Reformed theology is the best school in which to learn about covenant theology, yet it is also the worst place to learn about New Covenant theology. Why is this so?

Reading a to-and-fro between a baptist and a paedobaptist recently, it struck me that despite the fine manners and scholarly diligence on display in the responses of both gentlemen, neither of them really had a grip on what they were dealing with.

The prime example was the way in which each relied on the Abrahamic Covenant to support his case. The paedobaptist accused the baptist of spiritualising this covenant, while the baptist accused the paedobaptist of “carnalizing” it. Both of them were cherrypicking in order to support their take on God’s covenants in general.

Now, theologians love to generalise in order to avoid doing the grubby work of dealing with specifics, and one ubiquitous theological meme, dripping with clever evasiveness, is the statement that there is both continuity and discontinuity between each covenant, or each stage of the overall covenant of God with men. Apparently there is some entirely arbitrary “spectrum” of relevance in each covenant, and we are supposed to isolate the elements which are common to all covenants to discover what a covenant is. Then we can figure out whether “covenant membership” is based on faith, or heredity, or tribe, or all of the above.

“…both sides get an F when
it comes to covenant theology.”

On the “baptistic” side, things tend to slide into a realm where the physical rites, baptism and communion and even corporate worship, are considered to be less important than “my personal relationship with Jesus.” The New Covenant sign is “faith,” but since true faith expresses itself in willingness to submit to discipleship under Christ’s representatives, in examination of heart, in a desire to be with other saints, in prayer and good works and in legal testimony before the Church and the world, this error is easy to deal with.

On the “paedobaptistic” side, the focus on the rites, the “covenant signs,” leads to:

a) an illogical splitting of the sacraments in the withholding of communion until a baptised child comes of age;

b) united paedosacraments which merely serve as a legalistic “claim” upon the baptizand until they are truly born again; or

c) united paedosacraments which somehow regenerate the receiver without any requirement of actual repentance.

As I have written elsewhere, each of these three conclusions is an attempt to deal with the doctrinal fallout of the errant rite of paedobaptism in a slightly different way. The conflation of circumcision and baptism necessitates the redefinition, or scapegoating of something, somewhere. In order to preserve the tradition, the scapegoat chosen for sacrifice is either the necessity of personal conversion (and the redefinition of “faith”), or the global nature of the New Covenant, or the efficacy of the sacraments.

However, both sides, baptistic and paedobaptistic, get an F when it comes to covenant theology. The baptists are right when it comes to the necessity of hearing the Gospel and responding in faith as the defining characteristic of a Christian, but generally they have little idea of what a covenant with God actually is. “Covenant” is just a word to describe God’s “agreement” with Noah, Abraham and Moses. There is little understanding of a covenant as a process, with delegated authority, rules for success, desired results and accountability, and a use-by date. It is these “missional” elements which are the things common to every biblical covenant, yet somehow these are totally overlooked in the continuity/discontinuity debate.

“…the solution is an aspect
which both sides in this debate,
as far as I know, have either failed
to discern or failed to apply.”

The paedobaptists, generally speaking, at least understand what a biblical covenant is. The problem is that since they are stuck with their baptismal tradition, they pick the Abrahamic Covenant as their benchmark for covenants. This renders them enemies of many fundamental differences between the various covenants, which are simply the result of the fact that each covenant has a different mission. They are so keen on the maintenance of the notion of a “Covenant people” delineated by a sign that they force the covenants both before and after the Abrahamic Covenant into the Abrahamic mold. The rainbow is turned into a “sign” upon Noah and his family, when in fact it was a sign upon all creation, one which endures to this day. New Covenant baptism is turned into a “corporate” sign upon all members of a believing household, either conferring “covenant membership” (legalistic accountability) or “infusing” some level of faith without the hearing of the Gospel.

Paedobaptism is a mongrel of a doctrine, an ugly mix of conflicting designs and crossed purposes, which is why its meaning is impossible to define or agree upon even among those who practice it. But it gets worse. For some paedobaptists, the fact that there was no sign of “Covenant membership” upon females under the Abrahamic Covenant, as they believe there is under the New Covenant, means that they go looking for one. Some have suggested that the Levitical “purity rites” for Israelite women served as a sign of membership in some fashion. But although this is a rare assertion, it does demonstrate just how far off the track people will go when following an errant doctrine to its logical conclusion. Since every person within their imagined New Covenant boundary must be “stamped” by Jesus with their “hybridised” New Covenant baptism, this leads them to seek something similar under the Abrahamic Covenant when clearly there was no such thing. For a start, the Levitical rites can have no bearing on membership of the Abrahamic Covenant because they were not instituted until Moses, four centuries later. Females were under the Abrahamic Covenant without any personal sign. Even more inconveniently, there was no personal sign upon anyone whatsoever under the Noahic and Adamic Covenants. They have allowed the stipulations and purpose of the Abrahamic Covenant to distort their comprehension of the New Covenant, and then their perverted understanding of the New Covenant requires the distortion the Abrahamic Covenant. This is not “Covenant continuity” but enforced “equalisation,” the theological equivalent of gender neutrality. It is a wilful twisting of the Scripture to defend the indefensible, bordering on the brand of hermeneutical travesty committed by the Roman Catholic Church in defence of its own coercive and highly imaginative traditions. Yet regardless of how much they must sacrifice, doctrinally-speaking, and how many ludicrous notions they must consider to maintain this shibboleth, they consistently refuse to question their devotion to this age-old household god. I find this incomprehensible.

However, for two thousand years in God’s economy (not today), one was either a Jew or a Gentile, either in Abraham or not, so there clearly was some kind of “membership.” Is there a way that we can understand the history of the greater Covenant, taking into account each of its varied stages, including the ways in which each stage uniquely complements and contrasts with the others, that enables us to discern both what is continuous or discontinuous and why? Most certainly there is, and the solution is an aspect which both sides in this debate, as far as I know, have either failed to discern or failed to apply.

“In some sense, only a twist on
the Copernican revolution in
covenant theology can unite
the schizoid sacramentology
of the modern Church.”

When Covenant history is diagrammed by the experts on both sides, it is inevitably linear. This is understandable, since history itself is linear. But a journey from the boundary of our solar system to the heart of our sun is also linear, although the solar system itself is not. My assertion here is that the various covenants throughout history are not segments but spheres, not lines but layers. Passing from the orbit of Mars to the orbit of the Earth does not render the orbit of Mars redundant or non-existent.

