“The Spirit consistently puts earthly Succession to death, dividing families, communities and entire countries, as we see today. To claim otherwise is to work against the Spirit in the world. My heredity, my household, my culture, is the target of my ministry, not its source.”

It’s time to get back into Galatians. To recap, the epistle follows the Covenant structure, but gives the central point, the Ethics, its own Covenant structure. If this thesis is correct, what we should expect in the next “cycle” (Gal. 3:26-4:7) is a discussion of Covenant Succession. Lo and behold, this is exactly what we find.

This post has been refined by fire and included in a new book, The Shape of Galatians.

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“With this theory of the joke in mind, the final chapter of Nehemiah is holy and hysterical.”

In his book, Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart speaks of the biblical text as many things, but none is more confronting than his viewing the text as a “joke.” His explanation, however, makes perfect sense. What makes a joke funny? It is either prior knowledge to which not everyone is privy, or a confounding of expectations (which are also based on prior knowledge to some degree). The Bible is full of such jokes, and realizing one is in on the joke is immensely satisfying.

The great thing about the Bible is that, if we read from the beginning, and we are paying attention, we are the in crowd, and the Author expects us to pick up on His subtleties. In the Scriptures, these are repetitions of certain words (such as “shatter,” for example, which ties a cursed Israel to the plagues upon Egypt) and repetitions of structure, which are entirely overlooked by modern commentators, who can’t seem to fit more than a single Hebrew or Greek word into their heads at one time for serious observation.

With this theory of the joke in mind, the final chapter of Nehemiah is holy and hysterical. We sit around in Bible study and commend him for dealing with the sins of old Jerusalem which are starting to sprout once again like weeds in his new Jerusalem. But I believe the Author has structured the chapter (and thus the events) so that those in on the joke might laugh and cheer his every move.

Firstly, here is the “matrix” structure of the chapter (to support some of the offensive and crazy things I have written lately). Since Nehemiah is cleaning house, it makes sense that the chapter is Tabernacle-shaped. And as this is a final cycle, the overall subject is Glorification and Covenant Succession, or Temple, Jew-Gentile relations (Booths), marriage and offspring, and the future.

While we are at it, we should also notice that the first stanza (represented in line 1 above) deliberately foreshadows the content of the entire chapter:

Now, before we get to the joke, we should also notice that the passage begins with the words of Moses and ends with the triune obedience of Nehemiah as the “bridal man.” He has remembered the Word of God and now asks God to remember him.

So, what is the joke here? It is a reference to Genesis 1-9, and its three-level Tabernacle architecture, the Garden, the Land and the World. Without this knowledge, we won’t get the joke. With this knowledge, based on a reading of the Bible as a book by a single Author (who is actually smarter than we are, likes to drop hints and deliberately obscures things for us to discover), the structure itself is a threefold architectural allusion. The text does not state this explicitly, and many would argue that this is eisegesis, but the events follow a pattern repeated so many times in previous Scripture that we have no excuse to ignore it. Being so deliberately obtuse when it comes to the Bible is only possible through an unnatural literary “dissection.” It is to treat the Bible like no other literature, and thus, not like literature at all. Masked as “conservative” and “cautious”, the stupidity is mind-boggling, and the arrogance outstrips even mine.

GARDEN

Firstly, Tobiah the Ammonite, who had previously opposed the reconstruction (Nehemiah 2, 4), and is now living in the Sanctuary. He is a snake in the Garden, squatting in God’s domain, “sitting (enthroned) in the Temple of God.” Notice that this creeping thing is living in a large room which had previous contained the priestly food, that is, the Tree of Life. As with the sin in Eden, this was related to a greater sin in the next domain.

LAND

Secondly, we can see that the refusal to give the Levites their portions and the trading with Tyrians on the Sabbath are a sort of “corporate” version of the sin of Cain, who presented his kingly firstfruits offering before Abel’s priestly offering, thus putting kingdom (the Tree of Knowledge) before priestly obedience (the Tree of Life). Cain went and built a “fortress” to protect himself from vengeance. Here, Nehemiah protects the “Abels” from the influence of the Cainites.

WORLD

Finally, we can see that the intermarriage of the men of Israel with unconverted women, and the resulting godless offspring, would eventually destroy Israel as it had done under the kings, and this corresponds to the sin of the sons of Seth in Genesis 6. (Note that this is not, nor is ever, racial but Covenantal.)

Why would the reader be cheering? Because Nehemiah is a man filled with the Spirit of God, plaiting a whip, cleansing the Temple (Leviticus 14:33-57), the holy city and the people of God in righteous indignation, offering a firstfruits in all three domains and allowing God to fill all three domains once again as a mighty, rushing wind.

“Passion for your house has consumed me,
and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”
(Psalm 69:9 NLT)

One final note. Nehemiah beats (Deuteronomy 25:2) and tears out the hair (or shaves) the Covenant breakers. Wesley says, “The hair was an ensign of liberty among the eastern nations; and baldness was a disgrace, and token of slavery and sorrow.”

“I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.”
(Isaiah 50:6)

The books of Nehemiah follows the Bible Matrix, but so do Ezra and Nehemiah as a unit. With that in mind, Ezra tears his robe and tears out (or shaves) his own hair as a priestly Covenant head (Ezra 9:3; ), and Nehemiah calls the people to mourn (as Covenant body) because they had previously vowed to break off these marriages (Nehemiah 10:29). All Israel was now called to be like a Nazirite, a priestly warrior bride working within the Gentile empire. Together, Ezra/Nehemiah is totus Christus, bald, naked and cruciform at the inauguration of a new Jerusalem.

