The book of Esther describes the fulfillment of the battle of Gog and Magog

An excerpt from “Esther in the Midst of Covenant History” by James B. Jordan (2001)

The battle of Gog and Magog is found in Ezekiel 38-39. Ezekiel presents the destruction of Jerusalem as simultaneously a judgment on the whole world (Ezekiel 24-33). After this, he prophesies that the people will return to the land. Sometime after this there would be a time of trouble and the land would be invaded by an army made up of many peoples under the leadership of Prince Gog. In my book Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World I followed many older commentators in referring this to the invasion of the land by Antiochus Epiphanes.

After this huge battle, a new Temple is built out of the spoils. This follows the pattern of victory followed by house building that we see everywhere in the Bible. The Tabernacle was built of the spoils of Egypt, and the Temple of the spoils of the Philistines. Ezekiel’s Temple is described in a vision of sacred geometry, but it was intended to apply to the Restoration era. The actual building erected by Joshua and Zerubbabel (Haggai 1-2; Zechariah 1-6) and glorified by Ezra was the literal fulfillment of the visions of Ezekiel 40-48. The changes in sacrificial administration set out in these visions were implemented in the Restoration Temple. I noted in Through New Eyes that this was the view of Adam Clarke, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, and E. W. Hengstenberg.

I wasn’t quite happy with this, since it puts the battle of Gog and Magog out of sequence. Antiochus Epiphanes invaded the land years after the Temple was initially rebuilt and then made glorious. Is there another event that better fits as the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38-30? I believe there is. I suggest that the book of Esther describes the fulfillment of the battle of Gog and Magog.

Let me make a detour into Zechariah. Zechariah sees the Kingdom in the form of a grove of myrtle trees (Zech. 1:8). It is significant that Esther’s original Hebrew name, Hadassah, is the word for “myrtle” (Esth. 2:7). Moreover, Zechariah prophesies the events of Esther in Zechariah 2:8-9. He states that after the Glory of God had moved back into the Temple, the nations would seek to plunder Israel. God would wave His hand over them, however, so that they would be plundered by their slaves, those they were oppressing: Israel. This event would be a confirming seal to them that God had indeed reestablished the Covenant with them.

Of course, it is in Esther that we see a conspiracy to plunder the Jews, which backfires with the result that the Jews plundered their enemies. This event is then ceremonially sealed with the institution of the annual Feast of Purim. The book of Esther is frequently overlooked in the Old Testament, and its meaning has been widely debated. If my suggestion is correct, however, we now have a good idea of its purpose and place in the canon.

With this in mind, we can look back at Ezekiel. Ezekiel 34 states that God will act as Good Shepherd to Israel, and will bring them back into the land. He continues this theme in Ezekiel 36, saying that God will make a new covenant with Israel. The inauguration of this new covenant, which we can call the Restoration Covenant, is described in Zechariah 3, where God removes the filth from Joshua the High Priest and restores the Temple and priesthood. Of course, Ezekiel’s language in Ezekiel 36:25-27 is picked up in the New Testament and applied to the New Covenant, but we need to understand that the first fulfillment of his words was in the Restoration Covenant, which was of course a type of the New Covenant.

Ezekiel continues in Ezekiel 37 with the vision of the valley of dry bones. The Spirit of God would be given in greater measure than ever before (though of course not as great as at Pentecost in Acts 2), and the result would be a restoration of the people. No longer would there be a cultural division between Judah and Ephraim, but all would be together as a new people. (Their new name as a whole would be “Judahite, Jew.”)

At this point, Ezekiel describes the attack of Gog, Prince of Magog, and his confederates. Ezekiel states that people from all the world will attack God’s people, who are pictured dwelling at peace in the land. God’s people will completely defeat them, however, and the spoils will be immense. The result is that all nations will see the victory, and “the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God from that day onward” (Ezk. 39:21-23). This is the same idea as we found in Zechariah 2:9, “Then you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent Me,” which I argued above most likely refers to the events of Esther.

Chronologically this all fits very nicely. The events of Esther took place during the reign of Darius, after the initial rebuilding of the Temple under Joshua and Zerubbabel and shortly before rebuilding of the walls by Nehemiah.

Nehemiah established a social polity among the people and rebuilt the physical walls of Jerusalem. Since Ezekiel 40-48 is concerned with the fullness of the Temple and also with the reconfiguration of the social polity of the land, it is possible to maintain that the central fulfillment of Ezekiel 40-48 is found in the labors of Nehemiah. It should be noted that the prophecy of Ezekiel 40-48 came in the first month of 572 B.C., exactly 70 years prior to Nehemiah’s request to Darius to go to Jerusalem. This fact should not be discounted, for there are several 70-year predictions operating in this period of history, as we saw in our studies in Daniel.

Thus, the interpretive hypothesis I am suggesting (until someone shoots it down) is this: Ezekiel 34-37 describes the first return of the exiles under Zerubbabel, and implies the initial rebuilding of the physical Temple. Ezekiel 38-39 describes the attack of Gog (Haman) and his confederates against the Jews. Finally, Ezekiel 40-48 describes in figurative language the situation as a result of the work of Nehemiah.