Likewise, we must understand that the establishing of the Abrahamic Covenant did not nullify the Noahic. The Covenant with Noah was in full force in its original form at least until the end of the Abrahamic Covenant in AD70, for the Gentiles were still obliged to keep its basic stipulations. This fact was the basis for the judgment of James at the Jerusalem Council of the Church in Acts 15. There was no need to put believing Gentiles under the Law of Moses. Nor was there any need to circumcise them as members of the Abrahamic extended family, the dispersed tribal nation of Israel. Yet, (and what follows here we must understand if the disgusting fissures in our sacramental unity are to be closed and healed) these Gentiles were still “under Covenant,” just not the Abrahamic one. This is because the Abrahamic Covenant did not exist after the Noahic Covenant, nor even alongside it, but within it, just as the orbit of the Earth exists within the orbit of Mars. In some sense, only a twist on the Copernican revolution in covenant theology can unite the schizoid sacramentology of the modern Church.

Since Covenant history resembles the medieval concept of the celestial spheres,¹See also String Theory the “outer limits” consist of the reach of the covenant intended to be ratified in Adam. The word “covenant” is never used of Adam, and this is because he failed to qualify for kingdom. The word is not used until God spoke to Noah, the first man to qualify as a righteous judge, a man who could legally represent God on earth because he was found faithful in the eyes of heaven. However, the curse of death remained. This was because the Noahic Covenant was ratified within the Adamic one. All men were still in Adam.

“…the Mosaic Covenant
was ratified not in opposition to 
but within the Abrahamic one.”

When Noah’s offspring sinned in ways that can be corresponded to the offspring of Adam, another global deluge was on the horizon, covenantally-speaking: the destruction of all flesh. To keep the promises to Noah, God divided humanity in two in Abraham. However, the Noahic order of priest-kings, such as Melchizedek and Jethro and Job, still ministered among the Gentile nations as “sons of God,” which may explain the persistence of accounts similar to the early chapters of Genesis not only in the Ancient Near East but also in just about every culture around the world. Every human being was still a “member” of Adam, and a “member” of Noah, yet only those in Abraham’s household were members of this new genealogical-tribal covenant. Noah was not replaced. Like Adam, he was “divided” that he might later be conquered and glorified.

The main players in the Abrahamic line reversed, in many ways, the failures of Noah’s sons, but in Moses they were brought to maturity, both in size (as a nation) and accountability (in ministry). Israel was baptised into Moses and another covenant was established, and here we see centuries of wasted ink revealed for what they are as we understand that the Mosaic Covenant was ratified not in opposition to but within the Abrahamic one. Every Israelite was still in Adam, and still in Noah, and of course in Abraham, but not every Israelite was a member of the tribe of Levi. The Levitical order served within Israel as yet another layer, smaller and with even more concentrated standards of purity. Within the tribe of Levi, only males of a certain physical and moral standard were permitted to serve as priests, and even then under a roster of temporary vows, a division between the common and the uncommon in holy office. Then, of course, there was the High Priest, the focal point of this particular layer, but even here, since the Aaronic order was genealogical, God made a covenant within it, giving Phinehas the succession since he was found faithful.

This layered “geocentric” process can also be observed in the developments or refinements in the sacrificial praxes. Adam was to offer himself, but judgment for his failure was stemmed by God‘s mercy in the first substitutionary sacrifices. They were slain and offered whole but not burnt. The first burnt offering — or “ascension” — was presented by Noah, picturing his office as a mediator with authority from the heavenly court. Humans were now permitted to eat flesh, but not blood. In Abraham, picturing the division between Jew and Gentile, certain animals were chosen by God and cut in half by Abraham. Under the Levitical Law, animals were not only presented and cut to be offered by fire, but the various parts were allocated to different purposes, places and people. In a sense, the move towards the High Priesthood of Aaron was a cutting away at the flesh of Adam (or his substitutes) to get to the heart of the matter.

But of course, history did not stop there. The temple and priesthood were glorified under the inspired administration of King David, and here we observe yet another “eternal” covenant. Of course, you should by now understand that the Davidic Covenant existed within Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the Law of Moses (as expressed in the Psalms), being “under”, that is, accountable, to all of them, as they related to, operated within, mediated for and expounded upon each other. The holy center of this new, smaller, even purer, orbit, was not the hearing of the laws under priesthood but the incarnation of the law in true kingdom.

Following the failure of Israel’s kings, there was another division, and another covenant, this time with Jeroboam. His “orbit” was actually outside, larger than, the covenants with Levi and David, and his envy of their centrality was at the heart of his rebellion and idolatry. This envy was also at the heart of the rebellion of Korah, who apparently believed that every tribal leader in Israel should be a priest-king after the order of Melchizedek/Noah.

After the exile, a “new covenant” was established under Ezra and Nehemiah, Zechariah and Haggai, as predicted by Jeremiah.²See Jeremiah”s New Covenant. The priesthood would serve as keepers for the Davidic line, and now every Israelite, not just the priests, was required to prove his genealogical heritage. The latter prophets rail against the sins which led to the downfall of the previous kingdom, and this newly restored Israel, like the second generation in the wilderness, avoided the idolatries and adulteries of their forefathers. But the point here is that even this “new” covenant was ratified within all the previous ones.

Now we reach the center of this grand celestial construct, and it is of course the New Covenant in the blood of Christ, a covenant which was ratified within all the other covenants and yet fulfilled and succeeded them. In His baptism He was Noah, with the witness of the dove (Creation – Day 1). In His death, He was the circumcision of Abraham, cut off for the world (Division – Day 2). In His Ascension (Day 3), as the Lamb worthy to open the scroll, He was Moses on the mountain, receiving the Law of the Spirit. At Pentecost, He brought the kingdom of God, the law in the hearts of men (Testing – Day 4). In the testimony of the apostles, He was Israel scattered among the Gentiles, establishing New Covenant synagogues (Maturity – Day 5). In the destruction of Jerusalem, He was a new Israel freed from idolatry and adultery under “Babylon” (Conquest – Day 6). And with the covenantal knife finally reaching the heart of the matter, the construction of the Bride was complete, and it is in this light that we must understand the marriage feast of the Lamb in Revelation 19 as already fulfilled in history (Glorification – Day 7). All the old demarcations were eradicated, or more correctly, transformed.

Since our High Priest has entered into and recast the fiery center of the system, the entire Old Testament history is now a magnificent, seven-ringed “armillary sphere,” wheels within wheels, an apparatus of heavenly measurement which incorporates and employs in perfect harmony the specific authority of each of Jesus’ major Covenantal predecessors. It is now we who must follow Him from that center, from personal conversion into our families, tribes and nations to the outer limits, where the final enemy, death, will be destroyed, and the universe will be renewed. But all of these elements are already “in Christ” and thus already in our hands. In Emmanuel, God is with us, not only in our hearts, but to go up and possess our inheritance.

