With the inheritance of Canaan and the dividing up of this priestly territory among the tribes, Israel became a microcosm of the nations of the world.

This division between Israel and the nations as a substitutionary “land and sea” would prevent another global rebellion, and thus another global judgment.¹For more discussion, see Michael Bull, Cosmic Language. The existence of a “peculiar” people who could never assimilate prevented a repeat of the compromise of the sons of Seth (Genesis 6:2) and of the sons of Joktan, the first Hebrews (Genesis 10:25 – 11:2). Serving as a restraint from sin, circumcision was thus a divine mercy which, to some degree, blessed all nations right from its inception. This office is prefigured in Abram’s kingly prevention of a conspiracy of nations in Genesis 14, followed by his priestly refusal to lay his hand on the spoils. He was in covenant with God and could have no open obligations, through treaty or intermarriage, to the kings of the land. Not only would his inheritance come from the hand of God, his ministry of evangelism among its current inhabitants could not be tainted.²For more discussion, see James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis, 65-66.

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)

All of the arcane “personal” stipulations in the Torah find their fulfilment in the corporate worship of Israel. Just as the sacrifices were to be without blemish, so also were Israelites to be spotless if they were to stand before God. But the rules for the identification, quarantining and ceremonial cleansing of leprosy only begin with the skin of the worshiper in the wilderness. They then move to the garment, and finally to the house in the Promised Land. A failure in personal holiness would lead eventually to a corruption of corporate worship. James Jordan writes:

Jesus’ statement that the stones of the building will not be left attached to one another hearkens back to the rules for house affiction (“lepr­osy”) in Leviticus 14:33-53.¹On the translation of “leprosy” with “affliction,” see Jordan’s monograph, The Touch of Affliction: The “Plague” of “Leprosy” in Leviticus 13. Biblical Horizons Occasional Paper 31 (Niceville, FL: Biblical Horizons, 2002). If the affliction in the walls of the house proves irremedia­ble, the priest is to “tear down the house, its stones, and its timbers, and all the plaster of the house, and he shall take them outside the city to an unclean place” (Leviticus 14:45).

From the verse just cited, it is clear that house affliction only applies to a house inside a walled city. An examination of the history of the applica­tion of the laws of house affliction sheds considerable light on certain events in the gospels, for the primary house to come under these rules is the temple.

In Ezekiel 8:7-13, Ezekiel is told to dig into the wall around the temple. In his vision the wall is hollow and has a chamber inside of it. All over the inner walls of this chamber are carved various idols, and the leaders of Israel are worshipping them secretly.²These people were not actually worshipping idols or engaging in idolatry. We know from Jeremiah that they had turned the temple itself into an idol, and regarded Yahweh as their own national god who would always protect them. What Ezekiel sees in his vision is their true hearts, not their outward beliefs. This is a graphic picture of house affliction, the “greenish or reddish” marks under (within) the walls of a house.

Of more immediate relevance is Zechariah’s fifth Night Vision (Zecha­riah 5:1-4). The prophet sees a huge flying scroll, having the dimen­sions of the Holy Place of the tabernacle. The Holy Place was a symbol of the  rmament heavens, and this scroll appears in the firmament. It goes forth from God, as the “eyes” of Yahweh have gone forth in the previous vision (3:10; & 1:10-11; 6:1-8). From Genesis 1, we know that God’s eyes evaluate what He sees. His eyes are also, thus, an evaluating scroll, the law of God in its judging function. The scroll measures every house in Israel to see if it conforms to the holy dimen­sions of the Holy Place. Two specific sins are judged: false swearing (wor­ship) and theft. We have noted this pair already in our study. The houses of those who swear falsely and/or who steal will be consumed with house affliction, according to Zechariah 5:4, “[The curse] will dwell with­in that house and consume it with its timber and stones.”

When we come to Jesus’ “cleansing” of the temple, we find that He condemns the people for these two sins: “My house should be a house of prayer (true swearing), but you have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13). Later on, in Revelation 13:14-16, the “Beast Image,” which is the idolatrous worship house of the apostates, also requires false worship and a mark that governs buying and selling.

We know from a full reading of the gospels, Matthew through John, that Jesus “cleansed” the temple twice. As the living Scroll or Word of God, He arrived at the house two times. This is in accor­dance with the laws of house affliction in Leviticus 14. Making allowances for a general application of the principles in Leviticus 14, we can see Jesus fulfilling them as follows:

First, if greenish or reddish marks appear inside the walls of a house, the priest is to quarantine it for seven days. This corresponds to Jesus’ first inspection of the temple, record­ed in John 2:14-22. From that time, Jesus did not go again to the temple, as far as we are told, until His final arrival in Jerusa­lem.

Second, if after a week of quarantine the reddish and/or greenish marks have spread, the priest is to tear out the stones and plaster that have the marks in them, and repair the place in the wall. This corresponds to Jesus’ second temple inspection, as recorded in Matthew 21:12-14. Jesus drove out the bad stones, for the temple is made of human stones, and then restored the blind and lame, restoring the hu­man temple. This dual action of tearing down the bad and restoring the crippled as a true human temple is a microcosm of Jesus’ entire earthly ministry of restoring Israel – which then falls anew by rejecting Him.