Looking at a few details, we see that the victory of the Jews over their enemies in Esther resulted in the deaths of 75,310 people (Esth. 9:10,15,16). This number of deaths is commensurate with the extent of the slaughter pictured in Ezekiel 38-39. The Jews were told that they might plunder those they slew (Esth. 8:11), but they did not take any of the plunder for their personal use (Esth. 9:10,15,16), which surely implies that it was regarded as holy and was sent to adorn the Temple.

Another interesting correspondence lies in the fact that the book of Esther repeatedly calls attention to the “127 provinces” of the Persian Empire, and in connection with the attack on the Jews, speaks of the “provinces which were from India to Cush” (Esth. 8:9). This goes well with the way Ezekiel 38 starts out, for there a number of nations are mentioned from all over the world, all of which were within the boundaries of the Persian Empire (Ezk. 38:1-6). In other words, the explicit idea that the Jews were attacked by people from all the provinces of Persia is in both passages.

Another possible cue is found in the prominent use of the Hebrew word for “multitude” in Ezekiel 39:11, 15, and 16. That word is hamon, which is spelled in Hebrew almost exactly like the name Haman. It was Haman, of course, who engineered the attack on the Jews in Esther. In Hebrew, both words have the same “tri-literal root” (hmn). Only the vowels are different. (Though in hamon, the vowel “o” is indicated by the vowel-letter vav.) According to Ezekiel 39:11 and 15, the place where the army of Gog is buried will be known as the Valley of Hamon-Gog, and according to verse 16, the nearby city will become known as Hamonah. Moreover, the words Agagite and Gog are the same in Hebrew, if we subtract the vowels and vowel-letters. Thus, in Hebrew consonants, Hamon-Gog and Haman the Agagite are identical. It seems to me that if I were a Jew living during the inter-testamental era, I would be struck by these correspondences, and they would cause me to consider whether or not they are related.

Yet another corroboration, to my mind, lies in the fact that Haman was an Amalekite. He was an “Agagite,” a descendant of the Amalekite king Agag who was captured by Saul and hacked to pieces by Samuel (1 Sam. 15; Esth. 3:1). What Esther records is the last great attack upon Israel by Amalek, and the final destruction of Amalek. Now, Numbers 24:20 states that “Amalek was the first of the nations, but his end shall be destruction.” The term “nation” is more closely associated with the Japhethites than with the Hamites or the Shemites. We don’t know which “nation” Amalek was, since it is not listed in Genesis 10, but it would seem to have been a Japhethite one.¹I disagree with Jim on the identity of Amalek. He notes below that Amalek is the name of one of Esau’s grandsons, presumably after this “nation” of Amalek, but I believe that this was in fact the original Amalek, and thus “first” means the firstborn of Jacob, a false brother who would trouble Israel until the end of the Old Covenant era, the Herods being “Idumeans” or Edomites. For more discussion, see Everlasting Arms.

At any rate, what is striking about Ezekiel 38 is that the nations listed as conspiring against Israel are Japhethite and Hamite nations seldom if ever mentioned outside the primordial list in Genesis 10. Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Beth-togarmah, Tarshish, and Gomer are all Japhethite nations from Genesis 10:2-4. Cush, Put, Sheba, and Dedan are Hamite peoples from Genesis 10:6-7. Thus, the notion is of a conspiracy of primordial peoples against the true remnant of the Shemites. This certainly squares well with the fact that Haman was the preeminent representative of Amalek, the first of the nations.

Moreover, Amalek is the name of one of Esau’s grandsons, a mighty chieftain (Gen. 36:16). As Genesis 36 shows, Esau’s sons and grandsons completely merged with the Horites of Mount Seir to become the semi-Canaanite nation of Edom. From Genesis 14:6-7 we learn that the hill country of the original Amalekites was close to the Horites of Mount Seir. By giving his son the name Amalek, Eliphaz, son of Esau, was clearly forging another link. Thereafter, the Amalekites are not only gentiles, but also Edomites. Haman in Esther is not only a spokesman of the gentile opposition to God, but also of the continuing hatred of Esau for Jacob.

The main argument against my hypothesis would be that Ezekiel 38-39 picture an invasion of the land of Israel, whereas the events of Esther happened throughout the Persian Empire. At present, this argument does not have much force with me because of the fact that this entire section of Ezekiel is so highly symbolic in tone anyway. Chapter 37 gives us the vision of the valley of dry bones, after all, and chapters 40-48 are a thoroughly geometrical vision of the Restoration Covenant. Thus, I can see no difficulty in assuming that Ezekiel is picturing the final world-wide attack of Amalek and his cohorts under the imagery of an attack on the land, imagery derived from the book of Judges (cp. Jud. 18:7,10,27 with Ezk. 38:8,11,14).

