Behold, when we come to the land, you shall bind this line of scarlet thread in the window from which you let us down… Joshua 2:18

Each Israelite was to wear blue tassels on the four corners of his robe. The tassel was a blue cord that unraveled into threads, a “one” that became many. Using the “systematic typology” of the Bible Matrix, we can see that these four blue tassels correspond to the four rivers the flowed down from the spring under the Garden of Eden. [1]

So, what’s the deal with the “red cord” that Rahab was commanded to display in her window in Jericho? Firstly, the Hebrew word isn’t the same word as the “cord” in Numbers 15.

The Hebrew word tiqvah literally means “hope.” Skip Moen writes:

Line – Usually translated “cord” in this verse, the Hebrew word tiqvah has a different meaning in every one of its additional thirty-one occurrences.  The fact that it isn’t translated in the normal way in this verse isn’t an accident. It’s an intentional word-play; another example of the elaborate interconnections found in the Hebrew Scripture that are invisible to us in English. By now you must realize that the story of the Scripture just wasn’t written to you.  It was written to Hebrew readers because only Hebrew readers can read between the lines.

Tiqvah is usually translated “hope.”  Put this background into the story of Rahab and you will come away with a much deeper understanding of this event. The spies whom Rahab saves tell her to put a scarlet “cord” in her window. What does that cord mean? It means hope, the very same word.

Naomi uses it in Ruth 1:12. Moen again:

When Naomi uses this word, she doesn’t have the projection of future desires in mind.  She is thinking about the color scarlet.  What does scarlet have to do with hope? Frymer-Kensky points out that tiqvah is the Hebrew word meaning “thread” in the story of Rahab.  “The imagery in this idiom suggests that our life is spun out like a cord, and hope arises from the strength of that cord, representing the prospect of a viable future.” [2]  She goes on to show that hope in Hebrew thought is intimately connected with life here and now.  To have a future is to not be cut off. To have a future is to see the continuation of your name in the lives of your offspring.  Tiqvah hope has nothing to do with getting to heaven. It is all about having a legacy on earth. It’s about a scarlet cord that can’t be cut.

Firstly, we must deal with two kinds of cleansing, the “red” and the “blue.” Blood and water both cleansed from sin, but their roles correspond to the “forming and filling” process in Genesis 1. (Even within the “blood” division, there is both red and blue blood, a chiastic structure within the body.) Blood is a witness to the de-forming of the old order. Like circumcision, it cuts off the past. We can think of this as Jesus paying off our incalculable debt to God. “It is finished.” This is mercy. Water is a witness to the investiture of a new order, the “filling up” of the new order. Unlike the “red ink” of correction, water writes a check for us in “blue ink.” It begins a new era. This is grace.

Water and blood are both liquids required for life. One comes out of the body and one goes into the body. The Jews were the blood, the circumcision, the genealogy of Christ, the Land rising out of the water. The Gentiles were the water, the baptism, the office of Christ, brought into the household of faith in the first century to bring new life to the Old Covenant body. The body of Christ is one new man, made up of Jew and Gentile, blood and water. [3]

Red and blue also have to do with heads and bodies. Circumcision is red and baptism is blue. In the Bible Matrix, the crossing of the Red Sea corresponds to Passover (the killing of the firstborn “heads”), while the crossing of the Jordan River is baptism, and associated with the Day of Atonement. [4] Now, there is red and blue in both these events, but when viewed as a whole, the first cleansing is about the end of the old history (the old leaven) and the second is about a new history, a heavenly land. Thus, red has to do with “generations,” the setting apart of a genealogical line. It is about the flesh. This is the blood of the sacrificial system. And blue has to do with “regenerations,” the commission of members of that genealogical line. It is about the Spirit.

Now we can see the correspondence between the four heavenly blue wings on an Israelite’s robe, and the four earthly red horns on the Tabernacle Altars. The blood is male (generation – Head), but the Israelite robe was worn by males and females (regeneration – Body).

Interestingly, in the account of the woman with the “issue of blood,” it is Jesus who is “blue” and the woman “red.” This is the interface between the cleanliness of a regenerate, commissioned (baptized) Adam and a helpless “generate” (menstrual) Eve.

