Why do serious theologians persist with a story that reads like third-rate fan fiction?

This is a response to Andrew Wilson’s recent thinktheology post, “Nephilim, Anakim, and Why We Care.”

As the proponents of paedobaptism and full preterism doggedly continue to demonstrate, even the brightest theologians are susceptible to crazy ideas. Unsurprisingly, both of these erroneous doctrines – along with the “fallen angels” reading of Genesis 6 – are the result of a common flaw, and that flaw is a failure to put a finger on the pulse of the actual story.

Substandard fan fiction suffers from the same deficiency: while it is enthralled by the features of the original narratives, it mistakenly identifies these facets as the heart of the story rather than merely elements through which its genius is expressed. While paedobaptism, full preterism, and the “fallen angel” reading of Genesis 6 all manage to scrape together some semblance of support from the Scriptures, they seem oblivious to how “out-of-character” their stories are as intended explanations (or perhaps more correctly, adoring extensions) of the Bible. Many of the trappings of the sacred texts are present, which gives them a veneer of authenticity, but the internal logic – the unseen principle which governs the originals and makes them so captivating – is missing. As with the authors of substandard fan fiction, the driving force of the biblical narrative has not been comprehended by some of its most committed fans.

Ignorance of Covenant Structure

Wilson writes:

I take it as read that the Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4) were the results of sexual relations between angels and women. Many don’t, and I used not to, but I now find the Jewish and early Christian witness compelling, the alternatives (Sethites and Cainites? Kings and harems?) quite unconvincing, and the best counterargument something of a tangent. (For those who are counting, the best counterargument is that Jesus says in Matthew 22:30 that it is impossible for angels to have sex. The obvious response to which is simply: no, he doesn’t.)

Despite the fact that angels are never mentioned in Genesis 6, Wilson has mistakenly written off the intermarriage of Sethites and Cainites as being the best explanation of the story. This is because not only have modern theologians atomised the Bible, they have failed to comprehend the text as repeated iterations of the same sacred architecture. We do not have the freedom to treat the interpretation of Genesis 6 as a multiple choice question in an exam because all the questions in this exam have the same answer. Let me explain.

The history from Adam to Noah is a “macrocosmic” recapitulation of the testing of Adam. The step in the narrative where Adam and Eve grasp equality with God corresponds to the rise of these “god-like” mighty men in Genesis 6, the ultimate outcome of the “seed of the serpent.” This most likely explains the word nephilim which is derived from the word for fallen. These men were no more the offspring of angels than was Cain, who failed to “rule over sin” and instead established his own rival kingdom. Even more significantly, the step where the Lord covered Adam’s sin in Genesis 3 corresponds to the point where God revoked the Edenic atonement through animal blood and covered the entire world. The sin of Adam was “the one,” that is, the cultus, and the sin of the sons of God was “the many,” that is, the outcome of the same sin in the culture. The “fruit” that was stolen was the daughters of men, and they were not stolen by angels but by those, like Adam, who had access to the Sanctuary.

This raises another point: every biblical Covenant is a tour of duty, with a mission, a prize, and accountability. Adam faced blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. The fivefold pattern of the commission in Genesis 2 establishes the sevenfold shape of the entire Edenic narrative.

Although an angel was involved in the temptation, it was only its “bestial” earthly counterpart which suffered a humiliating curse, since it was part of the world which God had promised to put under Adam’s feet. The angel was actually exalted to a place in the heavenly court, not as an advocate for mankind but as an accuser, an office he held until the ascension of Christ. Thus, the flood was the curse upon those who had broken the “new covenant” established by God in the shedding of sacrificial blood. The angels were not under any Covenant obligation which is why, for angels, who are mere servants and not sons, there is no redemption.

This micro/macro relationship between Eden and the world is the reason why both narratives work through the pattern established in Genesis 1. To help us to understand it, this pattern is later expressed not only in the elements of the Tabernacle, but also in Israel’s annual festal calendar (Leviticus 23):

Noah, whose name means rest, becomes the “Day 7” of the process, the first man to bear the sword on God’s behalf as the legal representative of heaven upon the earth. He entered into God’s rest and brought Sabbath to the entire world. Since Noah qualified, the word “covenant” is mentioned for the first time in the Bible.

This point concerning Covenant structure might seem obscure or perhaps even irrelevant to some but it is in fact the most potent argument against the “sons-of-God-were-angels” theory.¹If you care to study the fundamentals of the Bible’s fractal “Covenant-literary” structure, there are some helpful links here. The purpose of this sevenfold process is spiritual maturity. The Lord calls all men to submit to Him that He might exalt us. Priesthood must precede kingdom, just as it did in the history of Israel, and in the ministry of Christ. This is the core of the entire Bible. If we are humble, we will be lifted up. Adam was promised a kingdom but he would only qualify for government if he first submitted to God. It was the same for Jesus, of course, who now possesses all authority in heaven and on earth. What Adam seized, Jesus was given as a gift.

Following Adam’s sin, this rivalry between priesthood and kingdom became incarnate in Cain and Abel. The result was the division of humanity into a priestly line (the Sethites) and a kingly line (the Cainites). The priestly line continued to shed the blood of sacrifices on behalf of sinful people, but the kingly line rejected the mercy of God and instead shed the blood of human beings in unmitigated vengeance. Thus, the intermarriage between priests and kings led to the end of God’s mercy and long-suffering. The ultimate irony is that God once again gathered animals, as He had in Eden, but He destroyed all those who rejected the ministry of substitutionary atonement via the blood of “priestly” domestic beasts.

This revoking of mercy explains the reference to there being “no more sacrifice for sins” in Hebrews 10:26. Almost all mankind had trampled underfoot the blood of the Covenant established in Eden, just as the Jews rejected the offering of Christ for the sins of the world. That is why this exact Adam-to-Noah pattern can be overlaid upon the history of the Apostolic Church. Jesus, as Abel, was slain, which led to the prophetic warnings of the Apostles, as Noah, and finally a judgment which Jesus warned would not only be as sudden as the flood in the days of Noah, but would also bring an end to the “kingly” sins of the Herods, including intermarriage for political gain:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-40)

This rejection by Wilson of the Sethite/Cainite solution is due to an ignorance of the Bible’s consistency, which is governed by its Covenant-literary structure. However, it is also an outcome of a failure to understand the reason for the establishment of the Circumcision and the Law, which founded and set apart an entire nation as a priesthood which was prevented from intermarriage with the other “kingly” nations. This act by God was necessary to avoid another global judgment, and to maintain a faithful shedding of substitutionary blood on behalf of all nations. This gives us the context of the downfall of Solomon through intermarriage with idolaters, the destruction of the Temple, and of Ezra’s blunt condemnation of the Israelites’ marriages with pagans during the exile. This theme of the confusion of priestly and kingly offices through intermarriage runs throughout the Bible, and is an expression of the fundamental core: man’s unwillingness to humble himself before heaven and his theft of the promised dominion over the earth. If this were understood by most theologians, bogus theories like sex with angels would be relegated to the dust bin where they belong.

Fruit of Land and Womb

Wilson continues:

I also take it as read that the Anakim, the sons of Anak whom we meet in the book of Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua, are descended from the Nephilim: “And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (Numbers 13:33). Which is to say that, when Israel first spied out and then conquered the Land, there were very large individuals milling around, who could trace their lineage back to sexual relations between angels and women. Bizarre, admittedly. But biblical.

This claim by the Israelite spies looks like solid evidence only if we ignore the greater Covenant context. Firstly, it must be noted that the spies were executed for their “evil report,” so its veracity must be questioned. It is possible that they were exaggerating in an attempt to deceive their fellows, and simply threw in “of the nephilim” to terrify the Israelites. But does the word refer to an actual tribe whom everyone knew could trace their descent from the antediluvians, or does the Hebrew phrase simply mean “from among the giants”? After all, there were other over-sized warriors in and around the Land of Canaan.

Secondly, the notion that the nephilim as Nephilim, a separate people which somehow managed to survive interbreeding and was able to pass on its genetic attributes through the many centuries following the flood, is not only highly improbable, it also fails to explain how this people evaded inclusion in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, which contains no mention of Anak or Nephilim. Moreover, where were these Nephilim when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sojourned in the Land? The giant Goliath was a Philistine, and we know that the Philistines shared a common descent with the Egyptians as sons of Mizraim, a son of Ham (Genesis 10:6). It seems far more likely that the stature of these people was due more to the abundance of food now available in Canaan than merely genetic factors, just as the average height of various races throughout recent history has increased as diet has improved.

Thirdly, and related to the second point, are we also to assume that the size of the haul of grapes from the Valley of Eshcol is due to its lineage from antediluvian grapes? The point of these observations concerning size is that the barrenness of the land promised to Abraham had been reversed by God, along with the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. The Adamic curses (from Genesis 3) were placed upon Abraham on behalf of all nations that they might be reversed by faith, the kind of faith in God which Adam had not demonstrated. (For more discussion, see Stones and Fruit: Divination and Procreation.) After four centuries, not only would the numerous oak trees planted by Abraham now be fully grown, but the size of the fruit of the Land and the fruit of the womb in the Land (its people) showed that it was now ripe for the taking. The mighty people of the Land were to be crushed like grapes, and their houses and vineyards seized as an inheritance for the righteous. The strength and the possessions of these kingly usurpers would be possessed by a priestly people as a witness to the power of God. Israel would defeat the Canaanites just as David would later bring about the fall of Goliath, the one who had called down the Covenant curses upon the people of God, and ultimately (but indirectly) King Saul, who was also a giant bearing a spear. The mighty men (gibborim) of the earth (including its nephilim) would fall before the mighty men of heaven, those whose victories resulted not from the strength of their limbs but from their faith in God (Psalm 147:10). The grapes of Eshcol were a promise of the same kind of rest enjoyed by Noah, so it should be no surprise that the “heptateuch” (the narrative from Joshua to Judges) follows the sevenfold pattern above. Interestingly, just as the nephilim appear at the centre of the Adamic/Noahic narrative, so David and Solomon appear at the center of the Old Testament narrative (see Destroy This Temple).

Numbers 13:33 can only be regarded as evidence for angel-human sexual relations if we lose our grip on the metanarrative of the Torah, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy. Like many others, Wilson fails to interpret every text within the context of Covenant and thus misses the point of the story.

The End of all Flesh

The question is: why do we care? Besides being an intriguing sideshow that raises smirking questions on training courses, why does it matter? Let me suggest two reasons, both of them apologetic in nature.

The first is that they provide a biblical basis for biological continuity between antediluvians and postdiluvians. (Or, in English: they demonstrate that some people on earth, besides Noah’s family, survived the flood.) If everyone on earth apart from Noah’s family had died, then there would be nobody left who was descended from (min) the Nephilim—but the Anakim show that this is not the case. Therefore it is likely that, even from the perspective of Israelites in the Bronze Age, the cataclysmic flood did not wipe out every single person on planet earth outside the ark. Rather, it suggests that the scope of phrases like “the whole land” (qol erets) and “all mankind” (qol adam) is limited to the ancient Near East. Which, given that this was the entire world known to the writers at the time, is exactly what we would expect. It also indicates that attempts to demonstrate geologically that the flood covered the Himalayas are, at least, unnecessary.

I admire Wilson’s commitment to exegesis for the purpose of apologetics, but he fails on both counts.

