Atheists love to embarrass Christians with a snide reference to the story of Elisha setting two bears upon some helpless children. What nobody, even Christians, seem to get is the “Covenant significance” of all the players in the story, harking back to Moses. The prophets were, after all, God’s “repo men.” [1]

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)

The structure of God’s work in the world finds its origin in His trinity: Word, Sacrament, Government (Discipline). Often in the prophets, the man of God is given a sign which is a type of a greater event to come. The prophet is the sacrament that mediates the Word of discipline to the People.

A few Old Testament examples stand out in my memory: the slavery of Joseph and the slavery of the Hebrews; the kingly upbringing, rejection, exodus and exaltation of Moses as Head, as qualification to take the “Body of Moses” through the same process; the promise of a son to the prophetess in Isaiah 7, whose childhood food would be the food of a nation ravaged by its lack of discernment; Ezekiel’s crazy antics that would be fulfilled in tragic history; and James Jordan’s very interesting applications of Daniel’s prophecies to Daniel’s own life in microcosm, as a sign of the future of his people. [1]

The examples of this process in the New Testament are most interesting, and mostly overlooked. There is, of course, Judas, who is exiled from the supper as the “second goat,” and whose fate is a sign for all Judah. [2] And the death and resurrection of Jesus as head, and the subsequent death of Israel and her resurrection as the completed Jew-Gentile Christian church.

The fate of Ananias and Sapphira is a sign that looks both backward and forward. The passage has two cycles, one for the Head (Ananias) and one for the Body (Sapphira). Between them, there is an ominous space of three hours.

We can see that the sin of this couple echoes that of Ahab’s and Jezebel’s murder of Naboth for his land. But this New Testament couple didn’t murder anyone. The sin against Naboth is what the sin in Acts 4 grows into if left unchecked, which is exactly what we see in the previously mentioned case of Judas and Judah. Garden sins grow into Land sins and then into World sins, at which point God brings a flood. [3]

No, their sin was deception of the church, those gathered by the Holy Ghost. Peter states clearly that Ananias had the power of judgment over his own money (and the structure of Peter’s speech puts the man at the centre as a “governing light”). Ananias’ death is the application of a New Covenant sanction. For him there was no Covenant succession. And, of course, the testing of Sapphira follows the same pattern. This couple was chosen, like Judas, to be an example for all those who would smuggle the leaven of a corrupted Old Covenant into Jesus’ New House.

So, two cycles, then the passage as a whole follows the Totus Christus head-and-body structure. The fact that they are delineated as separate events—husband and wife—suggests to me that this story is the “Day of Atonement” step of a larger pattern (see Totus Christus p. 387). Why?

We see the same thing in the life of Abraham, in his third “cycle.” He entered the Promised Land twice, briefly: once to offer Isaac and again to bury Sarah. He made the same two approaches as the High Priest on the Day of Atonement: once to cover the Head (the priesthood: bull’s blood) and once to cover the Body (the people: goat’s blood). This might seem arbitrary, but the structure makes it plain.

We see the same thing, of course, in Adam and Eve. Except that we don’t. The lack of capital punishment as a Covenant Sanction is a handy foil for those who believe that the death promised was only “spiritual death” (so they can cram their evolutionary Creation-by-death fantasies into Genesis). Adam and Eve were spared. Substitutionary animals were slain to cover their sin.

So, what’s the deal with the Adam, Eve, and serpent conspiracy in Acts 5? This was a New Creation, and such sins were going to be cut off at the source. Abraham entered the Land twice, and, as a kind of High Priest, survived in the Most Holy. Ananias and Sapphira sinned concerning the true Land, the heavenly country.