Jesus
RED -  Circumcision and circumcised heart
BLUE – Baptism and Spirit-filling

TOUCH

(Daughter) Israel
RED – Issue of blood
BLUE – Forgiveness and cleansing,
the resultant healing from His “wings.” [5]

If Adam was faithful in the Garden, his offspring would have been rivers of living water. The singular red thread of Adamic obedience results in a corporate holiness, a blue cord that multiplies into a tassel. Peter Leithart writes:

In his lecture at the Biblical Horizons Summer conference this morning, Jim Jordan pointed out that the rivers that flow out of Eden are connected with commerce and economy.  The rivers flow from the garden, where there are good things to eat, to the outer lands where there are minerals and gems.

This can serve as a further gloss on my discussion of Psalm 24 earlier today: Rivers are the “foundations” of the humanly organized world, and more particularly rivers are the cords that bind land to land with trade and commerce.  Rivers are not only the foundation of a single land or culture, but of a network of cultures. [6]

The “binding” of the red differs from the “binding” of the blue. It is more a process of “binding and loosing.” Adam, or Isaac, is bound with a red cord in hope. It is a sacrificial death on the altar. It is flesh. The blue tassels are the “loosing,” the freedom of unity of Spirit. [7] It is perhaps more fitting to say that people are bound by blood but united by water. The first is objective, the last is subjective. The first is legal. The last is love. Circumcision was one nation, a bloodied, closed, earthly door (on the ground). Baptism is all nations. It is the Messianic “cord of hope” within a four-cornered open (blue) window in the wall of a city. [8] Rahab became intertwined with the Messianic cord (Matthew 1) that would eventually lead to rivers of living water, tassels of Spirit flowing from the four horns of Israel to the four “wings” of the world.

All Israel was a “bridal” nation. The males were circumcised, but since the other commands concerning clothing cover all Israelites, we can assume both males and females wore the bridal robe, just as both males and females could take the Nazirite vow. This brings us to part 3, which concerns Israel’s Covenantal vow. This is where the sorry arguments for paedobaptism unravel.

There’s an interesting use of red and blue in this music video. Every time I watch it I see something new.

_________________________________
[1] See Healing in His … Tassels? You will also find some interesting facts here.
[2] Tamara Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Ruth: The JPS Bible Commentary, p. 15.
[3] See The Water and the Blood.
[4] Steven Opp has some interesting thoughts on red and blue in his paper “Heads or Tails: A Colorful Commentary.”
[5] See Border Patrol.
[6] Peter Leithart, More On Rivers. Perhaps Dr. Leithart’s mention of water binding rather than uniting reflects his ideas on “objective” baptism. Genealogy is not a choice. But commerce is a choice. One is not bound by rivers but loosed.
[7] See Binding and Loosing.
[8] See Known in the Gates.

Grace Agenda Conference Trailer from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

This looks like good medicine. Guess I will have to settle for the MP3s again. You know Doug and Mark. Ben preaches at Doug’s church and his messages are simple yet profound. They really stick with you. I’ve read Nate Wilson but not heard him speak. I hear he’s also very good.

THE TALKS

Masculinity and the Gospel | Mark Driscoll
Modern society is in the midst of a fatherhood and masculinity crisis and getting the Gospel right on this point is the only solution to the crisis. To do this we must understand the Gospel as the sort of message that demands that those who receive and present it be people who have a spine and understand its potency. This is a fundamental issue and affects everything from the integrity of our political leaders to the growth of modern atheism to the effectiveness of our evangelistic mission. Not to mention the health of our families.

Pomosexuality | Douglas Wilson
We live in a time when many of the older standards of “traditional morality” have come completely unstuck. Too many Christians think that this is just something that “happened,” that somebody “did,” and that if we get mobilized we can undo it. But this is actually a theological issue, a problem with our worship. There will be no return to biblical sexuality without a return to Jesus Christ.

The World and its Alternatives | N.D. Wilson
The universe is created, which means it is art. It exists in time, which means that it is narrative art. It encompasses every genre, both discovered and undiscovered, but all of it hangs within the frame of Comedy. Philosophers, poets, artists, scientists, and engineers notwithstanding there is only this strange and comic world — here it stands, and it can be no other.

Godlust | Ben Merkle
The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But you are led by the Spirit . . . So act like it.