Firstly, anyone who claims that the Great Flood was local has overlooked the fact that Adam was intended to be the legal representative of “all flesh.” Due to his failure, and the subsequent failure of the culture established by his offspring, “all flesh” was condemned to die “in him.” If anyone had survived the flood, then there were human beings who were outside of the jurisdiction of God. This also goes for those who claim (with a breathtaking cognitive dissonance and an even greater deficiency in basic logic) that the events in Genesis 2 are simply a “liturgical” description of Adam being chosen from among other human beings and given a special role or office before God. There were no “Adamites.” We are all Adamites. That is the foundation of Paul’s theology of the atonement. No one was outside the Noahic Covenant and no one is outside the jurisdiction of Christ. The separation of the human race came with the call of Abraham, not Adam. To claim otherwise is to pervert the narrative beyond recognition in a game of “kick the can.” Moreover, what was the “Covenantal” reason for the disinheritance of Adam’s contemporaries? Had they sinned in some way before Adam sinned? The miraculous integrity of the narrative exposes any tinkering for what it is: disingenuous theological posturing resulting from cowardice and unbelief. (For more discussion, see “Jenga Bible” in Michael Bull, Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.)

The real reason behind any toleration of the notion of a local flood is a desire to bow to the paganism which currently masquerades as science, the monkey religion which underpins every corruption in Western culture, and is quickly bringing about its end. As a friend once said, evolutionary theory – the unscientific assertion that chaos, sex and death somehow constitute a creative force – is just “Enuma Elish baptised in post-Enlightenment balloon juice.” Any attempt to harmonise the Bible with an old earth, let alone evolution, is an exercise in futility, and requires basic logic to be sacrificed on the altar of a misplaced faith.

However, what really concerns me here is the failure to understand the Promised Land of Canaan as a microcosm of the “dry land” of Genesis. That is the reason why the same word is used. These “lands” were not equivalent in size any more than the Canaanites constituted all the people of the globe. Canaan was to be a sacrificial substitute for the actual “dry land,” serving as its legal representative before God (see Cosmic Language), and this representation was an act of mercy for the peoples of the world. The story of Abraham’s qualification is a local recapitulation of the global narrative from Adam to Noah (see Microcosmic Abram). To claim that these were both local not only misses the point of the ministry of Israel as a nation among nations, but also demonstrates an utter ignorance of the layered construction of Covenant history: the Abrahamic Covenant was not established in place of the Noahic Covenant but within it (see The Myth of Covenant Membership). The “floods” of troops which invaded Israel under the judgment of God were the reason floods of waters could be averted. Indeed, the original “flooding” of Canaan was the armies of Israel come to claim the Land promised to their fathers, and importantly, to execute God’s judgment upon its inhabitants. This brings us to Wilson’s second failure.

Genesis Matters

If we allow an extraneous theory such as angel-human sexual relations to skew our take on the narrative, we find that scales eventually grow over our eyes and we are unable to interpret the text faithfully. This is evident in Wilson’s (and Michael Heiser’s) erroneous explanation of the kherem warfare in the book of Joshua.

The second is that they provide vital context for the kherem warfare that took place in Canaan under Joshua. This is a point I had never seen until I read Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm recently, and in particular his description of the “Deuteronomy 32 worldview,” in which Yahweh has disinherited the nations and assigned them to the rule of lesser gods (Deut 32:8 etc). Heiser explains:

Israel is Yahweh’s elect portion of humanity, and the land of Canaan is the geography that Yahweh, as owner, specifically allotted to his people. In the view of the biblical writers, Israel is at war with enemies spawned by rival divine beings. The Nephilim bloodlines were not like the peoples of the disinherited nations … the target of kherem was the Anakim.

Heiser offers a number of clues that he is right about this. (1) The emphasis on giantism in the initial spying mission (for all that this has since been domesticated in contemporary preaching, the point is not just that the people are large, but that they are descended from rival deities). (2) The explicit statement that the Israelite spies had seen the Nephilim in the Land (Numbers 13:33). The giant-like descriptions of enemies of God who live in the land, from Og (Deuteronomy 3:11) to Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and beyond (2 Samuel 21; 1 Chronicles 20). (4) The way in which the summary of Joshua’s kherem conquests (Joshua 11:21-23) focuses on the obliteration of the Anakim: “And Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel.” (5) The fact that the very next verse points forward to the ongoing presence of giants in the land of the Philistines, who of course will be the key enemy for Samson, Samuel, Saul and David for the next couple of centuries: “Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some [Anakim] remain. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses” (Josh 11:22b-23). If Heiser is right here, then the motive for kherem warfare in Joshua was not merely the cleansing of God’s dwelling place, as we know, but the removal of the giant-like offspring of specific divinities.

So why should we care about the Nephilim and the Anakim? Partly because they help us think through the question of the global/local flood, and partly because they provide crucial context for our understanding of kherem warfare, which is one of the most pressing biblical challenges of our generation. And, of course, we should care about things that are in the Bible. There’s always that.

Wilson’s/Heiser’s misinterpretation of Genesis 6 (or failure to interpret it within the context of the biblical Covenants) renders them utterly clueless concerning the reason for the conquest of Canaan. And when I say clueless, I am not being cruel. They really have no idea what is going on. Instead of taking note of what is actually mentioned in the texts leading up to the kherem warfare, they seem totally oblivious to it, focussing instead on evidence for their bogus doctrine of some fictitious angelic bloodline within humanity. Not only does this lead to them offering a stupid “angel sex” explanation for “one of the most pressing biblical challenges of our generation,” they miss a golden opportunity to truly demonstrate the brilliance and integrity of the book of Genesis, and indeed the entire Bible.

The first and most heinous problem is the switch from the moral accountability of the people in the Promised Land to something which is merely racial or genetic. Modern skeptics love to level the charge of genocide against the nation of Israel (and the one true God) but that can only be done if all the previous texts are ignored. Asserting that the necessary context is found in their errant reading of Genesis 6 does nothing to help matters. The warfare is still genocide, but now the targets are giants. They are not destroyed because they have sinned, what they have done, but because of who they are. Besides the incredible theory concerning their origin, this does nothing at all for Christian apologetics.

When Abraham sojourned in the Land, he did not “call upon” the name of the Lord. He “proclaimed” it. He was an evangelist. The people of Canaan were accountable to God, just as later Gentile nations surrounding Israel became accountable once they heard the way of salvation. The books of the prophets all begin with judgment at the house of God (Garden), work their way out into the disobedient tribes of Israel (Land), then out again into the local Gentiles (World). This pattern originated in the history of Adam-to-Noah. As with that history, the process is chiastic, working back into the Land and then into worship established in a new Garden (Noah’s vineyard). The New Testament, as a Covenant lawsuit against first century Israel does exactly the same thing, which is why the letters to the Gentile Churches are placed before the final warnings to Christian Jews, followed by the book of Revelation which begins with a glorified “son of Adam” surrounded by fiery trees and ends with a barrage of Joshua imagery. Jerusalem would be circumcised – “cut around” with a Roman trench – just as Jericho was marched around by a newly circumcised Israelite army. Jericho was a devoted (kherem) firstfruits of the Land, and Jerusalem was a devoted firstfruits of the World.

But to understand the giving of Canaan to the children of Abraham as an inheritance, we must look further back than Abraham. Noah had cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, pronouncing that he would serve as a slave to both of his brothers (see Out of His Belly). So when we reach the book of Exodus, the fact that the Hebrews were serving as slaves in Egypt, “the Land of Ham,” is intended to strike us with horror. But once again, we are clueless as to what is going on because modern theology – which does not take Genesis seriously – has carved the living Word up as if it were a corpse requiring an autopsy. The descendants of Shem not only destroyed the Land of Ham, they also inherited the Land of Canaan. The context is Noahic, and the conflict in Egypt and the conquest of Canaan are both examples of the rivalry between priesthood and kingdom, and the constant attempts to cut off – not corrupt or hijack – the seed of the Woman. This not only renders the angelic bloodline theory redundant, but it also serves as a witness to those who doubt the integrity of the Bible.

“Although the Bible has no corporeal legendary swords, it does have a kind of legendary swordsman.”

Redemption

by Jacob Gucker

The “legendary sword” theme in myth, legend, and literature is ancient and enduring. From King Arthur’s Excalibur to the Legend of Zelda’s “Master Sword,” powerful blades have slain dragons and orcs and banished all kinds of evil. Often the sword can only be wielded by a chosen hero who has shown himself worthy. Sometimes the sword, possessing a will of its own, chooses the wielder. Storied blades are close to the truth. Although the Bible has no corporeal legendary swords, it does have a kind of legendary swordsman.

Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah got his name because “Levi” sounds like the Hebrew word for “attach.” Leah named him hoping that her husband would be attached to her, since she had always been in second place behind her younger sister. What she could not know then was that her Levi would play an important role in the redemption of the whole world. He would be called to “attach,” or join together heaven and earth. He would be called to join people to God and to one another by the words of his mouth, and he would be ordained to keep and guard the family of God by the sword of his hand. First, Levi would have to be redeemed.

In order to understand the fall, redemption, and glorification of Levi we have to go back to the creation of the world and the Garden of Eden. God created the cosmos by the word of His mouth, speaking and bringing into existence the heavens and the earth. He made the world to be a reflection of heaven and in the world He planted a sanctuary garden. Into the garden He installed the man and gave him a priestly vocation of keeping the garden for the sake of the world, forming his wife from his side to stand shoulder to shoulder in their task.

In making the plants and animals God simply spoke, but in making man, He summoned the heavenly council saying, “Let us make man in our image.” It takes a community with a singular purpose to say, “Let us make…” and it comes to pass. The perfect community is the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A good deal more went into the making of human beings than the rest of creation with God forming man of the dust of the ground and then breathing into him the breath of life, but man was still created via speech. It was, however, a particularly divine form of speech; God took council. This will be echoed in Genesis 11 when people, having been enlightened by knowledge, take council to build the tower of Babel.

Unlike the animals, God made mankind in His own image. As a result, man could speak with God and it was his duty to speak the words of God. When the serpent came into the garden with its forked tongue, it spoke for the evil one, derailing the liturgy of the first temple, and leading man and woman to worship the creature, rather than the creator. They had no weapons to wield against the serpent, but they did not need them; they had the word of God. When they failed to speak true in the face of temptation, they committed sacrilege, and God drove them out and kept them out by posting cherubim and a flaming sword at the gate to guard the way back to the tree of life.

Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

The “primordial history” portion of Genesis ends in chapter 11 with the tower of Babel. Much happens in the intervening passages, including the total destruction and recreation of the world by a flood. In the new world, man grows in his wisdom and knowledge for good and ill. He establishes towns and he makes tools. He makes wine and musical instruments and develops animal husbandry. By chapter 11 he has become more like God and he attempts to do what the Godhead had accomplished in the creation by building a false version of the community that the original garden was meant to become, a city. At this point it is important to remind readers that the Bible ends with a city coming down from heaven. Here, humanity tries to get on the fast track to the end by building a city that reaches to heaven. Like God, man takes council saying,

“Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

The Godhead echoes this language saying:

And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

This passage is parallel to the creation story at the beginning. The humans are speaking in the cohortative mood, taking council and creating their own temple with the intention of making a name for themselves and to prevent themselves from being dispersed. The Godhead comes down to inspect their city and to see the tower that their speech has wrought. He confuses their language, the very thing that distinguishes them as united, enlightened human beings. They were operating like the godhead, speaking together and creating together. One might even say that they are “whistling while they work” for the language of this passage is filled with word plays that give it all a musical quality. It is as if the people are singing antiphonally to one another the liturgy of the human temple. Their tower is pathetic, though. They think it is high, but God still must condescend from heaven to earth to see it.

In the garden, Adam allowed the serpent to derail the liturgy of God’s temple, and now God is derailing the liturgy in their temple! God intends to build His own city, but it would not be complete for thousands of years. He begins His long work in the next chapter with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve tribes of Israel. Israel fathers Levi, and Levi gets himself into similar trouble with similar consequences as the people at the Tower of Babel.

Atrocity in Israel

When Israel was a sojourner in the land of Canaan, he bought a piece of land on which to place his tent (Genesis 34) and dwelt there. When the prince of the land noticed Israel’s daughter, Dinah, he took her and slept with her, defiling and humiliating her. Drawn to her, he insisted that she be his wife. Jacob did not want to cause trouble in the land, but his sons were reasonably incensed against Hamor and his lusty son, Shehem. Therefore, they deceived them and said, “If you become a part of us by being circumcised, we will give you our sister in marriage.”