In his Revelation lectures, Jordan observes that all the sins which Jesus judges in the letters to the seven pastors are then shown to be full-grown in Herodian state worship. The “Balaamites” are false prophets and “Jezebel” is the church’s spiritual harlot. He calls the pastors, like Peter, to nip the sins in the bud. [4] As mentioned earlier, the conspiracy of Judas was amplified in the Jewish polity until the Man of Sin (as Ananias) and the Harlot (as Sapphira) were institutional sins that had reached an ugly maturity. The seven bowls in Revelation are the Day of Atonement. [5]

How are we doing reading the signs—both positive and negative—in our own lives, in the lives of the Christians we disciple (including our children), and the churches we pastor? The wisest of us read them in the Word (and in other people’s lives) and obey early, then develop holy lives (Sacrament), and live to become godly elders (Government). Many of us, however, wait until our disobedience begins to take on a life of its own (flesh: anti-Sacrament) before we act. And apostates keep at it until God brings a sword (Government) and they drop dead.

Ananias and Sapphira were a sign for those Jews who had tasted the Word of God and become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and would yet fall away. [6] They were also a sign to those who would take communion unworthily, which is an act of lying to the people of God and the Holy Spirit, concerning unconfessed sin, ie. “I have judged myself wisely, and need not to be judged.”

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[1] See James B. Jordan, The Handwriting on the Wall.
[2] See Fool’s Gold.
[3] See Trinitarian Judgments.
[4] See The Eighth Letter.
[5] See Seven Bowls of Wrath.
[6] Please note that, unlike many, I do not believe these people lost their salvation (if they were truly saved). The destruction referred to was the Jewish war, which is the context of the warnings in the Book of Hebrews.

PS: I’m taking a week off from blogging, so catch you on the 26th.

or Jesus, the Destroying Angel

James Jordan says the Revelation is like one of those old human anatomy teaching aids, the ones with layers of acetate. One starts with the skeleton and overlays the nervous system, arteries, organs, etc. They are all connected and yet each is a system that is individually identifiable. This is literature that is irreducibly complex.

For this to be possible in Biblical literature, many elements must have more than one function (as in our bodies). A simple illustration would be the structural significance of the book of Judges. In the slavery to Sabbath structure (the Dominion pattern), Judges is a sort of “Day 7.” But as Israel’s history progresses, this stage in the story becomes a “Day 3,” the (Promised) Land that ascended out of the waters of the nations, followed by the Davidic kings as the “Day 4″ ruling lights.

As a unit of seven letters, chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation serve multiple functions. The imagery involved is highly compressed, extremely dense: it has incredible gravity in every sense of the word. (See Totus Christus for a summary of Jordan’s exposition, or better yet, get the lectures. The depth of what is happening here will blow you away.)

Very often, from Call / Creation to Ascension, the Covenant Head has his own sevenfold pattern. He becomes the bread and wine on the table. But in a larger structure, this becomes Ascension (step 3) as the greater heptamerous pattern stretches out to the final feast of the Head and body at God’s table. We see this in John’s gospel (see Stirring the Waters.)

Revelation 1-5 are this initial structure. Jesus is Day 1, and John is “passed over” as Day 2, and exalted as “Day 3.” The seven Lampstand churches are the ruling lights at the centre of this pattern, and the ascended Christ as firstfruits Lamb, taking the throne, is the culmination of this section.

But the other facet of the letters becomes apparent as we move further out. The seven churches become those who are behind the door in the Passover (step 2) in a pattern that stretches from chapter 1 to chapter 11. Jesus is the destroying angel passing over them, passing judgment upon His people and correcting them in love. He is the blood on the door in the Holy Place (Ark = Light), and they are the human “furniture” (Lampstand = Lights).

This supports Jordan’s premise that the rest of the Revelation is the eighth letter. The Herods’ Jerusalem wanted to be a new beginning, an “eighth day.” All of the faults in the infant churches are shown to be full-grown in the Greater Jezebel.

This “eighth letter” describes her destruction. It is the New Covenant. As the Lamb breaks the seals, the Covenant blessings and curses plague and plunder the Land. To some, the scroll tastes of life, and to others, of death. It is the sword Jesus came to bring. He is the Destroying Angel who divides the living from the dead.