The Manifesto for the Grace Agenda | Douglas Wilson
It is too easy to think of grace as that “little extra” that gets us over the finish line. We do what we need to do, and God does the rest. But this is not grace at all, it is the heresy of the Galatians. If we want to counter it (as we should), we must learn to see that God’s grace is all of Christ, for all of life, for all the world.

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession… Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate… Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer

They are relatively new Christians, and the high temperature of their interest in the Bible was matched by this sudden ferocity toward the scum of our society. They had seen, close up, the worst of what people are capable of, repeatedly, defiantly. “They don’t deserve mercy.”

Of course, no one can deserve mercy. It demonstrated to all present that night (especially we who are so sheltered) the breadth of the bloodied, open arms of the Son of God.

But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

The motivation here is clear: “More for me in history.” 

Charles Darwin took this view of man, which was based on competitive self-interest, and applied it to all of nature: the survival of the fittest. Darwin’s view of the biological world was consistent. Out of individual competition for scarce resources, Darwin argued, comes the order of nature. There is no creator God. There is no providential decree. There is no grand design. There is only individual competition for resources. The supreme motivation of every competitor, from the amoeba to mankind, is this: “More for me in history.”

Christianity denies Darwin’s premise, beginning with Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” It continues this denial until Revelation 22:21. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

The goal of statist Darwinism is autonomous power. The goal of Christianity is covenantal dominion. The goal of free market Darwinism is autonomous economic growth. The goal of Christianity is to inherit the earth.

What is the difference? Grace. Autonomous man seeks the whole earth and loses his soul in the attempt. Covenant-keeping man seeks obedient subordination to God through His grace and thereby inherits his share of the whole earth as God’s confirmation of His covenant.

“But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day” (Deuteronomy 8:18).

- Gary North, The Five Pillars of Biblical Success. Available fromhttp://www.americanvision.org/downloads/fivepillars.pdf

Was the mainstay of his Christian life prayer and Bible study? He did pray, but was prayer the central pillar of his secret to living the Christian life? That just does not seem to fit, does it? The Son depending on prayer and Bible study to make it through the day?

Actually, this idea, your Lord needing to read his Bible every day to get through life as a believer, is an insult (1) to his preexistence in eternity and (2) to the fact that his Father indwelt him. Your Lord did not live the Christian life by means of Bible study. But he quoted it, did he not? Does that not mean he was dependent on reading his Bible every day? And have we not often had pointed out to us his dependence on prayer and Bible study? And what of prayer? It is true that he rose early in the morning and went to a quiet place to pray. But do not read into such scenes the modern-day concept of what prayer is. Be careful, or you will see a man who is out there on his own all day long, praying, reading his Bible, and trying hard to be a good Christian . . . even a man so much on his own that he has to pray every morning without fail to make it through the day (making it through the day being dependent on his reading the Bible and praying that morning).

The fallacies of that scene are endless, but this one stands out the most. All day long the Lord Jesus was not alone. There was not one second when he was outside of constant, conscious fellowship with his Father.

My grandpa was a Louisiana Cajun who loved His Lord boundlessly. He was a total illiterate. But that did not stop grandpa. He would ceremoniously pick up his Bible and hold it in front of him and stare at it intently for long periods of time. The problem was, he almost always held the Bible upside down! Now that is really illiterate; and, yep, that was my grandpa. And, yes, he loved his Lord and spoke of his intimacy with the Lord in a way that few literate Bible scholars or Greek-reading theologians could ever hope to match!

“Without the Father, I can do nothing.”
“The life I live, I live by means of my Father.”

—Gene Edwards

Excerpts from Reframing Paul, by Mark Strom

“Grace is subversive. It undermines the ideals and standards of those of us who cannot tolerate weakness in others (or in ourselves). It undermines the pride of those of us who search out every vestige of unbiblical belief and practice. It undermines the presumption of those of us who preach the pure gospel to cure all ills. It undermines the safety of those of us who throw off the shackles of abusive and codependent relationships only to refuse grace to those who have hurt us. It undermines our need to find the ideal, the answer, the method, the cure. We are left with the weakness of grace-full conversation.

Grace leaves us with Jesus. Jesus leaves us with his Spirit. His Spirit draws us into conversation. The conversation opens us to the wonder and fragility of life. The Father who gave us life bids us live and converse in grace.”

Read more…

http://bullartistry.com.au/pdf_bestill/058BeStill.pdf