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See also Exploiting Nehemiah.
PHOTO: If you don’t get the joke, just to make a point, I’m not going to tell you.

Jeremy Myers has some words to say about Gregory Boyd’s and Walter Wink’s view that political power necessarily corrupts, even demonizes, the Church:

Is There Such A Thing As A Just War?

The “Just War” theory was originally developed by Augustine to defend the Empire’s actions of arresting and killing the Donatists, with whom Augustine was having a theological disagreement. He argued that in certain situations, a war is not wrong if it furthers the cause of Christ and advances the Kingdom of God on earth.

He taught that inflicting temporal pain on someone to help them avoid eternal pain was justified. Also, Augustine believed that since God sometimes uses terror for the good of humans (a questionable premise), the church may also use terror for the sake of the gospel (The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church p. 78).

Thanks to Augustine, Christians have been endorsing wars against “Christian enemies” ever since.

But does not the life of Jesus and the truth of the Gospel cry out against this? “Declaring a war just is simply a ruse to rid ourselves of guilt” (Engaging the Powers, p. 225). Such attempts to absolve ourselves from guilt in the murder of others have been around since the very beginning.

The killing of others began in the very first family, when Cain killed Abel.

Why did Cain commit the first murder?

The Bible is rather vague about Cain’s motives, but the root causes appear to be a mixture of jealousy, anger, and the desire for self-advancement. We rightfully condemn Cain for his actions, but when we look at the situation from Cain’s perspective, his murder of Abel was the very first “Just War” in history. Miroslav Volf points out that Cain’s murder of Abel was governed by faultless logic:

Premise 1: “If Abel is who God declared him to be, then I am not who I understand myself to be.” Premise 2: “I am who I understand myself to be.” Premise 3: “I cannot change God’s declaration about Abel.” Conclusion: “Therefore, Abel cannot continue to be” (Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace, p. 95).

From Cain’s perspective, he had the duty and obligation to protect himself by murdering Abel. If he had admitted that God’s preference for Abel’s sacrifice was correct, then Cain would have had to face his own faults. This he could not do, and so, in self-defense against the moral challenge from his brother, Cain engaged in “Just War” against Abel, and murdered him.

It has been argued that nearly all “Just Wars” in history are of this type. We engage others in a righteous battle, defending our freedoms and liberties, not because the others are necessarily evil and wrong (thought we paint them in this light), but because the only alternative to “Just War” is to admit our own wrongdoing and faults.

And since this is what we will not do, the others must die.

So ultimately, Just War theory is about one thing:

It is either us or them.

There has never been a war in history in which the warriors from both sides did not think their cause was just. In every battle, both sides cry out to their god for victory.

Can we really believe as Christians that since we serve the one true God, our cause is more just than the causes of those we are trying to kill?

Does it not rather seem that if we truly serve the one true God as revealed in Jesus Christ that there would be no cause whatsoever for killing?

When we seek the blood of our enemies, are we not abandoning and forsaking the truth of the shed blood of Jesus, who died for His enemies?

This question boils down to identifying the Biblical definition of justice, and understanding the difference between the God-given domains of Church and State.

The Church advises the state, as Nathan “advised” David. Joseph advised Pharaoh. Daniel advised King Nebuchadnezzar and Mordecai, after repenting, eventually advised Ahasuerus. Justice is a two-edged sword. It involves both vengeance and redemption. To separate one from the other leads to tyranny or anarchy, martial law or lawlessness. The sword of the prophets was the fiery tongue, the God-given Word. The Scriptures make it very clear that the metal swords of these mighty kings were also God-given. [1]

This explains the difference between murder and killing. Hatred is a crime committed within the domain of the Church. It is slain, mortified, by the Word of God. It leads out of this domain into the domain of the State—murder is  a crime punishable by the State, not the Church.

Israel could take up the sword against Canaan because 1) Israel was a Church State, and 2) the Canaanites had broken the “gospel” proclaimed to them by Abraham. This act wasn’t genocide. It was the exercise of the Covenant sanctions. The vengeance carried out under Joshua was a Church-State vengeance. God Himself exercised these same “Church-State” sanctions against Israel through Assyria and Babylon and Rome.

But after the exile, Israel was no longer an autonomous state, and this was by God’s design. Israel herself became the prophetic advisor. She was to be a nation of Nathans. The Church-State commissioned by God, set up under Daniel and decommissioned in AD70/Revelation was a Jew-Gentile one. The Jews could not execute criminals because they were to be a nation of priests. We see the beginnings of this in Ezra, where, all of a sudden, it is not only the genealogies of the priests that matter. By God’s command, they were to submit to their Gentile emperors, and if they did so, they would be exalted into government. [2] They founded synagogues right across the empire, and this bore fruit, as we see in Acts. But again, they desired a king before God’s time and ended up with a new Saul, the Herods. It took Herod and Pilate, Jew and Gentile, to execute Christ. It took Judah and Rome, Land Beast and Sea Beast, to execute the Firstfruits Church (Rev. 14).