Moreover, since the land of the Jews was part of the empire of Ahasuerus-Darius, and the attack on the Jews took place throughout the empire, it is clear that the Jews in the land were under assault in Esther. Thus, even if someone wants to press the idea of an invasion of the land of promise, Esther still portrays it. God’s people throughout the empire, including those in the land, were under assault.

A final corroboration of this interpretive hypothesis comes from what we might call the “Amalek Pattern” in the Bible. Note in Genesis 12-15 that Abram moves into the land after escaping Pharaoh (ch. 12), settles down and experiences peace and prosperity (ch. 13), and then faces an invasion of a worldwide alliance of nations (ch. 14). This alliance captures Lot, but Abram rescues him, after which a Gentile priest blesses Abram (ch. 14). Finally, after this, God appears to Abram in a vision and makes covenant with him (ch. 15), guaranteeing him a “house.”

Now look at Moses: After escaping Pharaoh (Ex. 1-14), the people are given food and water in the wilderness (Ex. 16). Then Amalek attacks and kills many Lot-like stragglers (Ex. 17; Dt. 25:17-19). Moses defeats Amalek, after which a Gentile priest (Jethro) blesses the people, and then God appears in the Cloud and makes covenant with them (Ex. 18-24), including the building of a “house” (the Tabernacle).

The same themes show up in the history of David: After escaping Pharaoh Saul (1 Sam. 18-26), David finds a place of rest in the “wilderness” at Ziklag (ch. 27). Then Amalek attacks and steals David’s wives (ch. 30), but David defeats them. Following this, a Gentile priest-king (Hiram of Tyre, who as a Gentile king was also a priest) blesses David (2 Sam. 5:11-12), and then God appears to David in a vision, promising him a “house” (2 Sam. 7).

In this pattern, the attack of Gentile world powers (Gen. 14) is associated with the attack of Amalek (Ex. 17; 1 Sam. 27). As can plainly be seen, the same pattern recurs in the Restoration. After departing from Babylon, the people settle in the land and experience a degree of peace. Then comes the attack of Amalek and Gog & Magog. After this, Gentile priest-kings sponsor the return of Nehemiah to restore the land and the “house.”

While it would be fascinating to follow up this theme in the Gospels, Acts, and possibly Revelation, enough has been said to indicate that it is a recurring pattern, and one that lends some support to the hypothesis that the attack of Gog and Magog is fulfilled in the book of Esther.

Satan is currently bound from gathering the nations in kingly rebellion so that Jesus might gather them in priestly unity.

Everything which Scripture records for us, no matter how mundane or mysterious, exists as part of a process of growth to maturity. This transformation is achieved through relationships established by a Father who delights in His Son and rewards His faithfulness as “seed” with abundant fruit.

History is thus written in “harvest cycles,” and each of these ends with blessings and curses. As in Eden, after a period of silence which allows the righteous and the wicked to fulfill their potential, the Lord comes suddenly (Revelation 22:10-11). As in Eden, He inspects and collects the fruit and gives His trees a pruning. In history, each cycle lasts approximately 400 to 500 years, since that is the time it takes for a new Word to finish its work in a culture. From our beginning in Adam, these cycles also appear to come in pairs, a Forming and a Filling, resulting in “themed” millennia.

Continue reading at Theopolis Institute.

Redemption of the Female Eunuch

“We are not things.”

George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is a two hour chase movie. It is also, unwittingly, a bold portrait of biblical feminism.

Balls to the Wall¹A term used by pilots. When accelerating quickly, the throttle is pushed all the way to the panel and the throttle lever (ball) actually touches the panel (wall).

Miller delivered the expected testosterone-fest but not a few men felt like they had been had. The central character is not Max, the ex-cop of the previous films, but a woman called Imperator Furiosa. Even worse, Max spends most of the movie surrounded by women. The film has been called triumphantly feminist by some critics. In some ways it is, but I would argue that Miller’s gender politics, understood in a biblical light, bring feminism full circle. Womanhood ends up back where it began, but it will never be the same again.

Blood Bag

There are only two ways to achieve prosperity. The first is the promised abundance from the hand of God given after faithful obedience. The second is through slavery and robbery, which turn Eden into Egypt. Miller’s post-apocalyptic story begins in an Eden-gone-wrong, a tree-covered mountain in a desert which withholds its life giving springs as a means of control, releasing only occasional streams of water pumped up from the depths of the earth as a reminder of its power over life and death. An enormous carving above its ruler’s balcony tells us that this is the place of the skull.

The longevity of this city depends upon raids against other gangs of survivors by “war boys,” a brood of Cains, male children rendered sick by radiation but raised to murder and pillage. This is a world filled with violence, the bloodshed given divine sanction through a false religion welded together of relics from the old world, a fusion of scraps of men and machines, ferocious, glorious and hilarious, much like the cars and trucks which serve as extensions of the characters.