There would be No More Sacrifice For Sins. She would not be passed over as the Hebrews in Egypt, but passed through as the city of Jericho—totally devoted to the consuming fire. The new Israel would witness the old Holy Place’s de-Creation and its Lampstand being snuffed out. (See Thief in the Night.)

Part 1 here.

One thing the Bible Matrix demonstrates is the nature of history. Sure, it repeats itself. Everyone knows that. But our personal histories are microcosms of the lives and deaths of families, churches, nations and empires. Reading the Bible is like looking through a glass onion.

The structure of events in the primeval Garden are replayed in Cain and Abel, then in the sons of God. Garden; Land; World. Most Holy; Holy; Courts. Word; Sacrament; Government. Heaven; Mediator; Earth.

The pattern of creation was repeated in Adam and Eve, Word becoming flesh, but instead of the building of a greater Tabernacle out of raw materials, the dust devil of sin grew into a tornado, multiplying in speed and size, collecting material and taking on a body of its own—the entire race but for Noah.

Jesus reversed the pattern in the Garden. But it took all of the Old Testament to teach us what Jesus would actually do. We need to analyse all the occurrences of the pattern, all the different ways in which it was played out in history, to comprehend His redemptive achievement in all its glorious facets.

Just as death entered the world by the act of one man, it literally took a cast of thousands to portray the work of the Second Man. Cain slew Abel at the cross. Eve bore Seth as a replacement son in the resurrection. Enoch walked with God and was not at the ascension. Jonathan abdicated the Old Covenant and was resurrected as a New Covenant robe in David. Jephthah and David conquered as “Conquest” Land kings but had to die and be resurrected as “Glorification” World kings in Samson and Solomon respectively.

By the time of Jesus, the sin that was dealt with in the exile had again taken on a corporate body. God had divided and then scattered Solomon’s kingdom in judgment, but as God does, He scattered the people like seed. This enlarged His field. Jesus came to harvest this greater field. But the body of sin was also now much larger. The compromise between the Jewish sons of God and the Gentile daughters of men was empire-wide. Just as Lamech’s sin became institutionalised and ended the race, Ahab and Jezebel had again become a draconian church state under the Herods.

Jesus dealt with the cyclone by standing in the eye. His ministry itself took on a body, but in the gospels we see Him whittle it away until He stands alone and rejected. The crowds abandon Him, and then even His band of brothers is scattered. His seamless robe, a symbol of His kingdom, is taken away. It also symbolised the Covenant—the firmament. The firmament is a garment for God, filled with governing lights. No lights (disciples), no robe. Jesus is torn from the Father, and then, more alone than anyone until the final judgment, Jesus’ body itself is torn. All glory, all identity was gone, right down to the most personal, the most precious, the Most Holy.

He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him,
there is no beauty that we should desire Him.

“The guards came again, handing out coats. I could not understand at first why they took away all of our clothes only to give us in return garments that must have been worn by other women entering the [concentration] camp. But as I looked around at the women beside me withdrawn into their meagre, worn rags, I saw that we were no longer the strong women who had been able to endure hard labour, wartime conditions, and separation from our family and friends. The shearing of our heads and vulvas, the stealing of our clothes and everything we had owned, took from us the last traces of who we had been. My knapsack on the train, my mother’s chains and rings, would never be given back. I felt their loss almost as much as the loss of my hair. All I had left was Samuel’s ring.

When the guard reached me she held out a long gray coat. Without thinking I took it from her with my right hand. Immediately the guard circled the ring with her fingers and thumb, giving it a hard yank. My finger felt as if it were being pulled from me. The ring would not come off. Her grip tightened; the flesh around the ring was squeezed tightly. I cried out in pain.

‘Quiet!’ she hissed.