The men of the city were circumcised and while they were all healing up, Levi and Simeon sacked them and killed them all, taking their wives and little ones for themselves. Israel was put out with them. Their underhanded deception and murder of a whole city was not justified, even in light of what Shechem did to their sister. Israel remembered their deeds and before he died, speaking about each son in turn, spoke words over their lives. He judged each son according to the quality of his life. Of Simeon and Levi he said:

“Simeon and Levi are brothers;
weapons of violence are their swords.
Let my soul come not into their council;
O my glory, be not joined to their company.
For in their anger they killed men,
and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.
Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,
and their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.”
(Genesis 49:5-7)

Simeon and Levi’s actions stand in stark contrast with the calling of God for Abraham and the nation of Israel. They deceived the people of Shechem by inviting them into their covenant community and used the sign of the covenant as an opportunity to slaughter them all. They built a false community, founded upon deceitful language, and destroyed it. The text of Genesis 49 does not say it, but it seems that Jacob’s words are the words of God over the twelve tribes. In fact, it is from this passage that we get strong foreshadowing of David and Jesus:

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.”

The result of Israel’s speech is that Simeon and Levi would be scattered throughout Israel. Simeon would be distributed within Judah alone and Simeon looks like little more than a tag-a-long with Judah in the conquest of their territories (Judges 1). Levi, on the other hand, had no inheritance in Israel. Levi would be scattered throughout the tribes. From this we can see that their evil council to build a false community has practically the same effect as that of the people of Babel. There’s no mention here of confused tongues, but the Levites will have an interesting relationship with speech from here on out. Furthermore, all of the elements in this prophecy will come up again and again. Levi will continue to be a community builder and guardian, a wielder of speech and swords and even a slayer of beasts and men. He keeps this vocation to this day, but only because of repentance and faithfulness and redemption.

Redemption

People love to flatten it down into simple transactions, believing that redemption is about “getting saved.” One believes that the transaction of Jesus dying on the cross saves him from his sin, and he is saved. The historical events and cultural background of Jesus matter little, and the process of redemption for individuals is likewise reduced to instant pudding. Want pudding? Just add water! The redemption of Levi is no simple transaction, but a thing worked out in space and time. Obviously, Levi is a tribe, and not an individual man throughout most of the Bible, and we’re not just talking about the redemption of the one man, but of the whole tribe, and ultimately, the whole nation of Israel.

Nevertheless, there was something about Levi’s faithfulness to his sister, Dinah. It was zealous, though misguided faithfulness to the covenant, and God would redeem it for good. However, it would come through acts of faithfulness and despite acts of sin and rebellion. God would also redeem his mouth and his sword.

The birth order of Israel’s sons roughly prefigures the history of the Old Testament and New Testament eras with three sons being key. Levi, Judah, and Joseph are Priests, Kings, and Prophets, respectively. This cycle can be seen at several levels, but suffice it to say that Israel’s leaders were priests in the era of the Mosaic Tabernacle, then Kings (David, Solomon, etc.) and then prophets (Isaiah, Daniel). The cycle repeats in John the Baptizer who was a Levite, and Jesus who is Son of David and reigning King, and the Church which consists of Spirit-led speakers who prophesy in Christ to the nations. Jesus is the consummate priest, king, and prophet.

The book of Genesis ends the story of the sons themselves and Exodus begins the story of the tribes which bear their names. The story of the nation of Israel begins with a Levite man and woman giving birth to a son, Moses. Named for the fact that he was drawn alive from the water of the Nile while other Hebrew boys were being drowned, he would lead Israel up from Egypt and through the waters of the Red Sea, to be drawn alive from the waters while Pharaoh’s armies drowned. Like Moses when he was a baby, they didn’t even get that wet! Now, consider that the New Testament begins with Levite Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth giving birth to a son who leads people through the waters of baptism in the Jordan river, and you are seeing the aforementioned priest, king, and prophet pattern. Furthermore, it is the priests and Levites who are sent to inquire as to the nature of John’s baptism and message.

It is in Exodus that we begin to see Levi’s explicit relationship with speech and the sword. God commanded Moses to speak for Him to Pharaoh, but Moses complains about his “uncircumcised lip.” Aaron would be his mouthpiece:

“Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well.” (Exodus 4:12-14)

God explicitly refers to Aaron as “your brother, the Levite” and the fact that he can speak well. This is ironic because Moses is a Levite as well, but it is Aaron who will be the father of the Levitical priesthood. The calling of Levi is already in the works, but again, redemption is worked out in space and time and another event will bring Levi into his redemption.

At mount Sinai, after the people commit idolatry by forming the golden calf and feasting in its presence, Moses bids that anyone who is on Yahweh’s side take up his sword:

And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the LORD’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.” (Exodus 32:26-29)

This episode is the immediate cause of Levi’s redemption. With the Spirit of God hovering over Sinai, the Word thundered from the heart of heaven that swift justice consume the transgressors, and Levi became a proper guardian of God’s holy temple. In their idolatrous revelry the people had broken through the barriers which had been set about the mountain sanctuary. Any sharp weapon is an extension of the mouth, and the sword is a fitting punishment for those who refuse to listen. All people are destined to be cut; they will either have their hearts circumcised by the word, or they will be cut off from the earth by the sword. Just as Adam and Eve followed the word of the serpent to feast from the forbidden tree, and so were cut off from the tree of life by Cherubim with flaming sword, so did Levi and his flashing sword become a guardian angel of God on that day, cutting off many of those who feasted with the golden calf, about 3000 souls.

Zeal for the covenant name is zeal for the covenant community. Loving Yahweh is loving people. Loving God is loving one’s sister and brother and companion. Love, food, and fellowship are on one side of the sword, and dereliction, starvation, and death are on the other. The same is true of the Word of God. The sword is the word extended to those who will not hear and the word is the sword given to those who will. Levi earned his priesthood by being a defender of the covenant. This moment in the tribe of Levi was a moment of redemption and victory. His sword went from being a weapon of murder to an implement of covenant guardianship. The tribe’s motives were similar when it was Levi the man taking revenge for his sister’s honor, but now, rather than building a false community, he was protecting the true covenant community.

The prophecy concerning his scattering does come to pass, but in a redemptive way. The tribe of Levi will be dispersed throughout the whole land and he will have no inheritance, but Yahweh Himself will be his inheritance! Levi will serve God in the Tabernacle and the Temple and he will be distributed throughout Israel to keep and serve in the whole nation. He will speak the words of the various liturgies in worship and he will wield a knife in the priestly duties of sacrifice and circumcision. He will continue to “slay men” and “hamstring oxen,” (Genesis 49) but now he will help men offer sacrifices representing themselves to God. Levi will help men to die to themselves and be attached to God, whether they were born in Israel, or whether they are grafted in to the nation’s tree.

Levi is not only proficient in the use of swords, however. All sharp edged or piercing weapons are extensions of human speech in the Bible. When Israel united itself to the Baal of Peor and a son of Simeon took a Midianite princess into his family, Phinehas the Levite showed his zeal for the covenant community with his spear:

When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. (Numbers 25:7-8)

This act earned Phinehas a special covenant of “perpetual priesthood.” According to Psalm 106, Phinehas’ actions are “counted to him as righteousness.” This echoes the language of Genesis when Abraham believes God, and it is credited to him as righteousness. Phinehas is not only believing in his heart but confessing with his spear that Yahweh Sabaoth is Lord!

The redemption of Levi has twists and turns, just as with the rest of Israel. We now turn to several major examples of the chaos that ensues when Levites do not keep covenant with Yahweh.

A Tale of Two Levites: Judges 17-21

These chapters at the end of Judges show the corruption and chaos that results when everyone in Israel does “what is right in his own eyes.” Chapters 17-18 are a story about a Levite from Bethlehem who travels to Ephraim, and it forms an interlocking literary unit with chapters 19-21, which feature a Levite from Ephraim who travels to Bethlehem.

The Levite from Bethlehem

The first story is about a certain Micah of Ephraim, a man who stole money from his own mother and returned it. She forgave him and used some of the money to create graven images. He takes a Levite from Bethlehem into his house and installs him as his own personal priest to Yahweh and a host of other household gods, as though the God of Israel was but one among many. He sets up a shrine with idols and a linen ephod. It’s a sweet deal for a lawless Levite from the “house of bread” who is now a servant in a house full of false gods. Despite the idols, Micah thinks that having his own Levite priest to Yahweh is bound make him prosperous.

Along come members of the tribe of Dan, looking for a portion of the land to call their own. They tell the Levite to ask God if their venture will succeed and he tells them that it will go well for them. They go on to find the people of Laish, a quiet and unsuspecting people prospering in a good area. They decide to raid the town and take it for themselves, but not before they go back to snatch up the Levite and the idols. Coming upon Micah’s house with 600 men, they plan to take everything, even the women and children, leaving Micah with nothing. They come to the gate of Micah’s house and the Levite asks them what they are doing.

And they said to him, “Keep quiet; put your hand on your mouth and come with us and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?”

The faithless Levite folds like a house of cards and leaves Micah with nothing. No Levite should be guarding a house full of idols, but this one did for as long as it was profitable. When the time came for him to guard the gate of his master’s house, he put his hand over his mouth. The Danites go on to attack the peaceful people of Laish, killing them with the sword and burning their city. They rebuild the city for themselves and dwell there with a line of priests to call their own. There was no King in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The Levite from Ephraim

The companion story of the Levite from Ephraim is one of the Bible’s most unsettling accounts. The story is about a Levite whose concubine leaves him to go back to her father’s house in Bethlehem. He goes to speak kindly to her, hoping she will return. Arriving at Bethlehem, he abides with her father for almost a week. The text repeatedly highlights her father’s hospitality and their eating and drinking each day. Her father urges him to stay longer, but he takes his concubine and leaves. Unwilling to lodge at Jebus, the city that would one day be Jerusalem, the very house of Yahweh and the city of the King, the Levite instead turns in at Gibeah.

The language of what follows is conspicuously like that of the account of Lot and the angels in Sodom from Genesis 19. A seemingly hospitable Ephraimite meets him in the square and urges him not to spend the night there, but to come in and commune with him. The wicked men of Gibeah try to beat down the door like Sodomites that they might sexually assault the Levite. The owner of the house bids that they take his virgin daughter together with the concubine and have their way with them. They refuse to listen and the owner of the house thrusts the concubine without and shuts the door. After they ravage her all night, she staggers toward the door where her adonai was abiding in safety. She collapses on the threshold of the door as the morning light dawns and she dies. Up to this point the narrator has referred to her as a concubine or youthful girl, but for the first time in the passage, the narrator calls her “Isha,” woman, wife.

The text refers to the Levite as “Ish” just once in the beginning of the passage, and he received the hospitality of her father, but he does nothing to show that he is her husband and she is his wife. The Levite did nothing to spare her, but allowed himself to be closed up inside the house, safe and sound. Whereas the Levite in the previous story stood aside while the Danites carried him off, the Levite in this story closes the door on his own flesh. He hauls her home on his donkey and then does an appalling thing:

And when he entered his house, he took a knife, and taking hold of his concubine he divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. And all who saw it said, “Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day; consider it, take counsel, and speak.”

The Levite takes not sword, but knife to divide her. There are relatively few words translated “knife” in the Bible, and there are only four times that this particular word is used, and two of those occurrences are in Genesis 22 where Abraham nearly sacrificed his only son, Isaac:

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

The sheer irony of this Levite using a sacrificial knife to cut up his poor concubine should not be missed. He is not attached to her, but tosses her aside so flippantly that she is ravaged to death right outside the door where he was safe until morning. Then, he cuts her up like an animal sacrifice and sends a piece of her to each tribe in Israel so that the whole covenant nation would know what the sons of Benjamin at Gibeah did. The narrator urges the reader to consider, take counsel, and speak to the matter.