Third, if the affliction reappears in the house, the house is to be torn down complete­ly. Jesus as priest, as Zechariah’s Flying Scroll, comes in the late ad 60s, finds that the temple has not been repaired (i.e., the people are still apostate), and destroys it.³From The End of the World: A Commentary on Matthew 23-25, by James B. Jordan. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com

Further to this, although the Hebrew word translated “leprosy” is indeed a striking, a plague, it seems that it pictured an invasion of the Sanctuary by the serpent.

The linguistic root of the word translated “leprosy” [tsara’ath] may mean “smiting.” The curse of leprosy came as a “stroke,” which aligns it with the plagues the Lord brought upon Egypt at the hand of Moses. This, however, gives us no clue as to what this disease actually was.

The “whiteness” of this condition most certainly links it to the “whiteness” of death. The purification rites for a person contaminated by a corpse are similar to those for a person with “leprosy.” Moreover, when Miriam is struck with the condition, Aaron begs that she not become like a still born child “whose flesh is half eaten away.”

However, there is another feature of this “leprosy” which traces this “death” back to Eden. Whereas the Hebrew word denotes being struck with a plague, it is described in Akkadian with a word which means “scaly” or “covered with dust.” Scales and dust tie it to the curse upon the serpent in Genesis 3. Leviticus 13 also refers to a “dry scall,” so rather than naming an actual disease it describes a symptom: scaled skin.⁴Jacob Milgrom translates the biblical “leprosy” as “scale disease” in his Leviticus 1-16, 768–889. In his Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East, Oppenheim quotes the word which has been translated leprosy as “covered with dust” or “scaly.” The Akkadian word “epqu”, which was translated leprosy in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, also means “scaly.”

This might help explain the language connected to it in 2 Kings 5, where the leprosy of the faithful, obedient Gentile is transferred to the lying, thieving Israelite, as his ironic Covenant “inheritance”: “The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow. (2 Kings 5:27 [KJV])⁵From “Scales of Justice: The Covenantal Significance and Serpentine Nature of Biblical ‘Leprosy’” in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.

This explains the references to the apostate High Priesthood as a “man of sin.” This representative of humanity had allowed the serpent to take dominion of the Garden. Following his expulsion from the heavenly court at the ascension of Christ (Revelation 12:9), Satan took up residence in the replica of the Sanctuary on earth (signified in Revelation 8:10 as the Edenic “springs and waters”). By the time Christ returned to inspect the Temple, the house was indeed “serpentine,” filled with demons (Matthew 12:43-45).

“Based on covenant history, the fact that God’s words now enrage His enemies is not a sign of failure. It is a sign of their imminent doom.”

With same sex marriage now legalized in many Western countries, and militant Islam ravaging the East, Christians might be wondering what God is doing. With the repeated failure of predictions of an imminent second coming, is the Bible any help to us at all in predicting what will happen next? I believe it is.

And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day,
for before this they had been at enmity with each other.
(Luke 23:12)

The New Testament writers often quote the Old Testament in crazy ways because they understood that God’s covenants are “harvest cycles.” They could refer to events in previous covenants and say, “Look, it’s happening again! See how God reunited Israel? Now He is reuniting Jew and Gentile!” (Hebrews 8:7-13)

The moral degradation of Western culture and the rise of militant Islam make perfect sense when understood in the light of sacred architecture and the “harvest” process it represents. So we will take a brief look into the Holy Place of the Tabernacle, observe how this pattern shaped the events of the first century, and quickly trace it to the madness of our own day.

The Holy Place

In the Holy Place were three articles of furniture which represented three offices: Priest, King and Prophet. These three describe a process of maturity. The Priest listens, the King acts, and the Prophet speaks. This is what was required of Adam in the Garden of Eden, and it also gives us three clear stages in the history and literature of ancient Israel.

The Table of Showbread is the Priest (manna and grapes in the wilderness), the Lampstand is the King (the light of the law for wisdom in governing) and the Incense Altar is the elders who advise in the courts of heaven and guide history on earth. Of course, Christ is the first one who truly united these three offices.

Since the Tabernacle layout is cross-shaped, these three items are two hands, left and right, and the bosom or breastplate in the center. This is why Christ holds seven stars in His right hand in Revelation 1 (the church rulers). He is the Tabernacle fulfilled. As His body, Christians are a royal priesthood, a combination of priest and king with a voice from heaven.

The First Century

The conflict between Priesthood and Kingdom, Church and State, can be traced throughout Scripture, seen very clearly in the hatred of Abel by Cain, and Jacob by Esau, and in the Egyptians’ regard of shepherds as detestable (Genesis 46:34). However, only a faithful combination of Priesthood and Kingdom results in a voice that is truly Prophetic. This is why the Ascension of Christ was followed by the Day of Pentecost and resulted in both the apostolic witness and the New Testament document.

However, Priesthood and Kingdom often collude against the true prophets. That is always the nature of Babel. The Jews hated the Romans, and yet Herod and Pilate became friends over the crucifixion of Christ. This was repeated “institutionally” a generation later, when Herodian worship (left hand) and Neronic rule (right hand) joined forces against the Christian church, the Body of Christ.

The Global Church

All of this helps us to understand the major tensions in the world today. On one hand, we have Islam, an insane parody of Priesthood, a religion which prohibits the wine, women and song of adulthood, everything Kingly and Prophetic. Holiness comes via coercion. One must listen and not question. It is a religion which puts everyone under the sword, a tyrannizing order like that of the Pharisees and Herods in first century Jerusalem. It expresses itself through bloodshed, circumcision for males and females, violence against girls and women, and jihad.

