“A baptism which does not discern between the fruit of the womb and the fruit of the tomb is anti-Christ, denying He has come in the flesh.”

This post follows on from Exposed To The Elements.

An online paedobaptist friend commented that he had never heard sacred architecture offered as an argument for credobaptism before. My experience with the brilliant Bible teaching by the various Federal Vision gents is that I get a principle under my belt, then automatically begin to see its implications for all of Scripture. But then numerous times I would be surprised when no one had thought of applying it consistently. The main offender is paedobaptism. Despite their claims, it is a rite that does not spring naturally from Scripture. In fact, it has to be protected from Scripture, from the very principles I have been taught by paedobaptists.

There’s a reason that people with Asperger’s are being employed to find bugs in software. We can hold a lot of data in “working RAM” at once, which means we can “spot the difference” visually. Penelope Trunk writes:

 I have a feeling that what gave me the ability to bridge from a quirky writer to a marketable writer was focusing obsessively on Generation Y. Nobody could memorize the facts as fast as I did, and because they were all in my head I could synthesize them faster than everybody else and come up with trends. [1]

My friend Chris Wooldridge is a data analyst. His job is to find trends in data and present them pictorially. I have no doubt this is why he has picked up the Bible Matrix so quickly and is parsing passages like an old hand. To some degree, this ability requires having all the other key instances of the matrix in a “holding pattern” so they can be overlaid and compared. It is immensely beautiful, and it is one of two reasons why the practice of paedobaptism irks me so much. It is the fly in the ointment, the bug in the software. The Bible Matrix is the DNA of the Scriptures, which, like DNA, have a mechanism of self-correction. The matrix process of maturity rejects paedobaptism in every instance. Not only is the practice never described or commanded in Scripture, forces the redefinition of Christian, Church, Gospel, faith and just about everything else in its perverted path, the very DNA of the Bible treats it as a foreign body to be neutralized, a bug to be exterminated, an error to be corrected. The structure of the Scriptures themselves is as fussy as someone with OCD.

Now that I have many of my readers in defensive mode, I would like to take a look at a very simplified version of the architecture which makes paedobaptism the impossible doctrine. This has to do with the definition of “son of God.” Are sprinkled babies children of God? Both James Jordan and Peter Leithart maintains that the Gospel “redeems” natural patterns. I agree with them to some point. But their conflation of the image with the imager is an unwitting form of idolatry, with infants as the idols. They claim that paedobaptism is a New Covenant version of circumcision, at least as far as defining the boundary of the Covenant people (Jordan rightly says that circumcision is not baptism, and we strangely agree on many other points.) But a son of God is not a son of man. Paedobaptists love to abuse the Covenant with Abraham to support their well-meaning but perverted rite. I want to undermine that by taking us right back to the Garden of Eden.

Jesus called Himself “the Son of Adam,” a fact made clearer by the use of the phrase concerning the prophet Ezekiel, in whose book it appears over 90 times. I believe the reason is that Ezekiel is the only prophet given access to the heavenly Sanctuary, the throne of God. He is made, as Jordan observes, a kind of “rival High Priest in exile,” much as was Jesus many centuries later. The prophet is symbolically slain, falling on his face, then lifted up and filled with the Spirit of God. As a new Adam, he goes through a process of death and resurrection, and the rest of the book describes the same process measured out upon Israel.

But Jesus also called Himself “the Son of God.” This has an entirely different meaning. It is not genealogical, since it does not refer to an earthly father but the heavenly Father. An earthly father is most certainly an image of the heavenly Father, but the two cannot be conflated. The Pharisees who challenged Jesus had Abraham as their earthly father, and the devil as their heavenly father.

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and bhas nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:44-47)

Based upon the relationship between the Father and the Son in heaven, that which is at the heart of earthly sonhood is Representation. This is why the Succession step of the matrix process often concerns physical offspring in many Old Testament passages. It refers to genealogical Succession in history, God’s faithfulness to many generations of the faithful. But the New Testament moves the goal posts. Instead of physical offspring, it puts Gospel messengers at this point in every instance. The emphasis has moved from earthly sonhood to heavenly sonhood, from sons of Adam to sons of God. The switch began at the baptism of Jesus, the only Adam who was both.

At Jesus’ baptism, the Father chose Him from among all the other circumcised sons of Israel. It is the same scenario as that which brought about the anointing of David. All the possible choices were circumcised in the flesh, but God looked upon the heart of Jesus. This heart alone pleased Him. David’s name means “Beloved,” and I have no doubt that this is why the heavenly Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Since Christ was the only one who truly displayed Priestly submission, He was chosen to be King.

From that moment, Jesus, like David, was no longer under the authority of His earthly father. This was hinted at in the event of Jesus’ disappearance at age 12, a kind of “Firstfruits.” Baptism for every Christian is the point when the individual becomes directly accountable to his new Father, to Christ, and to Christ’s Church. As Jesus did, the baptizand bows to the authority of heaven that he or she might speak with the authority of heaven.

At the instant of Jesus’ baptism, there was only one true Jew, a brand new Adam. Just as Adam was a man without genealogy, whose Father was God, so for Jesus, all heredity, all circumcision and non-circumcision, was left behind in the water of baptism. This included allegiance to Abraham, the earthly father, since the heavenly Father had now revealed Himself for the first time in history.