Again she pulled, spitting on the ring twice while she wiggled it back and forth. Finally, in one smooth movement, she scraped it over the ridge of my knuckle and slipped it off the end of my finger and into her pocket. Satisfied that no one had seen her, she shoved her crate of coats forward and moved on.” [1]

Crowds torn away. Family torn away. Disciples torn apart. Robe torn off. Beard torn off. Body torn … veil torn … torn … torn OPEN. And in the most exquisite plot twist in history, the plunderer was plundered. In the eye of the cyclone, in the Most Holy Place, the Gordian knot was cut.

In the eye of the cyclone, in the tomb, Jonathan became David. A new history, begun with this one-Man liturgy, was spoken into the Garden. Over the next forty years, the kingdom of the father of lies began to unravel in the Land. Like the climax of Peter and the Wolf, the more the Cunning Edomite Fox struggled, the tighter became the Apostolic rope around its neck.

Over the next forty years, Jesus took on a new body by His Spirit, and David became Solomon. Both John’s Old Covenant decrease and Jesus’ New Covenant increase became institutional. The headless Jonathan/John had a new Head. [2]

When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed.

The Word that tore open the Garden door began to tear open the Land. Revelation 14 shows Jesus again at the eye of a cyclone. This time He is an Angel with a sickle. The literary structure puts Him right at the centre, between the grain and the grapes [3]. It was time for His new “Land” body to follow Him through death and resurrection. The sickle swings and He harvests the saints as bread and wine. Now it was not just the eye but the whole Roman/Herodian cyclone that was red. What He accomplished on the cross was reenacted—filled up—in a cast of thousands. The empire was filled with violence and the corrupted sons of God disappeared beneath a flood of troops. [4]

The band of brothers we join is one of blood brothers. More Christians were martyred in the twentieth century than in the previous 19 centuries combined. As the victory in the Land continues to tear the World in two, the cast of thousands is now a cast of millions. Thankfully, the blood is always foundational. Spirit follows. [5] But we must be ready with our blood.

Could it take anything less than a cast of millions to picture the work of Christ? And perhaps we are still in the early days.

He shall see the labour of His soul and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant
shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.

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[1] Sarah Tuvel Bernstein, The Seamstress, A Memoir of Survival, pp. 198-199.
[2] King Saul, Jonathan’s “head,” was beheaded.
[3] See Totus Christus p. 557.
[4] See Jewish War by Peter Leithart.
[5] See The Whole Bloody Bible.

or Sinai Unspoken

On Mount Carmel, Elijah had built an altar of 12 rough-hewn stones. They substituted for the tribes of Israel. They were built and then consumed. The priests of Baal were slain and “washed” in the brook as atonement. The Land was clean. But we know Jezebel trampled this sacrifice underfoot. [1]

Elijah headed for the wilderness. He was a man with a mission. He went to the same cave in which Moses stood, a cleft in the rock. Once again, the Lord “passed over.” He was making a new Covenant, a new Creation, a new Heavens and a new Land.

1 Kings 19 follows the heptamerous Feasts pattern. Jezebel’s threat is the false “word,” a black Sabbath that sets things going. The Passover/Exodus is Elijah’s journey and sleep under the tree. The Firstfruits “ascension” is the command to eat. It is Day 3. In the Tabernacle it corresponds to the Bronze Altar, so the bread has been baked on “coals of fire.” It is the wilderness, so there is water instead of wine. This is also the step where dreams usually occur in pairs (as two witnesses), so the angel comes to Elijah twice with the message.

Pentecost: Elijah’s “Numbers” follows, forty days and nights. The Lord speaks to him in the cave (read, symbolically, grave). Following the pattern of Sinai (and Revelation) the Lord opens the seven seals of the Covenant document. In the Tabernacle, this is the seven lights of the Lampstand. It is a new government: sun, moon and five moving stars (the planets visible to the naked eye). But here, the stars are falling.

Day 1 – Light/Word/Sabbath Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD.”