On the other hand, we have the Secular West, which no longer listens to God and has given itself to “kingly” sins, murder and adultery, the amassing of gold and war horses, and the infant sacrifice of abortion. Secular humanism is Kingdom taken to the extreme, the “guns, girls, and gold” prohibited by Moses (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) and amassed by Solomon, which began the downfall of Israel.

Islam and Secularism are vehemently opposed. Like the Roman Empire, secularism calls Muslims to assimilate. Like Jews under the Law of Moses, this is something Muslims under Sharia law are unable to do. In the wisdom of God, the two sides are forever set at enmity. One claims divine authority (Priesthood), the other claims infinite wisdom (Kingdom). Both invent history in order to claim the future (Prophecy).

In between these two perversions, one of Priesthood and the other of Kingdom, we have the Christian Church, a Body which unites true Priesthood and true Kingdom, a royal priesthood given the task of divine testimony to the world. Like Herod and Pilate, the only thing Islam and Secularism have in common is a hatred for Christianity, the fragrant bride in the bosom of Adam, the supernatural institution which, by the Spirit of the ascended Christ, is truly Prophetic.

It is easy to blame the Church for the degeneration of Western culture, but the prophetic witness in our culture has in reality been reasonably consistent. Based on Covenant history, the fact that God’s words now enrage His enemies is not a sign of our failure. It is a sign of their imminent doom.

Romans 1 tells us that cultural homosexuality is a sign of the end of a culture, the final proof that it has gone insane. But subsequent chapters also describe the hypocrisy and futility of a carnal priesthood. Paganism and Judaism were castrated forever, their “ministries” replaced by the enthronement of the fragrant firstborn from the dead.

This explains the natures of Islam and Secularism. In this age, everything is Christian. With paganism and Judaism disempowered, to have any real longevity, any idolatry must now be a distorted form of Christianity. Islam is Christianity without sacrament, without grace. Secularism is Christianity without discipline, without self-government. Islam and Secularism are thus the bipolar moods of Christless Christianity, schizoid faces of a global perversion of the prophetic Gospel. Christians in the East testify like Elijah against false Priesthood. Christians in the West, like the angels sent to Sodom, testify against false Kingdom. Sacrament and Govern-ment can only be united under the Word by the Spirit.

But both extremes are not only the enemies of the Gospel, they are the results of the Gospel. Islam and Secularism are rebellion against Christ taken to its logical conclusion in opposite directions: legalism or licentiousness. With no spiritual weapons, both “hands” are reduced to bearing the sword in their respective ways. They can be united only in death, and their current victories are suicides in disguise. As it was in the first century, the only solution to the enmity is faith in Christ.

The Whole World in His Hands

When God’s people persevere, God confuses their enemies and sets them against each other. Rome devoured Jerusalem, and then the New Jerusalem devoured Rome. The prophetic voice of Christ and His martyrs was vindicated. Released from the trappings of the old order, and possessing both the divine authority of the Jew and the earthly abundance of the Gentile, the Gospel began its transformation of the empire.

What does the future hold? If the events of the first century are repeated, the false kings will destroy the false priests, but the false kings will be entirely shaken up in the process, being humbled that they might bow the knee to Christ. Many saints will die but through their testimony they will eventually conquer the false kingdom from the inside. The Future belongs to the Bride.

When Sodom was destroyed, Sarah conceived. When Israel committed similar sins, Ruth and Hannah conceived. In God’s kingdom, the last days are only ever the last days of the old order. A bipolarity of Priesthood and Kingdom expressed in global culture means some kind of Prophetic resurrection across the world is at hand, a Christendom more faithful, wiser, and bigger than even the saints could imagine, the next “growth ring” of the kingdom of God.

The inheritance of Jesus includes both East and West, just as it included Jew and Gentile, set in opposition by the Law: divide and conquer, circumcise and baptize.

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in 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 killing the hostility. (Ephesians 2:14-16)

With the Spirit of God in us, and the lessons of the millennia, God’s thoughts are not so high above ours any more. And that was always the plan: that all His people might be Prophets, wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

This essay is from Inquiétude: Essays for a People Without Eyes. The original version was published at Theopolis Institute.

Satan’s desire was always to turn the “pruning” of circumcision into an ax laid at the root of the tree of Israel.

A handful of treatments of the “massacre of the innocents” by Herod the Great see this bloodshed as the first of the New Covenant’s martyrs. But these miss the point of Matthew’s use of the word “fulfilled,” rendering it as good as meaningless. This massacre was the harbinger of the end of the old era and its promises. It said nothing about the promises of the new.

There is no way that this is the first of a series of new incidents, that is, Christian martyrdoms. Either this event simply continues the murders of offspring found throughout the Old Testament, or it brings them to an end. As my friend observes, suffering would now be different, but of course I would take this a little further than he would, concerning the significance of the sacraments.¹See my previous post, Feed My Lambs. Suffering would no longer be racial, tribal or genealogical, but voluntary. Killing Jews is genocide. Killing Christians is like killing Communists or capitalists. Its intention is not to wipe out a despised people but an intolerable “ideology.” The sons murdered in Matthew 2 were physical sons, sons of Abraham according to the flesh. Martyrs however are Sons of God.²See Provoking the Dragon.

