Here’s a bit of fun. Well, maybe my definition of fun is different to yours.

Building the Iron Saint

Every plunge brings a tougher skin and a softer heart.

Jesus calls us deeper, so Satan manufactures false depths. There are the deep things of God and the deep things of Satan (Revelation 2:24). Doug Wilson points out that the deep things of God are depths of holiness, not depths of mystical knowledge:

“…the Holy Spirit does indeed search the deep things of God, but He does not do it the way carnal minds think it should be done. The deep things of God are depths of holiness. In the submarine service, we used to have a term for the limit past which a submarine cannot go—that depth was called “crush depth.” And when it comes to God’s holiness, since there is no surface, no empty place above that holiness, every depth is crush depth. And the only way to avoid destruction is to be found in Jesus Christ.

Only the Spirit can sound the depths of Christ, and only Christ can protect us in the Spirit. One of the things He protects us from is the sin of being too clever for our own good, being too clever by half. The Spirit works in us as He did the early Christians, creating in them gladness and simplicity of heart.”

I want to put a different spin on this, the biblical concept of Testing and Maturity, or death and resurrection. The Bible is full of those willing to be refined and those who think they have no need for it; those who willingly put their heads on the stone altar (like Jacob) and those who are willing to slaughter 70 brothers to avoid their own submission (like Abimelech).

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God…”

How does God give us depth? He plunges us into the depths. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, by his slavemaster’s wife, and by a fellow prisoner. At every step he was plunged deeper into the abyss. Yet, at every step, he obeyed at a deeper level, with a deeper trust in God and a deeper level of holiness. Every plunge increased his crush depth. Finally, deep called unto deep. He was God’s perfected vassal, a metal man, a Tabernacle, like Jesus.

“But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.”

God’s discipline does bring gladness and simplicity of heart. These are deep things of which we are not naturally capable. It also brings greater glory, the glory of an Adam of dust transfigured into non-corroding precious metals. Every plunge brings plunder for God. Every plunge brings a tougher skin and a softer heart.

From Oswald Chambers:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

These words mean the breaking of my independence with my own hand and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me. I must do it myself. God may bring me to the point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot put me through it. It means breaking the husk of my individual independence of God, and the emancipation of my personality into oneness with Himself, not for my own ideas, but for absolute loyalty to Jesus. There is no possibility of dispute when once I am there. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ—“For my sake.” It is that which makes the iron saint.

Has that break come? All the rest is pious fraud. The one point to decide is—Will I give up, will I surrender to Jesus Christ, and make no conditions whatever as to how the break comes? I must be broken from my self-realisation, and immediately that point is reached, the reality of the supernatural identification takes place at once, and the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable—“I have been crucified with Christ” (RV).

The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.

From Bible Matrix:

The Bible is a very strange book to modern minds. Even the passages we know very well contain a great number of oddities and we allow them to grow familiar without gaining an understanding of why they are there.

Those brave enough to regularly read the Old Testament often find themselves wondering what on earth is going on. “Just keep reading your Bible” our pastors tell us. Do you ever get the feeling they don’t have a big grip on it either? “Just stick to the basics. The rest doesn’t matter.”

A few years ago, I discovered the not-very-well-known theologian James B. Jordan. I didn’t understand everything he said, but I did realize that this was partly because he spoke just like the Bible: matter-of-fact, flesh-and-blood, and every now and then, outright bizarre.

He got me thinking, and I found that even the most curious things he spoke of became continuous threads. Jordan identifies what he calls the “universals”—themes that are repeated, not unlike a musical motif. After listening to many of his lectures, I began to recognize these themes myself, much as you would recognize the signature music when a hero or villain appears once again in a movie. Except the Bible does it a lot better.

The most amazing discovery, to me, was Jordan’s understanding of the Creation Week as a common literary structure in the Bible. There is no better way to research something than to write a book about it, so I started one. I intended to show how this 7-point pattern structured the major events of the Bible. I got to Abraham and found that the pattern was operating not only at a grand, over-arching level but also at levels within the larger cycles. And all in perfect harmony.

This incredible structuring means that the Bible is a “fractal,” a rough geometrical shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a smaller version of the whole.

Although the Bible’s literature often appears disorganized to us, it has in fact been extremely carefully crafted. Yet for the last hundred years or so, many scholars have treated the Scriptures as a shoddy, primitive jumble.

Analysis of the Bible’s literary structures has proven these scholars wrong. It has shown that this Book is smarter than we are. We have been harsh critics of something we didn’t understand—like drinkers of cheap beer ridiculing the wine fair.

Now, before you class me with the people who spend their time searching for hidden codes in the Bible (often while they calmly ignore its very clear and intended messages), this renewed interest in literary structure has some very solid benefits for Christians. This is not about hunting for mysterious patterns; it is about learning how to read the Bible in the way it was meant to be read.

Thanks to Stephen Henderson for the excellent “fractal” observation. And to Donny Linnemeyer for the last sentence.

The book peaked on amazon.com at #3,571 and is still doing well both there and on amazon.co.uk. If anyone has ideas on viral marketing, let me know.