The two-edged sword that the Christian Church wields is the gospel, a Good News which includes bad news, excommunication (which, biblically, is simply preaching of the gospel once again to apostates). This became distorted when the distinct roles of Church and State were conflated. The exaltation of the Church under Constantine was an exaltation by God for her faithfulness unto death. [3] However, heresy is never to be considered a crime against the State. The inquisitions were the result of a Church overstepping her prophetic demarcation.

So, it is not ungodly for a Christian nation to take up the sword against Muslim invaders, for instance. The question is whether that cause is just. I’m very thankful for the Crusades, and for WWII. And for the Cold War. Perhaps the wars since are more questionable because the West has systematically and institutionally “excommunicated” Christ, as the Herods did, and as the Roman Church did before the Reformation. The problem is not whether “Christian nations” can “Biblically” exist. The problem is Christian nations excluding Christ, forcing Him to knock on the door via His prophets and apostles to serve Covenant papers like a Nathan. [4]

When Christian Churches, and indeed Christian nations, apostatize, Jesus brings the hordes against them. Most Christians are totally ignorant of the fact that Jesus’ and the apostles’ warnings concerned the end of the Old Covenant in AD70. We can certainly apply these warnings today, but the bloodshed during the siege and destruction in Jerusalem, and indeed right across the entire empire, get overlooked as the actual interpretation. Jesus came again for His own, and poured out the curses of the Mosaic Law for the last time. Jesus and the apostles are portrayed as riding on white horses, with sword-mouths from heaven. That’s the Church power. Unbelieving Judah was being excommunicated from the people of God. And the nations are portrayed with actual swords. That’s State power. [5] Revelation dealt not only with the hateful hearts of the Jews, but with their “State-sponsored” murders of Christians. As in Joshua, Jeshua circumcised the Church, and the “swarms” marched around and circumcised the City-State of Herodian worship. [6] That’s what the Revelation is about—the cutting off of The Circumcision.

As in Canaan, the same sanctions executed upon the pagans-under-Covenant can be executed upon apostate Christians. Only, the Covenant territory is now longer limited to Canaan. Jesus rules the world.

The Gospel is the sword of the Church within its God-given domain, and if the Church is doing its job faithfully, it will be exalted as a prophetic advisor to the State, which will result in the State wielding a just sword within its God-given domain. The Gospel will always have State consequences, and to refuse to wield either sword justly is to hand the culture over to Satan.

The Church doesn’t war against flesh and blood. That is the job of the State. But Word inevitably becomes flesh. We must remember that fathers, pastors and soldiers are men who are willing to die for others in their given domains.

Nathan means “gift.” The flaming sword is a gift from God, whether prophetic or kingly. There is no Biblical debate over whether there should be swords, but whether or not those swords are just. The source of this justice is the cross, the bread and the wine, where men and women are slain and resurrected as wise governors in whatever domain God has given them.

The Words of the prophets always precede the swords of the soldiers. If a Christian nation is waging just war, she herself has been “slain.” But if she is waging an unjust war, it is because she is also waging war upon Christ. [7]

The fact that American troops are forbidden to hand out Bibles in Muslim nations is a dead giveaway. The fact that American troops find themselves hamstrung in conflict by bureaucratic restrictions upon their warfare is also a dead giveaway. A nation that has rejected the Bible understands neither justice nor mercy. When the State ignores the Church, that State is doomed.

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[1] See Church and State.
[2] See An Excellent Plan and The Restoration Covenant. I highly recommend James Jordan’s commentary on Daniel, available here.
[3] See A Jew Gets Baptism.
[4] See The Torah in Revelation.
[5] See The Fall of Jerusalem [PDF]
[6] See Circumcision and Apocalypse.
[7] See The Exorcism of Christ.

or The Rapture is History

“And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.” Job 19:26

Full preterism leads logically to gnosticism. If death is already defeated, salvation has come to the world, and all is now perfect, then of necessity all three — death, salvation and perfection — have to be redefined. They are only Covenantal, “spiritual.” You can probably understand why doctrines like these don’t originate from the persecuted church. Some hope.

However, that said, I agree with 97.3963798475% of full preterism. Their take on the parousia texts is logical and contextual. Jesus actually did come back soon, as He promised, to rescue the persecuted firstfruits church. The textual ping-pong of the well-meaning partial preterists (who can’t agree between themselves on which parousia texts refer to the end of history) is a confusion of which our God could not possibly be the author. So what’s the answer?

The answer is structural, and it relates to the nature of God’s Covenants, and to the world as God’s Tabernacle. The final part of every Covenant concerns succession, or Continuity. It dictates the inheritance for the Covenant faithful. At the end of the Old Covenant in AD70, the faithful dead (the saints under the Altar) received a “heavenly country,” a heavenly Land. The earthly Land — the Bronze Altar — was broken in two. There is now a human government in heaven, a golden Altar of Incense. (For those new around here, this is what is going on in the Revelation. The Old Covenant angels retire in Rev. 4. Jesus takes over in Revelation 5. The firstfruits church is converted, then martyred by the corrupt Old Covenant vassals, the Herods, and finally all the martyrs follow Christ into heaven, calling down the Levitical and Deuteronomic Covenant curses upon the Temple. [Lev. 26; Deut. 28])

The 40 year overlap between the Old and New Covenants is what causes the confusion between preterists. Think of it this way. A Covenant is an administation by God’s vassal for a limited period of time. When a vassal violates the terms of the Covenant, for the good of those under the vassal’s authority, God organises “bridging finance.” He founds a new house for the faithful before He demolishes the Old. For the safety of the kingdom, many princes were anointed king before their fathers died. They were anointed when their fathers were no longer fit to rule. The Lord established Ezekiel as Israel’s High-Priest-in-exile, and Daniel as Israel’s king/vassal in exile, before He wiped out the old order. They represented man as a temporary Israel until the re-establishment of Temple worship under Ezra.

