Along with many other academics — and many hymnwriters — J. R. Daniel Kirk believes the advent ended the Babylonian exile. He writes: “The exile was insufficient to pay for the people’s sins. So not only did the exile endure, so did the sins which were its cause.” Is really this the case? Israel never again worshiped the Canaanite gods. However, he still has a lot to say that is good:

Matthew begins his narrative with quite the gripping tale. If it takes well-meaning, would-be readers of the Old Testament several weeks before they get mired in seemingly jumbled laws and endless genealogies, it takes their New Testament counterparts all of ten seconds.

Jesus is the son of David, the son of Abraham–and we get 20+ generations of genealogy to prove it.

But entailed in this genealogy is a story: a story of God’s promises. God has promised a king from the line of David, and God has promised a full restoration of the people–an end to the age of exile.

There was an age of Abraham; there was an age of David; and there was an age of exile (Matthew 1:17). But now the age of the messiah is dawning.

What God had promised to Israel is coming to fruition in Christ. What exile was supposed to do, but didn’t, will now be realized.

“You will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21, CEB).

Of course, this is what the prophet had long ago declared, but which had not yet been realized:

Comfort, comfort my people!
says your God.
Speak compassionately to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her that her
compulsory service has ended,
that her penalty has been paid,
that she has received
from the LORD ’s hand
double for all her sins! (Isa 40:1-2, CEB)

The exile was insufficient to pay for the people’s sins. So not only did the exile endure, so did the sins which were its cause.

Advent is the beginning of the end, the beginning of the age of the Messiah, the beginning of the restoration from exile.

Israel’s story is coming to its culmination.

Or, if you prefer the words of hymnody:

O come, o come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here–
until the son of God appear.

The problem here is that two “Covenant cycles” have been conflated. Kirk is right that Israel is coming to an end, but not about the end of exile.

The exile had come to an end long before. The passage quoted above from Isaiah refers not to the events of the first century, but to the events of the Restoration era. It seems to me there are two reasons the scholarly consensus has it wrong: 1) the book of Esther is treated as fiction; and 2) an ignorance of the architecture of the Bible, i.e. many of the fulfilments of the predictions of the prophets were people rather than stones. Ezekiel’s temple was not a vision of the church (or some future carnal Israel), but a vision of the Restoration era’s Jew-Gentile worship construct, founded in Daniel. I’ve written a lot about that on this blog, but you can trace it all back to James Jordan’s groundbreaking commentary on Daniel.

Back to the first point, it relates to the Covenant — or “matrix” cycles. There are cycles within cycles. Israel’s complete history is a cycle. But within it, there are many others, including Israel’s “death” in Egypt (Abraham to Joshua) and Israel’s death in Babylon (Solomon to Cyrus). The history of Israel via Egypt was repeated, but with Babylon at the centre.

The nation was slain and resurrected numerous times under whatever Covenant Ethics were in force at the time, and each time, Israel was more mature, more prophetic.

Post exilic Israel was not weak and beggarly. The Jews as a people were promoted to corporate “prophetic advisor” to world emperors, serving in a higher court than the Davidic kings. It was Joseph replayed on a greater stage.

Daniel played the Covenant bridegroom, obeying in the Garden by refusing the food of kingdom until he was qualified publicly. And Esther matches him chiastically as the fragrant bridal resurrection body, marrying a new Solomon and conquering the entire world. The exile was indeed over.

The situation in the first century was due to entirely new sins by a new generation. The Jews forgot their prophetic ministry and, as under Samuel, demanded a king before time. Instead of Saul they got the Herods, and Christ was the new David. But the “slavery” they suffered under Rome had nothing to do with the sins of the Davidic kings. It was the result of their disobedience to the Restoration Covenant, the one predicted by Jeremiah and ratified in Ezra and Zechariah. They broke the new High Priestly lineage of Zadok, and became elitists instead of witnesses and prophets to the nations.

The nation had been split into two (as a sacrifice) and reunited (the houses of Judah and Israel). The only reason the writer of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah is because the same process was happening again, only this time it was the reunion of Jew and Gentile.

However, Kirk is correct in observing that it was the culmination of Israel’s history, and I would push that to a conclusion far beyond the consensus’ comfort zone:

Israel’s history follows the Creation week: Light on the waters (Call of Abraham); Firmament (Red Sea parted); Land and Sea (Canaan); Ruling Lights (the Kings); Swarms/Armies (Gentile Eagles and Sea Beasts); Mediators (Land Animals [Dan. 7), Joshua the High Priest to Jeshua the High Priest); and finally the Rest promised to the Old Covenant faithful, who were seated on thrones and now rule with Christ.