If you’ve purchased the book and have questions about the premise or its implications, I’d love to hear from you.

Bible Matrix is now available on amazon in both paperback and hardcover. Bit late to worry about typos now, I guess. Thanks to everyone who encouraged and proofed and edited and especially to Dr Leithart whose uncommon accessibility shows where his heart is.

Ever wish someone could give you a big handle on the entire Bible without years of study? Well, this book not only promises to give you that big handle — it will deliver on the promise. You should be asking, how is this possible?

The Bible is one story told over and over again, with many variations on the same theme. This structure is the Bible’s DNA. This basic seven-point pattern

…is the heartbeat of the Creation.

…..It is the cycle of a human day and a human life.

……….It is the pattern of the Tabernacle.
……….It is the process of agriculture.

……………It undergirds the speeches and Laws of God.

……….It orders the rise and fall of nations and empires.

…..It is also the structure of our worship.

It is the rhythm of Christ,
and it will open the Bible for you like never before.

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PS. Manipulating reality is Covenantal, and the secret is…

obedience.

If you are a Christian, this stuff will make you punch the air. If you are not, it might still make you sleepless. Available in 2 weeks.

“…he will remove her veil, then hand her the barley offering, and say, ‘If you have been faithful to your husband, this water won’t harm you. But if you have been unfaithful, it will bring down the LORD’s curse — you will never be able to give birth to a child, and everyone will curse your name.’”

The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.

See Jesus With Long Hair and Trinitarian Complexity in Samson.

Thoughts on 2 Corinthians 4

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

The chapter follows the Creation pattern. Here are the governors of Day 4, the people of God filled with the Law of God at Pentecost. They become the eyes of God. (See Eye Spy – 1: The Insiders).

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

Paul refers to Adamic clay, even Edom-ic clay, and to the battle of Midian in Judges. (Isaiah quite brilliantly uses Midian as a symbolic reference to the Lampstand lights at the centre of a Trumpets stanza. See Wizards That Peep and Mutter). The light will not be hidden, although it can only be revealed, demonstrated, when the jars are broken (Romans 5:8).

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

The literary structure means this refers to a new wilderness, an exile from the city, a looking forward to a city made without hands.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

Just as the Restored Jews were to be a priesthood who demonstrated the renewed sacrifices hidden in the second Temple’s Holy Place, so the apostles’ lives were to fill up the sufferings of Jesus—in public.

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

We are raised to walk in newness of life. This is the power of His resurrection. The structure moves to Step 5, a new body, a corporate resurrection at Trumpets.

So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

I think this might be what the writer of Hebrews refers to with the phrase “a better resurrection.” Were the saints to submit to death just for greater glory in heaven? That is not what we see in Paul. He was willing to be accursed for the sake of his brethren. The “Christian hedonist” is willing to die for the bride, to be a lone grain of wheat that brings a bumper harvest, ie. a better, more abundant, resurrection. (See Military Cross: The Hungry Eyes of Jesus.)

It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak,

Step 5 is very often about the witness which follows resurrection. Psalm 116 follows the same pattern. This quote is right at the centre. It is the man of God who heard the Law received from the mount. He has lived to tell about it because He believed it and obeyed it. Now he speaks as Law incarnate. (See The Well of Souls and also True Gravity.)

because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.

We are up to Atonement, High Priest and people, Adam and Eve before God on Day 6. Again, Paul was willing to be a buried grain so that the harvest would be greater. The gold, silver and precious stones are not rewards but people…

All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

Paul’s life was a constant death-and-resurrection: like our hair, nails and skin. Renewal by the Spirit is a constant taking in of food from God that flows out into the world not as legislation but as spiritual government, self-government. We see the same thing in the spring of Eden. How often do we resort to “starvation mode,” a kind of inward cannibalism, just to get us through the day, when we have the spring of the Spirit at our disposal.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Step 7 is all about rest and glory. It often concerns our becoming wise judges. Think of Isaac’s, Eli’s, Samson’s and Zedekiah’s blindness. And then of Solomon’s initial sight. The Spirit allows us to see things as they really are. We are able to determine the truth, as Solomon did between the prostitutes. This also prefigured the first century: the true church as bride and the Herodian harlot. Who was the true mother? As the Pentecost eyes of God, the saints were to judge. Revelation also shows the saints as co-executioners of the false woman, the Jezebel they had rightly identified and rejected.

Well, that’s the end of the chapter. Following the general themes, chapter 4 might be the “Day 4″ of a larger cycle:

Chapter 1 – Creation: The God of All Comfort / Paul’s Words
Chapter 2 – Division: Forgiveness for the Sinner and Open Doors
Chapter 3 – Ascension: Tablets of Flesh not Stone / The Face of Moses
Chapter 4 – Testing: Jars of Clay
Chapter 5 – Maturity: Resurrection and Witness
Chapter 6 – Conquest: (Atonement) The Day of Salvation / Paul’s hardships as Head, Christ and Belial as the body to be rightly divided by the Word of Truth (not unequally yoked/twin goats again!)
Chapter 7 – Glorification: Paul’s joy. Titus and the Corinthians as his “succession”

I don’t know how this affects the theory that there is a break after chapter 9. Might have to look at that some other time.