The ruler of the citadel is Immortan Joe, the Adamic everyman who has ascended to power—and extended his natural life—through unnatural means. Indeed, everything natural is farmed, exploited and hoarded, from human blood to breast milk. Max, who has told us that his only goal is survival, is himself strapped to a cross on the front of a war vehicle, silent as a lamb beneath a metal muzzle.²The two “war boys,” Nux and Slit, represent the two thieves at the cross. Both curse Max but Nux eventually comes to bless him, reaching paradise through a spectacular act of self-sacrifice. He is attached to its dying driver with an IV line, supplying the blood required to sustain the warrior while he takes part in the chase. Despite his claims, right from the beginning, where Max crushes under heel and devours a two-headed desert dragon, he is the truly great one, the Christ.

Hell Hath No Fury

The driver of the plot—and of the largest tanker, the War Rig—is Imperator Furiosa, a one-armed woman with a crew cut who is one of Joe’s best raiders. Furiosa was kidnapped as a small child and thrown into the breeding program, but now she is barren, unable to bear children or produce milk. Without her cunning as a raider, she would have remained a throwaway in the eyes of Joe. But now, she uses a convoy supply journey to rescue the young women of Joe’s harem, girls kept for the purpose of breeding healthy sons, so it is apt that the body of the stolen War Rig tanker is filled with human milk.

Here is a female action hero who is actually a woman. Sexuality after the apocalypse is back to the needs and wants of men—sex and offspring. This angry empress is a used-up supermodel, now devoid of everything that made her desirable, including her hair. She is what feminism has become: a womanhood which escaped exploitation by becoming the exploiter. Germaine Greer’s “female eunuch,” repressed sexually by the constraints of culture, sought to be free of the chains of nature but became something unnatural, something sexless. These things were stolen from Furiosa, but the barren has cause to rejoice. She is not a hero because she can kick and punch but because she has the motivation of a bereaved mother, the fury of a she-bear. Without children of her own she risks her life to rescue the daughters of men.

Mad World

Some view Max as Furiosa’s sidekick, but in reality he is her enabler. Indeed, he and one of the war boys come to be the only men whom the numerous women in the film learn to trust. It is the women who blame the men not only for their continued exploitation, but also for bringing about the end of the world. Land and womb are both made barren by Adam’s desire for godhood. The planet is poisoned, and even the promised land, the “green place of many mothers” is now a bog filled with scavenging crows, both human and animal.

The refreshing thing about all of Miller’s women is that they are real. Even the stolen supermodels are real people. When Joe discovers that his prized possessions are missing, he sees “We are not things” scrawled in large letters on the wall of the empty harem. Even better are the old women of the desert, grannies on motorbikes who live under the stars, with leathery faces but soft hearts. They are the biggest surprise of the film. They have become suspicious of all men since men view even the end of the world as an opportunity for gain and control. But they still maintain hope even though their own days are numbered. In Max and Furiosa, they see a reconciliation of man and woman and a new beginning, a world where Adam will not rule over Eve, and all her desires will be met by him. The two begin in fisticuffs but instead of romance there develops a deep, reciprocal sense of honor.

In the film’s one heartrending scene, after Furiosa’s hopes of reaching the green place are dashed, she falls to her knees, alone in the sand, and lets out a cry of despair. The only way this crew can survive is to return to Joe’s citadel. The movie is a there-and-back-again, which on one level makes the rescue and the chase seem pointless. But as in the Bible, the trip to Egypt and back to Canaan changed Israel forever. Feminism’s green pastures are not “out there.” They are back where women began, but in a home transformed. For Eve to be truly free, she must be empowered by Adam.

Worship the Vehicles

Joe loses his heir, his “mobile throne” (called the Gigahorse) and finally he loses his face, all important biblical symbols, in gasoline fuelled chariot battles that take the spectacle of live action to a new level. With sparse dialogue, the film is like the loudest silent movie ever made. As one reviewer noted:

Imagine if Cirque du Soleil reenacted a Hieronymus Bosch painting and someone set the theatre on fire. This is more or less what Miller has come up with.³Robbie Collin, Mad Max: Fury Road review: ‘a Krakatoan eruption of craziness,’ The Telegraph UK, May 20, 2015.

Joe has gained the whole world but loses his own life. Max and Furiosa have lost everything and yet choose to serve. Max donates his blood once again, but this time voluntarily—to save his counterpart. The final scene is a revelation of the ascension of the bride. Like the Church of Christ, she is beaten and bloodied, her face marred more than any woman. But she has her prize. Max watches as Furiosa is lifted to glory while he humbly disappears into the adoring crowd, a new kind of everyman, a real hero, a Christlike one. And the living waters are released as streams in the desert.

Biblical Feminism

“We’re seeing in the world in many places that women are emerging as a unifying or healing force…” says George Miller. “I think that’s in the zeitgeist.” Like the women in the wilderness, biblical womanhood is not a state. It is a process of redemption by Covenant. Eve was given to Adam as a gift but he treated her like a “thing” (Genesis 3:12). To protect himself, he depersonalized her. If he had been faithful and protected her, she would have been glorified at his side as a co-regent. We see the same process in the two givings of the Ten Commandments. In Exodus, the women are included with all the other chattels, but in Deuteronomy, they are now listed with their men. The book of Esther tells the same story. Esther, although married to the emperor, is merely a possession until the serpent is crushed and she is enthroned, judging beside her husband.⁴See Esther and the Ten Words. Women must be empowered, but women can only be empowered by faithful men.