Just as the anointing of David spelled the end of Saul’s reign, the ascension of Christ as the mediator of a New Covenant spelled the doom of the Old. As with the reigns of Saul and David, there was an overlap. The parousia was indeed AD70. The Old Covenant ended with a physical resurrection. We know it was physical because it is described as a marriage. Jesus fulfilled Leviticus 1 in the first century. He ascended in the flesh as the Covenant Head. The firstfruits church was martyred and ascended in the flesh as Covenant Body. The marriage supper in heaven required both Head and Body to be flesh and blood, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh – and Spirit of His Spirit as well. That’s marriage. All the promises to Israel were fulfilled.

But that wasn’t the end of the New Covenant, and this is where the full preterists go wrong. [1] It was only the coronation of Greater Solomon. There is another resurrection, and it is also physical, despite their desperate claims. This end is described in Revelation 20, and the New Covenant, like the Old, ends with a physical resurrection when all the New Covenant promises are fulfilled.

Just as the Old Covenant saints and the Firstfruits martyrs entered into heaven as a new administration – in the flesh (flesh finally justified before God), so the New Covenant saints will also be resurrected physically, in the flesh at the final judgment.

So the full preterists get it all right, except for Revelation 20. The so-called “partial” preterists get Revelation 20 right. But both sides tend to spiritualize one of the resurrections, which is an error. Except in type and prefigurement, resurrections by definition involve flesh and blood. [2] Both sides are guilty of gnostic interpretations when it comes to the promises, the blessings of the Covenant.

Also, as described in Bible Matrix, beginning with Jesus’ resurrection (and Matthew’s testimony that saints physically came out of their graves to testify), God reclaims the territory corrupted by Adam (Garden/Priest – AD30), Cain (Land/Kings – AD70) and the Sons of God (World – yet future). This triune pattern runs right throughout the Scriptures, architecturally, historically, and also in the literary structures. It is also the  pattern laid out in 1 Corinthians 15.

Finally, if Revelation 20 is basically the only text that remains to the partial (or orthodox) preterists to prove a final judgment and resurrection, is there much of a case? Yes, much in every way! The answers are structural, and built of extremely sturdy girders founded in the solid concrete of the Torah.

Revelation is a Covenant lawsuit, as Ray Sutton describes (although I disagree slightly with his breakdown of it. He puts the Trumpets and Bowls in the wrong place. The Trumpets are part of the Ethics, and the Bowls are the sanctions.) Revelation 1-19 also follow the Feast pattern, ending with Tabernacles, the marriage supper, Jew and Gentile in one new bridal body. But chapters 20-21 can’t be forced into this final feast. This section is a unit. It has its own chiastic “Tabernacle” structure. [3] There is a good reason for this.

Full preterists sometimes accuse partial preterists of being “futurists.” Well, the final chapters of the Revelation concern, briefly, the Continuity of the New Covenant, the succession arrangement made for the heirs of the Old contract. It is of necessity “futurist.” This is the only part of the Bible that is, for us, future. It is being fulfilled as the gospel spreads throughout the world during this new administration of “1000 years.” [4] The final section of every Covenant concerns the future. A Covenant is God’s means of bringing history to fulfilment, to maturity. At the end of every Covenant age there is  a combine harvester. The New Covenant is the same. [5]

So the rapture described by Paul is first century history. [6] It was imminent. It was the end of the old administration. But the second resurrection, the reckoning of the New Covenant, is still in our future. Like Job, Abraham and Paul in the first century, we shall also see Jesus in our flesh, flesh justified in His sight (!) through transfiguration in the fiery Spirit. We shall see Him because we shall be like Him: holy flesh, His body.

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[1] See A Chronic Hysteresis
[2] See Ten Days of Awe.
[3] See The Altar of the Abyss – 7
[4] See For a Thousand Years.
[5] One thing that amazes me about the Bible is God doing the same thing over and over and over, and yet in new and surprising ways every time. The Gospel really shouldn’t have been a surprise at all, but it was. It was just like everything that had gone before, and yet nothing like it. In any trade we ply, our best work is done at the end. The best wine is still to come.
[6] See That Which Is Perfect.

“Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes.” Ezra 3:11-12

Doug Wilson writes (Less Glory Is More):

The Bible teaches us that the times of the new covenant are attended with a greater glory than the old covenant, as well as with a greater simplicity. In effect, that simplicity is part of the glory.

The arrival of Jesus the Messiah was not a signal for us to lapse into some kind of second-rate old covenant observance. The old covenant was glorious, in its time, but when we try to imitate the types and shadows, we are dragging the lesser glory into something inglorious.

This applies to many things—the sacrificial system, the practice of tithing, our observance of the Lord’s Day, and so on. In place of the entire Mosaic economy, we have two sacraments. In place of a year of calendar obligations, we have one day of obligation, recurring every seven days, and that recurrence is for the sake of our relief and rest. In place of bloody sacrifices, we have a cup of wine. In place of meat on the altar, we have a simple piece of bread.