This introduces the next part of the story in which we see the covenant community being ripped apart, rather than drawn together. The troubled nation of Israel comes together to take counsel and speak as to what to do about the tribe of Benjamin and it leads to war against one of the tribes. The Levite switches places with the whole nation. He tells the nation which has “assembled as one man” to “give your advice and counsel here.” Then, “as one man,” the nation takes action and goes up against Benjamin to “burn out” the transgressors. They take a tithe of the people, ten of a hundred, a hundred of a thousand, a thousand of ten thousand to go against Benjamin, Judah first. Truly, the whole world has turned upside down!

Throughout the Bible Israel and the church are the bride of God and priests and pastors are liturgical husbands who represent God to the people. They represent Christ to the church. Priests, Levites, and pastors are meant to “speak kindly to her,” to offer her forgiveness in times of unfaithfulness. But this Levite does not lay down his life for his unfaithful bride. He leaves her to die by the door. “Ephraim” means “fruitful,” but this Levite from Ephraim and his wife are not fruitful. The closed door where she dies symbolizes the closing of her womb. It symbolizes the fact that the nation of Israel is bearing no fruit, and if the nation does not bear fruit in the form of faithful children, there can never be a Messiah to save her. Levi was supposed to be distributed to Israel to serve in every place, but this Levite distributed his wife in twelve pieces to the twelve tribes. He used his sacrificial knife to divide the woman and she became a fire in every tribe that nearly burned the whole nation down. This is not the fire of Yahweh’s altar. This is strange fire! Moreover, the whole ordeal leads to the desolation of Benjamin and a need for women to be wives to the men of Benjamin. There was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

A Future Reforging

In Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, Yahweh takes up a case against the Levites and the men of Judah for their failure to worship from the heart and keep their speech pure.

“My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.”

“But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts.”

The covenant here refers to the one God made with the Levites through the covenant-guarding actions of Phinehas. It references the fact that Levites are teachers and preachers as well as those who offer sacrifices to God, and this was particularly true of the non-priest Levites who were scattered throughout Israel to be local pastors. God is cross with the Levitical priests in Malachi for several reasons, one of which is that Levi is supposed to speak the truth and guard knowledge with his lips. The Hebrew word for “guard” is often translated as “keep” and refers to keeping the garden, the tabernacle, the temple, and the covenant. The act of guarding the sanctuary of God implies the use of a sword. Again, the sword is an extension of the mouth and speech. The good news is that in Malachi 3, God promises that the “the Lord… will suddenly come to his temple,” and that “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver….”

Conclusion to Part 1

This article has shown the role of speech in the creation of the world and the formation of covenant community. It has shown that Levi’s sin of using the sign of circumcision to create a false church in order to deceive and destroy the men of Shechem caused him to be scattered throughout Israel. God graciously redeemed this consequence by acknowledging Levi’s covenant faithfulness at Sinai with ordination; Levi would be distributed throughout the land to become a mediator between God and Israel. The third son of Jacob and Leah was ordained to be a sword-wielding guardian of the people and the temple of God. Born to a woman who hoped that his birth would attach her to her husband, Levi was redeemed to serve as a representative husband to Israel with sword in hand and truth in mouth to attach people to God and to one another. When the Levites failed to live up to their calling, chaos ensued in the covenant community.

Nevertheless, God will go on to refine and “purify the sons of Levi,” glorifying them to serve in the same capacity for the sake of the whole world. Part 2 of this article will set out the glorification of Levi in the New Testament.

Jacob Gucker is a librarian at BMA Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Texas. He lives with his wife and baby daughter at Preacher’s End Farm where she raises vegetables and pastures chickens and he looks up from his books to help out.

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.

The abandonment of the Son by the Father is made palpable not in the crucifixion of His body, since He willingly laid down His life, but in the darkness which covered the Land for three hours. But perhaps this darkness was a sign of the Father’s nearness rather than His distance.

Matthew, Mark and Luke document the darkness which covered the Land during the last three hours of Jesus’ life, and so do three extra biblical historians, Thallus, Phlegon and Africanus. But what was its purpose? It is wise to look for typological precedents for events in the Gospels, since Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. Concerning darkness we have the primeval world before the creation of light (Genesis 1:2), and the darkness which covered Egypt as the ninth plague (Exodus 10:21-23).

The details of this plague are interesting, since this was “a darkness to be felt” and “nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.” Only the land of Goshen where the Israelites dwelt was given light. Thus, the three hours of darkness at noonday were a sign of the coming three days in which Christ would be covered by the darkness of the tomb. But there is another instance of darkness and light as a judgment in Exodus, and that occurred at the Red Sea crossing (Exodus 13:19-20). The pillar of cloud gave light to the Israelites but the Egyptians were left in the dark. Thus the two were kept separate throughout the night.

My assertion here is that the darkness in each case was a visit from the glory cloud, the “mobile tabernacle” which served as God’s chariot until the Day of Pentecost. It was presumably this cloud which is described in Genesis 3:8, which would be better translated as “And they heard the sound/voice of the Lord God coming to the garden in the breath/spirit of the day and they hid themselves…” It is likely that this visitation was similar to the cloud which descended upon Sinai and upon the mount of transfiguration. It is also likely the same cloud which, when opened, provided a glimpse into heaven at the baptism of Jesus (with its allusion to Genesis 1, the Spirit hovering over the deep), at His ascension, and again at the martyrdom of Stephen. The Lord always comes “with” or “in” clouds, and when He does, He comes to judge.

Of course, judgment does not necessarily mean punishment. The Lord came down to judge Babel, Egypt and Sodom, and it each case the result was cursing. In the case of Ezekiel, it seems the prophet was actually taken up in or by the chariot in Spirit that he might witness the sins of Jerusalem, God and a “son of man” serving as two legal witnesses, explaining the phrase “Come, let us go down…” in Genesis 11:7, when God brought confusion. The pillar of cloud also brought confusion upon Pharaoh’s armies, and it was likely present when the armies of Midian were confused under the watch of Gideon. But when the cloud came upon the Tabernacle and Temple, upon the Son, and upon His saints on the Day of Pentecost, as a mighty, rushing wind, the Lord was happy to bless. The arrival of the chariot of God, unlike the chariot of Pharaoh, is a chariot which brings not only vengeance but also redemption. It is the chariot of the almighty ga’al, the one who bears a two-edged sword to slay the wicked and cut the bonds of the righteous.

So, is it beyond possibility that the chariot of God was the cause of the three hours of darkness, recorded across the oikoumene, while Christ was on the cross? After all, the final chapters of Ezekiel present this Jew-Gentile social construct as a temple, with the Land of Israel as its holy altar. The Lord was coming to His temple to inspect it for “leprosy.” According to the Law, the leprosy had to be cut out, but if it returned, the house would be destroyed. Jesus was crucified “outside the camp,” like a leper (see Leviticus 14, and The Leprous House). He was the one being “cut out” that the house might be spared. But as Jesus predicted, the cleaned house would be filled with even worse demons (see Seven Spirits More Wicked), and its response to being cleansed would be a return to corruption in an even greater way. The Veil of the Temple was torn, but when the Lord later returned “in the clouds” the Temple was torn down. Not one stone was left upon another.

And he shall break down the house, its stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and he shall carry them out of the city to an unclean place (Leviticus 14:45)

This means that the entire Land was under judgment, and Jesus was at the center of the court. He had been condemned by the High Priesthood (Garden), by Herod (Land) and by Pilate (World), the entirety of the oikoumene “Tabernacle.” Now He was being judged by heaven, and for the will of heaven be done on earth required the “bowing of the heavens,” that is, a visit from the heavenly court via the glory cloud, a symbolic reunion of the waters above and below in a prefiguring of final judgment (see “Bowing the Heavens” in my book Inquiétude for more discussion.) God was visiting the Garden, and Adam was exposed in His court. The events that transpired recapitulate those of Psalm 18 – including the earthquake –with one major difference: the Father did not hear, and did not deliver, the Man who cried out to Him.

The cords of death encompassed me;
the torrents of destruction assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.

Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.

Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.

He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.

He rode on a cherub and flew;
he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.

What does this mean for the significance of the three hours of darkness? That the Christ who “became sin for us” was trodden underfoot like an enemy, or a serpent, the blood upon the kapporet, the footstool of God (see Peter Leithart, The Footstool of His Feet.) To conquer sin, He became sin. To make His enemies His footstool (Psalm 110:1; Luke 20:43; Hebrews 10:13), He would first be trampled underfoot, and it would please the Lord to bruise Him (Isaiah 53:10). The holy presence which overshadowed Mary at Jesus’ conception (Luke 1:35) now overshadowed the entire nation at His death.

This abandonment of the Son by the Father was not “spatial” but legal. The Father presided over the Son in the seat of Moses, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. This courtroom “betrayal,” a perjury in the sense that He changed His previous testimonies concerning the blamelessness and authority of the Son, was as close-to-home as the kiss of Judas. In this final act, the Father crossed the floor and stood with Judas, with Ananias, with those who beat, spat upon and ridiculed Jesus, with Pilate, with the crowd, and with the thief who cursed Him on the cross.

The word “sacrifice” connotes the idea of “near bringing” (see James B. Jordan, Leviticus 1:2). It was this reversal of judgment, through substitutionary atonement, that the angels “standing at the four corners of the Land,” those who stood prepared to vindicate the Son by immediately destroying the city and the Land (as predicted in Daniel 9:25-26), were told: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God” (Revelation 7:1-3).

At the Day of Pentecost, the brightness of the cloud was visited upon those who believed, and the darkness of strong delusion upon those who refused to believe. In the Gospel, this dividing “sword” was extended right across the empire. This “visitation” by the Spirit, whose indwelling turned every believer into a chariot (epitomised and signified in the miraculous travel of Philip in Acts 8:38-39), explains the inspiration and perseverance of the Jew-Gentile saints and the strong delusion which confused and confounded their Jew-Gentile enemies, who turned on each other, eventuating in their destruction at the coming of Christ with all His martyred sons, including Abel (Matthew 23:35), on white horses as a cloud of “witnesses” (martyrs) against the first century “Babylon.” These saints were God’s chariot.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

The difference between separation and preparation…

In a post on Kuyperian Commentary entitled Baptism Is God’s Work, my friend Steve Jeffery writes:

My friend Fred Thompson made a tremendously illuminating comment about baptism recently. With his permission (thanks Fred) I wanted to say a few words about it. Here’s what he said:

“I keep thinking of the Red Sea baptism, a baptism of a nation, a mixed multitude, a nation that did not know where she was going, a nation that did not understand baptism. It was a new nation that left Egypt and she needed grace above all else, grace given through water and manna to all.”

Fred has in mind the well-known typological connection between baptism and the crossing of the Red Sea during the exodus (e.g. 1 Cor 10). Pressing this point, it becomes obvious that many evangelical assumptions about baptism are at best only a part of the biblical picture.

For example, we readily treat baptism as an expression of our faith towards God, part of our response to him. But baptism is in the first instance an act of God’s grace towards us. Though of course Israel was called to trust the LORD, it would be a strange reading of the Red Sea crossing that placed the emphasis on the faithfulness of the Israelites’ response to God.

Steve makes some good points about the over-emphasis on baptism as a human act. But over-emphasising God’s work in baptism is simply falling off the other side of the horse.

As a “credobaptist” I believe the Bible clearly teaches that baptism involves both God’s work and the work of the baptizand (the one being baptised). It is a combination of both the subjective (credo) and the objective (baptism). I believe that baptism is a lay ordination. This means that pitting the objective and subjective against each other is going to minimise the scope of the rite as something which is not only a legal relationship (objective) but also a loving relationship (subjective). To help us understand Christian baptism we could consider the rites of marriage and knighthood. Do getting married or being knighted actually do anything? Most certainly! Must the ones being married or knighted have some idea of what is going on? Most certainly. That is the whole point. In the New Testament, baptism is presented to us as a vow which has similarities with marriage and with knighthood, and indeed with the Nazarite vow (which both men and women could take). All of these vows were (or are) taken voluntarily (subjective), yet each vow bestows some form of authority for service (objective). In each case, one submits to authority that one might receive authority. This is not rocket science. Even a centurion can understand a rite that requires both the work of God and the work of Man (Matthew 8:5-13).