This is an essay from Inquiétude: Essays for a People without Eyes.

Why are there four Gospels? There would be so much less confusion — and theological spade work — if there were just the one. The most obvious answer is that each one was written for a different audience, as described here. The least obvious answer is that God was not only writing the commandments in human flesh, He was also “measuring out” the architecture of the Tabernacle in humanity.

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The final vision of Ezekiel is one of the most hotly debated passages in the Bible. Since the structure described has never been built, those who take the passage as fulfilled in history believe it to be figurative. However, the building is described in such careful detail that common sense suggests that something else is going on. The precise measurements remind us of the instructions given concerning the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple for the purpose of physical construction. Is Ezekiel’s temple a false prophecy, or does it describe a third, and as yet unbuilt, Temple in Jerusalem?

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or Nailed to the Mast

Rachel Held Evans is a writer who likes the challenge of “asking tough questions about Christianity in the context of the Bible Belt” while consulting the howling void of modern culture for the answers. That is indeed a challenge. She takes Christians to task for referring to the de-Christianizing of Christmas as “persecution”, offering a helpful chart.

Doug Wilson provides some wisdom in response.

Part of the modern mindset is this desire to “classify” everything, to label it, which is fine, but in doing so we very often become blind to the relationships which all of these isolated things have to each other. Is minor persecution actually persecution or not? Do we have the right to complain about the castration of Christmas? I believe the Bible gives us an entirely different perspective.

Graded levels of persecution only matter if we are trying to avoid it. Paul did not see any level of persecution as an infringement upon his “life, safety, civil liberties or right to worship.” He saw every persecution, at every level, as an opportunity for legal witness to the resurrection and the Gospel of Christ, and therefore rejoiced in it. The bigger the persecution, therefore, the bigger the opportunity. But he did not pass up the little ones, either. Paul’s testimony, along with that of the apostles, ended the false witness of Herodian Judaism, and led to the end of pagan Rome and institution of the Christian calendar and its holidays.

A millennium later, with the Roman Church now corrupt as the Herods, it was the murder of the Reformers which resulted in the celebration of Reformation Day, a holiday which is seeing a revival in some quarters.

Persecution is also a misunderstood opportunity in the book of Esther. Under Mordecai’s instruction, the heroine did not take advantage of the little opportunities. She refrained from revealing her Jewish identity. This mask was the epitome of the attitude of the Jews, who were largely keeping their faith to themselves to avoid making waves. They failed to take advantage of the little opportunities, so God sent a really big one: genocide, with the sanction of the Emperor.

So, Mordecai and Esther failed at the start but God turned their failure into faithfulness. Added to this, there was the irony that Haman was not aware of the identity of the Queen, so God even used her lack of witness as the key to his downfall.

They ended up passing with flying colors. Indeed, their colors were nailed to the mast for every Jew from India to Ethiopia: Haman impaled on a pole, lifted up like a serpent. The end of the persecutors at God’s hand even resulted in a new festival, Purim, an extra “happy, holy day” which is still celebrated today.

Every seed that falls into the ground and dies results in a great harvest. Our God delights in “turning the tables.” Secularists should learn from history that anyone who challenges His work in any age always comes off second best.

So whether you are confronted with a sanitized “Happy Holidays” at the supermarket checkout, or hauled before the courts (which is coming), every level of persecution is an opportunity to move history forward, to let God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, the only courtroom worth worrying about. And, who knows, it might even result in a brand new Christian holiday. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

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ART: Woodcut from the title page of a 1499 pamphlet published by Markus Ayrer in Nuremberg. It depicts Vlad III “the Impaler” (identified as Dracole wyade = Draculea voivode) dining among the impaled corpses of his victims.

“But Peter said, ‘I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you.”’ (Acts 3:6)

Israel consistently failed to keep the final feast, the Feast of Sukkot, because she took her calling to be elitist rather than priestly. She thought her calling, gifts and purification were for herself, rather than for the healing of the nations.

Part I   Part II

This brings us to the New Testament, and the final years of the Mosaic Law. Jesus was dealing with the house of Israel but also with Gentiles, as a precursor to the ministry of the apostles. His ministry, like that of Moses, included the appearance of the glory cloud at significant moments. Through Jesus’ atonement for sin, Israel was about to enter into God’s rest. This time, it was the heavenly country perceived by all the saints, not a temporary house of branches like Canaan. However, this Feast of Clouds would require temporary shelters to become “houses of fire,” as a witness to the glory of God in His people.