The glory of the new covenant is simpler, but this simplicity is not to be understood as a downgrade. This simplicity is a relief, and an ornament of grace. It is not that we are barred from the glory that our old covenant brothers enjoyed, but rather that we are taught the meaning of a deeper glory. It is not as though God thinks that extra embroidery on Aaron’s robe would be more glorious, but He doesn’t want us to have that. Rather, God is teaching us that in the realm of glory, as with other forms of aesthetic experience, less is more.

I kind of agree, but kind of not. It’s more like the fact that the simpler and more graceful something appears, the more work has gone into designing it. [1]

As we follow the patterns through the Bible, we find Word becoming Flesh. Every glorious element of the Tabernacle was a symbol to be fulfilled in, and constructed out of, people. [2] The Restoration era is interesting because it was kind of a halfway house between the Old and New Covenants.

When the second Temple was built, the young people shouted and the old people wept. The young people got it right. Solomon’s Temple was made of stone and wood. Ezekiel’s Temple was made out of people. All New Jerusalems are.

What’s on the table is not what’s glorious. It’s just a memorial, the foundation plaque on the living house.

The Old and New Covenants, like everything else God seems to do, are a head and body. Adam builds the house and Eve fills it. Man is structure, woman is glory.

Building the house took blood, sweat and tears. Since the marriage supper (AD70!), it’s now about raising the kids. This is the glory. [3] It’s still messy because it’s still a process of building. But it’s a different kind of messy, and a different kind of glory. It is the content from the Tablets of Stone being written on Tablets of Flesh.

______________________________
[1] This was the message in those Mac vs. PC ads. heh.
[2] This explains why dispensationalists fail to see the words of the prophets being fulfilled in history. They are still waiting for a temple of stone. On the evil of holding onto shadows, see The End of Shadows.
[3] For how this age was prefigured, see Vile Bodies or Bright Young Things. For background on Satan’s constant attempts to counterfeit the process, see There Can Only Be One.

For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.  And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:14-18)

So, the New Jerusalem—at least the way it is described in Revelation 21—is the culmination of all the “Day 6s” since the original in the Garden of Eden. And, like the walls of water at the Red Sea and Jordan crossings, this entire, miraculous arrangement is held together by the Mediator-Man, the Lamb standing at the centre.

What’s interesting is that Old Covenant Israel’s Day 6 was seen by Daniel as a giant metal man. As Jordan brilliantly describes, this man was a Tabernacle made of the Gentile empires within which Ezra and Nehemiah’s New Jerusalem would act as a priestly advisor. When this structure got down to earth, however, this Old Covenant man got cold feet, feet of clay. The red dust of the Esau/Edomite Herods would not “intermarry” with the Roman metal however hard they tried. Revelation gives us the next episode in the story of this man. [1]

In Revelation 10-11, Christ stood with one foot on the Land (Israel) and one on the Sea (the Gentile oikoumene) until Jew and Gentile were a complete body. [2] What the Herods failed to do by might and power, Jesus did by His Spirit. Jesus commanded John to measure (test) the Temple and gave him a little book containing seven verbal thunders that would bring this decayed old worship construct tumbling down—DE-Creation. [3] The single man of Israel’s Day 6 (Atonement) was replaced with a married man at her Day 7 (Booths). Totus Christus, the complete Jew-Gentile man, replaced the Gentile kingdoms’ metal man in AD70. [4]

But Israel’s Day 7 was only the beginning of the World’s Day 6, as we have described. The Totus Christus is a Great High Priest of Whom we are a part. Now, from head to foot, He reaches—we reach—from the highest heaven to the lowest pit. [5]

“If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” (Psalm 139:8)

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[1] See The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men 1 and 2.
[2] I won a bottle of plonk at trivia for guessing what the Mercedes Benz logo means. Thanks to JBJ, I guessed right. The three-pointed star symbolises dominion over air, land and sea.
[3] It’s interesting that in Revelation 11 we have the Christ who has begun to reign, and in 12 we have the Woman and the dragon. As in the Creation Week, the rulers are at the centre. As in Genesis 3, the rulers at the centre are Adam, Eve and the serpent. See also Seven Bowls of Wrath.
[4] VERY interestingly, the 666 passage in Revelation is the sixth stanza in a “Creation Week” pattern. This occurs many times in Revelation, only with this passage, THE SEVENTH STANZA IS MISSING. As far as I can tell, this is the only place in the Bible where this occurs. This signals the end of the Herods’ attempt at rebuilding Solomon’s kingdom with borrowed Roman power. See my book Totus Christus for more detail on this structure. 666 denotes the beginning of Solomon’s corruption through his amassing of gold. The same sin in the Herods brought down the metal man of the oikoumene. When tested—threshed/sifted—the failed Adam returned to the dust (Daniel 2).
[5] On the church’s new relationship to the Abyss, see Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not and The Greatest Consumer.

36. Acording to Preterists, all those left in Jerusalem were reckoned unholy. But see Isaiah 4:3-4.

Simple answer: Isaiah 4 refers to the “new Jerusalem” of Ezra and Nehemiah. But I’m going to use this as an opportunity to analyse Isaiah 4 and its context. This stuff blows me away.

Once again, the prophet uses the poetic Creation/Feasts pattern, the Bible matrix. This appears to be cycle 6 of a 7×7 cycle. [1] So each cycle follows the pattern, then all seven cycles together follow the pattern. If that sounds confusing, this diagram should help:

The theme of this one, #6, is the sixth feast, Atonement, the Day of Coverings. Notice it begins with seven women, just as Abraham made peace with Abimelech with seven ewes and the High Priest sprinkled blood in the Most Holy seven times.