New King on the Block

The era of Christ and His apostles was a period of transition, an overlap between the Old Covenant and the New. It was much like the time between the anointing of David and the death of Saul. Seen in this light, the parallels are remarkable. Just as the anointing of David was an irreversible divine decree, so was the life of Christ. And the Herods’ reaction was much the same as that of Saul. The sword of the Lord in the hand of a king maddened by jealousy was always a Covenant Sanction from the hand of God (1 Samuel 16:14). Saul would have seen both David, and later Jonathan, slain, had not the people restrained him. He employed an Edomite to slay the priests of God. The Herods were Edomites, and for the Herods, there was no restraint. Herod the Great murdered his own family as well as many rabbis. Like Pharaoh, the Herodian dynasty was the bloody hand of Cain. Sadly, the Jews failed to see that the “greatest builder in Jewish history”³Ken Spino, Crash Course In Jewish History. had built a Cainite city upon cursed ground.

 The Mutilation

The massacre if infants at the command of Herod the Great makes perfect sense as a sign of the imminent end of the Old Covenant, a Covenant which began with a barren womb and a barren Land. These infants sons — one from each woman, due to the directive concerning the age of the boys — were all Isaacs cut off because the end of the circumcision was nigh.

Circumcision was a genealogical “pruning,” bearing the curse upon Land and Womb in Genesis 3 for all nations that there might be a priestly nation, a people fruitful in righteousness. Satan’s desire was always to turn the “pruning” of circumcision into an ax laid at the root of the tree of Israel (Matthew 3:10, Luke 3:9), not a circumcision but a castration, a mutilation.⁴See New Covenant Virility 1 and 2.

The prophets condemned Israel’s shepherds when they became wolves, trading and tearing the sheep instead of leading them, shedding the blood of their own people while they perverted or ignored the substitutionary nature of the blood of the sacrifices. A cultic expression of this national self-mutilation was the worship of the priests of Baal, who cut themselves and threw themselves onto the altar on Mount Carmel. God would never accept human blood, at least not until truly blameless human blood was shed. This is why Paul refers to the Circumcision as the Mutilation, and wishes they would go the whole way and castrate themselves.

Ramah and Rachel

None of this is difficult to understand, but what is the reason for Matthew’s reference to Ramah and Rachel? Most commentators focus on Rachel, but the mention of Ramah is also significant, and its meaning is discovered in the “Covenant-literary” structure of of the text.⁵See also Matthew’s Literary Artistry.

In this passage, Ramah occurs at Ascension, which corresponds to the Bronze Altar (the Land) and the Table (the Firstfruits). For Israel, the foundational Ascension was the offering of Isaac on Mount Moriah. Her subsequent idolatry led her into the practice of false worship on the high places and child sacrifice in the pit, the Valley of Hinnom (Ge henna in Greek).

Failure to repent of false worship led to the slaughter and slavery of the children of Israel by Assyria and Babylon. The Lord protected Ramah and the other towns of the kingdom of Judah (Judah and Benjamin) from the Assyrians (Isaiah 10:24,27-29), but the continued corruption of Judah led to invasions by the Babylonians. It is believed that there was a prison camp at Ramah where the people of Judah were held before being carried into exile. This may be the background for Jeremiah’s mention of this town in 31:15. Jeremiah himself was imprisoned there for a time (Jeremiah 40:1).

What is the connection between Ramah and Rachel? Ramah was a town in the allotment of Benjamin, son of Rachel. He was the last son born to Jacob and his name means “son of my right hand.” Benjamin and Ramah thus symbolised an end to the immediate Succession of Israel, pointing to the cutting off of “the last son.”

Joseph’s brothers “slew” him, and Joseph tested them in return with the “slaying” of Benjamin, Rachel’s only other son, whom they presumed to be the only son of Rachel still alive. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt and all Israel suffered in slavery. Just so, Israel’s child sacrifices in the Valley of Hinnom led to that valley being filled with the bodies of the idolaters. In the first century, this massacre not only of the sons of the flesh but also of Israel’s sons of the Spirit (Abraham’s true sons) would lead to a final filling of Ge henna, this time not at the hands of Babylon (the first empire) but Rome (the last). The circumcision intended as mercy for Israel on behalf of all nations (to avoid another flood) was twisted into a kingdom of bloodshed, a land filled with violence (Genesis 6:11).

You and Your Children

This “head-and-body” multiplication of judgment helps us to make sense of the words of Jesus, who not only knew of the massacre of the innocents and His own miraculous rescue, but also what was in store for all the Jews who rejected Him. It is Jesus Himself, as the suffering prophet on the way to His death, who tells the “Rachels” weeping for Him to weep for their own children.

This is the context of Peter’s words to the Jews on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, a text upon which rests almost all the supposed weight of arguments for paedosacraments. However, even a cursory reading by a one-eyed, uneducated, blithering ignoramus like me reveals its context to be entirely Jewish, with not-so-subtle references to the treatment of Joseph by his brothers.

Brothers,… Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

This clearly has nothing whatsoever to say about the children of Christians. This text is the Reformed equivalent of Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo diagrams. Although its abuse is so easily exposed, it remains in the textbooks because the cupboard is otherwise bare. Despite clear, concise and convincing arguments from myself and others, paedobaptists simply close their eyes and recite “You and your children” like some magic mantra. The irony is that Dispensationalists would likely understand this text perfectly!