“All men, women and children
were always under covenant
with God in some form…”

The conclusion concerning “Covenant membership” and the concept of “Covenant children” in the binary sense as understood by many paedobaptists is that these were uniquely Abrahamic features and obligations, earthly stoicheia, carnal elements serving as stand ins for the heavenly parts of a much greater picture. Now it makes sense why God kept “moving the goal posts,” each level of promise and inheritance becoming redundant with the call to sacrifice it for something greater. Even Abraham understood that Canaan and his offspring were only object lessons for the possession of a heavenly country as tried, qualified and glorified sons of God, enthroned with Christ for rest and rule.

All men, women and children were always under covenant with God in some form, and the notion that baptism, especially paedobaptism, puts people “into the covenant” is absurd. Baptism is the foundation not for life, but for a life of service, of ministry, of accountability and discernment as a “son of God,” just as it was for the world under Noah, and for Israel under Moses.

All people, including all children, even the yet unborn (who cannot be paedobaptized if miscarried), have everything they could possibly have in the Gospel of Christ. The death of Jesus put them into this covenant, under obligation to the great High Priest and King of Kings, and also under His mercy. To limit His jurisdiction to some renovated or hybridised version of the Abrahamic demarcation is to grossly misunderstand Covenant history, defining the glorious New Covenant by one facet of its construction. Our “Covenant community” is not in here. It is out there.

This is why Reformed theology is the best school in which to learn about covenant theology, yet it is also the worst place to learn about New Covenant theology.

“A baptism which does not discern between the fruit of the womb and the fruit of the tomb is anti-Christ, denying He has come in the flesh.”

This post follows on from Exposed To The Elements.

An online paedobaptist friend commented that he had never heard sacred architecture offered as an argument for credobaptism before. My experience with the brilliant Bible teaching by the various Federal Vision gents is that I get a principle under my belt, then automatically begin to see its implications for all of Scripture. But then numerous times I would be surprised when no one had thought of applying it consistently. The main offender is paedobaptism. Despite their claims, it is a rite that does not spring naturally from Scripture. In fact, it has to be protected from Scripture, from the very principles I have been taught by paedobaptists.

There’s a reason that people with Asperger’s are being employed to find bugs in software. We can hold a lot of data in “working RAM” at once, which means we can “spot the difference” visually. Penelope Trunk writes:

 I have a feeling that what gave me the ability to bridge from a quirky writer to a marketable writer was focusing obsessively on Generation Y. Nobody could memorize the facts as fast as I did, and because they were all in my head I could synthesize them faster than everybody else and come up with trends. [1]

My friend Chris Wooldridge is a data analyst. His job is to find trends in data and present them pictorially. I have no doubt this is why he has picked up the Bible Matrix so quickly and is parsing passages like an old hand. To some degree, this ability requires having all the other key instances of the matrix in a “holding pattern” so they can be overlaid and compared. It is immensely beautiful, and it is one of two reasons why the practice of paedobaptism irks me so much. It is the fly in the ointment, the bug in the software. The Bible Matrix is the DNA of the Scriptures, which, like DNA, have a mechanism of self-correction. The matrix process of maturity rejects paedobaptism in every instance. Not only is the practice never described or commanded in Scripture, forces the redefinition of Christian, Church, Gospel, faith and just about everything else in its perverted path, the very DNA of the Bible treats it as a foreign body to be neutralized, a bug to be exterminated, an error to be corrected. The structure of the Scriptures themselves is as fussy as someone with OCD.

Now that I have many of my readers in defensive mode, I would like to take a look at a very simplified version of the architecture which makes paedobaptism the impossible doctrine. This has to do with the definition of “son of God.” Are sprinkled babies children of God? Both James Jordan and Peter Leithart maintains that the Gospel “redeems” natural patterns. I agree with them to some point. But their conflation of the image with the imager is an unwitting form of idolatry, with infants as the idols. They claim that paedobaptism is a New Covenant version of circumcision, at least as far as defining the boundary of the Covenant people (Jordan rightly says that circumcision is not baptism, and we strangely agree on many other points.) But a son of God is not a son of man. Paedobaptists love to abuse the Covenant with Abraham to support their well-meaning but perverted rite. I want to undermine that by taking us right back to the Garden of Eden.

Jesus called Himself “the Son of Adam,” a fact made clearer by the use of the phrase concerning the prophet Ezekiel, in whose book it appears over 90 times. I believe the reason is that Ezekiel is the only prophet given access to the heavenly Sanctuary, the throne of God. He is made, as Jordan observes, a kind of “rival High Priest in exile,” much as was Jesus many centuries later. The prophet is symbolically slain, falling on his face, then lifted up and filled with the Spirit of God. As a new Adam, he goes through a process of death and resurrection, and the rest of the book describes the same process measured out upon Israel.

But Jesus also called Himself “the Son of God.” This has an entirely different meaning. It is not genealogical, since it does not refer to an earthly father but the heavenly Father. An earthly father is most certainly an image of the heavenly Father, but the two cannot be conflated. The Pharisees who challenged Jesus had Abraham as their earthly father, and the devil as their heavenly father.

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and bhas nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:44-47)

Based upon the relationship between the Father and the Son in heaven, that which is at the heart of earthly sonhood is Representation. This is why the Succession step of the matrix process often concerns physical offspring in many Old Testament passages. It refers to genealogical Succession in history, God’s faithfulness to many generations of the faithful. But the New Testament moves the goal posts. Instead of physical offspring, it puts Gospel messengers at this point in every instance. The emphasis has moved from earthly sonhood to heavenly sonhood, from sons of Adam to sons of God. The switch began at the baptism of Jesus, the only Adam who was both.

At Jesus’ baptism, the Father chose Him from among all the other circumcised sons of Israel. It is the same scenario as that which brought about the anointing of David. All the possible choices were circumcised in the flesh, but God looked upon the heart of Jesus. This heart alone pleased Him. David’s name means “Beloved,” and I have no doubt that this is why the heavenly Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Since Christ was the only one who truly displayed Priestly submission, He was chosen to be King.

From that moment, Jesus, like David, was no longer under the authority of His earthly father. This was hinted at in the event of Jesus’ disappearance at age 12, a kind of “Firstfruits.” Baptism for every Christian is the point when the individual becomes directly accountable to his new Father, to Christ, and to Christ’s Church. As Jesus did, the baptizand bows to the authority of heaven that he or she might speak with the authority of heaven.

At the instant of Jesus’ baptism, there was only one true Jew, a brand new Adam. Just as Adam was a man without genealogy, whose Father was God, so for Jesus, all heredity, all circumcision and non-circumcision, was left behind in the water of baptism. This included allegiance to Abraham, the earthly father, since the heavenly Father had now revealed Himself for the first time in history.