Day 2 – Firmament/Holy Space/Passover: And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind;

Day 3 – Land/Mediatorial Head/Firstfruits: and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;

Day 4 – Lights/Holy Fire/Pentecost: and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire;

The Creation pattern often appears also as “de-Creation.” We see this in the de-construction of the visionary Temple in the early chapters of Ezekiel. Here, the Lord was de-Creating the old Covenant. Day 5 is about resurrection, clouds of smoke, multitudes flying and swimming in the spaces created. It about a triumphant rise from the grave to witness as Trumpets. What do we have instead?

No Day 5 – and after the fire the sound of silence. [3]

What does this mean? Michael Comins writes:

Qol dmamah daqah, the “still, small voice.” To my mind, this translation from the King James Bible is still among the better, English versions. Modern translations, however, render qol as a physical sound rather than a metaphorical voice, such as “a tiny whispering sound,” “the sound of a light whisper”  or the JPS’ profoundly unpoetic “a soft murmuring sound.” Simon and Garfunkel notwithstanding, critical scholarship does not entertain the “sound of silence.”

Nevertheless, I prefer to follow Rashi and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s literal rendering of qol dmamah, “a voice of silence.” Precedent for such a reading can be found in the book of Genesis, where God says to Cain, “the voice of your brother’s blood calls out to me” (Gen. 4:10). Here qol is a silent voice rather than an audible sound. And that, I believe, is precisely what Elijah hears: a voice without sound. [2]

Based on the structure of events, I want to challenge the common interpretation. It was not the voice of the Spirit, speaking to the prophet in some poetic Victorian hush. It was the silence of the grave. The decayed Covenant had been un-spoken. This was un-Sinai. Standing in the gap between the Lord and Ahab, Elijah was both Moses and un-Moses. [3]

Israel’s hypocrisy silenced her witness. Hers were the words of a silent witness, a corpse. The Spirit fire consumed the Adam-flesh/house instead of filling it with Eve-lights. Liturgically, Ahab’s kingdom was already no more.

The larger pattern resumes with an actual voice questioning Elijah. The witness of step 5 is Elijah’s testimony as martyr, wrapped in the robe of office, a new firmament, rising from the cave/grave. The multitudes are those who seek his life. It is an ironic and substitutionary Trumpets. [4]

“So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave.”

He pictures Moses returning from Sinai, the High Priest returning from the Most Holy, and of course Christ rising from the grave as the head of a New Covenant, ready to seal, gather and avenge the saints. Atonement. The ascension goat is the 7000 who have not bowed to Baal. [5] The rest would be exiled to Azal.

Booths: God gives Elijah instructions that will bring about the Day of the Lord, speaking these de-Creating words into history as prophet. It would not be rivers of Eden flowing from this mountain but rivers of blood. The judgment proceeds from here in the desolate “Garden”, to the Land and then to the Gentile World. And then this final point, as usual, concerns Covenant succession. The Lord directs Elijah to appoint his successor, Elisha. [6]

God is surprisingly predictable. And predictably surprising.

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[1] See No More Sacrifice for Sins.
[2] Michael Comins, Elijah and the “Still Small Voice,” A Desert Reading.
[3] According to Jordan, God was disowning the kings and making a kind of interim Covenant with the prophets, which is why we see Elijah parting waters and establishing a school for prophets. The kings were still “covered” but indirectly through the prophets.
[4] Note that in Adam’s testing, this is exactly the point at which he failed to witness to Eve “Deuteronomically,” repeating the Law he had heard “from the mountain.” It is also the point at which Abel’s blood speaks in Genesis 4. In Ezekiel’s big stucture, this is the step where God promises to reassemble both Israel and Judah as one new body from dry bones. See Haman Hamstrung.
[5] See Seven Thousand Who Have Not Bowed to Baal 1, 2 and 3. Note that I have above modified the chart in 1 slightly.
[6] Note that the sword of Jehu corresponds to the sword of the cherubim at the garden gate. In the big picture of the Restoration, the swords wouldn’t be sheathed until they were basically beaten into plowshares in Zechariah. See comments on Zechariah in Fragrance of Christ.