Wait a minute, I hear. What about “those who are afar off”? Firstly, Peter was addressing all the house of Israel, and as is common in Scripture, but commonly overlooked, his literary architecture is triune, an oratory reference to the Tabernacle:

You (Word, Most Holy – Fathers)
Your children (Sacrament, Holy Place – Sons)
Those afar off (Government, Court – Spirit)

I suppose this is easy to dispute, but as it was with Moses’ supposed “murder” of the Egyptian, the true crime is identified through God’s righteous judgment upon it and the corresponding atonement. Those who rejected Peter’s warning to this last generation of the children of Abraham according to the flesh were cut off; the fathers, the sons, and even those far off. Not only were the Jews trapped in their own city, clever Titus waited until Passover before he besieged the city, so that Jerusalem would be filled with Jews from all over the empire, “those afar off.” In the final act, six thousand Jewish women and children were slain in one stroke when part of Herod’s Temple complex collapsed at the end of the Jewish war. And the best of the young men, the Josephs, were sold into slavery in Egypt. This “cutting off” brought an end to the Circumcision, the era of “sons,” and the inauguration of the age of the Spirit.

Conclusion

Circumcision was about pruning that there might be more fruit. Baptism is a celebration of the firstfruits of the Spirit, a public testimony. Good fruit makes the cultivation or non-cultivation of the tree irrelevant. To turn baptism into merely another sign of cultivation misses the point entirely at best, and at worst puts our children under a curse. The sign of the end of Christendom  and its carnal sacraments comes with a massacre of infants of untold proportions. The answer is certainly not more paedosacraments.

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

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Antichrist Combo

The Man of Sin

The Last Trumpet

The Eyes of a Man

The Grateful Dead

The Breath of His Coming – 1

The Breath of His Coming – 2

Jesus’ Caesars

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 24:38-39)

Most disputes concerning the meaning of the Scriptures are not due to a lack of trying when it comes to hermeneutics. They result from a lack of due process. By this, I do not mean the process of interpretation but the identification in the Scriptures of the processes of God.

An example would be the meaning of Christ’s words concerning the unpardonable sin, which have terrified many Christians unnecessarily. Blasphemy against the Spirit is unpardonable not because it is the worst sin. It is unpardonable because it is the last sin.

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

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Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him… (Matthew 2:1-2)

An atheist recently declared to me that a cumulative reading of the Bible makes no sense, since the Bible is not a single book but an anthology. I agree, but this “anthology” is indeed a single work because it was compiled by God. Without that foundation, the significance of much of its detail appears redundant. A good example is the wise men from the east in Matthew 2.

One of James B. Jordan’s greatest contributions is his highlighting of the period from the exile to Christ as a unique period in Bible history. While most commentators see this half-millennium as a time of unfulfilled promises and oppression, Jordan observes that this was a time of preparation for the Gospel, and Israel was given a special ministry. [1]

Due to the failure of Israel’s kings, God put the nation through a death-and-resurrection, elevating his people to a higher court, a Gentile one. The Jews served God as a nation of prophets throughout the oikoumene (a “household” of nations), teaching the Gentiles through the ministry of the synagogues (Acts 15:12).

This new “social architecture” is set up in the book of Daniel. The thrones of the ancient kings, including that of Solomon, were often surrounded by beasts (a theme we can trace back to Genesis 1-2). The four beast empires in Daniel 7 are earthly counterparts of the four cherubim guarding God’s throne in heaven, preparing the earth for the coming of the heavenly King. Just as the Bronze Altar symbolized the Land of Israel, these four beasts correspond to the “higher court” of the four-horned Golden Incense Altar in the court of heaven, the place where “the sons of God,” His courtly advisors, minister to Him.

These heavenly beasts are miraculous hybrids of earthly animals, picturing the ability of the Spirit to unite things which cannot be united naturally, such as Jew and Gentile. You might remember that Nebuchadnezzar himself was transformed into a combination of “bird and beast” as a symbol of the temporary Covenant curse sent to discipline him. These “heavenly” cherubim are all Land animals which walk on water. They ascend out of the sea as the Land does. Their role was to “surround” Israel, to guard God’s people until Messiah.

Daniel declared, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. (Daniel 7:2-3)

As Jordan observes, one by one, each of these guardian “bulldogs” turned bad and was replaced overnight. The final guardian was Rome, and we see Roman authorities protecting Christians from Jewish persecution in the book of Acts.

What does all of this background mean for Matthew 2?

This “Restoration Covenant” era began with young Jews taken as captives for training by the Chaldeans, the religious leaders of the Babylonian region. The book of Daniel sets them up as characters similar to those in Pharaoh’s court who opposed Moses. Daniel not only trumps their skill but ends up ruling them. He was taken captive to be taught, but rather than seeking their power, he humbled himself and became the teacher.

Since Daniel ruled the wise men, he redeemed them from pagan star gazing, a practice condemned by God because only He can interpret the stars, and He does so only to His prophets (Genesis 15:5; 22:17; 37:9, Deuteronomy 1:10; 4:19; 28:62, Judges 5:20; Isaiah 14:13; Jude 1:13; Revelation 1:16). Daniel was such a prophet, and he led these Gentiles to the truth concerning the stars. Stars are signs of the sons of God, those who are destined to ascend and rule the heavens.

Moreover, instead of seeking wisdom from the created heavens, the wise men now understood that “there is a God in heaven” who reveals such secrets. Daniel’s first resort after Nebuchadnezzar’s fury was the following advice to his brothers:

Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. (Daniel 2:17-18)

When summoned before the king, Daniel was as fearless concerning his testimony to the true God as he was in chapter 1.

Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. (Daniel 2:27-28)

It is unlikely that these events would have been forgotten, especially by the Chaldeans. This intervention by Daniel was a game changer. Indeed, it was remembered by the queen many decades later (Daniel 5:10-12), who advised that Daniel be called upon to interpret the handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar.

So, this era began with young Jews traveling to Babylon. Matthew begins with a delegation of wise men from the east who, it seems, were now far more enamored with the God of heaven than with the heavens themselves, and far more familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures than Herod and the rulers of Jerusalem. They would have known of Balaam’s prophecy concerning the star of Jacob (Numbers 24:15-19), and also the timing of the coming of the Messiah from Daniel’s “70 weeks” prophecy (Daniel 9). The irony of the fact that this infant king was a surprise to the rulers of Jerusalem, who seemed to have no reliable prophets in their employ, would not have been lost on Matthew’s first readers. It is also the arrival of the wise men which sets the kingdom of the Herods against the kingdom of heaven. It was their testimony to Herod which brought about the massacre of the innocents, an act which would have been a sign to all true Israelites that the redemption prefigured for many centuries was finally drawing near.

The wise men from the east understood the nature of true kingdom. It was not in the study of the stars but in the knowledge of the one who made the stars “for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,” to be “lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth” (Genesis 1:14-15)  Daniel is bookended by wise men, but the wise men at the beginning work for Nebuchadnezzar, and the wise men at the end work for God:

“And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.” (Daniel 12:3-4)

In Matthew, the time of the end, the last days (of Israel and the Old Covenant) was at hand, only one generation away. In Revelation, the book of Daniel is unsealed by the Lamb at His ascension, and the curses of Moses fall upon the Land for the last time. John’s prophecy describes the corruption of the fourth beast (under Nero), its “decommissioning,” and the destruction of the adulterous city of Jerusalem (Egypt, Sodom, Babylon) after the jealous inspection of the apostles’ cup (Numbers 5), all completed by AD70. The dominion of the “beasts” was superseded by the empire of The Man, following the pattern laid down on Day 6 in Genesis 1. [2]

The appearance of the Chaldeans is thus the beginning of the end. While those from the east were bringing their glory into the kingdom, the Herods were behaving like the sons of Joktan, the Shemites who “journeyed from the east” but ended up compromising with Nimrod’s Babel project, seeking a name for themselves rather than seeking God (Genesis 10-11:9).

Matthew’s narrative begins with wise men who were “angels” from the courts of earthly kings, guardians who had protected Israel until she gave birth to the promised One. They remembered Daniel of the tribe of Judah, the man without a kingdom who was showered with gifts:

Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. (Daniel 1:48)

Thanks to Daniel, they were not like the wise men of Nebuchadnezzar:

The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” (Daniel 2:10-11)

Now that they worshiped the God of heaven, He was not only pleased to speak to them in dreams as He did to Daniel, He was pleased to meet them in person, as a man on earth, a God who now dwelt in flesh.

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[1] For more fascinating background, see James B. Jordan’s, The Handwriting on the Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel.
[2] See the Creation Week in Israel’s history on Bible Matrix p. 191.

“John was not a court prophet but a man in skins, like Adam, representing both the goodness (covering) and severity (death) of God. John’s food and shelter, like his ministry, came directly from God, and was not the result of the wisdom of men.”

Matthew 10-15: HIERARCHY

The theme of the second major cycle of Matthew is the Hierarchy phase of the Covenant, which concerns the delegation of authority. This section contains seven cycles, a complete “week.” Identification of the structure answers some interesting questions concerning Jesus’ directives.

The “macrostructure” is as follows (click the link for the previous blog post):

The second cycle moves us from the “Genesis” of Jesus and His ministry to the beginnings of a new corporate Exodus.

Matthew 10 - Creation

The first half (“Head”) of this cycle concerns a witness to the house of Israel. Jesus tell the disciples to go out unprepared, that is, they are to rely upon the hospitality of their fellow Jews. The position of this account in the structure reveals this event to be a sort of “Passover.” As the disciples sought out the “worthy” Israelites, they were also to mark out the unreceptive houses for destruction. Shaking the dust from their feet relates to the Tabernacle, and also back to the cursed dust eaten by the serpent in Genesis 3. The house which rejected Jesus was no longer among the tents of Israel but would be given to the serpent and crushed underfoot.

The position of “sheep among wolves” at Ascension means that it concerns the identification and exaltation of the true sons of Abraham, the lambs of God. The division is between the scavenging dogs and the blameless lambs, the hunters and the hunted, the Esaus and the Jacobs. Because the matrix pattern is also found in the Ten Words, we can see a reinterpretation of honoring father and mother here: our heavenly Father is to be honored over our earthly fathers. This is exactly the test faced by the first century Jews: would they exalt their “Abrahamic flesh” over the faith of Abraham in the Father he was chosen to represent.

Jesus alludes to the Egyptian plagues with His reference to Beelzebul, “Baal the exalted,” which the Hebrews mocked by altering it to Beelzebub, “Lord of the flies.” This short paragraph concerns the nature of true kingdom, which is found only in submission to God.

Sparrows and hairs are the “swarms,” the abundance of Day 5, and Jesus also sneaks in a reference to money (plunder).

Just as the end of “Forming” spoke of the transfiguration family allegiance, so the end of “Filling” puts it to the sword. This would be the end of untransformed fleshly ties, leaving only the ties of faith. The last line,”whoever finds his life” concerns inheritance. Jesus moves it from the earthly Caanan to a heavenly one. Earthly inheritances were now to be despised, sacrificed for the sake of the lasting rewards of witness.