So, what of circumcision? This is simple, indeed, so simple that it amazes me that so many bright Reformed theologians and Christians have not thought things through with any consistent logic, especially the ones who are aware of the dominion promises in Genesis 2. If Adam was faithful as the son of God, God would make Adam a father. Both the womb and the land would be opened to him, producing their fruit in season, just as Adam had produced the fruits of righteousness, a circumcised heart, to his own Father. In Abraham, the “Great Father” who was by nature barren, both the curse and promise concerning the land and the womb were repeated. Canaan was initially barren, but we will deal with that another time (it’s quite fascinating!) and of course Sarah was barren. Circumcision was given to Abraham because he was faithful. It was a symbolic “pruning” that both the womb and land might be opened. At every point, the Firstfruits was to be given to God, including Isaac. Baptism is a rite not for the inheritance but for the inheritor. The “architectural” background of all the Psalms is Edenic.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
(Psalm 127:3-5)

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the Lord.
(Psalm 128:1-4)

You can see from the diagram above that baptism is a rite that concerns circumcision of heart (things above: the Edenic Laver/Spring) that God might bless the believer with fruitfulness (things below: the Bronze Altar-Land). With the coming of Christ in the flesh, the promises to Abraham were fulfilled. The relationship of heredity to the Covenant was removed forever. It no longer mattered whether one was a Jew or a Gentile. The only household is the household of faith. The only sonhood is submission to the Father by the faith of the Son. A baptism which does not discern between the fruit of the womb (Land: below) and the fruit of the tomb (Garden: above) is anti-Christ, denying He has come in the flesh. Why do many of the world’s best Bible teachers, including many friends, fail to see this practice for what it is, especially those who know their way around biblical architecture?

Baptism is thus not about generation but regeneration. James Jordan claims that “regeneration” refers not to individuals but to the regeneration of the world in general, thus unregenerate offspring can be included in this process. But that is not the picture given in Scripture at all. Once again, the image is conflated with the original, the source confused with the result. And all the support given for paedobaptism relies on “Abrahamic” verses, texts about the earthly image. [2] In paedobaptism, the heavenly Father is conflated with earthly fathers, and the heavenly Son who, like Melchizedek has no genealogy, no earthly father, is confused with the sons of Aaron for whom genealogy was crucial.

If the Lord had slain Adam and Eve for Adam’s sin, it is obvious that the fruit of the womb and the land also would have been cut off. But Adam’s death was the source of this lack of natural fruit. Adam’s death had to do with his relationship to the heavenly Father. So baptism is not related to either the fruit of the Land or the fruit of the womb. It has to do with the fruit of righteousness, and these other things are only the result of that initial “Garden” fruit. Jesus’ death as Adam was prefigured in His baptism. He was not sprinkled or poured upon by John. He was submerged, slain, like the entire world during the Physical Flood, like Israel under Babylon and Rome in Social Floods. Only submersion pictures the complete end of the Old Order and the beginning of the New. The dove is never present over the Land, but only over the waters. If you have never been immersed, you have failed to publicly testify as Jesus did, that the old is gone and the new has come.

A paedobaptism is a false testimony. It says that a son of Adam is by nature a son of God. Even Jews would never claim such a thing. Every “begat,” every “bar,” was a testimony to earthly lineage. Even they understood the difference between physical offspring and those who represented not their earthly fathers but the heavenly Father. A son of God is one who has Sanctuary access not by the flesh but by the Spirit because they please God, having been slain and lifted up like Ezekiel, leaving that fiery courtroom as His representative on earth, to divide between light and darkness with his words as Adam did not and Jesus did. Jesus did not come to have earthly sons but heavenly ones (Hebrews 2:13), images of Himself not Physically or Socially but Ethically.

Now, my friends like to claim that their sprinkled children have Sanctuary access because they received the Spirit in their baptism and are now a child of God. Some even claim that infants who have not heard the Gospel have faith in God (the stupidity of this still blows me away. Who needs the Gospel, then?). This all stems from their unwillingness to discern the difference between earthly parents and the Eternal Parent, the image and the reality. Here is an example from my otherwise wise friend Toby Sumpter, who tweeted:

 Christians who spank their kids in love are high sacramentalists: they believe the Spirit saves souls through material means (Proverbs 23:14).

This is as confused as the claim that infants are believers because they trust God on their mother’s breast (Psalm 22:9). The Psalmist conflates the heavenly with the earthly poetically because one leads to the other, but they are not the same thing. The natural comes first, and then the spiritual. It is a process of maturity. The entire point of baptism is that one no longer needs to be spanked by one’s parents because one now serves the Father in heaven. Again, baptism is for the inheritor, not the inheritance, for the earthly father, not his babies. When Jesus blessed the children, who was the baptised one? It was Jesus. Somehow, everyone overlooks the obvious because they are looking for support for something else.

The blindness involved in such teaching mystifies me. Baptism is for heavenly sonhood and confers Sanctuary access as a representative of the Father. The only choice for paedobaptists is to eliminate the efficacy of baptism (and deny Sanctuary access) or to maintain the efficacy and minimise the requirement for heart circumcision. Both are really stupid, unbiblical ideas, and the solution is incredibly obvious. But I have no doubt they’ll keep fighting over this for decades to come, trying to unite heaven and earth by the will of man rather than by the true work of God in the hearts of contrite men and women, relying on badly composed, complicated statements by Reformers whose typological skills were not far removed from the sophistries of Rome, and thinking that because they have been sprinkled, witnessed so many sprinklings, and perhaps even performed their own sprinklings, this perversion must be the work of God. (I would draw a helpful diagram to demonstrate the difference between a womb and a tomb, but I haven’t got a crayon. I’m sure you can work it out.)

I hate paedobaptism because I love the Bible, which spits it out at every opportunity. But I also hate paedobaptism because I love the Gospel of repentance and faith, and an inheritance of the Spirit which expresses itself in willing identification with the sufferings of Christ. If this is offensive to you, you neither understand the promises to Abraham, or the promises in Christ. They are very different things, as different as the heavens are from the earth. They are obscured by well-meaning but carnal doctrine.

________________________________________________
[1] Penelope Trunk, 3 Things you need to know about people with Asperger’s.
[2] With such a misguided foundation, it is little wonder that my friend Luke Welch takes things to such shocking but logical conclusions. Apparently, the children of Christians are like Aaronic priests, who were symbolic sacrifices for sin.

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 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6).

This post has been slain and resurrected for inclusion in my 2015 book of essays, Inquietude.