Sabbath: And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, (Step 1 usually begins with someone speaking, the “Word” as Light. The man here is the “Adam”, the High Priest. The theme is, after all, the Day of Atonement)

Passover: “We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel; Only let us be called by your name, to take away our reproach.” (Exodus and Day 2 [firmament/veil] themes)

Firstfruits: In that day the Branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious; And the fruit of the [Land] shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped. (The Land on Day 3, and the Branch, the Davidic prince, as the firstfruits offering)

Pentecost: And it shall come to pass that [he who is] left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy — everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, (The Law given at Pentecost, the fire of the Lampstand, governing lights of Day 4. Also corresponds with the wilderness judgments for ‘harlotry’ in Numbers. It should be noted that Numbers 5 follows this exact pattern also.)

Trumpets: then the LORD will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. (Armies, plus Zion is a resurrected Sinai. They correspond chiastically. The reference to smoke and fire is also the Incense Altar)

Atonement: For over all the glory there will be a covering. (Jeremiah’s “new [ie. Restoration] Covenant.”)

Tabernacles: And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.

So, as you can see, even though each step corresponds to a feast, it also refers to the overall Atonement theme of this particular cycle. How brilliant is that?

37. According to Prets, all nations may continue — except Israel (see Jer. 30: 11).

‘For I [am] with you,’ says the LORD, ‘to save you; Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, Yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, And will not let you go altogether unpunished.’

This refers to the Canaanite nations that surrounded Judah. They, and Judah, were submerged under the flood of Babylon, but only Jerusalem reemerged as a new, resurrected, mediatorial “Land” as a priesthood within a greater territory.

38. Idols are still worshipped by 75% of the world’s population (Isaiah 2: 18).

“But the idols He shall utterly abolish.”

This refers to Israel. Never again did they worship idols, at least until Herod turned his Temple into the “image of the beast.” Very cunning. As in the Revelation, “men” most likely refers to the mediatorial “Adams.”

39. The kingdoms of this world are not governed by Jesus Christ (Rev. 11: 15).

Yes they are. Psalm 2 was fulfilled at His ascension, and then Jesus gave this exact same authority to His first century (Gentile!) disciples in Revelation 2:26-27:

“And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations — ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’ — as I also have received from My Father.”

Jesus will reign until all His enemies are under His feet, which requires enemies yet to be defeated.

40. James, Peter, Andrew, and John were already dead (?) before they got to see the abomination of desolation. See Matt. 24: 9, 15. (“Ye”/”You”).

Good point, but the chapter so obviously has a first century context. Does it even remotely look like Jesus is warning people living in some future Judea around some future rebuilt Jewish Temple to flee to the hills? There were still likely disciples alive when this abomination occurred. As mentioned in previous posts, the abomination was something only the Jewish priesthood could do—a Temple sacrilege. [2] It was most likely a massacre of Christians trapped in the beseiged city as a sort of corporate scapegoat. Just as Christ became the “standing lamb” sacrifice (see Chilton on this) as head, so these martyrs became the body, the second part of the ascension offering. [3]

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Non-dispensationalists are often accused of “Replacement Theology,” that is, the church replaced Israel. But we find in the Old Testament many examples of the same process prefiguring what the people of God went through in the first century. It is not replacement, but transformation. 

James Jordan writes:

When God called Israel out of Egypt, most of the people refused to follow Him and died in the wilderness. The old Hebrew people ceased to exist and were transformed into Israel, their new name. (I have discussed this succession of names in my book, Through New Eyes.)

The Israel that entered into the promised land was a new people made up of a mixture of Hebrews and converted gentiles, the mixed multitude. Their leaders were Joshua, a converted Hebrew, and Caleb, a converted gentile Kenizzite (Gen. 15:19; Josh. 14:6). (By “conversion” I mean that they entered the Mosaic Covenant.) According to Numbers 13:6, Caleb’s family had not only been adopted into the tribe of Judah, but had risen to prominence in it.

This event is directly analogous to the New Testament situation. The wilderness wanderings lasted 40 years, as did the span between A.D. 30 and 70. The Jews were called by Jesus and the apostles, and many converted (that is, they entered the New Covenant). Some reverted to Judaism, turning into apostate Judaisers, and like the apostates in Moses’ day, they “died in the wilderness by A.D. 70. Meanwhile, many “mixed multitudes” gentiles joined the kingdom. By A.D. 70, it was time to enter the promised land, and the old Jewish people ceased to exist, being transformed into Christians, their new name.

The same kind of event happened at the Exile. A study of the book of Ezekiel will show that God called His people out of Judea into the wilderness of exile, where He tabernacled with them. The people were given a choice: either move forward with God or perish by looking backward to the old ways. During the time of exile, as we have seen, many gentiles were converted into the nation. By the time the Exile was over, and the people returned to the Promised Land, the old Israel ceased to exist, being transformed into Jews, their new name.

Let us return to the Mosaic transition and examine the phenomenon of “falling away.” At Mount Sinai, all the people accepted the new Mosaic Covenant. Before too long, however, a large group of people were objecting to one of the most distinctive features of the Mosaic Covenant. During patriarchal times, any man might offer sacrifice at an altar to God, but the worship of the Tabernacle was “closer” to God and therefore holier and more dangerous. It is dangerous for a sinner to get too close to the Consuming Fire, and so the only people allowed to approach the new Mosaic altar were the priests, who were specially ordained and anointed for this purpose. God forbade all sacrifice except that conducted at the Tabernacle, which meant that the Hebrew people were no longer permitted to build and sacrifice at altars.