Finally, Matthew prefigures the words of Jesus concerning the sheep and the goats in chapter 25, at the end of the Ethics section. Both these appear at the “Booths” section in their respective structures, which means they refer to the food and shelter offered by “trees of righteousness.”

Matthew 11 – Division

Jesus ends His instruction to the disciples and begins to teach and preach in the cities. I hope you can see the “fractal” nature of His approach here. Each small cycle concerns Delegation, but replicates the same pattern in that Delegation.

The major theme here is cutting. It begins with John the Baptist’s question to Jesus concerning the signs of a Prophet. He knew He was priestly and kingly but asked if there would be another to fulfil the prophetic ministry. [1]

Jesus’ reference to soft clothing refers to the Temple Veil, and to robes of office. This is the Delegation line within the Delegation stanza within the Delegation cycle. John was not a court prophet but a man in skins, like Adam, representing both the goodness (covering) and severity (death) of God. John’s food and shelter, like his ministry, came directly from God, and was not the result of the wisdom of men.

At Ascension, John is lifted up as the greatest natural born man (Firstfruits), yet even he would be superseded by a better birth (so much for the desperate references to John’s in utero testimony in support of paedobaptism). The New Covenant is about life from the tomb, not life from the womb.

At Testing, Jesus refers to the long line of Cains who desired kingdom without prior priestly submission to God. The violence begun in Cain was institutionalized in Lamech and became culture-wide in the Nephilim, the men-who-would-be-gods. Of course, Jesus later mentions the long line of Abels who suffered at the hands of these men. All that blood would be avenged upon this generation to whom He and John spoke. Prophets come from the court of God to speak in the courts of the kings.

At Maturity, the immaturity of the Jews is exposed. Neither the Ascension fasting of John nor the Maturity feasting of Jesus (Old and New Covenants) is beyond their condemnation. Notice also the reference to music, a common Maturity symbol. They despise the silence of the Mosaic Tabernacle and yet reject also the “bridal” celebration of the Tabernacle of David.

The condemnation of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum follows the miraculous witness of the disciples, and must be a direct result of the unwillingness of the Jews in these cities to receive them. After all, it matches their sending chiastically in this cycle: Delegation always leads to Vindication.

Finally, Jesus’ reference to His yoke ties this section to the “Covenant identity” of Israel, taking God’s name (as a yoke) rather than being yoked to the Baals. This is a brilliant way of linking Step 2 (the yoke of delegated authority) with Step 7 (rest). Our rest in Jesus results in faithful service.

Matthew 12 – Ascension

The Ascension cycle begins (of course) with a reference to the fields of grain of Day 3 (as opposed to the fields of gold of Day 5?).

Now that we have moved to cycle 3 (Leviticus), the festal calendar of Leviticus 23 comes to the fore. The rest offered by Jesus in the previous cycle is tested and vindicated in the first story. And, just as Jesus was the “Beloved Son” in Matthew 3 (Ascension), so here there is a mention of David “the Beloved”) the ruddy-faced face-bread man.

Left and right hands have to do with priestly and kingly authority, hence the man with the withered hand being healed by “stretching it out,” a reference to both delegation and the Firmament. You might also remember that there is is a lot of stretching out of hands in the book of Exodus.

The third story contains a head and a body. After Matthew’s introduction, in which Jesus is “taken” as Firstfruits (like Enoch and Elijah), the body is very obviously structured after the  sevenfold Covenant. It also contains another reference to the Son as beloved. And it is also another instance of the “opening” of the scroll of Isaiah by Jesus.

At the centre, we have a call to discernment of spirits. It seems “blasphemy against the Spirit” is the Satanic twist on the Covenant Oath by those who usurp the Covenant and turn it into tyranny, those who have the “form” of religion without the “filling.” You will find more discussion on the binding of Satan in God’s Kitchen.

At Maturity, we seem to have a dual witness, the first relating to the Jews and the second to the Gentiles. The testimony “to the Jew first” concerns spiritual fruitfulness (“the fifth year” of circumcised fruit trees, Leviticus 19 – again, see God’s Kitchen for structure and discussion), and the “sign of Jonah” is the death, resurrection and successful witness to Gentiles of the Jewish prophet. Fish is a Day 5 symbol.

Atonement comes with the cleansing of Israel by Jesus as the High Priest, and her condemnation through the refusal of the Holy Spirit. The cycle ends with Jesus’ redefinition of Covenant inheritance and Covenant offspring, which make  the idea of “Covenant children” under the New Covenant an impossible conception. The New Covenant is about Representation, not Reproduction. These words appear where one would have found a genealogy or some reference to fertility in the Old Testament. If we do make the New Covenant a promise to our earthly offspring, we pervert the work of Christ in sorting out the true sons from the false, which leads to the next cycle: those who see and hear, and those who cannot.

Matthew 13:1-30 – Testing

Testing concerns the opening of the Law, the opening of the eyes to the intentions of God, as it was for Adam and Eve in the Garden.

Testing also corresponds to Pentecost, and threshing, hence the theme of sowing and reaping. Testing also concerns kingdom, and Jesus’ kingdom, at its heart, is that of the Spirit. Notice that Jesus uses a natural story at Delegation/Circumcision and reveals its supernatural meaning at Vindication/Baptism. Again, baptism is not about the Land and the womb but about the tomb, about ethical fruit.