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Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19)

Every one of God’s houses throughout Bible history has a “former days” and a “latter days.” Each goes through a process of death and resurrection, a “purification by fire.” Following the Bible Matrix, the central “slaying” of every row has a Day 4 symbol, something related to “the governing lights,” the all-seeing eyes of heaven.

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]]> http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2013/11/02/destroy-this-temple/feed/ 0 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2013/08/31/guns-girls-and-gold/ http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2013/08/31/guns-girls-and-gold/#comments Fri, 30 Aug 2013 15:12:10 +0000 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/?p=12874

“Once prosperous (gold), we forgot God and dismantled marriage (girls) and then relied upon military power rather than God’s protection to maintain peace with our enemies (guns).”

In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, Moses gave Israel three laws for her future kings. As moderns who wrongly assume the Bible is merely “propositional truth,” we not only fail to see these three laws as a continuum, and thus fail to identify them in Bible history, we also fail to interpret contemporary history in their brilliant “triune” light.

As expected, the laws themselves follow the Covenant pattern (precisely the same patterns we have been observing in Galatians), and are thus a microcosm of the entire book:

TRANSCENDENCE

Creation (Genesis – Ark of the Covenant)

“When you come to the land (Ark scatters enemies: Joshua 3:13)

that the Lord your God is giving you, (Veil – circumcision: Joshua 5:3-7)

and you possess it and dwell in it (Bronze Altar: Joshua 21:43-45)

and then say, (1 Samuel 8: unworthy to open scroll)

‘I will set a king over me, (Lampstand – law opened: Psalm 119)

like all the nations that are around me,’ (Incense – prophetic ministry)

you may indeed set a king over you (Mediator – New Adam)

whom the Lord your God will choose. (Rest and Rule: Solomon)

This first stanza predicts the pattern of events to come, and they are “sacrificial architecture.” However, Israel was not yet humble, not yet ready for kingdom. Their sin was the same sin as that of Adam. They saw kingdom (equality with God, Phil. 2:6-7) as something to be grasped, not something to be received as a gift after being qualified through humble obedience.

The symmetry between the gift of the Land from God in line two and the king in line 6 shows that even the king was to be a gift from God, His legal representative, His “image,” authorized to carry out judgments from His great white (ivory) throne.

HIERARCHY

Division (Exodus – Veil/Circumcision)

One (Animal chosen – Initiation)

from among your brothers (Animal cut – Delegation)

you shall set over you a king. (Animal lifted up – Presentation)

You may not (Holy fire – Purification)

set over you a foreigner (Holy smoke – Witness/Transformation)

who is not your brother. (Mediation – Vindication)

(No Rest – Representation)

Just as the Laws concerning Israel’s kings were decreed by God, so the act of choosing a blameless king (Hierarchy) would follow the process of sacrifice. The king would be set apart from his brothers (as a substitute/mediator) just as Israel was set apart from the nations. We can see the Ethical/Social/Physical nature of the world here as Seed/Flesh/Skin: Christ/Israel/Gentiles. Israel was a skinned sacrifice, a “peeled fruit” which carried the seed. If the king was a Gentile, there would be no Covenant Succession. This goes beyond the circumcision of the flesh to the circumcision of the heart (Leviticus 26:41). Saul was rejected because he acted like an uncircumcised Gentile king, an authority unto himself.

Notice that the king was the centre of stanza 1 as the source of Law (Day 4), but in stanza 2 the command of the Lord is at the centre. And there is no line 7, no Succession. Israel’s problem was kings who did not act like brothers, but who behaved like Pharaoh, one who did not know Joseph, Israel’s brother. This brings us to…

ETHICS

Ascension (Leviticus – Bronze Altar)

Only he must not (Genesis)

multiply horses (Exodus)

or cause to return (Leviticus)

the people (Numbers)

to Egypt (Deuteronomy)

to multiply horses, (Joshua)

since the Lord has said, (Judges)

The people were not to return to Israel Ethically (in their hearts, desiring a golden calf), Socially (through intermarriage with idolaters), or Physically (which was included as part of the curses in Deuteronomy 28:68, fulfilled under Titus in AD70):

And the Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

Israel’s destiny was to “serve the nations” as priests (as in The Feast of Booths), not as slaves to their gods (the Book of Judges).

This explains why Egypt appears at the “Deuteronomy” step in this legal stanza, representing both the “swarms” of Day 5 and the plagues upon Pharaoh. The horses at Conquest match the ones at Division. For Joshua, they were not the chariots of Pharaoh but the chariots of the Captain of the Lords hosts.

Ascension has two stanzas, the second one presenting the Covenant scroll, although here it is not sevenfold but fivefold, which means it is not an inheritance as it is in Revelation 5, but a stone tablet.

(Leviticus – Table of Facebread)

‘Never

shall you again

return

this way

in the future.’

What is interesting is that when we get to this point in the Revelation, Jesus opens His inheritance scroll to knock off Pharaoh (Herod) and claim the nations, and the four “Spirit horses” of the Gospel ride out! By chapter 19, He has multiplied horses, but they are not Egyptian ones. They are the saints as the Lord’s hosts, no longer angelic but glorified men.

Interestingly the “return” at the Levitical step of the Bronze Altar is still at the Levitical step here, which reflects the relationship between the fivefold pattern of Moses and the sevenfold pattern of Israel (see these charts from Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key for more on that. It’s amazing).

Testing (Numbers – Lampstand)

And he shall not

multiply wives,

lest his heart turn away,

nor silver and gold

increase greatly.

Well, that covers the “guns,” now we get to the girls and the gold. I had expected the “Guns, Girls and Gold” to be the threefold Ethics in this cycle but the horses have been connected to the Conquest of the Land, borders which God would protect. If Israel was faithful, God would keep the nations at bay and she would have no need of horses. If she was unfaithful, God would first allow the Land to be invaded, and finally the City and then the Temple destroyed.

Women and gold appear at the centre for typological reasons. Gold and fire (desire) are represented by the Lampstand. The gold represents the godly king, the Adam (who is wiser than a bronze “earthy” serpent because he is holy) and the fire his legal love for the Woman. The book of Israel’s harlotry is Numbers, the book of Testing by serpents and a serpentine king, whose false prophet caused Israel to commit adultery with idolaters.

This fivefold stanza follows the Covenant pattern, with the Transcendent Law at the beginning, an uncircumcised heart at Hierarchy, a deceived heart at Ethics, plunder (a Covenant blessing) allowed to become a plague (a Covenant curse) at Sanctions, becoming a false inheritance of earthly riches at Succession.