So, what did Israel’s passing through the Red Sea have to do with authority? Paedobaptists love to quote 1 Corinthians 10:2 as evidence for paedobaptism, but not one of them stops to ask why Israel needed baptism. Just like Roman Catholics, they have a rite to defend, and as soon as they see something which looks like proof, they stop thinking. They fail to ask a number of crucial questions.

Firstly, “How did Israel’s baptism relate to Israel’s circumcision?” The events at the Red Sea and the Jordan River were not Israel’s circumcision. Passover was certainly a corporate vindication of the circumcision (all Israel as God’s firstborn), but baptism prepared Israel for ministry as a sacrificial nation. Separation is not preparation any more than choosing a “son of the herd” was the same as cutting it up according to the Levitical requirements. Circumcision and baptism were part of a sacrificial process which culminated in the offering of Christ. When Christ died, the “separation” of circumcision finally became meaningless. But what about Israel’s baptism? Did that also become meaningless? The answer is found in another question which paedobaptists fail to ask.

So, secondly, “Why was Israel baptised all at once, yet Christians are not?” Christians are not baptised “corporately” but one by one, and we must ask why there is this difference under the New Covenant. When reading the Bible, in all cases, we must observe not only what is the same, but also what is different. This is something we must do even within the first book of the Bible, let alone in our comparison between the various historical covenants. Dry land rose up out of the waters twice in Genesis, but there are differences as well as similarities. There is repetition but also development and maturity. The same goes for Israel’s baptism. After the “national baptism” came the Levitical ordinances and the establishment of the priesthood. The “one baptism into Moses” was expressed in a “many” baptism as the Mosaic law was administered. Christian baptism in the Gospels and the book of Acts resembles the individual baptisms of the Levite priests who had to wash their bodies and their clothes as mediators between God and men.

The overall question is this: What makes the Church less like national Israel and more like the Levites? The answer would be that the “national” division (circumcision) was torn down by Christ, and all that remains is ministry among all nations. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is not claiming that the Christians had escaped either nationally or geographically from a physical nation like Egypt. He is simply claiming that just as Israel’s preparation for ministry involved personal faith and accountability to a Covenant oath, so also does Christian baptism. Did those whose bodies fell in the wilderness understand the Covenant oath when they took it? Most certainly. This is why their children were spared.¹The fact that my friend Tim Gallant sees the sparing of the children as evidence for a continued focus on children through baptism reveals how distorted our thinking can become when we make the Scriptures fit our agenda: we begin to see the opposite of what is actually there.

Reading too much into our baptism from Israel’s Red Sea baptism can lead us into error. Paedobaptism is a confusion of circumcision and baptism which was not even found in Old Testament Israel. Baptism is a delegation of Christ’s prophetic authority with accountability to Him. It is neither God’s work nor Man’s work, since in the regenerate, these become as indistinguishable as they are in the incarnate Christ.

Ignorance of the Bible’s very consistent architecture has led to the assembly of many well-meaning but errant doctrinal constructs over the centuries. With reference to it, however, the conflicts are made plain. Our own towers to heaven, however historic they might be, and however cherished, must be torn down.

Just as the “tabernacling” of God in human flesh established a new temple, so the architecture of God serves as the measure for the edifices of man in every sphere. As the Bible repeatedly shows, the city of God will only be built according to the blueprint from heaven, the one given upon the mountain. Anything else will be revealed by fire as mud bricks and straw, a house built on sand, or wood, hay and stubble.

Architecture as Process

The Bible’s sacred architecture is not “solid state.” Not only does it become more and more glorious as the story progresses, from garden to tent, from temple to city, from nature to culture, the elements of the building themselves constitute a process of maturity, recapitulating the pattern of “forming and filling” established in Genesis 1.¹For examples, see Revelation – Cycle 2 Just as that pattern underlies the shape of Genesis 2 — the social architecture established in Adam and Eve²See Covenant Structure in Genesis 2 — so it also underlies the dictation and construction of the Tabernacle in the latter part of the book of Exodus. These chapters are the worst kind of tedium unless we are willing to think visually, or architecturally. If, after careful and repeated readings of the book of Genesis, we have the “heavenly pattern” hidden in our hearts, the details of the tent of God are not a boring list but a tour of the gallery of grace, an architectural representation of the work of God in every sphere, from the creation of the world down to the heart of the humblest saint. Although these sequences are far more complex, we can begin to sing along because we already know the tune.³See The Shape of Exodus 25-31

Since all God’s works are “musical” in that sense, we should not be surprised to find the same architecture in biblical worship. Jeff Meyers writes:

Jesus taught us to pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). He thereby established heaven as the pattern for what is done on earth. (Actually, this pattern is symbolized in many places in the Old Testament, beginning in Genesis 1:1-2.) This is especially the case with regard to the church’s worship. Surely the manner in which worship is conducted in heaven functions as a model for the church on earth. When the Apostle John was privileged to observe heavenly worship, as he records for us in the Revelation, he saw an orderly, formal service performed by angels, living beings, and the twenty-four elders (the precise identity of each of these beings is not our concern here). They repeated various rituals and ritual responses (Rev. 4:9-11). They alternated responses antiphonally (Rev. 5:11-14). They sang hymns in unison (Rev. 5:9). They fell down together (no doubt, a prearranged liturgical action), and they jointly recited prayers of praise and thanksgiving that must have been pre-composed and memorized. How else would they have all prayed (or sung) simultaneously?⁴Jeffrey J. Meyers, The Lord’s Service: Worship at Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, 19, a condensed version of The Lord’s Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship.

Meyers notes that, just like the Creation week, and indeed like any good music, the liturgy of worship “moves from tension to rest, from mourning to joy.” What began as “formless and void” becomes “formed and filled.” Our weekly worship is thus a celebration of the new creation established in the death, resurrection, ascension and enthronement of Christ. The action moves from bloodshed on the earth to rule over the nations. This process is called “Covenant Renewal Worship” because it follows the pattern of all biblical Covenants.

The process begins with the authority of God, purifies His people, then sends them as representatives into the world. This is the Above, Beside, Below architecture found in the Ten Commandments.⁶See God-In-A-Box  The threefold Trinity becomes fivefold by Covenant and then sevenfold in history. The pattern instilled in us in the house of God is then recapitulated in our own houses, tribes, cities and nations.

But this process of the Spirit “coming down” always follows the ascension offering, the sacrifice “going up.”⁷For more discussion on the meaning of the ascension offering, see The First Ascension. The three-level “ziggurat” described in Exodus 20:4 and Philippians 2:10 is turned upside down in the ministry of Christ.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything…

that is in heaven above,
(Step 3: Jesus’ ascension – Authority to Rule: GOVERNMENT)
^
or that is in the [land] beneath,
(Step 2: Jesus’ transfiguration – Authority to Die: SACRAMENT)
^
or that is in the water under the [land].”
(Step 1: Jesus’ baptism – Authority to Testify: WORD)⁸For more discussion, see Jesus’ Three Ascensions

Jesus sent His Spirit only after He ascended into heaven as the ultimate sacrifice. Man must be represented in heaven before he can be commissioned to represent God on earth. This is why Adam was put through a process of ethical qualification. His submission to the word-sword of heaven would qualify him to be its bearer on earth.⁹For more discussion, see “The Spirit of Adam” and “The Meekest Man” in Inquiétude: Essays for a People without Eyes. Just as there was tension and rest in the testing and enthronement of Christ (Below, Beside, Above), so there is now tension and rest is the conquest of the nations by the Gospel (Above, Beside, Below). ¹⁰Interestingly, although the flow of divine authority in the fivefold Covenant is Above, Beside, Below, the sevenfold process includes both an ascent and a descent. God always works in fractals.

Architecture as Drama

Now, as a visual thinker, some things are obvious to me that are not obvious to other people. Thinking visually not only allows one to think spatially or architecturally (how things are placed in a given space), it then allows you to make some observations concerning the spatial “relationships” between those things. In dramatic terminology, this placement of people is referred to as “blocking.” Eric Sean McGiven writes:

Blocking is the positioning and movement of the characters to tell the story in visual terms. This placement can suggest the attitudes of the characters toward one another so the story situation is conveyed to the audience with or without dialogue. It makes the audience understand, at times contrary to the dialogue, the inner meaning existing within and between characters.

Blocking should make the dramatic or comedic purpose of the scene so clearly apparent to the viewer that even a deaf man could understand it. For example, silent films were almost all physical behavior. A whole generation grew up understanding and enjoying these films.

The visual story reflects the moment to moment failure or success of each character’s struggle toward their objective, as well as the intensity (commitment) and focus (direction) of their emotions. Blocking is thus the accumulation of several components: the dramatic relationship, the character’s wants, what he feels, what stands in the way, and how is the conflict presently resolving. Now when I say winning or failing, I don’t mean whether the character achieves their end goal, but whether they are succeeding or failing at specific moments along the way.

Blocking, is therefore, a comparative portrayal of strong and weak movements, and relative positions. This means that certain body positions; stage areas, planes, and levels along with character movements have definite values. They inject meaning into the picture and the telling of the story.

For instance, a strong movement of a figure is one rising from a chair, straightening up, placing weight on the forward foot, raising the arm, or walking forward. A weak movement, on the other hand, is stepping backward, slouching, placing the weight on the rear foot, sitting down, lowering the arm, walking backward, or turning around and walking away from a figure or object.

We could also define, in general, whether physical behavior is strong or weak, whether it signifies a winning attitude or one of struggle or failure.¹¹Eric Sean McGiven, Blocking and Movement.

The first point that should be made here is the importance of physical posture in liturgy. The saints kneel or prostrate themselves to confess sins because we are slain as living sacrifices. The saints stand to sing and pray because these are priestly acts of service, and servants stand. The saints hear the word and receive communion seated because we are priest-kings, friends of God. Covenant renewal worship (or whatever you choose to call it) purifies our hearts and leads to the saints walking among the nations as prophets.

Liturgy, under the Old Covenant and the New, is sacred drama. People used to go to church to absorb patterns for life. Now, sadly, they watch TV and movies to learn how to live, and entertainment rather than the Bible informs the pattern of modern worship as it does the method of modern Bible teaching. It is little wonder that Christians learn nothing new at church. It is also telling that the first generation to skip Sunday School is responsible for the current plague of corruption in public and private institutions. Cultus always leads to culture. Men must learn to kneel before they can stand and walk with authority.

When it comes to the Bible, obtaining an understanding of the blocking of all the actors on the ubiquitous “sacred stage” explains many mysteries.¹²See Orientation Day My favourite example is the blocking of the actors in the account of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. The placement of all the people in the “legal” architecture of the court of God reveals it to be a replay of the events in Eden, only this time there is a better Adam. Not only this, but the careful mentions of Jesus sitting, bending down and standing are also architectural cues. There is no drama so deep and rich as even the simplest Bible story.¹³See The Emancipation of Eve.

Children And Liturgy

Since every Bible story has the same shape (the Bible Matrix), and each of the seven steps in that process corresponds to some element in the Tabernacle, every Bible story is an expression of the house of God, the heart of the city of God. This is very obviously the case with Exodus 24, and this chapter exposes one of the “architectural conflicts” mentioned above.