The first sign was the Day of Pentecost. A single house was filled with a mighty, rushing wind, signalling the presence of God, just as His presence moved into the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple once His instructions had been obeyed. The Spirit anointed human lampstands with oil and tongues of fire measured out Yahweh’s architecture not in gold or silver (Acts 3:6) but in human character restored to health.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. (Acts 3:6-8)

However, this Pentecostal house was but a single house. A greater sign was required to indicate that the third promise to Abraham was finally being fulfilled: the blessing to all nations. After Pentecost, Acts records four events where entire households were visited by God. These correspond to the four “Altar horn” corners of the Land, whose territory was later expanded into four Gentile beasts as guardian cherubim around God’s throne. It appears that they correspond these four Gentile empires, but also to the four gospels, which are the horsemen of the apocalypse. Now that Christ had ascended, the four horns of atonement had become four winds of the Spirit.

This final “household” sign is also the point at which Paul completes his official witness to Jewish synagogues. Maintaining their allegiance to Herodian worship, they have become houses filled with demons, strange fire. At Maturity, the Bible Matrix pattern moves from head to body, from Israel to the nations, from heaven to the filling of the sky and the sea.

These “household conversions” were clearly not the norm, because the fact that all believed before they were baptized is specifically mentioned in three of the four instances. (The fact that it is not mentioned in the case of Lydia is beside the point, since Acts makes clear what were the qualifications for baptism, and it was not membership in a believing household.)

Moreover, the normal effect of the Gospel was a house divided. Jesus had stated that the Gospel would be a sword: “…a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” (Matthew 10:36) To claim that these miraculous events are the norm to support an unbiblical agenda is akin to claiming that the apostolic gifts continued unabated after the destruction of the Temple (which was also heralded with miraculous signs), or that all babies in the womb are filled with the Spirit as was John the Baptist. If a signpost is the norm, it isn’t a signpost. It’s a fencepost.

So, what was the purpose of these four “household” events?

The movement in each is from a faithful household head who believes to an entire body of believers (including family members and servants), just like the initial “house-filling” of Pentecost was being measured out “architecturally” across the empire. Each event also incorporates a Jewish witness and Gentile “sponsors,” Graeco-Romans who bring their glory into the Church. The first and last are vindications of prior belief of entire households (Day 1 and Day 4), and the other two are conversions of entire households.

These believing households were four horns which put the old Israel, the Jewish rulers who rejected Pentecost, on the Altar, ready for the fires of the Roman armies.

These believing households were also four compass points on a new Israel, four Tabernacles at an empire-wide Feast of Clouds. They were a Pentecostal sign to the Jews that their Abrahamic ministry to the nations had been fulfilled. The transformation of these signature Gentile households into “booths” meant condemnation for Herod’s “Tabernacle.” As it was with Peter’s speech on the Day of Pentecost, and the miraculous apostolic gifts, these new hybrid (mixture) houses were a warning to Jews during the “overlap” of Covenant administrations between AD30-70. This was the final stage of the Abrahamic Covenant before it was finished. It could at last be seen that all of Israel’s history was prefigured in her festal calendar (see Bible Matrix).

We don’t hear about household conversions after Acts 18. It was an “Abrahamic” sign, but the end of Abraham, not a new beginning. Israel was finally purified, the ungodliness banished from Jacob (Romans 11:27) and she had completed her ministry. The only “household of faith” mentioned after this is the gathering of believers.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:10)

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God… (Ephesians 2:19)

As Revelation 2 shows us, every Church is a household with its own fire, a Lampstand de-centralized and able to multiply across the world. But these lamps are trimmed and oiled by Jesus, who judges them first, nipping their sins in the bud, and then judges the house where they were allowed to become full grown.

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17)

The Black Sabbaths were over for everyone except the old tent of God, whose priests and kings had kindled a strange fire and become a new Egypt. She would lose her lampstand be burned with fire. The gloom of utter darkness had been reserved for her wandering stars. The day had dawned and the entire world was now filled with light. And all Jerusalem, once the Abrahamic navel of the world, was a barren womb shrouded in the darkness of an empty tomb.

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[1] Ascension concerns the blameless man bound and exalted, like Joseph or Daniel. The correspondence for Greece might have something to do with the rescue of Jerusalem from an invading Alexander.

Flavius Josephus in “The Antiquities of the Jews” Book XI, chapter VIII, p 350. Tells this story of Alexander the Great arriving in Jerusalem:

“And when he (the High Priest) understood that he (Alexander the Great) was not far from the city (Jerusalem), he (the High Priest) went out in procession with the priests and the multitude of citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations … and when the Phoenicians and the Chaldeans that followed him (Alexander the Great), thought that they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high priest to death, which the king’s displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse of it happened; for Alexander, when he (Alexander the Great) saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed in fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of G-d was engraved, he (Alexander the Great) approached by himself, and adored that name (the name of G-d), and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did altogether, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; where upon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind (They thought Alexander was crazy for bowing before the High Priest). However, Parmenio alone went up to him (Alexander the Great) and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, “I did not adore him, but that G-d who hath honored him with his high-priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit (high priestly garment), when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself, how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he (G-d) would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is, that having seen no other in that habit (high priestly garment), and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.”