The word “multiply” is used repeatedly, and true “multiplication” is not supposed to come until Maturity, from the hand of God. The multiplication of guns, girls and gold (symbols all sourced in Adam’s theft of kingdom from God’s right hand) is a form of sorcery. It is an attempt to gain God’s blessings without prior obedience. That is, to gain success without following God’s directions. This is where the glorious “swarms” of Day 5 become locusts who eat the Pentecostal harvest, and the clouds of incense become clouds of sulphur.

It is interesting that these five lines also echo the architectural progression of the Ten Words (above, beside, below):

Transcendence
And he shall not
(1 Word from God; 2 Oath to God – Adam to Noah)

Hierarchy

multiply wives,
(3 Land; 4 Womb – Abraham to Joseph)

Ethics

lest his heart turn away,
(5 Murder; 6 Adultery – Moses to David)

Sanctions
nor silver and gold
(7 Theft; 8 Legal Witness – Solomon to Jeremiah)

Succession
increase greatly.
(9 House; 10 Household – Daniel to Esther [1])

How beautiful is that? Silver always seems to turn up at that point. It is the point where the Bride is either redeemed or sold, harking back to Adam’s failure to protect Eve, to Abraham’s purchase from Ephron for Sarah’s burial, and also Achan’s theft of gold, silver and a robe.

Maturity (Deuteronomy – Incense: Legal Witness)

“And when he shall come (Creation)

and sit on the throne (Division)

of his kingdom, (Ascension – Lamb)

he shall write (Ascension – scroll opened)

a copy of this law (Testing – legal image)

likewise on a scroll (Maturity – scroll received)

before the faces (Conquest – veil opened)

of the Levitical priests. (Glorification – Representatives)

James Jordan notes that the reason the wisdom literature is so mysterious to us is that we have not had the books of Moses and Samuel drummed into us. The kings of Israel had to copy out the Law for themselves, which I had never noticed before. For instance, Jordan sees Ecclesiastes as a mediation on the Feast of Booths. [2]

What is really excellent here is that Maturity is the “Deuteronomy” step, which means “Second Law,” because Moses repeated the Law to a new generation. It was the macrocosm of the second set of tablets given to old Israel after her golden calf sin at Sinai. Not only this but the phrase “a copy of this law” appears at the centre. The king was to be a son of God, an image of the Father. His obedience was to be a sign of the goodness of God: Israel’s God not only spoke (unlike idols), He was worthy to be obeyed.

I love the fact that Maturity concerns “legal witness,” and here the king shows his submission to God through his submission to Levitical priests. As the king watched over Israel (as her shepherd), so God watched over the king through his priestly angels “filled with eyes.”

SANCTIONS

Conquest (Joshua – Mediators)

And it shall be with him,

and he shall read in it

all the days of his life,

that he may learn to fear the Lord his God

by keeping all the words of this law

and likewise the statutes,

diligently,

This is the “Day 6″ of the cycle, and the theme is Adam in the Garden of God, humbling himself that he might be given kingdom, the second tree, as a gift, and therefore have God’s complete blessing to subdue the Land, instead of the partial one which Adam received. The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, appears at the center of numerous Covenant cycles, sometimes as “trembling.” Instead, Adam feared a lesser authority. Jordan observes that Solomon, with his interest in studying nature, “naming biology,” is presented as a greater Adam.

SUCCESSION

Glorification (Judges – Representing God to the Nations)

that his heart may not be lifted up (False Transcendence)

above his brothers, (Hierarchy)

and that he may not turn aside (Ethics – Priest)

from the commandment, (Ethics – King)

either to the right hand or to the left, (Ethics – Prophet)

so that he may continue long in his kingdom, (Sanctions – blessing)

he and his children, in Israel. (Succession – offspring)

Finally, we come to Covenant Succession, the inheritance of the faithful man. This one is explained by my subheadings, but I would also note that the “right hand or left” is a reference to Kingdom and Priesthood, both of which are under the authority of the Prophet. It is at this step (Maturity) that Moses sits on a rock and Aaron (Priest) and Hur (of Judah: King) hold up his arms. All three were there at Ascension, but not yet united (separate elements, stoicheia). At Maturity, Priest, King and Prophet are one (a holy hybrid, the High Priest) [3]. Hence, Ehud’s faithful left-handed stabbing of Eglon was a priestly act, not a kingly one.

History:

In his downfall, Solomon actually reversed the order of the three Laws, which began a process of “de-Creation.” He amassed 666 talents of gold so that silver became commonplace (hence the symbols 666 and “wisdom” are used to signify the temple-building Herods in the Revelation), he took many idolatrous wives, and then became a trader in Egyptian horses. His fall was Ethical, Social, then Physical, as the Land was taken away.

Application:

We can apply this to modern Western Culture. Faithfulness to God brought global conquest, faithfulness in marriage, then prosperity and great wisdom (science). Once prosperous (gold), we forgot God and dismantled marriage (girls) and then relied upon military power rather than God’s protection to maintain peace with our enemies (guns).

As one commentator said today, regarding the possibility of another brutal intervention into a brutal civil war in the Middle East, instead of sending soldiers we ought to be sending missionaries. Instead of sending a swarm of sulphuric locusts, we should be sending heavenly birds and schools of fish.
___________________________________
[1] See Esther and the Ten Words.
[2] See How To Read the Bible.
[3] See Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key for more on this fascinating subject of “holy mixtures”.

]]> http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2013/08/31/guns-girls-and-gold/feed/ 0 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2013/04/11/qa-against-you-only-have-i-sinned/ http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2013/04/11/qa-against-you-only-have-i-sinned/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:02:05 +0000 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/?p=11966 “…there is no sacrifice to Bathsheba…”

Jon Ericson asked this question on the Biblical Hermeneutics site:

To what extent is Psalm 51:4 poetic exaggeration?

The context of Psalm 51 is clear:

To the choirmaster. A psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

These events are described in 2nd Samuel 11–12. In summary, David essentially murdered Uriah the Hittite in order to cover up an affair with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. So this verse causes me trouble:

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
—Psalm 51:4 (ESV)

David did sin against God, but it seems a stretch to say that he sinned against God only. Surely he sinned against at least Uriah, the soldiers who died with him (and their families), Bathsheba, his current wives, and even his unborn child. In addition, he probably sinned against Joab too by abusing his authority to settle a personal matter.

The logical connector “so that” seems out of place. Whatever connection there might be between a person sinning against God and God being blameless in judgment, I can’t see how justice could be the purpose or explanation of sin.

Is there some way to understand this Psalm that resolves this conundrum? What am I missing?