The pattern of biblical worship is not compatible with the doctrine of paedosacraments held by Jeff Meyers. Why? Because God never puts children in the Sanctuary. As it was in Eden, even before the children were born, the Sanctuary was only open to those who legally represented them.¹⁴For more discussion, see Cultivation and Representation. Even in the account of the woman caught in adultery, where the real target of the serpent is Jesus, the Offspring of the Woman, it is Jesus as the Man. Those whose intention is to include children in worship patterned after the biblical order should look more closely at that pattern, and this is where Exodus 24 is extremely helpful. The children were included, but we ought to observe how and where they were included.

Here is the pattern of Covenant Renewal Worship in its sevenfold form (from Bible Matrix, p. 217):

As in Genesis 1, the process begins with the authority of heaven and concludes with the establishment of a representative authority on earth. This is also what we see in Exodus 24.

The events of Exodus 24 occurred just before the dictation of the instructions for the Tabernacle. In this chapter, the people of God are not only gathered, cleansed, consecrated, commune with God and are commissioned, they are also divided up within the different stages of the “ascension” process on Mount Sinai. The entire nation, as the “corporate firstborn” of God became a picture of the process of sacrifice, and what we must notice is that the process not only moves from Below, to Beside, to Above, it also takes us from the sons of men on earth to the Sons of God in heaven:

The most common arguments for paedosacraments rely on Circumcision (for paedobaptism) and Passover (for paedocommunion). However, even though women served at the Tabernacle, and even young children had a place in the courts of Solomon’s Temple, not even Israel’s children qualified as legal representatives with Sanctuary access.¹⁵My friend Luke Welch totally screws this up, architecturally-speaking, here. Both Circumcision and Passover concerned the households of men, and their earthly offspring. What we see in the books of Exodus and Leviticus is the establishment of divisions within Israel to accommodate the house of God. Just as Israel was the “firstborn” of God, corporately speaking, the Levites were set apart as legal representatives for those sons of Israel.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the people of Israel instead of every firstborn who opens the womb among the people of Israel. The Levites shall be mine, for all the firstborn are mine. On the day that I struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own all the firstborn in Israel, both of man and of beast. They shall be mine: I am the Lord.” (Numbers 3:11-13)

This shifted the focus from the Land and womb to the Sanctuary, from the firstborn of the womb to the firstborn from the dead, or, in Tabernacle terms, from bloody flesh to fragrant smoke. Where the Bronze Altar represented the four-cornered earthly inheritance, the Incense Altar represented the coming “heavenly country,” the inheritance of the resurrected saints, the courts of God. The architecture on Mount Sinai prefigured the ascension of the saints at the end of the Old Covenant as a mature, human representative government in heaven. To use Circumcision and Passover as proof of the veracity of paedosacraments is to lift raw flesh into heaven without purification by fire. Paedosacraments are the liturgical equivalent of the tower of Babel, or gathering sticks on the Sabbath to warm your own tent instead of gathering around God’s. Sons of men are not Sons of God.

The conclusion is clearly that children, indeed anyone, is welcome in the New Covenant house of God. The Garden is now free of the accuser, so Eve now rules as co-regent with her Bridegroom. Baptism and table are thus for “both men and women” (Acts 2:18; 5:14; 8:12) as New Covenant “Levites” (men) and “Nazirites” (men and women), but restricting the sacraments to believers does not exclude the children any more than restricting ministry of the Word to men excludes the women. Just as the restriction of priesthood to “Adams” who “died” made worship a safe place for women and children, so the restriction of priesthood to “Adams” and “Eves” under the New Covenant makes worship a safe place not only for our children, but for anyone else who wishes to attend. New Covenant worship is open worship, a drama for all the world to see, and the sacraments are part of the liturgical story which we dare not get wrong. They do not constitute “an intellectual fence” which divides the Church any more than did the divisions within Israel upon Sinai or around the Tabernacle.

Now, we all know a picture is worth a thousand words. It has taken me almost three thousand to explain an inconsistency I noticed by comparing Exodus 24 and Covenant Renewal Worship in a single mental image. This might be why software companies are employing people with varying degrees of autism to find bugs in computer code. I am no genius, but I do know my way around the house.

“In the days when our courts are declaring that good is evil and evil is good, the recovery of baptism as a delegation of divine legal authority rather than a sign of ‘limited Covenantal obligation’ is crucial.”

Every biblical Covenant is a word from heaven designed to bring a response from the earth. When the laws in the Ark of the testimony were given to Israel, the response of a legal oath was required, intended to culminate in the legal witness of Israel to the nations. Thus, every biblical Covenant is also a process which leads to maturity, beginning with cultivation and ending in representation.

A child must be schooled before he can be employed. A man must be a disciple before he can be an apostle. Adam was to be qualified before he could represent God as a just and merciful judge on earth. But the difference between cultivation and representation is the difference between circumcision and baptism, and this facet of the biblical Covenants is something paedobaptists are unable to accept, at least in its full glory.

Leaving Home

My friend Peter Leithart, once again, has written a brilliant article concerning this process of maturity.

Can we protect our kids from the world and prepare them for it?

Parents can draw guidance from an unexpected source: Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where Paul describes Israel’s history as a centuries-long process of child-training (Galatians 3–4). When Yahweh first brought his son from Egypt, he gave clear, detailed commandments and exercised strict discipline. Israel was, Paul says, “no better than slaves.” But this was always intended to be a temporary arrangement. The law was a tutor, but when faith comes, then “we are no longer under a tutor.” Israel was under guardians and stewards, but then God sends Jesus and the Spirit so that “we might receive the adoption as sons.” Overall, it’s a progression from childhood slavery to mature adulthood.

We can see this progression within the Old Testament. Early on, Yahweh created a comprehensive world that was at once a protection and a pedagogy. He gave his creatures stories, songs, structures, and rules—many rules. By the time of the kings, Israel had grown up. Instead of being withdrawn from the nations, Israel began to make good on the Abrahamic promise to be a light to the nations. Kings and queens streamed to Jerusalem to hear Solomon’s wisdom. Exile was both a judgment and a commission: By the time Nebuchadnezzar deported the Jews, they had become true children of Abraham, capable of leaving home for a land they didn’t yet know.

All this adds up to a rough but useful pattern for child-rearing. On the one hand, parents should have no problem treating their children as “slaves” during their youngest years. “No” is not a swear word; eight of the Ten Commandments begin with “No” (in Hebrew), and one of the two positive commands is “Honor your father and mother.” We don’t send toddlers into combat, and we shouldn’t send them into the warzone of the world. Should we sequester young children in an artificial cocoon of peace, love, and virtue? Absolutely.

On the other hand, the goal is to prepare them to leave, and to keep their heads as they pass through the big world outside. Like the God of Israel, we prepare them by gradual manumission. Some years ago, I read in a now-forgotten book that a parent moves from commander to coach to counselor. We give orders to little kids and require obedience. We coach them through the challenges of young adulthood, giving them room to make decisions, fail, and try again. By the time they’re ready to leave home, the commands should be second nature, and we offer advice to help them over the rough patches.

As Christians tell it, at the end of Israel’s story, the Lord doesn’t command Israel to “return.” Instead, Jesus, the God of Israel made flesh, sends the new Israel of the disciples away: Get out of the house. Fill the corners. The Hebrews started as priests, serving in Yahweh’s house, living under command. They grew to be kings, conquering and ruling a land in wisdom. They were sent out on a prophetic, then an apostolic mission, no longer slaves but sons, heirs of God. It’s the perfect pedagogy of the perfect Father, and we do well to imitate it.¹Peter J. Leithart, Rearing Slaves, Rearing Sons, www.firstthings.com

Leithart describes perfectly the purpose of cultivation as preparation for representation, of training our children that they might leave home to change the world. Yet once again he fails to make any connection between this process and the difference between circumcision and baptism.²See Exposed to the Elements. Circumcision was about cultivation (“Hear O Israel” — word as seed). Baptism is about representation (“Go and tell” – profession/witness as fruit).

Judicial Maturity

For the Covenantalist / sacramentalist, the New Covenant sign means pretty much the same thing as the Old one did: cultivation. The sign is somehow believed to contain maturity in “seed form,” and Leithart has to read Galatians backwards to cram the judicial maturity of New Covenant baptism into something that can be applied to infants. See Reading Galatians Backwards. However, if Israel was in training until Christ, and only then was baptism as we now know it instituted, how can baptism ever be a sign of earthly pedagogy? Surely a personal confession by our children (and a desire on their part for baptism) is the time to celebrate a parenting job well done?

Adam heard the law but did not “image” God legally. He listened but failed to “Go tell” when the Word was challenged by the first false teacher. Unlike Adam, Noah heeded the word and became the first true prophet. Each was under the sword (cultivation) but only Noah took it up (representation as a judge).

We see the same contrast in Israel in Egypt (under the sword) and Israel at Jericho (wielding the sword). In the big picture, this is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New. This might be why the Covenant has moved from circumcision/Land to baptism/Table. We are following the life of the harvest from its natural origin on earth to its supernatural destiny as a communion between heaven and earth. The process begins at the root, works its way to fruit, and finishes at the table of God. The food on the table is the “qualified and glorified” representative of the cultivated land.

Culmination and Initiation

Now, the paedobaptist might object by saying that life is a continuous process of cultivation, and indeed it is. But these levels are not the same. An infant’s gown is not the same thing as a graduation gown or a wedding gown. There is “cultivation” in the womb, there is the “cultivation” of childhood, there is the “cultivation” of study, and of courting, and there is “cultivation” as a minister of God. Infant baptism is thus the breaking of the waters in the womb and cutting of the umbilical chord. This is the only way “paedo” can ever be linked with “baptism.” Physical birth ends cultivation in the womb and begins physical representation of the parents by the child.

Breaking the waters signals the end of something old and the beginning of something new. So baptism is a new beginning, and is thus both culmination and initiation. But what does baptism bring to an end and what does it allow to begin? Where does baptism fit among all these varied stages? Well, what does a biblical baptism picture? Death and resurrection. Baptism is linked inextricably to a ministry as a living sacrifice, a martyr for whom death is gain, given the power to bless and curse as a spokesman for God.

Unlike circumcision, baptism does not speak of being a child of men but a son of God, that is, a legal representative, a prophet. It ends the period focussed on submission to heaven and begins the subsequent dominion of earth. Noah’s Great Flood “baptism” ended the old world and began the new one, but the new order was one of greater maturity and more authority in office. Noah blesses and curses with the full authority of God, a chosen ambassador. Baptism ends “legal” childhood under the stoicheia and begins a ministry of legal representation of God.

Baptism is about office, not flesh. It is supernature, not nature. Jesus spoke of a new birth, but He was not talking about more sons from Sarah’s or Rachel’s wombs. He spoke of the firstborn from the dead, and the legal witness which would follow. Paedobaptism confuses the Covenant “Oath” (Adam’s faithfulness) with the Covenant “Sanctions” (the resulting gifts from God), the same error made by the Jews and Judaizers in the first century. It is a subtle seizing of the Tree of Kingdom without prior submission to God.

Conflated Births

Each era of cultivation speaks to the others, but conflating them is an enormous mistake when it comes to the meaning of baptism as legal representation. Baptism accompanied the sign of tongues and the explosion of prophetic ministry across the world. To claim it is about cultivation rather than representation is a backward step. This puts the criticism of the Christian Jews in Hebrews 5 into context. They were still “hearing” like Israel, but stuck on the Old Covenant basics.

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:11-14)

Hebrews refers to the physical cultivation of childhood to describe spiritual cultivation. The saints should have been on the wine (strong food), and past the “milk” of the Covenant basics. Despite being raised as Jews, they were still getting a grip on the basics (cultivation) when they should by now have become teachers (representation). The author is not saying that these people were actual babies. Since they conflate the first birth with the second, paedocommunionists give wine to actual babies, which exposes their paradigm as a profound misunderstanding of some very basic things. The Church is the “nursery” of culture, but the Federal Vision unwittingly turns the church into an actual nursery. The earthly image is mistaken for the glorious reality, rather than merely a stage in the process.

