“So, perhaps the best conclusion is that John was not looking for encouragement, but giving encouragement. In effect, he was saying, ‘Get on with it, cousin!’”

The nature of the texts of the Bible is just like the spoken words God gave to Adam. A great deal remained unsaid, and Adam was to “read between the lines” based upon God’s revealed character as his Father. However, Adam let somebody else fill in the gaps with some conflicting information about God’s character, somebody who was very likely jealous of Adam’s commission and had an ax to grind (and even here, we are left to fill in the gaps as to Satan’s motive based upon later scriptures!)

The record of John the Baptist’s question to Jesus similarly doesn’t give us all the information. All the texts are written to make us think very hard and very deeply, and to call to mind things we have read in previous texts. Some Christian writers fill in the gaps concerning the reason for John’s question with a view to helping Christians who experience doubt (here’s an example). There are certainly other texts that speak of doubt which could indicate that this was what John was experiencing.

And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24)

But is this what is really going on here? Or is this interpretation one that shows both our ignorance of the Old Testament and of the Bible’s fundamental “Covenant” structure? What if the question asked by John had nothing to do with doubt, but simply his expectations of Jesus based on the roles in the Triune Office? (See The Triune Office.)

Unlike Adam, John would have had no doubts about Jesus’ Divine character. James Jordan observes that John would have seen his cousin at least three times every year at the regular feasts, which John would still have been required to attend even after he moved into the wilderness as an adult to begin his ministry.

John knew that Jesus was the Great Priest because he referred to Him as the lamb of God, who had come to take away the sins of the world. John also knew that Jesus was the Great King because he had then seen Him anointed directly by the Father (in the Old Testament, the prophets who anointed kings were often referred to as “father.” Likewise, Joseph is referred to by Pharaoh as “father.” See Peter Leithart’s book on 1 and 2 Samuel, A Son To Me.) James Jordan suggests that John’s question was about Jesus being the Great Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15), the one about whom the priests and Levites had questioned John himself (John 1:21). Priests do not do miracles. Neither do kings. Only prophets do miracles, and John was simply wondering if the Triune Office would be fulfilled in a single Adam. Was Jesus doing the kinds of things that prophets like Elijah and Elisha did, things that John himself, as “Elijah,” never did?

And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ ” In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Luke 7:20-23)

This also makes sense of the final sentence concerning “offense.” Historically, the prophets were killed because the Covenant-legal message they brought was offensive to the Covenant breakers.

So, perhaps the best conclusion is that John was not looking for encouragement, but giving encouragement. In effect, he was saying, “Get on with it!”

Moving from deduction by logic to literary structure, do we see this conclusion supported in the shape of Luke’s text? I believe we do. (Thanks to Albert Garlando for his initial work on the structure of this passage.)

Covenant structure of Luke 7 – 8

I put together the chart above for Bible Matrix III based on James Jordan’s chart in his very helpful Behind the Scenes: Orientation in the Book of Revelation. Since the four kingly faces correspond to the four quadrants, it takes the Zodiac and corresponds it to the tribes in Numbers. His explanation of how the Zodiac corresponds to the tribes is very good, but the actual Zodiac seems alien to the Bible, which repeats symbols over and over, and these don’t really get repeated. It feels like a foreign body and it bugged me for days!

So I checked online and found a few other arrangements which were pretty cool, like this one. It follows a pattern which is clever and intriguing but it seems overly complicated and out of character with Scripture. Also, nobody seems to agree on how the other tribes (besides the four faces: ox, lion, eagle, man) should be corresponded. Some even question the main four! What to do?

I started looking at the banners of the tribes. What these were varies a bit but basing them on the blessings in Genesis 49 seemed to bring some order. Once arranged in a cruciform manner, the architecture resembles a ziggurat rather than a Zodiac, which ties it better to Jacob’s dream, and turns the entire construct into a prophecy of Israel’s history!

Ah… that’s better.

Here’s the chapter in full (for blog members):

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Another chapter from Bible Matrix III:

Read “Our God Is Coming.”

An excerpt from Bible Matrix III:

Just as Esau was the line of Cain rolled into one, so Jacob was a true son of God. In fact, being blameless as Noah was, the Lord granted him a vision of the true Gate of God, a tower reaching to heaven.

In Bible Matrix, we mentioned the significance of Jacob’s “ziggurat” vision as it relates to the mountain of God. [1] Jacob was laid out on the ground like Adam. His slumber brings a “Bridal” vision.

He was also a priestly Tabernacle in the wilderness. Jacob’s head rested upon a horizontal (dead) stone. He “ascended” and received a vision of the house he would build. The pillar he erected was a model of what he had seen, a Head lifted up and given a triune Body, anointed as a “living” stone.

Prostration and uprightness are key factors here. The “elevation” occurs firstly in Jacob’s head, then in his body. On either side of this (chiastically), Jacob chooses one of the stones (Delegation) and then sets it up (Vindication). [2]

The structure of events also underlines that Israel’s kinghood would be founded upon the priestly obedience of the faithful son. Unlike Cain, Jacob made God his refuge, so God would make Jacob a tent, a household and a city, which we see prefigured in the life of Joseph.

(Genesis 28:10-22)

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[1] Bible Matrix, p. 101. For a full explanation of the significance of the architecture of Jacob’s dream, see James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes, pp. 87-89.
[2] This footnote won’t be in the book, but even here there is evidence for credobaptism. The New Testament uses an identical structure to contrast circumcision with baptism. Baptism is only for the upright, the blameless in Christ, those who have been invested with Jesus’ triune office as His robed Body. There is also support here for the “baptistic” mode of baptism: prostration and then uprightness. Credobaptism is built into the warp and woof of the Bible, in every passage, at every level.

or Bible SatNav

The adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single still image. It also aptly characterizes one of the main goals of visualization, namely making it possible to absorb large amounts of data quickly. (Wikipedia)

It struck me this morning, as I read one of my regular theology blogs, that theologians don’t much use diagrams. The blog post in question used over a thousand words to describe something that is inherent in the architectures (both literary and spatial) found in the Bible.

