one who will be humbled and receive nothing. So once again we have theft and legal witness tied together.

Finally, “plunder” is a Covenant concept which is also both positive and negative. Obedience to God’s Laws brings a “multiplication” of the heart of those under Covenant. Obedience brings plunder from God’s hand. Disobedience brings plagues from God’s hand. Plunder and plagues were tied together as “swarms” in Egypt (with Israel herself as a kind of “swarm” which plundered the Egyptians). We see it again in the “multiplication” of the victory of the Ark of the Covenant in Philistia, where the gold they sent with the Ark (as plunder) was actually fashioned in the shape of plagues, (bubonic?) tumors and rats.

The theme of vulnerability in all cases is “bridal,” that is, those who are under the priestly representation (of Adam, or Israel), whose offspring, as the future, are at stake in Adam’s mediation on her behalf before God. In Eden, this was Eve, the great “multiplier,” the mother of all. In Israel, it was the tribes under the mediation of a faithful High Priest. In the world, it was all nations under the ministry and witness of Israel as a corporate Adam, “cut” and bloodied to bring the kings of the nations — and their riches — in willing submission to God.

The flipside of “Adamic” theft is “Christian” generosity. What goes on in the World and the Land (from petty crime right up to theft by the state) is a result of what goes on in the Sanctuary. Cultus inevitably informs culture.

Let the thief no longer steal, (Garden) but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, (Land) so that he may have something to share with anyone in need (World). (Ephesians 4:28)

___________________________________________
[1] See Remember Me.
ART: Bible images created using Google Earth.

The history of the Bible is written in blood

Mike Bull wrote,”God desired a world covered by blood.”

Mr. Bull’s latest book spells out the essence of the bible and Christianity: it’s a blood cult. Christians drink the blood of Christ during Mass, They are “covered in His blood”, “washed clean with His blood”, they praise the idea of blood sacrifice over and over again. The highest grossing religious film of all time, Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, was as Mike Bull wrote, “a new cinematic genre: the religious splatter film” and Christians all over the world got what they wanted in buckets… blood, blood and more blood.

As Mike writes in his blog, “The Old Testament is a bloody book.” It is. The god of the OT was perhaps the most prolific mass murderer of all of the fictional characters ever created by man. If you add up all of his children that the loving OT god murdered, cities, tribes, families, men, women, children and babies, it numbers over 25 million people.

The history of the Bible is written in blood and the history of man using the image of god is bathed in blood. From the toting of the ark of the covenant into battle to Hitler’s “Gott Mit Uns” to modern day Jihadists and American military snipers with bible verses inscribed on their rifle scopes, every despotic regime employs god to rally the faithful and justify the blood spilled.

As Howard Zinn wrote so eloquently, “If you can make people believe in absurdities, you can make them commit atrocities.” So very true.

I used to be a member of the Christian blood cult but I took pause when it came to teaching my children the atrocities of biblical history and the bizarre idea of “love” purported by it. I couldn’t infect their precious minds with it, so I turned away. I now teach them to be critical thinkers instead of telling them my hero is a god who puts a condition on his love: that he would banish his children to an eternity of torture if they choose not to love him “unconditionally”. This is no role model I aspire to as a father.

Unlike the Christian god, I love my children and would never ask them to drink my blood, eat my flesh, knife their own children for me or a thousand other horrid tales of murder and destruction that are codified in the “good” book.

My reply:

Thanks for the review, Samiam. I think you have missed the point (and I do wonder if you actually read much of my book, seeing as you don’t actually deal with it much).

The first sentence you quote referred to the sacrificial system. Animals were slaughtered in a “model world” (the Tabernacle) in the place of humans. This was an act of mercy. It looks to me like you just skimmed through book looking for hot-button sentences to use in a review. It’s a pity you didn’t check the context because it makes you look a fool. My book was written to give people a better understanding of what’s actually going on in the Old Testament. Either I didn’t communicate it clearly enough or you didn’t actually read it. Or, you read it with prejudice.

The point is this: sin is atoned for in blood, but the world is now covered, that is, PROTECTED, by the blood of God’s only Son. The choice is this: it’s our blood and the blood of our children as a condemned race, or protection under the covering of Jesus as our “human shield.” Sounds like you have made your choice.