As it became clear that the people had “lost” this “right,” those who did not perceive that the Mosaic Covenant was in fact more glorious than the Abrahamic Covenant had been, rebelled. Their argument was that “all the people are holy and all are priests” (Ex. 19:6) and that Moses and Aaron were exalting themselves over the congregation (Numbers 16-17). They were drawing the wrong inferences from Exodus 19:6 because they were clinging to the older covenant.

This group of rebels is closely paralleled by the Judaisers of the New Testament era. The Judaisers were people who became Christians, and then realised that the leaders of the Christian community were changing the rules on them. Just as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram did not want to give up the old Hebrew ways in order to become Israelites, so the Judaisers did not want to give up the old Jewish ways in order to become Christians.

Just as Korah and company accused Moses and Aaron of inventing their own religion, so the Judaisers accused Paul. Just as many of the Israelites in Moses’ day wanted to return to Egypt, so the Judaisers wanted to return to Judaism. This is the “falling away” to which the New Testament refers a number of times.1

“Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.”  (Jude 1:11)

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1  James B. Jordan, The Future of Israel Re-examined, here, in issues 13-15.

See also The Man of Sin.

There are two kinds of whiteness in the Bible, and an understanding of this explains a great deal. There is the whiteness of covering and the whiteness of uncovering. And, as mentioned, the Bible makes a great deal out of the concept of covering.

Bone Collector

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Touching a corpse made an Israelite unclean. The remains of those slain in battle were marked with lime for two reasons: so that they could be avoided by the clean, and so they could be gathered up and burned to lime by the bone collectors. Jesus said that the righteousness of the Pharisees was like a whitewashed sepulchre. Not only were they full of the ceremonial uncleanness of broken Covenant, their so-called righteousness was actually a mark from God upon them. They would be gathered to their people not by the Father sending His angels to the four corners of the Land, but by the father of lies and his scavengers sent by God to clean the wound.

This image goes right back to Genesis. Like the angels, the Covenant scavengers, though demonic, are also God’s servants. They are the raven of Noah surviving on floating corpses until the water goes down; they are the scavenging dogs that lick up Jezebel’s blood; they are the maggots in misused manna and abandoned grapes (false bread and wine); they are the unclean birds and animals that screech and howl inside the corpse of a defeated Babylon; they are worms inside Herod ‘enthroned’ as a human Gehenna.

The whiteness of the Pharisees was the whiteness of Miriam’s and Gehazi’s skin-plague. It is the whiteness of flesh and bones exposed as unclean to the eyes of God. Satan himself appeared as an angel of light, but like the Pharisees, he was a false lightbearer, a tutor guiding his children the wrong way.

Vindicated by the Redeemer/Avenger

‘To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’

Jesus says this at the end of the letter to the church in Pergamum. As James Jordan observes, the imagery in the seven letters takes us through Old Covenant history, beginning with Eden, and ending with Herod’s ‘Laodicea’. Pergamum is the church in the wilderness, hence the references to Phinehas’ sword, Balaam and Balak, testing by temptation to sexual immorality and the mighty men (Nicolaitans).

The white stone speaks of a faithful priesthood publicly vindicated, the wilderness manna transfigured into glorious metal by resurrection.

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died…”
(John 6:48-49)

The Hebrew word for redeemer is the same as avenger. A kinsman redeemer not only rescued his brother’s widow and inheritance by marriage, but was charged with avenging and vindicating her over her enemies. Like Boaz, he was to bring her in from the wilderness, cover her, and give her ‘a new name’ by adoption (like Ruth). Resurrection always involves a judgment, a division between those who are covered (Ruth) and those who love their widowhood and choose to remain uncovered (barren) and return to the fields of Moab (Orpah). The choice is between the bread of the Covenant and the bread of Moab, Covenant children or the children of Lot’s incest.

Beth-lechem Ephratah (fertile house of bread)

The Revelation is Jesus’ judgment between two women like Ruth and Orpah, and in fact, as the story is expanded it becomes a judgment between two prostitutes. Each has a son, but one is dead and one is alive. The woman who lies is uncovered by the words of wise Solomon as the destroying angel of Passover. She is left barren like Egypt.

There are the harlots and tax collectors who come into the kingdom and take up the Messianic line as Rahab. Then there is Judah herself, the greatest of all tax collectors, riding the Roman beast and saying in her heart “I sit a queen. I am no widow.” She was indeed married, but not to Boaz. She had returned to the incestuous bread of Moab like Orpah, a wicked and adulterous generation who shunned a Bethlehem (House of Bread) restored (after the sins recorded at the end of Judges) and made fruitful again by Greater Boaz.

A false house of bread is a false resurrection, a whited sepulchre. It is bread made glorious with the leprous leaven of the Pharisees. It is a phantom pregnancy, a ‘rising’ that turns out to be a mere breaking of wind. But Jesus as Boaz has His children (Hebrews 2:13).

Big White Stones

At the centre of the Creation matrix that runs right through the Bible is the wilderness. It is the burning bush, the Lampstand eyes of God’s Law judging–threshing–His people. The annual feasts follow the same pattern. In that case it is the harvest of Pentecost and its tongues of fire.