There is a tradition that says when the high priest met Alexander the Great outside Jerusalem that he took with him the book of Daniel and showed Alexander the prophecy concerning him. It is said that this so moved Alexander that he went to the temple to offer a sacrifice and worship God. [link]

[2] Justus means “upright, just,” and Crispus means “curly headed.” Perhaps the combination of priesthood and kinghood in the Great Shepherd (Revelation 1:13-14).

“And as he prayed, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his clothing was white and glistening.” (Luke 9:29, King James 2000 Bible)

The Tabernacle was covered in three layers: linen, red-dyed ramskin, and a third layer of tachash. What’s tachash? The word is a mystery, and there have been many suggestions concerning its meaning, from unicorn to dolphin. But perhaps that mystery has now been solved. And the glistening solution is nothing like you’d imagine in a million years.

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

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Here’s my all-time favourite joke in the Bible.

Jesus makes it clear that whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. This goes right back to the Garden of Eden. Adam did not humble himself under the Word and repeat it once more as a prophetic legal witness to the serpent and to Eve. In this refusal, he extended the exaltation of the serpent himself against the will of God. So Adam was humbled by God, and, very interestingly, the angel behind the serpent was exalted to a legal role in heaven. The serpent was lifted up, standing at God’s right hand as the accuser of Man.

If Adam had obeyed the Lord, he would have been worthy, as firstfruits of the Land (he was created in the Land and lifted up to the Garden) to “open the scroll,” in this case, the promises of dominion which the Lord had made to him. But the scroll remained closed. It would be a mystery to human eyes for four thousand years.

Joseph was a faithful firstfruits. Unlike Adam, he humbled himself continually and did not hide his relationship to God. This could have cost him his life, but he was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the double witness God had sent to the Gentile king in dreams. Once vindicated as faithful and wise, he sat at Pharaoh’s right hand (with Pharaoh’s ring or seal) and became Pharaoh’s “living word.”

Daniel was another firstfruits carried into a Gentile court. He, too, humbled himself, and did not hide his Covenant identity. Again, this could have cost him his life, but he was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the fourfold witness God had sent to the Gentile emperor in dreams. He, too, became the top wise man in the royal court, and it seems he may have had a hand in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian armies (under God’s guidance, of course).

James Jordan runs us through these similarites in his lectures, and how they all point to Christ’s faithfulness, His exaltation to the right hand of the power (finally usurping the satan), and His worthiness to “open the scroll” of the New Covenant, and sends out the four gospels (the horsemen of the harvest).

This really unlocks the book of Revelation for us, but the one that made me laugh was the instance in the book of Esther, which is already funny, but becomes hysterical when we have prior knowledge.

Mordecai was the Jew living in a Gentile city. Instead of submitting to authority, he refused to bow. (Bowing to Gentile kings, or any other human being, was not sinful for Jews, only bowing to idols because they are not images of the true God.) Mordecai also told Esther to hide her Covenant identity. As a result, another satan, Haman, usurped the role God had obviously prepared for Mordecai (we know this because of all the previous patterns, and also because Mordecai eventually received this role, a terror to the nations.)

Mordecai thwarts an assassination attempt on the king, which leads us to the divine comedy. Instead of the king receiving dreams from the Most High, he can’t sleep. If we were watching a sitcom with such a well-established pattern, seeing the king tossing and turning would surely justify some laughter from the live audience. He calls for the royal records and discovers Mordecai’s faithfulness (which, in context, we must understand as a submission to authority which God can bless.) He calls the self-righteous Haman in and asks his advice on what to do to glorify a faithful man. Here, Joseph or Daniel would “open the mystery.” Adam would obey and understand God’s intention behind the test. The purpose of the trial was to qualify His right hand Man so that a much greater authority could be conferred upon him and a much greater blessing could be poured out through him. (Notice the correpondence between Joseph’s grain and Jesus’ Pentecostal Spirit! In Daniel’s case it was the conversion of the king, but that would take a little more explaining than is wise at this point.)

Of course, Haman misinterprets the king’s will entirely, which is very funny, and repeats a theme which, as you can see now, unites the entire Bible from the first book to the last. Haman is just like Adam. He has himself become a lying serpent. He desired to exalt himself and he would be humbled. His wisdom was not the wisdom of God. But of course, a much greater humbling for him, and his sons, was to come. The serpent would be lifted up (Garden), along with his sons (Land) and the entire brood gathered in his spirit across the World.

Now, there are many Bible teachers who say that a type is only a type if it is explained explicitly in the text of the Bible. Never read Shakespeare or watch a good movie with, or lend a novel to, such a person. He is in the ranks of the illiterati and must not be permitted anywhere near such exquisite entertainments, especially the Bible.

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James Jordan’s lectures are available from www.wordmp3.com

Joe Rigney has a great piece on the Trinity House website. With apologies to Joe, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell, then make some brief observations. But make sure you read the entire article.
Turning Babel Into A Beast

Rigney asks what might be the church’s best strategy in the near future. Ignoring the same sex marriage debate would allow more time, energy and resources for the fight against abortion. It is better to work for the protection of those who are truly innocent.
But then he takes a step back, and notes that abortion and same sex marriage are symptoms of the same sickness. How did the prophets, Jesus and the apostles get to the heart of the matter in the Scriptures?