Our problem is that this pattern occurs at many levels in the Bible – like a fractal – and we have a hard time separating them from each other. The Bible Matrix is the answer.

The Insiders

“For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.” 1 Chron. 16:9

The Bible was written to be understood by word-search software, or by believers who think that way. There are many expressions and phrases that are used repeatedly—very deliberately—so that the reader makes connections.

Unfortunately, modern translations often disregard the literal meanings of words to soften the “clunkiness” of the original, or they use a number of different English words to translate a single Hebrew word used in different contexts. On top of this, modern Christians aren’t trained to read the Bible in this way. It is presented as a linear stream of “Herh-ly Data” and the recognition of literary allusions is discouraged or even anathematised. (Why is it that Christians are either too dumb to read the Bible as literature, or too smart to read it as literature?)

One of the repeated phrases is “to and fro,” and when combined with eyes it has the idea of a radar dish rotating back and forth. It is the 20/20 vision of the Holy God and His ministers.[1]

The Spirit of the Lord traverses the garden on Adam’s Day 7, His flaming eyes darting to and fro, scanning the topography line-by-line, “looking” for Adam. After the judgment, the singular flaming sword also moves “to and fro.” Like the eyes of God, it misses nothing. Its discernment is perfect.

After the flood, the raven flies to and fro, most likely surviving on floating corpses until the waters recede. As a symbol of the accuser, the demons as dirty birds are also servants of God, ministers of the curses of the Covenant. Scavengers feed on death, and their ravenous eyes, too, miss nothing. As a minister of God (on Adam’s usurped throne) Satan roamed to and fro on the Land, accusing the people of faith as a legal witness.[2]

At Pentecost, the accuser was thrown down and the people of God became the eyes of God, the seven flaming Spirits of the Lampstand before the throne. The battle against Gog and Magog prefigured this, fulfilled in the two day Jewish war in the book of Esther. Every Jew from India to Africa was a legal witness and executioner against those who sought to wipe them out. The people of God were fire from heaven (Ezekiel 39:6).

The world is under constant surveillance. With a human government now in heaven, the saints are the cherubim before the throne, the wheels filled with eyes carrying the throne of God to and fro across the Land, as Abraham claiming the territory, as Moses’ and Joshua’s spies eyeing off the cake of the Canaanites. Christians are legal witnesses against those who rebel against God, and Christians are Advocates for those rebels, like Rahab, who obey the Word from the spies and display the secret signal.

As the Eyes of God, we don’t get to blow stuff up, but we do get to do surveillance, present evidence and petitions before the King of Kings as His Covenant executives and work with Him to topple godless regimes. For the saints, the receding night is as the coming day. As spies for the crown, He requires unquestioning loyalty, constant sobriety, lightning reflexes, complete familiarity with the Law and a willingness to lay down our lives for the heavenly country. He also deals harshly with double-agents by handing them over to the enemy (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Tim. 1:20). Consequently, as the kingdom grows, the staff turnover is very high.[3] However, to the chagrin of the enemy, this only seems to increase the annual recruitment.

As Abraham was, and as David was, the New Covenant holy priesthood is tried and tested and given miraculous wisdom, then included in the council of God. Though single cells are often compromised or destroyed, the operation centre, since the ascension of Christ, is totally beyond the reach of the enemy, unassailable, impenetrable and incorruptible.

Next episode…  Behind Closed Doors.

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[1] The phrase is also combined with drunkeness a number of times, picturing a total lack of judgment.
[2] Satan hatches lies to tempt, then spouts truth to condemn. He carried both these roles out at the door (Genesis 4:7). The Lord also stands in the door to make a judgment (Exodus 12:23; Ezekiel 9:3; James 5:9, Revelation 3:20).
[3] The main character body count is even higher than on Spooks. More Christians were martyred in the 20th century than in centuries 1-19 combined. As one Christian writer recently put it, “If you’re a Christian and you’re still alive, you’ve some got explaining to do.” See Postmillennial Suffering.

Land
The “son of man” (Christ’s body, the church) reclaimed Abel’s land and disarmed his Canaanite older brother in the Land by dying.

World
With the razing of Cain’s city, Jerusalem, the Christ’s Dominion expanded from Land to World, from brothers to children, from Abel to Seth. As the sons of God, we disarm the “daughters of men” culture around us by dying. We die to our predatory desires, and if necessary, we die physically as a witness. Kingdom expansion is always bought with blood. As with Job, our innocent suffering shames and disarms predatory powers and thus renews the world.

(See also Postmillennial Suffering)