As Howard Zinn wrote so eloquently, ‘If you can make people believe in absurdities, you can make them commit atrocities.’ So very true.

If blood upsets you, perhaps you should consider the 100 million murdered by atheists in the 20th century, or the 30 million unborn children slaughtered by unbelievers in American alone over the past 4 decades? It’s time to open that other eye to the hypocritical sanctimony of atheism. It’s more bloody than any other religion.

The Bible is a bloody book because we are sinners. Pure and simple.

Blood sickens us, but our sin doesn’t. That’s what is at the heart of the modern hatred of the Bible. The shedding of blood pleased God because it atoned for sin and allowed a new beginning.

Wait till samiam reads God’s Kitchen.

And with the elect thou wilt be elect:
and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted.
(Psalm 18:26, Douay-Rheims Bible)

bmxiireview

“Idolatry is the Bible Matrix rendered impotent.”

You get out of life only what you put in, or so the saying goes. According to the Bible Matrix, you are supposed to get out more than you put in.

The single grain of wheat that dies is supposed to bring an abundant harvest. A life is given to God in the faith that He will take what is given and turn it into an increase. This is also found in the Covenant pattern: “Who’s the boss?; who’s His representative?; what do I have to do?; what do I get?; and, what’s next? Obedience brings plunder; disobedience brings plagues. [1]

Idolatry is the Bible Matrix rendered impotent. It is a poker machine that never pays out, a Covenant foolishly made with a god who cannot produce the goods. In our day, this is all the -isms mentioned the other day (and see Ray Sutton on ethics versus magic in his book, That You May Prosper, quoted in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.) It is men giving their all for tinpot men and tinsel ideologies that inevitably fail them. And shame them.

In the days of Jeremiah, it was lives and livestock given to tinpot gods. Instead of the sacrifices covering the people (as in The Day of Coverings, Atonement), that they might stand before God with heads lifted high, and minister to the world, the people would lie down, covered in shame. Peter Leithart writes:

Toward the end of a polemic against Judah’s idolatry, which occupies every hill and mountain and leafy tree, Jeremiah makes this comment: “the shameful thing has consumed the labor of our fathers since our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters” (Jeremiah 3:24). “Shameful thing” is bosheth, which could mean, abstractly, “shame.”  Jeremiah follows with an exhortation to “lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us” (v. 25).  Shame is clearly an effect of idolatry. But in Jeremiah 11:3, the same word refers to an idol for which Judah sets up altars and to which they burn incense. In 3:24, the context supports the NASB translation as “shameful thing,” the shameful idol that causes shame.

Devotion to the shameful thing not only causes shame, but impoverishment.  Quite literally, idols eat (‘akal) our labor and its products. All the time invested in raising sheep, oxen, goats literally goes up in flames when offered to a nothing.  Sons and daughters pass through the fire, and all the invested hopes and energies are consumed. For Scripture, the same things offered to Yahweh are glorified and multiplied; not shame but glory is the product of sacrificing our labor to Him.

Our idols are as insatiable as ancient ones: Addictions, for instance, consume money, time, energy, life, children, marriages – and for what? The only product is humiliation.

Perhaps the prophet deliberately used the ambiguity of shame/shameful thing. [2] They would lie down in their idols, a slumber that was not God’s rest.

Lives offered to Christ bring a plunder for God that is eternal, even if the results are not seen in this generation or even in this life. We can offer him our “flocks and herds,” our sons and daughters, and our very lives, and see an increase of 30, 60 or 100 fold. Not only will we not be ashamed when we stand before Him, but He removes our shame now. The power of the accuser is the stigma of sin. In Christ, prostitutes and publicans, and even failed disciples, can lift up their heads, and minister to the nations. Jesus paid it all (mercy), and He keeps paying out (grace).

Creation – Transcendence – Sabbath
‘You shall call Me, “My Father,”
And not turn away from Me.’

Division – Hierarchy – Passover
Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband,
So have you dealt treacherously with Me,
O house of Israel,” says the Lord.

Ascension – Ethics 1 – Firstfruits
A voice was heard on the desolate heights,
Weeping and supplications of the children of Israel.

Testing – Ethics 2 – Pentecost
For they have perverted their way;
They have forgotten the Lord their God.