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[1] See No More Sacrifice for Sins.

I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, ”LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”? But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.  Romans 11:1-6

Romans 11 is one of those watershed passages. How one interprets it depends on one’s “plan of the ages” paradigm. If you haven’t read James Jordan’s The Future of Israel Re-examined, you need to. Due to its ramifications for interpretation of much of the New Testament, I believe it should be recognised as one of the most important writings of our time. It puts Romans, and especially chapters 9-11, fairly and squarely within a first century context. All would be fulfilled before AD70. God would make “a short work” in the Land. And He did.

It also helps with the interpretation of Revelation. Christ was a new Moses, just as Elijah was. He ascended and gave a double portion of His Spirit to the church as Elisha. The new body witnessed to Gentiles to provoke the hard-hearted Jews to jealousy. This has nothing to do with our day. It was a process confined to the end of the Old Covenant.

Not only do we see the fulfilment of Revelation’s Jezebel and false prophet (Balaam) in Herodian worship, it explains the references to Moses and Elijah as witnesses against Herod’s Egypt-Sodom-Israel, and his calling “fire from heaven” to deceive those who were not elect. As mentioned earlier, Paul’s reference to the Circumcision as the “mutilation” labels the Judaisers as prophets of Baal. The showdown on Carmel occurred at the cross but Israel continued in sin. [1] Instead of Assyria and Babylon, the Lord brought Roman armies as a flood to wipe out the “sons of God.”

Paul wrote Romans between these two events. Like Moses’ Israel, the first generation would not obtain what they sought.

Romans 11:

Sabbath – Seed of Abraham

Passover – Prophets killed, altars torn down, God’s man abandoned and alone

Firstfruits – Divine response: “You are not alone. You are the Covenant head.” Discussion of grace and works concerns the Law. Also, it is at this point in the greater structure of Revelation that the Jewish saints are sealed. Only Jews are numbered in the Bible. Gentiles never. Gentiles are a swarm.

Pentecost – Again, concerning eyes (stars) and the Lampstand and the wilderness, the rest were blinded. This blindness of Jews to bring sight to Gentiles is prefigured in Luke’s account of Elymas the Jewish Sorcerer (Acts 13; cf. Rev. 9:21), and of course in Paul’s own blindness before his commission as a witness to the Gentiles.

Trumpets – Paul’s witness to the Gentiles, who become “plunder“, a new army

Atonement – Jews cast out that Gentiles may come in. The reconciling of the world

Tabernacles – Discussion concerning the olive tree and its branches. The prophecy of Zechariah concerning Gentiles keeping the feast of Tabernacles was fulfilled in the first century. After AD70 there is no longer Jew nor Gentile in God’s economy, but one new complete Body.

 
Now, please go and read Jordan’s essay! One more post to go on this subject, concerning Revelation 11:13:

“In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven.”

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[1] See No More Sacrifice for Sins.

Elijah’s twelve stone altar “died” in the place of Israel, paying the debt for her idolatries, burned to nothing as a priest’s daughter who had committed harlotries. That passage follows the Bible matrix, with the prophets of Baal slaughtered as the scapegoat (washed from the Land in the “Laver” of Kidron, no less).

Did Ahab and Jezebel repent? No, they filled up their sins.[1] So Elijah made an exodus to Sinai. This, too, follows the pattern. Elijah is a new Moses, and he makes a new Covenant for the remnant which will bring about the destruction of Ahab’s dynasty. His “new creation” will be built on the corpse of the old.