What this means is that, for the most part, the way we communicate theology is foreign to the way our God does it.

One drawback of listening to James Jordan lectures is the fact that the listener misses out on his whiteboard diagrams. I have no idea if they are any good, but Jordan thinks “spatially.” As I’ve become familiar with the “domains” described in the Bible, and how the literary structure follows the same pattern, it has become apparent that a great deal of theology is blind men feeling their way around an elephant. Not only do they not realize it is an elephant, what they also fail to see is that the elephant is in a room.

I’m sure this all sounds a bit arrogant. I’ve been gifted with the ability to think visually and musically. Please note that this has come with many disadvantages. I don’t understand people very well, I’m terrible at team sports, and I have a tendency to be obsessive. But it does mean I am able to think outside the box. This is generally because the one thing I cannot see, however hard I try, is the box. If I can see the internal logic in something, the boxes built by well-meaning scholars become irrelevant.

Here are two examples:

Hyperpreterism

As I commented to a hyperpreterist friend recently, the reason I agree with HP interpretations of certain texts are the very same reasons I am not a hyperpreterist. The internal logic of the Bible makes plain to me where the “partial” preterists are wrong, but it also knocks hyperpreterism on the head. The HP is holding the trunk and the PP is holding the tail. They are both right and they are both wrong. They blindly hurl proof texts back and forth at each other with no regard to the architecture of the Bible. And when I point this out, they ridicule “structure” as an unnecessary ornament.

Paedobaptism

The best theologians are paedobaptists. Yet, once again, the internal logic of the Bible shows this doctrine to be erroneous. It can only be maintained by destroying the spatial and literary architecture of the Scriptures. I know I have written over a thousand words about paedobaptism, but what they describe is a relatively simple picture which develops through Bible history. Objections come from the monk holding the foot, or flipping the tail, or lifting the eyelid, and I am struck by their inability to understand the integrity of what I am describing. They seem to have all their doctrines filed in separate boxes and in many cases are unable to see how they relate to each other. For me, it is a single picture, and paedobaptism does far more than merely mess up the feng shui. One online friend said the Bible Matrix was the best argument against paedobaptism. Another commented that there are other ways of looking at Scripture. Well, sure there are, but surely these different ways of looking at it shouldn’t contradict each other. Internal logic is internal logic.

The Lord is obsessive about structure, and we now have thousands of books on theology without any thought of it whatsoever. I come into a debate with all my chess pieces in place and my objectors are still trying to figure out what material their pieces are carved out of.

Once again, I’m sure this sounds arrogant. Things that are obvious to me are not obvious to others. When the idea of the Bible Matrix hit me a few years ago (after listening to James Jordan on the Revelation), its implications and possible advantages were obvious. It was plain that this was the Bible’s SatNav, and the authors of the Scriptures seem totally aware of it. It came fully formed, fully connected, and its implications simply needed to be worked out. When I explain it, the response is usually, “that’s nice,” or “how interesting.” But a handle on the internal logic of the Scriptures has the potential to answer every theological debate.

Apparently, Albert Einstein was a frustrating lecturer. He would jump all over the place with little explanation, just like the authors of the New Testament (and James Jordan, for that matter). The reason is possibly that connections that were obvious to Einstein needed to be explained to his students. I’m no Einstein, but when I started writing about this stuff, what I wrote was extremely “dense.” I’ve learned to spell out every step, to “show my workings.” I’m hopeless at math, but this is the problem facing a 13 year old math prodigy in the UK. He can simply “see” the answer, but the system requires him to show how he got there, which is a good discipline.

The advantages of biblical eidesis, or “fracto-spatial” thinking, are becoming more apparent to me as I work through Bible Matrix III. I am drawing diagrams I have had in my head for over five years, yet, once they are drawn, I notice further connections within them which vindicate their veracity. It feels like somebody has been here before me. I can’t wait for you to see the complete book.

Anyhow, apologies again for the apparent arrogance. And I have written an entire post to explain a single observation. WordPress tells me it is 1000 words.

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See also The Eye of Sound. Please note that my “Bible mind map” will not appeal to the Blind Monks.

Here’s a chapter from Bible Matrix III. If you think this one’s just okay, rest assured that the subsequent chapters are a lot more fun — typologically speaking.

(Note: It still has some typos and the footnotes haven’t been numbered yet!)

The Bible doesn’t set systematic theology and biblical theology in opposition, but rather employs a combination of both: systematic typology. It consistently gives us architectural spaces and fills them with things. Systematic theology provides a helpful list of similar things, and biblical theology can trace the maturation of particular ideas, but what if the text itself gave us a way of combining the two, using them as “spatial coordinates”?

The text is a room with furniture in it, and everything is in its place. Every line of Scripture has two coordinates, an X and a Y, a systematic “thing” and a textual position. Its meaning is found not only in what it says but where it is located in the passage. How do you know that this line of Scripture is a fruit bowl and not a mixing bowl? Because it is on the dining table and not in the kitchen.

Disputing theologians spend so much time hurling isolated texts at one other without any reference to literary structure as one of the author’s channels of communication. This process sorts out the systematic oddities answers just about any theological debate where there are two or more views on a given text. It also exposes the abuses of typology, the “drive-bys” that have given it a bad name. Every type is part of a “musical” process, so when abused it will stand out like a kazoo in a Bach violin partita.

On that note, here’s the draft preface for Bible Matrix III.