Maturity – Ethics 3 – Trumpets
“Return, you backsliding children,
And I will heal your backslidings.”
…..“Indeed we do come to You,
…..For You are the Lord our God.
……….Truly, in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills,
……….And from the multitude of mountains;
……………Truly, in the Lord our God
……………Is the salvation of Israel.
……….For shame has devoured
……….The labor of our fathers from our youth—
…..Their flocks and their herds,
…..Their sons and their daughters.
(No Succession)

Conquest – Sanctions – Atonement
We lie down in our shame,
And our reproach covers us.
For we have sinned against the Lord our God,
We and our fathers,
From our youth even to this day,
And have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

There is no stanza 7 in this speech, no rest, no glory. Shameless Israel was devoured by shame.

_______________________________
[1] See Golden Emerods.
[2] For the prophets, language with a double meaning was a veiled blade. Ambiguous use of a word, done rightly, is the two-edged dagger of Ehud. In fact, Ehud announced that he had a dabar for Eglon, a Hebrew word which means “word,” or “thing.” Turns out it was a double-edged word, a physical “thing” that was not void. The blade went in and the machine paid out.

“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.

_____________________________________
[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.)

“…and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand.” (Exodus 24:10-11)

Well, I’ve been blustering on about art and “intuition” in generalities for about a week now. Fluffy generalities are exactly the kind of thing that annoys me about many Biblical scholars, and I reckon it annoys God, too. They never seem to get down to specifics, and He is very specific. This shows in His architecture, and also in His literary architecture. So, here, in a section of Matthew 14, is a chance for me to get specific and show you what is possible with this “killer hermeneutic.” [1]

After a brief look at the structure of this passage the other day, I thought I’d spend some more time on it. A closer analysis has revealed an even greater beauty than I expected. (I have briefly referenced the order of words in the Greek to avoid any great missteps, so it may not be perfect, but it’s close.) Much learning hath indeed made me mad but I hope you’ll take a few minutes to see this passage through my eyes.

Creation – Initiation (Genesis)
Immediately Jesus
…..made His disciples
……….get into the boat
……………and go before Him
……….to the other side,
…..while He sent
the multitudes away.

This first stanza initiates the action. The story follows the story of the Father and His Son. The Son is sent on a mission, and then He returns, with brethren, “the Bride.” Father and Son are together at the beginning, and reunited at the end. But at the end, unlike Adam, the Son is vindicated in the presentation His spotless Bride.

However, here we have the next step in authority It is Jesus here who is the Transcendent One, not the Father. And the Covenant Hierarchy is the disciples. (Notice the same pattern at the beginning of the Revelation: a vision of Jesus, then the letters to His delegation, the pastors of the churches.) The boat appears here at Ascension. The command to “go” appears as the Ethics (Testing). Notice that the boat here is a kind of Day 3 “Land” and the other side is the Day 5 “transformed Land,” the heavenly country. Obedience to the Law of Christ takes them from the Bronze Altar (bloody Jewish Body of Moses) to the Golden Altar (fragrant Jew-Gentile Body of Christ), from the Loaves to the Fishes, from the Land of Israel to the Sea of the Nations, from the one-nation Priesthood of Aaron to the all-nations Priesthood of Melchizedek. Then, we have “He” as the Day 6 Mediator (Atonement), and finally the multitudes at Booths, the corporate glory of a commissioned people.

This practice God has of using repeated structures means that this even little stanza can retell, or comment on, every other part of the Bible, and indeed its source in the Trinity, in so few words. I find this totally mind blowing. There is nothing else like the Bible. This is usually the point where my eyes tear up and I fall on my face.

And that’s just the first stanza!

Division – Delegation (Exodus)
And when He (Creation)
…..had sent the multitudes away, (Division)
……….He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. (Ascension)
……………Now when evening came, (Testing)
……….He was alone there. (Maturity)
…..But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, (Conquest)
tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. (Glorification)

Just as the “seven” of the Sabbath-week set the pattern for the annual feasts, we begin to see that this first stanza sets the pattern for this entire story. This second stanza follows the same structure, yet every line also references events in Exodus. In many cases here, as is a frequent practice, our literary expectations are confounded. Matthew gives us the exact opposite of what is expected. At Division, God divides the waters, tears Adam open, to make an empty space, a Holy Place, for something new. Jesus is turning the Old Covenant on its head, tearing the Veil, to do something that is just like everything that has gone before and yet nothing like it.

