Bully’s Blog

Doug Wilson writes: “In and through the sacraments, God winnows, divides, nourishes, establishes, and gloriously saves. He did this throughout the course of the OT narrative, and He is doing it now.” [1]

I agree with this statement entirely, except that the New Covenant body is entirely “priestly.” The Table is not primary education, but secondary. It is not the preaching of the gospel to the unconverted, but the memorial of it by the converted.

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“If the Federal Vision got baptism right, they would be demonstrating the biblical dominion pattern in every individual’s life.”

Matt Caslow posted some thinking man’s questions concerning Bully’s broadband brand of credobaptism. Matt, I hope these answers help you understand my assertions. Happy to discuss further. I’ll soon be posting a page at the top of the blog with baptism links.

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How can we fix modern worship? Nearly all debate on this subject overlooks what the Bible has to say.

In From Silence to Song, Peter Leithart justifies the practice of finding patterns for our worship in the Levitical rites in the fact that King David did precisely this.

“…sacrificial worship did not cease with the coming of the New Covenant, but was transformed into a “spiritual sacrifice” and “sacrifice of praise.” We now do different things than ancient Israelites did, but those actions have the same meaning as the actions in the Levitical ceremonies.

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Another gem from Tim Nichols:

Consider Daniel 9, the prayer of the just man Daniel. Go ahead and read it; I’ll wait.

Did you notice that Daniel identifies fully with his people? “We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws,” he says — although Daniel himself did, in fact, keep them.  “We have not made our prayer before the Lord our God” — although Daniel did so daily, even at risk of his life.  “Neither have we heeded your servants the prophets,” he says — although he himself was a close student of the prophets, especially Jeremiah.

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A friend on the BH list asked what the phrase “bowing the heavens” means.

“Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.” (Psalm 144:5)
“He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet.” (Psalm
18:9)

Here’s my go at it. You’ll either love it or hate it.

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When Adam saw the two trees at the centre of the Garden, he was looking at the heart of the Trinity.

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Moderns are very familiar with process and with story. Everyone’s an expert and everyone’s a film critic. Yet modern Christians are ignorant of the processes in the Bible and how they relate to life. God’s Book is not just a stream of disjoined facts. Every part of it is a carefully ordered process designed to move things forward and bring about change. The story is a process. The process is a story.

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Have been chewing on Covenant renewal in Communion a lot. I’m starting to think the emphasis on the Table is not so much nourishment as resurrection and commission under oath.

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or God is a Foodie

The Mosaic dietary laws were temporary. Just as a Nazirite made a temporary vow for the purpose of sanctification for holy war, so Israel’s purpose as a nation of holy warriors included certain abstinences prescribed by God. Once the war was over, the prohibitions were removed. “Bridal food” (the Feast of Tabernacles) was back on the menu in the first century.

The Nazirite vow was a symbolic form of death and resurrection, of the bridegroom going into the grave (short hair), slaying the serpents, and emerging from the chamber with His bride (long hair), whom He then presented to the Father. [1] The prohibition on the Tree of Knowledge was a temporary one. It began Adam’s holy war, but he broke the vow, failed to rescue the bride and was expelled from the Lord’s table. [2]

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or Forbidden Mixtures - 2

Many theologians will tell you that the Old Testament Scriptures have little to say about resurrection. Yet, typologically, they scream about it constantly if we have eyes to see. Many modern conservatives don’t understand the nature of revelation. God paints the same picture of death and resurrection over and over again at both personal and national levels and all these gents do is record how many pixels are in each image.

For a visual blow-by-blow account of this death and resurrection process, get a copy of Bible Matrix and read it twice. Here, I want to concentrate on the significance of Melchizedek in the Last Supper.

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