Matthew 13:31-52 – Maturity

This cycle has worked through Priest and King, and with a multiplication of Parables moves to Prophet, and a sign of imminent emancipation.

The mustard seed is the beginning of a “burning bush,” a manifestation of the voice of God (the third pillar). The overall reference is actually to Genesis, and Adam’s call to be not only the source of a physical genealogy but also an ethical one. Leaven moves us to Exodus, and Jesus “opens the scroll” of the Parable of the Weeds at Ascension/Land. The treasure hidden in the field has a kingly theme, but may also refer to the mining of Havilah by the sons of God to build the Sanctuary of God, as Israel’s Spirit-filled craftsmen constructed the Tabernacle in the wilderness. As Paul Huxley observes, it is also the plot of the book of Ruth. [2]

As the first four of these parables refer to the Land, so the next two refer to the Sea. Step 5 brings us the merchant (plagues and plunder) who realizes that quality outstrips quantity (Maturity is about a “many” unified by one Spirit) and Step 6 goes fishing in the Laver. Instead of two goats (Land) this cleansing divides between good and bad fish (Sea). Notice that the division is not between two animals as a proxy for Israel but a division between multiple creatures depending upon the ethical quality of each individual. That is baptism. The “weeping and gnashing of teeth” refer to the outpouring of the Sanctions (“eye and tooth”) upon those who rejected the Vision and Prophecy, the “open eye and open mouth” legal witness of Christ and His Apostles.

The final stanza refers to the “scribe” who can unseal the true meaning of old Scriptures, through the work of the Spirit. Matthew was obviously one such scribe. As a Roman “accountant,” he could read (Forming) and now he was writing (Filling). As a side note, the Old Covenant Scriptures were written right-to-left (priestly submission), and the New Covenant left-to-write (kingly ascension). Here is the “there and back again” in the very direction of the text.

MATTHEW 13:53-14:36 – Conquest

The “Day of Coverings” cycle in this Hierarchy section appears to work through the Canaan-to-Canaan history of Israel.

In the first story, Jesus is rejected by his earthly brothers, the Jews, much like Joseph. In the second, John speaks against Herod (as Pharaoh) and is bound. He is beheaded as a sick kind of Firstfruits (the head of the sacrifice was offered first). Then we have Jesus in “a desolate place,” feeding His followers with loaves and fish (Land and Sea). The number 5000 is a military number, so this fivefold section is also subtly sevenfold, with John’s head and Jesus’ crowd as the “missing” Ethical elements.

At Sanctions, Jesus is the one who truly ascends and walks upon the Crystal Sea (beyond the Laver) and invites Peter to walk on the “waters above” as He does. They are Joshua’s priests walking across the overflowing river. The point here is not salvation by faith, but dominion by faith. The ministry of Peter and the other disciples will conquer the restless waters of the nations, and subdue the beasts that reside within the Sea.

Finally, we have another Day of Coverings allusion with the reference to healing through touching the fringe of Jesus’ robe. Yet this is also a “Succession” symbol, because the wings are a means of protection and shelter (Exodus 19:4; Matthew 23:37).

Matthew 15 – Booths

The final cycle sees Israel’s failure to minister to the Gentiles (which is the theme of Booths) fulfilled in Jesus.

God’s authority is usurped by the laws of men at Transcendence. Israel’s ministry is perverted at Hierarchy. At Ethics, Jesus steps in and rewards true faith in a woman from Tyre/Sidon. The move is from the Land to the Sea, from the disqualified Adam to the desire of Eve. Jesus is then “lifted up” and draws all men to Himself for healing. The cycle ends with another feeding of crowds. This time there are seven large (man-sized) baskets of leftovers instead of twelve small baskets. (The large baskets were of the kind which lowered Paul over the wall of Damascus). The move is therefore from the Table (twelve loaves) to the lampstand (seven lights). Jesus is threshing Israel and enabling human history to move from Priesthood (the Land) to true Kingdom (Land and Sea). We see the same thing in the Judges (twelve Judges, of whom seven were “elected,” ending the Mosaic era and leading to the Davidic). What does it mean that five loaves fed 5,000, and seven loaves fed 4,000? The crowds were Jewish in both instances. [3] Firstly, James Jordan observes that the reference to the “thousands” of Israel in Matthew 2:6 (citing Micah 5:2) is a reference to Israel’s military units. Five is a military number, and also the number of the Bride. But four is the number of the Land. When a four appears at the end of a cycle, it refers to the Land as an inheritance. The first crowd had been with Jesus only for one day. The second crowd had followed Him for three days without food and water. It seems that the five thousand was old Israel in the wilderness, and  the four thousand was a new Israel which had persevered in faith, more hungry for righteousness than for bread. Four is also the number of Testing, and these would inherit the promises. If we track back to Matthew 10, which matches this cycle in the Hierarchy chiasm, we can see another reference to the sheltering of Jesus’ true disciples. The four thousand were a multiplication of the original twelve, the foundation of a new, cruciform house, empty and awaiting the true Spirit as the true Bride.

This brings to an end Jesus’ “delegation” to the people of Israel, the Circumcision. In the Ethics section, He is confronted by the rulers of Israel, the serpentine enemies of the people. [4]

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[1] See Q&A: Did John The Baptist Doubt Jesus?
[2] See Fairy Tale in a Field
[3] See The Feeding of the 4,000 — Were They Gentiles?
[4] See When Judaism Jumped the Shark