Jesus is Moses, the Called, and the multitudes are now used by Matthew to divide the Head from the Body. Jesus is Moses ascending the mountain, away from the children of Israel, to intercede for them as “Firstfruits” of a greater harvest.

Instead of sun, moon and stars, or a reference to the Lampstand, or eyes and sight, at the centre, we have darkness. This is a firmament that is yet to be filled. This second stanza, although a complete “week,” is Day 2 of a new Creation.

Day 5 is about swarms, living clouds in the waters above and the waters below, the hosts of angels and the hosts of the nations. But here, Jesus is alone in the dark. Analysis of the literary structure is the only way to discern the purpose of many of the details included by the author.

At Day 6, we have the Laver, the crystal sea, the mediator between heaven and earth. Jesus’ “Body” is trapped in the Sea, unable to ascend with Him through the Veil into glory, held back by the nations and an evil spirit. Seeing as the entire first century history follows this exact pattern, the “contrary wind” is the demonic spirit sent by the Lord upon those who rejected the true Spirit at Pentecost, and the waves are the nations in tumult, Herod and Nero, working together against the firstfruits church as did Herod and Pilate: friends for a day.

After His Ascension, Jesus was alone in glory, but not for long. Nothing would stop the ascension of the body of the sacrifice. In fact, the entire Land would be torn apart, broken in two, to allow the smoke to ascend and the ashes to fall away. It would be Aaron and Korah all over again.

Ascension – Presentation (Leviticus – nearbringing)
Now in the fourth watch of the night
…..Jesus went to them,
……….walking on the sea.
……………And when the disciples saw Him
……….walking on the sea,
…..they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!”
And they cried out for fear.

The fourth watch might reference the four horns of the Bronze Altar, which is where we are up to in the architecture. Jesus is the High Priest entering the darkness of the Old Covenant Tabernacle. At line three of stanza three (Ascension within Ascension), He is already there, on the crystal sea, ruling over the nations. Line 4 is Testing, and the eyes here are the eyes of the disciples, which have been opened to judge rightly.

Now we have the waters above and below (at least in the literary structure) with the disciples as the Ruling Lights at the centre. Matthew is prefiguring Pentecost in stanza 3. In line 6, Atonement, the disciples are troubled. Israel was to mourn before the Day of Coverings. Jesus is “a ghost,” passing through the Veil, even though it appears to be a “closed door.” Later, Jesus passed through walls or a closed door to appear to His disciples who were fearfully hiding in a locked room (John 20:19). It is the Bridal Head coming to rescue the Bridal Body. The whole point is that He is NOT a ghost. He is FLESH that has been justified before God.

Testing – Purification (Numbers – Law opened)
But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, (Initiation – Call)
…..“Be of good cheer! (Delegation – Un-Passover)
……….It is I; (Presentation – Firstfruits)
……………do not be afraid.” (Purification – un-OT Pentecost)
……….And Peter answered Him and said, (Transformation – Trumpets)
…..“Lord, if it is You, (Co-Mediators: Vindication of Head…)
…..command me to come to You on the water.” (Ascension of Body)
So He said, “Come.” (Restoration – Booths)

Here, Jesus speaks as Yahweh. But instead of the mourning of Passover, He says “be happy!” He presents Himself as Firstfruits, the first Adamic dust to bear good fruit. Instead of asking them to tremble at His Law, He tells them not to be afraid. He will deliver them from the evil, the Covenant Curse.

Peter responds as the New Bridal Body, the “witness.” Then we have the Head and Body together on the Sea as co-regents.

Maturity – Transformation (Deuteronomy – Law received)
And when Peter had come down out of the boat,
…..he walked on the water to go to Jesus.
……….But when he saw that the wind was boisterous,
……………he was afraid;
……….and beginning to sink he cried out,
…..saying, “Lord, save me!”

But, just as in the first century, things didn’t go according to plan. Many would lose their faith and fall away. Witnesses are martyrs. Following Jesus means following Him through death and resurrection, which is what all saints do to some degree.