This answers Dr Leithart’s strange case against us baptists who “talk to our babies.” He misguidedly conflates two very different stages of human life. Advocates of paedofaith quote Psalm 22:9-10 without thinking too deeply about it. David himself poetically conflates the care of his heavenly Father with the care of his earthly parents, but only poetically:

…you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God…

One certainly images the other, but these levels of cultivation are not the same. David’s parents were representatives of God in David’s boyhood cultivation. The ministry was from the hand of God but it came via mediators. In the New Covenant, we are no longer under an order administered by angels. We are now the angels, the messengers. That is the point of baptism. To claim that these very different periods of cultivation are the same thing is to claim that a child of men is, without ethical qualification, a son of God. But as in Hebrews, these are not the same thing. Although there is continuity between the child and the adult, a child is not an adult, and the flesh is not the Spirit.

The sacralizing of the first birth rather than the second unwittingly feminises the New Covenant. The New Covenant is about God’s sons, not ours, which is what Jesus’ baptism was all about, and why He had no physical children. The Church is not a nursery for the training of infants but a barracks for the training of soldiers. The Federal Vision’s hybridised New Covenant, with its “two tier” baptism, is just Abrahamic foozball in the clubhouse. Nurturing our children in the Lord is certainly a grave responsibility, but the real game is with Jesus out there on the field. Abraham’s inheritance was his own children. Jesus’ inheritance is the nations of the world.

Jesus’ Baptism

Based on Jesus’ baptism, the rite is a ceremony of graduation from the authority of Joseph the carpenter to the Craftsman of all Creation. Each stage prefigures the next, but the stages are not the same, just as the first birth is not the second birth, and just as the regeneration of one individual is not the regeneration of the world. The image is not the reality, yet although it is a part of it, conflating them is a form of idolatry, an over-realised eschatology. This explains the “sorcery” of Israel, whose leaders thought their earthly lineage made them acceptable to God. The Pharisees were indeed sons of Abraham (image) but not sons of God (reality). They were Jews but not what Judaism imaged or pointed to, thus not true Jews. “Dominion” was thus seen to be the result of breeding rather than legal witness.

The “baptism of the Spirit” was what officially ended the time of cultivation of the disciples and officially began their apostolic witness as representatives of Christ.

Jesus’ baptism signified the end of His personal cultivation on earth and the beginning of His representation of heaven. However, Jesus had four of these events, and even these must not be conflated, since they are stages of growth in stature and maturity: Circumcision (earthly father), Baptism (heavenly Father), death and burial (Table), ascension and return (enthronement). This process works from earth to heaven, from the Bronze Altar, through the Laver, into the Holy Place and ends on the kapporet. We see this exact sequence in the architecture of Exodus 24, which was the culmination of Israel’s physical cultivation as a nation, culminating in only the legal representatives dining with Yahweh on the mountain.

Likewise, in the life of Jesus, each of these events ended a period of cultivation and began a greater level of representation. The “baptism of the Spirit” was what officially ended the time of cultivation of the disciples and officially began their apostolic witness as representatives of Christ. This might be why the martyrdom of the saints in Revelation 14 is presented as a “fractal expansion” of the death of Jesus: the white harvest of the oikoumene (cultivation) was cut down and gathered for the table of God (representation).

Israel’s Baptism

Paedobaptists mistakenly think that Israel’s corporate baptism supports their errant rite, but even the nation of Israel was baptised for the sake of legal representation. Israel was not baptised into Abraham but Moses. Why? Circumcision was about cultivation (Abraham to Joseph) but Israel’s baptism was about representation (Moses to Joshua), her mediation for the nations.³See Destroy This Temple And within Israel, it was only the Levitical priests and the sacrifices — those who represented Israel before God — which were washed as mediators. The priesthood of all believers, the sign of which is believer’s baptism, came only at the end of Israel’s history. Israel’s annual feasts were also a process of cultivation (preparation for ministry) and then representation (witness) to the nations at Booths. Like the end of her annual feasts, this was the completion of her cultivation under the Law of Moses and the beginning of her ultimate ministry to the nations.

As Leithart fails to mention, protecting our children from the influence of the world until they are ready to influence it illustrates for us in microcosm the purpose of circumcision in history. The children of Israel were taken out of the nations that they might be matured, able to judge between good and evil, and then put back among the nations as a corporate image of the justice and mercy of God.

The Old Testament is claimed to offer support for paedosacraments, but even within the history of “Israel according to the flesh” we can see that circumcision and baptism meant very different things.

As we have seen, the institution of circumcision culminated in Israel’s “baptism” through the Red Sea and the “table” on the mountain. But just as the events from Abraham to Joseph were cultivation (Canaan to Egypt as Forming), and the events from Moses to Joshua focussed on legal representation (Egypt to Canaan as Filling), we also see these two elements within this secondary stage in legal terms, that is, legal cultivation and legal representation. The nature of Israel’s baptism as a sign of judicial maturity is the point paedobaptists miss when they note Paul’s allusion to these events. Since they are satisfied that their erroneous practice is vindicated, they fail to think any further about it. This is not only terrible exegesis, it is a failure in “Covenant theology” from its traditional experts.

The process in Israel’s journey from Egypt to Canaan is entirely legal, moving from external law (childhood) to internal law (adulthood), and this is why Paul refers to it in 1 Corinthians 11. The “exodus” of the Church from the Egypt of Herodian worship was fundamentally Ethical in nature. It had nothing whatsoever to do with being set apart genealogically as Israel was. It amazes me that this fundamental difference is consistently ignored.

Between Egypt and Canaan, the judicial maturity of Moses the prophet was to be “measured out” in the hearts of Israel. Israel was given the “Nos” of the Law and possessed Canaan only when the new generation said “Yes.” The process follows not only the Creation Week, but also the pattern of sacrifice. What began as raw flesh and blood was offered voluntarily to God and became a fragrant cloud of smoke, a pleasing testimony. Whereas the narratives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob focus on the reversal of physical barrenness (Sanctions), the wilderness journey is all about “ethical fertility,” that is, richness towards God (Oath).

To claim that Israel’s corporate baptism is any kind of foundation for paedobaptism is to misunderstand the difference between circumcision and baptism. The Old Testament is claimed to offer support for paedosacraments, but even within the history of “Israel according to the flesh” we can see that circumcision and baptism meant very different things.

The Land of Israel

Circumcision was a boundary for farming, fencing off a people and Land for cultivation. The promise of fruit from the Land and fruit from the womb cannot be separated, either in Adam or in Abraham. This is why animals are always treated as part of the Old Covenant household of faith. The animals were the only truly “blameless representatives,” serving as substitutes for Israel as the firstborn of God, both her physical sons (cultivation, Exodus 4:22) and her ethical sons, the Levite priests (representation, Numbers 3:22).⁴See The Case for Covenantal Animal Baptism. If this twofold process seems strange, we must remember that Israel gave a tithe of its harvest to the Levites (cultivation) and the Levites then gave a tithe of that tithe to the Lord (representation). Man’s table is not God’s table. Differentiating between the sons of men and the sons of God under the New Covenant should not be difficult for theologians since it is woven throughout the very fabric of the Old Covenant.

Paedobaptistic ecclesiology is still working on the Abrahamic microcosm, the hobby farm.

Israel was set apart from the nations by circumcision, and cultivated by the Law. When Gentile believers mocked the Jews, Paul reminded them that this cultivation was of great benefit.

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means… (Romans 3:1-3)

The oracles of God were beneficial, just as our preaching to our children is beneficial. Whether or not it produces fruit, the process of ploughing, sowing and watering is a holy one. But when circumcision was ended through the death of Christ, the time of cultivation was over. It was time for the harvest. Paul also reminds those in Rome that both Jew and Gentile were still “under sin.” In Christ, the focus moved from seed to fruit, from cultivation to representation. Circumcision and uncircumcision meant nothing once there was spiritual fruit. When one brought forth spiritual fruit, the field from which one came, cultivated or uncultivated, Jew or Gentile, became irrelevant.

Baptism is not about seed but about fruit. Paedobaptism misguidedly sets a boundary of cultivation (planting the seed), which might explain why infants are “sprinkled.” But biblical baptism is about harvest, and Matthew 28 says there are no longer any fences. God harvests where He will. Paedobaptism tries to make the Church the field to be farmed, when the Church is actually a silo for the harvest, and a barracks for the workers. Paedobaptistic ecclesiology is still working on the Abrahamic microcosm, the hobby farm.

Since the “field” is now the entire world, the “nurture in the Lord” is not merely for our children but for all people everywhere. When one believes, one becomes a representative, a speaker. Since circumcision is gone, there is only the Gospel (cultivation) and witness (representation). There is no sign for cultivation, any more than there was before the time of Abraham. Baptism is only for legal representatives.

Paedobaptism makes the New Covenant as parochial as the old, as this comment from a paedobaptist demonstrates: “When you try to evangelize and disciple people who do not have the Spirit and who have no faith, you have no guarantees or promises or statistical probabilities.” This assumes that the Gospel has no power unless there is some kind of “fence” to contain it. Not only does this make no sense, we have no such guarantee anyway. We are simply told to sow the seed, water, and trust God for the increase.

The four “household” events recorded in the book of Acts were signs of the end of the old order, shifting the Covenant from the sons of a man to the sons of God, from physical forming to spiritual filling, from vessels to treasure, from cultivation to representation. If infants had indeed been baptised, this would make the New Covenant a limited obligation, a limited cultivation, like the Old. So it cannot logically be the case. It must therefore be a sign of representation, the sign of circumcision of flesh fulfilled in the circumcision of the heart of the believer.

Imitating Christ

To make baptism about cultivation under the Gospel rather than authority as an ambassador of the Gospel is to misunderstand the temporary purpose of the nation of Israel as a bootcamp for prophets. One must hear (cultivation - Land) before one can speak (representation - Table). Although Abraham was not baptised, he was qualified at various stages and only then ate before God with Melchizedek. Hebrews 5 says the same thing of Christ Himself, who was qualified before being given His great office.

If we want to celebrate parenting, baptism surely comes at the end of a job well done, at the beginning of ministry. The glory of a newborn is not the same as the glory of a child who chooses wisdom over folly. This glorious New Covenant rite is not one to be dismissed as “individualism.” Israel was baptised into Moses the prophet, but now all the Lord’s people are prophets, legal representatives, wise judges of what is good and what is evil. In the days when our courts are declaring that good is evil and evil is good, the recovery of baptism as a delegation of divine legal authority rather than a sign of “limited Covenantal obligation” is crucial.

At which point were the apostles sent out? In the big picture, it was after the institution of baptism. The Covenant moved from commander to coach to counselor — priesthood, kingdom, prophecy. As Leithart says, “We do well to imitate it.” But he does not. His ecclesiology is stuck in the Abrahamic childhood of the Church, and his sacraments are all about earthly parenting. Israel was baptised into Moses’ “No.” A believer is baptized into an uncoerced “Yes,” the testimony of Jesus Christ, the first sign of spiritual maturity. It is the day when a son or daughter becomes an eternal brother or sister.

After conversion, our “judicial” cultivation certainly continues until our baptismal investiture is fulfilled in resurrection. Only then will we truly represent God, enthroned with Him not only by faith but also by sight.

_______________________________
ART: The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein the Younger

Is our justification a past event or a future one? The debate continues while the answer is, like Adam and Eve, hidden in plain sight.

The problem with most theological discussions concerning our justification is that they are imagined in the courts of men rather than in the court of God. What is the difference between these two courts?

The courts of men are either sanctuaries or courtrooms, priesthood and kingdom divided like the house of the Lord and the house of Solomon. But God’s court is the domain of priest-kings, that is, prophets. The “third tree” is always a Tree of Righteousness, a Man clothed not in fig leaves but in the glory of God, who is a shelter for all those on earth.¹The book of Genesis begins with the nakedness of Adam, and ends with Joseph, a young man who loses his robe a number of times but ends up feeding all the nations through his heavenly wisdom. See also The Third Tree.