The best answer (I believe) comes from Qoheleth-Tech:

Not a Hyperbolic Expression

The Text of Psalm 51:4:

לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ ׀ חָטָאתִי וְהָרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי
לְמַעַן תִּצְדַּק בְּדָבְרֶךָ תִּזְכֶּה בְשָׁפְטֶֽךָ׃

Explanation

1) “Against you alone” (לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ): This is a prayer of David for repentance (a penitential psalm), and while he sinned against many others in the affair with Bathsheba, this is just not where he handles them (possible reasons are many). He says it is “in your [God's] eyes [בְּעֵינֶיךָ] that I have done this” , further indicating that this is a personal prayer (which was later set to music). Interestingly, having looked at most of the “so that” (לְמַעַן ) phrases in the canon to this point, I found at least two where a sin condition was “so that” God would be glorified; and both are instances where enemies are hardened or defeated (Ex.10:1, Dt.2:30). If anything can be drawn from that syntactical similarity, it would be that David see himself who has been completely undone, so that God can be shown victorious (LXX) in his judgements. In any case, this is how he uses the preposition “so that” (לְמַעַן).

2) We should not read the verse with an emphasis on purpose as if David’s purpose in sinning was so God would be glorified (cf. Rom.3:5-8). Rather, it is the second part of the verse which dictates the first: it was all against Him alone, “(so) that” God will be victorious. The purpose of this verse in the Psalm is to declare that God will be victorious/justified in His judgement of David’s sins. The second line of the verse is the point. In this sense, it is the purpose of the preceding verse. To understand this better, read the second line first. Try and think of it again with the second line first.

Interpretation

In this penitential prayer, there is no sin to be reserved, as if it was not against God, it was all against God. Every bit of it. God is just in judgement in all of it. The same portion against Uriah, was also against God. David must answer to God above all.

Likewise (as is evident in this Psalm) when God pardons David’s sins, he washes away all of David’s sins – there is no sacrifice to Bathsheba. David’s forgiveness was entirely with God. Whatever else was needed for the personal restoration/reconciliation with those against whom he sinned would also be in primary obedience to God.

]]> http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2013/04/11/qa-against-you-only-have-i-sinned/feed/ 0 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/09/12/better-call-saul/ http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/09/12/better-call-saul/#comments Wed, 12 Sep 2012 00:55:47 +0000 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/?p=10632

or Mr White and the Black Hat

“There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

King David committed far worse sins than did King Saul. Saul was not an evil man, yet his judgments caused the deaths of many people, including Jonathan, his other sons and even the priests of God. Why did a reign that began so well end in such tragedy?

David, for all his sins (adultery, murder, trusting in armies), was not disqualified, yet Saul was rejected by God for lesser sins. What was the difference between them? Besides the fact that David owned his sin and Saul blamed everybody else, the difference was that David understood that his rule as a king over God’s Covenant people would only ever be on God’s terms. He could never be a king like those of the Gentiles.

Although his power was sourced in Israel’s priesthood, David was to embody the Covenant in a greater way than the priesthood. He was to be “Pentecostal” in the sense that he was to be not only under the Law, he was to embody, open and expound upon the Law for his people. He was to be the Law of Moses incarnate, and from David’s anointing by Samuel we see his soul broken as a priestly sacrifice, exalted in kingly fire, and finally taking on a prophetic nature. The fundamental point here is that the Law was a light to David’s path. He saw the future through God’s eyes, which means he could see a lot further ahead, by faith. He had a wisdom beyond his years.

“I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts.” (Psalms 119:100)

Saul’s victories led to a misguided belief in his own divinity, which is possibly why he honoured Agag by sparing his life. As kings, they had something in common. They trusted their own judgment. Saul’s “Pentecost” became instead the ministry of an evil spirit, and the anointing of David by the Holy Spirit. Saul was a wily warrior king, but his was not the serpentine wisdom that is harmless as a dove. His judgments were based on the pragmatism of the flesh, which can only see so far. Guided by his own wisdom, rather than becoming a “Covenant shelter” for his people, Saul’s manipulation of and meddling in the Covenant processes of God put at risk those in his care. Like Walter White, those for whom he fought were the very ones he put at risk, alienated, grievously harmed and eventually lost.

David’s various sins still brought tragic consequences, but when challenged he crossed the courtroom floor to stand with God against himself and received mercy. He listened to God. Saul refused to listen, and when God stopped speaking to him he sought guidance through witchcraft. God simply repeated, through Samuel, what He had said before. The voice of Samuel was “deuteronomic” but not in a good sense. It was a legal witness against Saul from the courts of God and would end his tyranny. Saul’s own blood atoned for his kingly sins. Obedience (prevention) would have been better than sacrifice (cure).

In hindsight, Saul’s unwillingness to be a living sacrifice and place himself in the hands of a faithful, just and merciful God, is easy for us to condemn. But in so many ways this is exactly how we live our lives. Saul loved the gifts of God more than God Himself, which is an incredibly subtle form of idolatry when it is the good things that we love. If we attempt to preserve the mind of the flesh (false Altar), we will then turn to a false spirit (false Lampstand) and the spirit of prophecy, the legal witness, will not be for us but against us. The outcome of our “Covenant” missions will be plagues instead of plunder.

This Saul versus David, first Adam versus last Adam pattern was replayed in the first century. Saul’s sins were lesser than those of David, but we must remember that the anointing of David is what put the brakes on Saul’s reign. It was the Ascension of Christ and the Day of Pentecost which empowered those Jews and Gentiles who were “after God’s heart.” But the events of Pentecost also “enlightened the eyes” of many who saw Jesus for who He is and yet rejected Him, blaspheming His Spirit. From that day on, the Rabbinic Judaism of the rulers of Jerusalem, with its pragmatic compromises and manipulation of the priesthood and Temple, became entirely demonic. The persecution of the saints by the Jewish leaders was inspired by the same jealousy that filled Saul. As Saul employed Doeg the Edomite to slay the priests who had fed the Showbread to David and his followers, so the Edomite Herods slew Christ and then set about wiping out the New Covenant priesthood.

The Herodian “voice of God” which they listened to (Acts 12:22) was Covenantal sorcery, and it was the prophetic witness of the apostles which condemned them to the great Day of Coverings. Unwittingly, the Herods had offered Christ as the Head of the sacrifice and His Church as the Body, making their own Temple redundant. Like Saul and his sons, Jews attempting to escape the Roman armies were “lifted up” for the birds and the beasts in mass crucifixions. Like David, Christ became a Covenant shelter and an eternal table for the remaining sons of Saul. [1]

The Jewish compromise was born of earthly pragmatism, a short-sighted wisdom. They sat in the seat of Moses but they trusted in their own wisdom. Their “Pentecostal” Lampstand eyes were filled with darkness. God’s ways are not our ways, and they are most often veiled to us, but we can trust Him, and walk in His ways, in the knowledge that He knows the end, and our end will not be the end of Saul.