As was noted online this week, it is odd that Peter saw the wind. Notice that Peter’s eyes are not at the centre of the Covenant chiasm. Fear is. Peter’s “Bridal” voice here is a cry for Atonement, for vengeance, echoing the cries of the saints in the Apocalypse. Notice that this stanza has no line 7, no rest, no heavenly country.

Conquest – Vindication (Joshua – Coverings)
And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand (Transcendence)
…..and caught him, and said to him, (Hierarchy)
……….“O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Ethics – Walking by Sight)
…..And when they got into the boat, (Sanctions)
the wind ceased. (Succession)

This stanza might have seven lines, but keeping it as a five makes its Covenant shape more apparent.

Jesus is the Ark, and His hand is the arm of a golden measuring rod, an extension of the Law. Instead of being a serpent in Moses’ hand, it is the authority of the true Adam that brings life instead of death, reaching through the Veil.

“For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Matthew 7:2 2)

He is the High Priest whose hand brings resurrection instead of death, blessing instead of cursing, as He touches the sacrificial goat.

Glorification – Restoration (Righteous Judges – Seers – Shekinah)
Then those who were in the boat
…..came and worshiped Him,
……….saying,

……………“Truly (Transcendence)
………………..You (Hierarchy – servant Moses [Veil])
…………………….are (Ethics – “I am”) [Lampstand - Fiery Bush]
………………..the Son (Sanctions – son Christ [Veil Torn])
……………of God.” (Succession)

The final stanza is only a three-and-a-half. But the half itself follows the Covenant pattern, and as such, these five words on their own echo the entire journey of the Son from heaven to earth and back again. Notice that it is now the disciples who are in the initiating position of authority. They are elohim, gods and judges, representatives of the Son.

But, this is only a three-and-a-half. Jesus’ life was only half a life, the “Adam” (singular, not plural) half of the Ten Words (1-3-5-7-9: see Bible Matrix II, p. 63 – oh OK, here it is! and also Half A Life.) The story is not over. The actual ascension of the Firstfruits Body would complete the Shekinah Glory of Israel, and allow the gospel to proceed in full force to the nations. Based on that observation, what does it mean that the entire passage follows the pattern, but that the final stanza is not complete? Here’s my guess: the final stanza is Booths and so far it is only Jews who are worshipping. Israel consistently failed to complete the mission of this feast.

I know many people are skeptical of this method of interpretation, but this passage is an easy one if we have a head full of Old Testament imagery, architecture, history and structure, as Jesus did, as the disciples did. The whole Bible really is all about Jesus, in a greater way than modern interpreters could imagine in their wildest dreams. If only they had ears to hear and eyes to see.

Now I think I will go and have another cry. Even the weight of the literary glory is too much for the tiny mind of a sinner.

______________________________________
[1] Rich Bledsoe’s twinkle-eyed description of the Bible Matrix. Well, he thinks that I think it is.

“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.

________________________________

[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.

or What’s the Problem with Matthew 27:51-53?

Then, behold,
(Day 1 – Imperative / Light)
…..the veil of the temple
…..was torn in two
…..from top to bottom;
…..(Day 2 – Delegation / Waters)
……….and the Land quaked,
……….and the rocks were split,
……….(Day 3 – Law-Promise given)
……………and the graves were opened;
……………(Day 4 – Law-Promise opened)
……….and many bodies of the saints
……….who had fallen asleep were raised;
……….(Day 5 – Swarms / Witnesses)
…..and coming out of the graves
…..after His resurrection,
…..(Day 6 – Mediators)
they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
(Day 7 – Bridal Entry)

I’ve just read a few blog posts and comments concerning this text, and although it seems to us moderns to be

a) off-the-cuff,

b) strange, and to some academics

c), utterly incredible,

this is because the academics I was reading

a) are unfamiliar with literary structure and typology,

b) imagine a some discontinuity between the strange Old Testament prophets and Jesus, and

c) won’t believe the bizarre bits of the Bible unless they find them

i) corroborated elsewhere in the Bible,

ii) corroborated in Josephus, etc., or

iii) can discredit them by classifying them as a genre (such as apocalyptic, which is not a biblical genre) that renders them non-historical and thus non-embarrassing.

This

is

disgusting.