Also, slight correction to yesterday’s post. It was Division in 1 Corinthians, not the super apostles. These men are in the quite negative final chapters of 2 Corinthians, which might be an argument for the unity of the epistle (chiastically). Not only were they exploiting the Corinthian Christians, they boasted in some things Paul now counted as dung:

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more.

Christians in authority are always tempted to look for credibility outside of Christ. It might be a ministry title, a book you have written, a funny hat (although, see In Defense of Silly Hats) or a call to preach or teach. In the first century, without a finalised New Testament, the temptation to claim some kind of “Jewish” authority would have been very great. After the Temple worship’s demise, it appears that the super-apostles eventually got together and invented apostolic succession out of whole cloth as a replacement for Jewish fables. True credibility always comes from service. As Doug Wilson continually hammers into us, “Authority flows to those who take responsiblity.”

I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I implore You, deliver my soul!”

Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, My eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD In the land of the living.

I believed, therefore I spoke, “I am greatly afflicted.” I said in my haste, “All men are liars.”

What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits toward me? I will take up the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the LORD now in the presence of all His people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.

O LORD, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.

I will pay my vows to the LORD Now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the LORD’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!

Notice that, as in the Creation week, Day 3 ends with the ascension of the Covenant Head (Land/bread and wine), and Day 6 with the response of the Covenant body (Atonement).

Testing under the Law is at the centre. Men have legs, but like the serpent, they have become creeping things in the tomb, the abyss, the lower deck of the ark. The Psalmist believes the Word of the Lord instead of the words of men. He replaces the Adamic serpents and experiences resurrection.

The martyrdom (witness) and resurrection of the two witnesses is always at Step 5, Trumpets.

I think I can also see evidence of the fivefold Covenant pattern (which underlies the sevenfold Feast pattern) in most of these seven verses. Here’s verse 3 (Ascension):

Transcendence: Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful.1

Hierarchy: The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. (Authority delegated, the humble exalted) 2

Ethics: Return to your rest, O my soul, 3
for the LORD 4
has dealt bountifully with you.5

Sanctions: For You have delivered my soul from death, My eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. 6

Succession: I will walk before the LORD In the land of the living. 7

Notice also that, in relation to the post about “plagues and plunder” the other day, “benefits” is at Step 5 in the greater pattern, and “bountifully” is at Step 5 within Step 3.

Also, taking the cup of salvation corresponds to the end of the Nazirite vow. In the seven words from the cross, Jesus’ fifth word was “I thirst.” See Seven Words from the Cross.

or Plagues, Plunder and Platoons

“And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.” Isaiah 6:4

“The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.” Revelation 15:8

Step 5 in the Bible matrix appears to be the trickiest. Out of the seven points, it was the last one James Jordan figured out (see his article Re-Creation in the Ascension Offering.)

This step concerns the Covenant “body.” It is fundamentally “plural.” It concerns armies, or “hosts.” The symbols all picture multitudes, so some unlikely companions are tied together here: birds and fish, incense clouds, brothers, soldiers, and cold, hard cash.

This step fills the firmament formed on Day 2 (Adam builds the house; Eve fills it), so the concept behind all of these symbols is an abundance of plunder filling the Tabernacle. Money shines. Soldiers’ swords and shields shine.[1] Fish are shiny. Birds also reflect the sun. [2]

It is also the forming of an “Eve” body for the Adam “head.” Adam is singular, but Eve, the mother of all living, is plural. Maturity is a cloud ascending to God, a shining entity that acts as one, a “collective noun” unified by the Spirit under the Covenant head and reflecting His glory. Flocks of birds and schools of fish all behave as though the individual creatures are linked together with invisible strings. In the church, this is the unity of the Spirit.

At Maturity, faithless Adam covered himself and his wife with fig leaves. At Maturity, faithful Daniel was given a robe by Nebuchadnezzar. At Maturity, Esther put on her best robes to approach the Emperor. At Maturity, a new generation of Israel was summoned to Moses to hear the Law. At Maturity, Jesus told His disciples they would now need swords and moneybags.

Step 4, Testing under the governing lights of the Law, the Covenant sanctions, sifts us. Step 5 is thus the beginning of the Covenant sanctions, blessings or curses, plunder or plagues. [3]

It is about the “filling” of the body. Whether this ends up being plunder or plagues, bright young things or vile bodies, depends upon Covenant faithfulness. In reference to Lizzie Gardiner’s spectacular Credit Card dress above, it all depends on whether your account is in Jesus’ name.

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[1] This reminds me of the chariots seen racing through the clouds above Jerusalem in the AD60′s, as reported by Josephus.
[2] I just noticed this week that the plunder-plagues the Philistines sent back, 5 gold tumors and 5 rats, make ten plagues. And the Philistines were descendants of the Egyptians. See Golden Emerods.
[3] See A Jaw Dropping Book.