In his slaughter of the innocents, Herod the Great became a devouring dragon. But how did John deal with the Herod of his day (Herod Antipas)? He provoked him by publicly pointing out his adultery and calling him to repent. Herod was afraid to have him killed, but the wrath of Herodias forced his hand. This prefigured the events that would follow a generation later, when an army of Spirit-filled prophets would challenge the authority of the entire Herodian line. The false prophet, the harlot and the beast are the Herods, their post-Pentecost demonic Temple worship, and the authority of Rome with which they conspired. These were corporate, “fullgrown” versions of Adam, Eve and the serpent. But serpents only deceive. When they have “seed,” they multiply, take on a body, and become a devouring dragon.

Rigney calls on some helpful observations from Peter Leithart’s recent book, Between Babel and Beast: America and Empires in Biblical Perspective. Leithart rightly says that a Babel is an empire with a cultic heart. Rigney tells us that the way to deal with abortion and sodomy is to provoke Babel, the harlot and turn her into a beast. He writes:

“…it may be that the best way to hasten the demonstration of God’s righteousness and topple the abortion-regime is to awaken the ire of the unbelieving world by getting under their skin with respect to their sexual-otry, homosexual and otherwise. To put it in biblical terms, if we want God to judge the Herods for their baby-killing, idolatry, and greed, we should never tire of pointing out how offensive it is that he has his brother’s wife (or his wife’s brother, as the case may be). In short, we should endeavor to so speak and act that we soberly but gladly accept that putting an end to the massacre of unborn innocents may require us to get in between the Babel and the innocents, however we can.”

Rigney is calling us to become human shields, to allow our own blood to be spilled so that the blood of the innocents might be avenged. When Christians preach boldly, and some are martyred, this allows the powers to fill up their sins. Rigney asks the question we all ask: “Why has God not yet judged our nations for the slaughter of millions of unborn children?” The answer is that Jesus, by His Spirit, has legal representatives all across the earth. He is waiting for us to be provoked into action, to incarnate His own indignation against the wicked, to be His eyes and then to be His mouth. When the state begins to persecute and slaughter Christians, it is the “last days,” that is, the last days of that state. It was so with the power of Rome and with the power of Holy Rome, and it will be so with the secular monstrosity which Western Culture has become. The best way to hasten the destruction of the dragon, as it was with Pharaoh and with Haman, is to provoke it. When the dragon begins to devour the sons of God, God will avenge both them and the innocent sons of men.

“The Bible seems to suggest that the blood of martyrs fills up the cup of God’s wrath more quickly than the blood of innocents alone. It is this shift—-from the blood of innocents to the blood of martyrs—-that rouses God’s long-sleeping wrath which throws down the Beast, either through cataclysmic judgment or in massive Spirit-wrought awakening (or perhaps both).”

In the Garden of Eden, Babel was Eve, the mother of all living, who, with Adam’s approval, surrendered her offspring to the serpent. In the first century, it was Jerusalem, who through a Covenant with Rome, surrendered her truest sons, “Jews indeed,” to be devoured, and was filled with their blood. How would we identify Leithart’s definition of a “Babelic” empire today?

Based upon what I wrote yesterday, the beast of today is secularism, a counterfeit church, a religion masquerading as neutrality, as mere pragmatism. But this modern beast, as with all the previous ones, is a direct result of the Church’s failure to remain spotless and to witness boldly.

So I disagree with the idea of “turning Babel into a beast.” They are distinct entities, although united by adultery. Eve and the serpent were not one and the same. Herodias and Herod were not one and the same. Herod and Pilate were not one and the same: they were united in friendship over the murder of Christ. Herodian worship and the Rome which finally turned against Christians under Nero were not one and the same, though they too were briefly united over the murder of the firstfruits church. So who is the harlot today, corporately speaking? The harlot today–the murderess of modernity–is the only one that ever was. It is the unfaithful Church, hiding her identity. It those Christians who keep silent, who compromise with unrighteousness, who believe the godless when they tell them their protests are offensive and uncaring and intolerant, who ridicule those who believe in the Creation and the Bible’s chronology, who teach their own doctrines from the pulpit instead of the entire Word of God. Babel cannot be transformed into the beast. She is us. Babel can only ever be cut in two, placed on the altar and set alight as the daughter of a priest, passing through the fire to be divided once again into ashes (serpentine dust) and smoke (a resurrected bride) as she was in the Revelation and the Reformation. This means that all the current proceedings are allowed for the purification of the Church. God will let the innocents die, again and again, in Egypt, in Jerusalem, in America, for the sake of His true sons and daughters, those of the Spirit, His co-regents.

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)

This is actually where Rigney finally takes us: a call to purity and boldness for the Church. It is an altar call with real flames.