I’m not sure what the problem is with this event. Resurrection is always corporate, always plural. [1] Christ, the first “grain of wheat,” handed the baton on to His disciples and they did the same — as grains of Pentecostal wheat. The Garden “died” for the Land and the Land “died” for the World.

Their deaths resulted in what Revelation calls the “first” resurrection — all the Old Covenant saints entering into their rest, seated on thrones and judging (taking vengeance) on the leaders of Israel. That’s what Revelation’s about.

So the stuff that happens at the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ-as-Israel was a microcosm of the events that would happen to Israel herself over the following generation — “this generation.”

Judas was expelled, so Judah was expelled. The rocks were split and the veil was torn, so the Land was divided by the Gospel and the Temple was destroyed. And the small-scale resurrection in Matthew 27 prefigured the ascension of the “saints under the altar,” who had to wait until the final legal (i.e. “two”) witnesses testified against the Herodian Sodom/Egypt/Jericho/Babylon.

What do the preceding verses say? Which prophet prefigured the Ascension? [2] Which prophet prefigured the Resurrection? Jesus’ murderers, though they misheard Him, and though they themselves were “whited tombs,” knew the Scriptures.

The rest said, (Initiation)
…..“Let Him alone; (Delegation)
……….let us see if Elijah (Ascension)
………..will come to save Him.” (Offering)
……………And Jesus (Purification)
……….cried out again (Deut. Transformation)
…..with a loud voice, (Vindication / Oath)
and yielded up His spirit. (Ingathering)
(Matthew 27:49-50)

Then Elisha died, (De-Creation / Sabbath)
…..and they buried him. (Prostration / Passover)
……….And the [raiding] bands
……….from Moab invaded the land
……….in the spring of the year. (Firstfruits)
……………So it was, as they were burying a man,
……………that suddenly they spied a band [of raiders;]
……………(Testing – Pentecost)
……….and they put the man in the tomb of Elisha;
……….(Trumpets / Prophets)
…..and when the man was let down
…..and touched the bones of Elisha, (Atonement / Coverings)
he revived and stood on his feet. (Tabernacles / Succession)
(2 Kings 13:20-21)

____________________________________
[1] See Greater Eve.
[2] See The Lost Ark.

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.

The Living Dead and the Dead Living

Creation: In part 1 we saw that the theme of the first stanza of 2 Thessalonians 2 was the “Sabbath” rest of the church. Paul writes to remove the alarm caused by the “conspiracy theorists” who attempted to disturb it.

Division: The second stanza concerned the splitting of the church into two — those who would persevere despite the growing threat of tribulation throughout the empire [1], and those who would succumb to their fears. The attacks would culminate in the completion of Herod’s Temple and the Nero’s burning of Rome in AD64. The first threw doubt upon the words of Christ concerning the Temple, and the second, though hardly believed, was an excuse to scapegoat this new Jew-Gentile sect, now legally separated from the protection afforded to Jews by Rome. The gospel tore Judaism in two. Then it united those believing Jews with Gentiles. But as in the wilderness, new Israel would be threshed and purified.

Ascension (Altar): The third stanza played on the theme of the Temple Altar and the Ascension offering. Rather than humbling themselves to be exalted by God, the rulers of the Land (badly translated “kings of the earth” in Revelation) exalted themselves as blameless before God. Unlike Christ, the dead living, they were in God’s eyes nothing more than the living dead.

The passage has two cycles for Ascension (we can tell this by the subject matter of stanza 5). I have found this is quite common. It allows one line or stanza for the Bronze Altar and one for the Golden Table: one for the earth from which the grain and fruit (flesh and blood) is harvested, and one for their presentation in the heavenly tent as a worthy “nearbringing.” With the sacrificial pattern in mind, the literary structure makes visible some pretty cool stuff.

Ascension (Table) – Firstfruits Church as Lot in Sodom

Do you not remember (Ark – Light)
…..that when I was still with you (Veil/Hierarchy)
……….I told you these things? (Altar – Sinai – Law given)
……….And now you know what is restraining, (Firstfruits – nearbringing)
……………that he may be revealed in his own time. (Lampstand)
……….For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; (Witnesses – Law repeated)
…..only He who now restrains [will do so] (Mediators)
until [out of the midst he is gone]. (Succession)

The word “restrain” appears twice. It also means “bind.” In the matrix structure, the first half concerns “forming” under the Law (childhood). The sacrifice is bound, offered as an Ascension, as Isaac was (the true Adamic “son of cutting off.”) The second half concerns “filling,” the maturity of adulthood, the “loosing” of the Bride. Adam is bound, cut, and Eve is loosed from his side.