This chart from Totus Christus: [2]

Genesis/Light – Ahab brings the word to Jezebel of Elijah’s execution of her prophets, and she threatens Elijah’s life

Exodus/Veil [Passover] - Elijah heads for the wilderness and prays that he might die. He falls asleep under a broom tree

Leviticus/Altar & Table [Firstfruits] - The Lord miraculously feeds him with bread and water. He walks forty days and nights and like Moses, ascends Sinai. Unlike Moses, he pleads with God to judge Israel

Numbers/Lampstand [Pentecost] - As a new Moses, he stands in exactly the same cave Moses did as the Lord’s glory passes by

Deuteronomy/Incense [Trumpets] – Elijah is told to build a new house by anointing Hazael king of Syria, Jehu king of Israel, and his very own “Joshua”—Elisha

Joshua/High Priest [Atonement] – The Lord tells Elijah that He has “separated” for Himself seven thousand faithful prophets

Judges/Shekinah [Tabernacles] – Elijah’s “dynasty” is extended as he throws his robe over Elisha

Notice:
Jezebel’s word is “light” only in irony.
Elijah, as is usual for the prophets at Step 2, falls on his face, humbled so he can be exalted and given a new task.
Moses begged the Lord to spare Israel. Elijah begs Him to destroy them!
The “tomb” at the centre of the pattern. [3]
Step 5 is Moses’ last book. He hands the leadership to Joshua.
The “seven thousand” faithful men are the seven sprinklings of the Day of Covering.
Step 7 involves Covenant succession [4]. Elisha later called Elijah his “father”.

All the names and the numbers in Revelation are symbols based on historical facts. The names are easy. Jezebel, Antipas, Balaam… But we mathematical moderns have trouble taking numbers as symbols. We are only interested in descriptions, not relationships. In the Bible, symbols describe relationships. As David Chilton observes in The Days of Vengeance [PDF], the symbolic value of someone or something is not a description of its nature, but a description of its relationship to someone or something else. Hence, as Jordan observes, Satan is both a dragon and a serpent in Revelation 12. He is a serpent to the Woman and a dragon to her children.

The debate over certain numbers in Revelation is amazing. For the meaning of 666, see here.

The thousand years of Revelation 20 is to be understood in the same way. It’s no more tricksy than any allusion to the number 42 being the answer to life, the universe, and everything in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You have to have read the book to “get it.” [1] As Peter Leithart illustrates in Deep Exegesis, the text, among other things, is a joke.

It was a thousand years from the offering of Isaac to the day David purchased the threshing floor of Aruanah. These events occurred on the same site. It was the end of mobile worship. James Jordan’s Bible chronology shows that from the completion of the construction of Solomon’s Temple to the destruction of Herod’s Temple, it was, again, a thousand years. It was the end of Temple worship.

So, based on these beginnings and endings, what does this number mean for the gospel age, governed from heaven by the Son of God and His ascended saints? Once all this has been pointed out, it ain’t rocket science.

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[1] The answer “42″ was so funny because it was totally bereft of any meaning other than a scientific description.

“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins” - Hebrews 10:26

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

Did Christ die for all? If Jesus’ blood was not shed for all, how can it possibly be a sin to “trample it underfoot” as the unbelieving Jews did? (Hebrews 10:29)

Elijah set up a 12 stone altar as a substitute for Israel. The sacrifice ascended to the Lord (goat #1) and the prophets were slain (goat #2). Thus, the Baal worship was atoned for.

But Jezebel trampled this sacrifice underfoot, and continued in sin. In retaliation, she slew the prophets that Obadiah had hidden. Consequently she was trampled underfoot. (2 Kings 9:33).

The New Testament history, including the Revelation, follows this pattern. Jesus set up a new 12 apostle priesthood and Israel slew Him and them. Consequently, Israel was slain, as Jezebel. That is the context of the Hebrews passage, and the meaning of the harlot of Babylon.

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[1] Loraine Boettner, Limited Atonement.
[2] James B. Jordan, The Offertory, RITE REASONS No. 97. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com. The debates about whether the Ark-cover was for propitiation or expiation miss the point.

P.S. The expressions on the faces of the servants in the image above indicates that the artist thought they were believers, not just obedient servants. Now that is an excommunication. Perhaps they feared an evaluation by the Lord such as in Revelation 2:20: “Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.”

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.

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