The wilderness is God’s threshing floor. It is the place where Boaz covers Ruth as the foundation for a later Temple. And the grinding of the millstone is a euphemism for sex.1  The Old Testament helps us make sense of Revelation 18. Not only would Judah’s Temple no longer enjoy the light of the lampstand filled with olive oil (the Spirit), the fruitfulness of the millstone would be taken away. No more bread.

The face of the unfaithful Old Covenant ‘baker’ would be uncovered as the bread in white baskets was eaten by ravens under the Covenant curse. He would be executed by Jesus as Pharaoh. The cupbearer was resurrected from the ‘tomb’, but the baker was not. The Old Covenant priesthood was exposed, but the New Covenant oil and wine would not be harmed.

Jesus as wise Solomon built His new house on the rock of obedience. The Herods ignored Jesus’ warnings for forty wilderness years and built a great and glorious house–on sand. Even in Jesus’ day, long before its completion, the disciples admired it. At the end of the Restoration Covenant, it was the ultimate form of Zerubbabel’s white capstone, covered in gold and white marble. When it reflected the early morning or afternoon sun, people had to avert their eyes from its brightness. It should have been a house for Eve built upon the sacrificial obedience of Adam, but it was a pretense, a covering of leaves. Jesus saw its future.

Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more.”

Herod’s house of bread was submerged under the Gentile sea, a big white stone sinking to the bottom like Pharaoh’s armies. It was not Ezra’s Resurrection Temple as he had hoped. Zerubbabel’s white stone, the Restoration Temple, had been the outcome of a priestly people who put their pagan wives away. But Herod’s kingdom was built on the intermarriage of red Edomite clay and Roman iron–sex with the beast in the wilderness. It was not a capstone but a gravestone.

After the end of the Roman siege, not one stone of this white house remained upon another. Roman soldiers tore up the masonry to retrieve the gold that melted in the fires and ran into the cracks. As the Man of Sin, the Herods had spoken as though they were God, sitting in Moses’ and Solomon’s seat of judgment where they ought not. But their house was left desolate, uncovered and eaten by scavenging maggots. As anti-Christ, Herod was the living dead instead of the dead living–the manna of disobedience. It was not another restoration of Ezra’s Temple. It was the whiteness of a false resurrection, a leprous house that would be torn down.

And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the mortar of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place. (Lev. 14:45)

Herod’s house pretended to be the top of the mountain of God, but it was filled with corpses like the Valley of Hinnom, covered with bones like the altar of Jeroboam, unclean and outside the true city of God.

Jezebel was indeed thrown down, and all that the dogs left were her head, hands and feet, a cruciform memorial for the bone collectors. The angel had said, “He is not here. He is risen” and the apostles and prophets rejoiced. Now the angel said, “She is not here. She is eaten,” and the apostles and prophets rejoiced again (2 Kings 9:37; Rev. 18:20). Her whited bones remain as a memorial to the leaven of the Pharisees, a faith that is a collection of unclean bones. Only the breath of Jesus can resurrect a Jew from the dust.

But there were two lime-washed pillars that Joshua set up as a memorial to his church’s river crossing. At the church’s crossing of the crystal sea into the promised heavenly country, Herod’s Temple was the second pillar. What was the first?

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1. Samson’s adultery condemned him to a symbolic harlotry, pushing the millstone, grinding grain in the house of a foreign god. But his repentance made him ‘fruitful’ again, and the once adulterous and barren ‘warrior-bride’ rejoiced to see the destruction of that house.

WHITSTON-5

“Because of Christ we are thought of as fools, but Christ has made you wise. We are weak and hated, but you are powerful and respected. Even today we go hungry and thirsty and don’t have anything to wear except rags. We are mistreated and don’t have a place to live. We work hard with our own hands, and when people abuse us, we wish them well. When we suffer, we are patient. When someone curses us, we answer with kind words. Until now we are thought of as nothing more than the trash and garbage of this world.” 1 Corinthians 4:10-13

So, are God’s people to wear rags? Or should they be dressed well like Solomon or the woman in Proverbs 31? Or is that even the right question?

We need to get a handle on the biblical pattern. It is nakedness to glorious robes, childhood to maturity. From later patterns, I believe Adam and Eve would have received glorious robes if they had obeyed (Noah, Joseph, Daniel and Mordecai are some examples that spring to mind). If we are faithful, the robe of rule is GIVEN to us. Paul was writing to the Corinthians as children.

“What is so special about you? What do you have that you were not given? And if it was given to you, how can you brag? Are you already satisfied? Are you now rich? Have you become kings while we are still nobodies? I wish you were kings. Then we could have a share in your kingdom. It seems to me that God has put us apostles in the worst possible place. We are like prisoners on their way to death. Angels and the people of this world just laugh at us.” 1 Corinthians 4:7-9

Israel became a corrupt woman in her glorious robe, so God sent “naked” prophets to warn her. They began a new “poor” kingdom “outside the city” corrupted by the riches received from God. But the plan is always to glorify the new kingdom. The new worship founded under Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah was glorified in Esther.

Paul, like John the baptist, was one such pioneer. The nakedness is never permanent, and the church will be eventually, rightfully “clothed.”

If the church is rich on the outside but inwardly naked, immature (like Laodicea), God will deal with it. But the aim is to be clothed both inwardly and outwardly, consistently glorious.