The sacrificial type is important, but it is a symbol. Paul was bound with a chain. Moses complained of Israel “breaking loose.” What is the actual nature of “restraint” when it comes to principalities and powers according to the Bible? James Jordan writes:

“…one of the most important duties of a ruler is to restrain the waywardness of the people, using the power given him. To the magistrate is given the sword, to the church ruler is given excommunication, and to parents is given the rod. Those who are given these powers, and who refuse to use them to restrain those under them, become partially guilty when those under them wander into sin.” [2]

When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh answered him,
“Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you!
This one will restrain My people” (1 Samuel 9:17).

The biblical pattern of restraint concerns governors, including rulers like Eli, who failed to restrain his sons. So who was it that restrained the Herods from another massacre of biblical proportions when Paul wrote? Jordan writes:

The Church and her evangelism in Palestine created fence-sitters who were restraining apostate Judaism. An example is Gamaliel, Acts 5:33-42. Perhaps the falling away of so many early Christians into the Judaizing heresy would release the Man of Sin.” My own best guess is that the restrainer is the presence of believers in Jerusalem, whose presence kept Sodom from being destroyed. Their captain was James. [3]

Besides “Babylon,” Jerusalem is also called Egypt and Sodom in the Revelation, a prophetic practice we also observe in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and originating in Moses (Deut. 32:32). The city could not be destroyed until the righteous were removed. How were they removed? They became a righteous firstfruits offering, a harvest of grain and fruit predicted in Revelation 14, with Jesus swinging the sickle.

Interestingly, the literal translation of the final line is “out of the midst.” The idea of the “midst” at this point is very common. Just as the people of God are set apart with a veil of circumcision (Passover blood), so the Atonement step is a “passing-through.” We see this in the Lord’s prefiguring of Israel’s entry into Canaan by “passing through” the divided animals, and also (and terrifyingly) in Jesus’ passing safely through the midst of the Jews who desired to bring down the Covenant curses upon Him by their own hands. [4] The festal picture is the High Priest passing through the Veil, symbolically tearing it as flesh on the Day of Atonement.

Testing – AD70 as Greater Pentecost

And then the lawless one (un-Ark)
…..will be revealed, (un-Veil)
……….whom the Lord will consume (un-Altar)
……….with the breath of His mouth (un-Table)
……………and destroy with the brightness of His coming. (un-Lampstand)

Now we come to the phrase, “the breath of his mouth.” Some translation render “breath” as “spirit.” Either is fine, because the image comes from the Lord breathing life into the Altar, the earthen mound made flesh, of Adam. Yes, even that process follows the Bible Matrix. Only, here it only gets so far. The Spirit of the Lord came flashing to and fro “in the spirit of the day” as He did in Eden (Genesis 3:18).

The final Pentecost in the first century was the destruction of the Old Temple by fire. The house of prayer for all nations was now the apostolic church. The Jewish war tore the final veil away, and the identity of the true sons of God was manifested (Romans 8:19 – don’t worry, this is what always happens when the Lord comes in judgment, and there is a greater judgment to come).

Maturity – False Witnesses under Covenant
The coming of the [lawless one] (False Advent)
…..is according to the working of Satan, (False Delegate)
……….(False 3-decker Temple)
……….with all power, (Head – Word)
……….signs, and (Hands – Signs)
……….lying wonders, (Feet – Serpents)
……………and with all unrighteous deception
……………among those who perish,
……….because they did not receive
…..the love of the truth,
that they might be saved.

If you have Bible Matrix: The Covenant Key, you’ll know that the Ten Commandments follow the matrix structure (I disagree with Ray Sutton’s structure on this one). The commandments have been renumbered (according to Augustine’s “scroll” division) which puts “Stealing” and “False Witness” at level 4, Sanctions. This seems to be a combination of the Maturity and Conquest sections of the matrix structure. It demonstrates that the context of “false witness” is the courtroom, the same kind of false witnesses brought against Jesus, to have him falsely accused and falsely condemned. Instead of the “two witnesses” pattern begun at the death of Abel/conviction of Cain, the Cainite Herods are Jannes and Jambres, court magicians to a Herodian Pharaoh (yes, this is the context of Paul’s warning in 2 Timothy 3:8).