[1] Walter White has a crippled son. And his lawyer’s name is Saul Goodman.

See also Spiritual Power.

]]> http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/09/12/better-call-saul/feed/ 0 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/06/02/the-illusion-of-control/ http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/06/02/the-illusion-of-control/#comments Sat, 02 Jun 2012 03:18:17 +0000 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/?p=9951 In a recent sermon on 1 Samuel 30, Doug Wilson commented on David’s insistence that those who stayed behind to guard the supplies received an equal share of the plunder:

There’s a way of reading [the Bible] with your eyes open and a way of reading the Bible with your eyes closed. Your spiritual eyes are closed when you have a stingy heart. If you have a heart that’s like a bit of beef jerky left in the bottom of the bag when you’re done with it, you’re not going to be able to read the script no matter how many times you read the script.

What kind of man is David? Why is David able to trust God like this?…

A despot knows how to work with bribes and influence peddlers. A despot knows how to work the system. A despot knows how to pay people off. If you flip back to 1 Samuel 22:7, we see Saul’s idea of generosity. Saul is complaining about David.

Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, “Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds…”

“Don’t you understand? I gave you all this stuff. Where’s my loyalty!”

When our despotic federal government is dispensing money, throwing it away by the trillion, they are doing exactly this. But what are they doing it with? They are doing it with other people’s money.  They are buying off one group with what they pillaged from another group.

David, however, is generous with material goods which he gained lawfully. Saul is accruing all sorts of things to himself in the spirit Samuel warned Israel about in 1 Samuel 8. Saul is violating the Deuteromonic standards for the king of Israel, and David is not. David’s role in gaining the plunder was so obvious, David was so magnificent, that all the men rightly said, “This is David’s spoil. It all belongs to David.”

David knew it was his because God had been generous to him, and David resolved to be generous to others.

When Saul tries to work the system by bribing people, that is not the same thing as imitating the generosity of God. Someone who is buying loyalty is certainly giving something, but the heart doesn’t understand the nature of true generosity. The cosmos does work according to the law of reciprocity, but it does so without becoming a vending machine. You can trick a vending machine. You cannot trick a God Who is not mocked, Who says that a man reaps what he sows. God is not a game that can be played. God is not a system that can be worked. God is a God whose mercy overflows, but he sees when you are being like him and when you are only pretending to be like him.

When 200 of his men grow faint, David was an understanding leader. David entrusted his suffering men with the care of the supplies, with some responsibility. When he returned, he gave them a full share of the spoil.

When they came upon the Egyptian slave which the Amalekite master had abandoned to die in the wilderness when he had grown sick, they fed him before they knew whether his information would be of any use to them.

David had it written into law that the supply corps should share in the spoils. Compare this with the sons of Belial who thought they were being generous. “We let them have their own wives and kids. What more could you want?” When David returns to Ziklag, he takes all the spoil that he has recovered and sends gifts all over the region.

They key principle found in the heart of David is here in v. 23:

Then said David, Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which the Lord hath given us, who hath preserved us, and delivered the company that came against us into our hand.

The Lord is giving to us. How can we not be giving. The Lord has forgiven us. How can we not be forgiving?

God’s mercy is overflowing, but it does not extend everywhere. There is one place to which God’s mercy does not extend for the same reason that circles cannot be square. God cannot save you from drowning by leaving you in the water. God cannot show mercy to you and at the same time leave you on the bottom of the lake of your own mercilessness.

David was an open-hearted, merciful king. This is the open hand ruling. Consider that Jesus rules the universe this way, and the rule of every government is founded on this principle. Kings rule this way. Fathers rule in their homes this way. Mayors rule this way. Elders and pastors rule this way. When government is blessed by God, it is this kind of rule.

God loves mercy. The merciful heart is open, honest, generous, glad and much more. If God rules the universe that way, all that the control monkey has, in his efforts to get things going his way, is the illusion of control.

Excerpt from The Open Hand Rules, January 17, 2012.

]]> http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/06/02/the-illusion-of-control/feed/ 0 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/03/08/a-king-among-sons/ http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/03/08/a-king-among-sons/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:53:34 +0000 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/?p=9018 Check out the matrix pattern in 1 Samuel 16. It’s an easy one, but it’s so beautiful. And it makes sense of the (rare) physical description of David, related to the Holy Place. Each of the seven sections follows the matrix, but here is the overall pattern:

T R A N S C E N D E N C E
Creation : Day 1 – Spirit/Ark – Genesis
The Lord commands Samuel to fill his horn with oil

H I E R A R C H Y
Division : Day 2 – Firmament/Veil – Exodus
The Lord sends Samuel under the pretense of making a sacrifice.

E T H I C S – 1
Ascension : Day 3 – Land & Sea – Grain & Fruit/Altar & Table – Leviticus
Samuel obeys and travels to Bayith-Lechem (House of Bread). He commands Jesse and his sons to consecrate themselves. The first son is presented as the “Head,” the firstfruits, but is rejected.

E T H I C S – 2
Testing : Day 4 – Ruling Lights/Lampstand – Numbers
Jesse’s seven sons pass before Samuel. The Lord rejects them all.

E T H I C S – 3
Maturity : Day 5 – Swarms/Incense – Deuteronomy
Jesse reveals that there is an eighth Son, David (“Beloved”), who is keeping the flocks, the “Body.” Samuel commands him to bring him in, or there will be no rest.

S A N C T I O N S
Conquest : Day 6 – Mediators/High Priest – Joshua
David has bright eyes, (literally) a blood-filled face, and is attractive. He is the Facebread (Ethics 1) and the Lampstand (Ethics 2), and the Incense (Ethics 3). The wilderness has made him into a Holy Place.

S U C C E S S I O N
Glorification : Day 7 – Rest/Shekinah – Judges
Samuel takes the horn of oil and anoints David. The Spirit rests upon the Beloved from that day on.

A few notes:

1. Read the passage for yourself and see it you can see the 7-fold structure of each of the seven sections.
2. Both Samuel and John the Baptist were Nazirites from birth. In a greater sense, all the “sons of David” passed before John as he was baptizing in the Jordan. All were rejected until Jesus presented Himself “to fulfill all righteousness.” The Spirit descended, and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
3. Perhaps this is the background to the phrase in Ephesians 1:6, “accepted in the Beloved.” Israel could not truly cross the Jordan, could not truly “enter into rest” until her Captain arrived.
4. Read Peter Leithart’s A Son to Me: An Exposition of 1 and 2 Samuel, for some background on Samuel as Saul and David’s “father.”
5. Notice that the next passage concerns a spirit coming upon Saul. These two “sons” become two atonement “goats.”

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