The False Prophet

God’s court is where His representatives, “the sons of God,” not only worship Him as His subjects but also report to Him, and even advise Him as elders. This is exactly what Abraham did concerning the destruction of the cities of the plain, and it is very likely that it was during one such courtly appearance that the Lord pointed out to Satan his servant Job, who was a priest-king like Noah, Melchizedek and Jethro.

The first time God held court with Man was after the sin of Adam. Words from God, an abundant promise (kingly rule on earth) and a restraining law (priestly submission to God), had been given to Adam. He, too, could be a priest-king, but this would require a response, a word from Adam. In fact, it would require two words: a denunciation of the works of the devil on earth, and then a confession, an oath, before the God of heaven. This oath would have been something like: “Here is the woman you gave to be with me. The serpent deceived her, but I present her to you now as a chaste virgin.” Following this very first Covenant oath would have come blessings from God, “Well done!” and then the opening of the Land and the Womb in abundant fruitfulness. Instead, of course, Adam justified himself but in entirely the wrong way. He shifted blame, and the Lord gave him a chance to confess—a negative oath, but a true confession nonetheless. In our confession of sin we cross the courtroom to the Lord’s side against ourselves. But Adam failed again, and forced God to shift the blame—onto sacrificial substitutes.

In the court of God, all sins exist in a single body, incorporated in Man’s role as the image, the representative of God. Thus the High Priest represented all Creation before God (being the only Israelite permitted to wear combinations of animal, vegetable and mineral) and the Prophets represented God to the entire Creation (with access to the Garden, the Land and the World), speaking in the secular courts of the nations. Only in the Prophets is there a link between the court of God and the courts of men.²This brings the background of sacred architecture to light in Paul’s condemnation of the saints’ failure to judge between themselves in 1 Corinthians 6:3. It might also explain Jesus’ ministry’s in “Galilee of the nations” (Isaiah 9:1) and in the Temple “Gentile” courts, a faithful Jewish testimony before all nations.

Thus, the animals which the Lord slew to cover Adam’s sin were a taste of the death of all flesh, all the animals whom Adam represented before God, since he shared the same breath. But for now, the heavenly breath, the indwelling Spirit of God, was denied him. He would not be a Prophet. The rest which would have come on Day 7 included rule and representation. But Adam failed to serve the Lord in the day of small things,  so he would not be given anything greater to do. Failing to speak for God, we never hear a word from him in the Bible ever again. His life continued, but his testimony, and his intended Prophetic ministry, was ruined.

Adam’s iniquity, his gross sin, was a failure to balance the scales of justice before the nations (in this case, Eve, the mother of all living) and to advocate for them before God, the exact opposite of what prophets are supposed to do.³The English words iniquity and inequity are both derived from the Latin aequus, meaning equal, the only difference being the scale of the difference.

What is Justification?

To justify something means to show adequate cause. The problem with our sin is that the scales never balance. There is never a cause great enough—even in our own minds—to justify the enormity of our rebellion against God, since all sin is at heart an unwillingness to believe that He is good when His promises are challenged by satans and circumstances. And that brings us to the truth that justification is always a Covenantal act, which means it is part of a process.

This is what we see in the first legal case in history. Justification comes after an ethical response to the Law of God, and it results in the expression of either the Lord’s pleasure or displeasure, as blessing or cursing, a judgment which then affects the future.

In the Covenant pattern found throughout the Bible, this assessment and confession before God, a legal hearing, is found at the fourth step.⁴For an introduction to the Covenant pattern, see Reading the Bible in 3D, and then the more detailed Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.

All adult Israelites took a Covenant Oath at Sinai, and they broke that oath soon after by worshiping a golden calf. Many died at the hands of the Levites, but the entire generation died at the hand of the Lord in the wilderness. It is worth noticing that this process occurred at exactly the same point in the initial cycle of the Abrahamic Covenant, from Canaan to Egypt and back again:

This oath-breaking is the legal scenario behind the many times when the Lord speaks of His people honouring Him with their lips but not their hearts. So this initial cycle of delegation—taking the Oath—leads to another event where the Lord returns to assess whether or not His delegates kept their promises, that He might keep His. Either they would be justified through their obedience, or God would be justified in condemning them. Of course, this is where the mercy of God comes in, and it is no accident that in the sevenfold festal pattern (as presented in Leviticus 23), the Day of Atonement corresponds to the Oath/Sanctions step of the Covenant:

You might notice that this seven-point pattern is a microcosm of the first seven books of the Bible. It is also the pattern of Israel’s entire history from Abraham to AD70.⁶See Bible Matrix: An Introduction to the DNA of the Scriptures for a full rundown.

What is very interesting is that this exact pattern is found in the Ten Commandments—but only if we follow what is known as the Jewish “Scroll Division” favoured by Augustine.⁷See Q&A: Why Ten Words on Two Tablets?

Theft and false witness in this construct are Adam and Eve, or Church and State, in the courtroom of God. A testimony is required of them. Adam attempts to cover his sin, but Eve gives a true testimony. As it was at the condemnation of Christ by the Jewish priesthood, their testimonies did not agree. A false testimony is always somehow a condemnation of God.

As two conflicting testimonies, heaven and earth, Priesthood and Kingdom, like Adam and Eve, were set in conflict forever until the Prophet came, a better Adam. When two or three (as legal witnesses) are gathered in His name (as a legal confession, identifying them with the atoning sacrifice), He is there among them, and there is rest, rule and representation, the Day of the Lord. They are justified in His sight.

It is worth noting that this is also the basic process found in every sacrifice. Although the Levitical sacrifices allowed men to eat with God for the first time, all the previous sacrifices were whole burnt offerings, or Ascensions.⁸See The First Ascension. Every sacrifice was a microcosm not only of the Creation Week, but also of the history of the entire world, thus the entire world could be judged in the final sacrifice of the Son of God.

Now, although there is a priestly washing at Division (the sacrifices were washed), it was not until the smoke ascended from this earthly Laver to the heavenly Sea, the court of God, that Yahweh was pleased. The waters above and those below were united in a good way by a sacrificial mediator between heaven and earth. It was the Circumcision and then the ministry of the Levitical priesthood which prevented another Great Flood.

But what we must notice here is that the offerer was not vindicated (if obedient), or not justified (if disobedient but repentant), until step 6. Even if we are disobedient, God Himself is vindicated in a faithful confession of sin (Psalm 51:4; Romans 3:4).

Take Me to court; let us argue our case together. State your case, so that you may be vindicated. (Isaiah 43:26, Holman)

Now, every baptism in the book of Acts follows this pattern.⁹See for instance New Covenant Virility, but I am sure you can see this pattern easily in each story now that it has been pointed out. All baptism account put baptism at Conquest, or Oath/Sanctions. That is, the profession of the saint on earth vindicates God in heaven. The name of Jesus on the lips is the vindication of the work of God in its circumcision of the heart, making it priestly, that is, submissive towards God. Peter the apostle understood this clearly, even if not every Peter does. Faithful testimony is a fragrance which pleases God.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. (1 Peter 3:21).

So baptism is tied to the Covenant Oath, and the Sanctions. The Father looks upon the Son and is pleased, just as Yahweh smelled the savour of sacrificial smoke and was pleased. This means that the hybridisation of circumcision and baptism in paedobaptism—in sacrificial terms—is the offering of raw flesh to God. But no flesh can be justified in His sight. It must first be transformed by fire, and ascend as fragrant smoke. The evidence of transformation is the “smoky” testimony, in word and/or deed.

Baptism Justifies You

Peter Leithart was recently hauled over the coals by Tim Bayly¹⁰Peter Leithart: No Baptism, No Justification for linking baptism with justification.¹¹Peter Leithart, No Sacraments, No Protestantism Pastor Bayly cannot allow this, because he, like Doug Wilson, has divorced baptism from actual conversion. However, although Peter Leithart is, I believe, correct that the apostle links baptism and justification, he and all the more consistent Federal Vision guys think sons of men can be made sons of God “objectively” through baptism. These gentlemen will keep fighting among themselves until suddenly one day the penny drops and they identify paedobaptism, their little “household god,” as the cause of all this confusion. I have explained this numerous times to no avail but I look forward to, well, being vindicated.

Since baptism justifies one, what then is justification? Vindication in court. And those who appear in God’s court, which is where Jesus was at His baptism once the heavens opened, are required to give a testimony. Baptism is for representatives of God. It is not for the children born as the fruit of the earth, nor for the angels of heaven, but for the Spirit-filled saints who are hybrids of heaven and earth, as the first Adam was intended to be.

Past or Future

Is our justification a past event or a future one? The debate continues while the answer is, like Adam and Eve, hidden in plain sight.

The problem is, as always, that we are dealing in fractals. One man can die for all because the one represents perfectly the whole. The Justified One is a mediator, uniting the waters, or perhaps keeping them apart. He stands on the crystal sea, the court of God, as a slain lamb, after being washed in the Laver on earth. The ministry of Christ thus moved the High Priesthood from the Jerusalem below to the Jerusalem above.¹²See my commentary on Galatians 4 in The Shape of Galatians: A Covenant-literary Analysis.

So justification is always a two-fold event, Covenantal bookends, just as the Oath and the Sanctions represent the beginning and end of the Covenant process. Circumcision of the flesh of Israel eventually led to a Pentecostal circumcision of heart. The Abrahamic Covenant began with a household of circumcised sons of Abraham and ended with the sign to the Jews of households of “sons of God”—legal witnesses who were both Jews (Church) and Gentiles (State). Thus, these events did not establish a new “household” order at all.¹³See The Household of Faith – 3 The process moved from childhood to adulthood, from a people set apart in Abraham and baptised into Moses as one flesh, to a supernatural Body of Adams and Eves robed in white and acting as mediators. That is what Christians are: legal representatives and advocates between heaven and earth.

So for the believer, justification is a set of bookends, both past (conversion) and future (resurrection). A true baptism, after all, looks just like a resurrection. If yours did not, it was not a baptism.

ONE MAN: Justification of God in the courts of Men

• Delegation (Step 2): Hearing the Gospel – Circumcision of heart (NOT flesh)
• Vindication (Step 6): Initial public testimony and baptism (profession)

ALL MEN: Justification of Men in the court of God

• Delegation (Step 2): Testimony before God to the world, beginning with baptism, the first step of public obedience in the Spirit as a Covenant representative (as Adam was supposed to be)
• Vindication (Step 6): Testimony (as a witness/martyr) before men, and resurrection

Justification is thus both past and future. Those who are truly born again will persevere. The testimony of Jesus (the Gospel “oath” on earth) is its beginning and His testimony in heaven is its end, and the end looks a lot like the very beginning, only with a better Adam as our legal representative, the first Man to be baptised and have the heavens open above Him.

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10:33)

At that time the Lord said to Joshua,
“Make flint knives and circumcise
the sons of Israel a second time.”
(Joshua 5:2)

Was Israel disobedient in its failure to circumcise every male born in the wilderness? The Lord never chastised them for this. If this lapse in the practice of circumcision was in the plan of God, what was the purpose of that plan? The example which first comes to mind is the circumcision of the firstborn son of Moses in Exodus 4:24-26.

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 And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. (Revelation 6:5)

 The book of Revelation is a mystery, yet like all good mysteries it is a book made entirely of clues. It is a glimpse through the torn veil of the Temple, that is, the flesh of Jesus, into the heavenlies. The cloud into which He was taken up is opened to John’s eyes that he might see the horses and chariots of God (2 Kings 6:17). But John is a prophet who knows the Bible, and like John we will only understand the symbols if we know the Bible. The conversation at God’s table is for those who know their Master’s mind, who hear His voice as children and thus quit themselves like men. To them, this is indeed a Revelation. To those outside His commission, it remains an enigma, terrible lightning and thunder and the sound of trumpets (Exodus 19:19; 20:18).

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