So, the theme of this fifth point (stanza 6) concerns the lying under Covenant oath of the rulers of the Old Covenant. By destroying Jesus, they brought the Holy Spirit from heaven to the Church. By destroying the church, they led the unbelieving Jews into a fiery holocaust engineered by the Spirit, under the true Covenant “testimony of Jesus.” The unbelieving Jews cursed the brethren of Jesus, and the sharp edge of the promise to Abraham was fulfilled upon them.

“I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you…” (Genesis 12:3)

Dispensationalists make terrible mistakes when it comes to this promise. Those of faith are the sons of Abraham.

The Holy Spirit is a consuming fire. Baptism is a Noahic flood. The Table of Communion is the cross. The Christian receives all of these “curses” as “blessings” because they are given to us in sacramental doses. The old Temple was set alight, “flooded” with Roman troops (Daniel 9:26) and the blood of the slain ran through the city in rivers. Thousands of Jews were crucified. This is why Revelation presents her destruction as a worship service. Vengeance belongs to God.

Conquest – Covenant Oath broken: Black Stone
Atonement: the goat elected to be a vessel of destruction

And for this reason (Transcendence/Covenant Curse)
…..God will send them strong delusion, (Hierarchy)
……….that they should believe the lie, (Ethics 1 – Law given)
……………that they all may be condemned (Ethics 2 – Law opened)
……….who did not believe the truth (Ethics 3 – Law received)
…..but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (No Sanctions/Judgment)

The delegate in this passage is an evil spirit from the Lord. [5]

Notice the ironic “Ethics” pattern at the centre. Following the first 7 Bible books, Israel is condemned in “Numbers,” the book of counting. Only Jews are “numbered” in the Revelation, Gentiles are not. The unbelieving Jews would be “counted among those who go down to the pit.” The sons of Korah come to mind. [6]

And this stanza is missing its Sabbath rest. At the “Atonement” line, the unrighteousness remains uncovered on the day of coverings. There was no more sacrifice for sins. [7]

Conquest – Covenant Oath kept: White Stone
Atonement: the goat elected to be a blessed offering

But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you,
…..brethren beloved by the Lord,
……….because God from the beginning chose you for salvation
……………through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth,
……….to which He called you by our gospel,
…..for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, (Creation)
…..brethren, (Division)
……….stand fast (Ascension)
……………and hold the traditions (Testing)
……….which you were taught, (Maturity)
…..whether by word (Conquest/Oath)
or our epistle. (Glorification/Commission)

This stanza gives a full cycle to its Glorification line, the blessing of New Covenant Succession. I’d say the first line of this stanza probably does the same, but in a five-fold pattern.

Glorification – (Booths) The Church sheltered by God

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
…..and our God and Father,
……….who has loved us and given [us]
……………everlasting consolation (Spirit comforter)
……….and good hope by grace,
…..comfort your hearts
and establish you in every good word and work.

The final blessing in this passage. The rest disturbed by the liars at the beginning is reclaimed — reborn and resurrected as an even better hope — by the Shekinah. Not sure why the Father is in line 2, but it sure is interesting! Possibly because the pattern shows Jesus bringing the saints as an Ascension to the Father.

The structure ends with the Firstfruits Church as the fulfilment of the Feast of Booths, the true shelter for the nations, founded on the blood of Christ.

___________________________________
[1] One objection against a preterist interpretation of the New Testament is that the Gentile churches would not have suffered during the Jewish war. See Peter Leithart: Jewish War.
[2] James B. Jordan, The Restrainer.
[3] James B. Jordan, The Abomination of Desolation, Part 2.
[4] See Pass-over and Pass-through.
[5] See Strong Delusion.
[6] See The Falling Away and Ashes and Smoke.
[7] See No More Sacrifice for Sins.

Artwork: Herod’s Temple interior by Abe Goolsby from the HCSB Study Bible. Check out his design process here.