So, what of circumcision? This is simple, indeed, so simple that it amazes me that so many bright Reformed theologians and Christians have not thought things through with any consistent logic, especially the ones who are aware of the dominion promises in Genesis 2. If Adam was faithful as the son of God, God would make Adam a father. Both the womb and the land would be opened to him, producing their fruit in season, just as Adam had produced the fruits of righteousness, a circumcised heart, to his own Father. In Abraham, the “Great Father” who was by nature barren, both the curse and promise concerning the land and the womb were repeated. Canaan was initially barren, but we will deal with that another time (it’s quite fascinating!) and of course Sarah was barren. Circumcision was given to Abraham because he was faithful. It was a symbolic “pruning” that both the womb and land might be opened. At every point, the Firstfruits was to be given to God, including Isaac. Baptism is a rite not for the inheritance but for the inheritor. The “architectural” background of all the Psalms is Edenic.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
(Psalm 127:3-5)

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the Lord.
(Psalm 128:1-4)

You can see from the diagram above that baptism is a rite that concerns circumcision of heart (things above: the Edenic Laver/Spring) that God might bless the believer with fruitfulness (things below: the Bronze Altar-Land). With the coming of Christ in the flesh, the promises to Abraham were fulfilled. The relationship of heredity to the Covenant was removed forever. It no longer mattered whether one was a Jew or a Gentile. The only household is the household of faith. The only sonhood is submission to the Father by the faith of the Son. A baptism which does not discern between the fruit of the womb (Land: below) and the fruit of the tomb (Garden: above) is anti-Christ, denying He has come in the flesh. Why do many of the world’s best Bible teachers, including many friends, fail to see this practice for what it is, especially those who know their way around biblical architecture?

Baptism is thus not about generation but regeneration. James Jordan claims that “regeneration” refers not to individuals but to the regeneration of the world in general, thus unregenerate offspring can be included in this process. But that is not the picture given in Scripture at all. Once again, the image is conflated with the original, the source confused with the result. And all the support given for paedobaptism relies on “Abrahamic” verses, texts about the earthly image. [2] In paedobaptism, the heavenly Father is conflated with earthly fathers, and the heavenly Son who, like Melchizedek has no genealogy, no earthly father, is confused with the sons of Aaron for whom genealogy was crucial.

If the Lord had slain Adam and Eve for Adam’s sin, it is obvious that the fruit of the womb and the land also would have been cut off. But Adam’s death was the source of this lack of natural fruit. Adam’s death had to do with his relationship to the heavenly Father. So baptism is not related to either the fruit of the Land or the fruit of the womb. It has to do with the fruit of righteousness, and these other things are only the result of that initial “Garden” fruit. Jesus’ death as Adam was prefigured in His baptism. He was not sprinkled or poured upon by John. He was submerged, slain, like the entire world during the Physical Flood, like Israel under Babylon and Rome in Social Floods. Only submersion pictures the complete end of the Old Order and the beginning of the New. The dove is never present over the Land, but only over the waters. If you have never been immersed, you have failed to publicly testify as Jesus did, that the old is gone and the new has come.

A paedobaptism is a false testimony. It says that a son of Adam is by nature a son of God. Even Jews would never claim such a thing. Every “begat,” every “bar,” was a testimony to earthly lineage. Even they understood the difference between physical offspring and those who represented not their earthly fathers but the heavenly Father. A son of God is one who has Sanctuary access not by the flesh but by the Spirit because they please God, having been slain and lifted up like Ezekiel, leaving that fiery courtroom as His representative on earth, to divide between light and darkness with his words as Adam did not and Jesus did. Jesus did not come to have earthly sons but heavenly ones (Hebrews 2:13), images of Himself not Physically or Socially but Ethically.

Now, my friends like to claim that their sprinkled children have Sanctuary access because they received the Spirit in their baptism and are now a child of God. Some even claim that infants who have not heard the Gospel have faith in God (the stupidity of this still blows me away. Who needs the Gospel, then?). This all stems from their unwillingness to discern the difference between earthly parents and the Eternal Parent, the image and the reality. Here is an example from my otherwise wise friend Toby Sumpter, who tweeted:

 Christians who spank their kids in love are high sacramentalists: they believe the Spirit saves souls through material means (Proverbs 23:14).

This is as confused as the claim that infants are believers because they trust God on their mother’s breast (Psalm 22:9). The Psalmist conflates the heavenly with the earthly poetically because one leads to the other, but they are not the same thing. The natural comes first, and then the spiritual. It is a process of maturity. The entire point of baptism is that one no longer needs to be spanked by one’s parents because one now serves the Father in heaven. Again, baptism is for the inheritor, not the inheritance, for the earthly father, not his babies. When Jesus blessed the children, who was the baptised one? It was Jesus. Somehow, everyone overlooks the obvious because they are looking for support for something else.

The blindness involved in such teaching mystifies me. Baptism is for heavenly sonhood and confers Sanctuary access as a representative of the Father. The only choice for paedobaptists is to eliminate the efficacy of baptism (and deny Sanctuary access) or to maintain the efficacy and minimise the requirement for heart circumcision. Both are really stupid, unbiblical ideas, and the solution is incredibly obvious. But I have no doubt they’ll keep fighting over this for decades to come, trying to unite heaven and earth by the will of man rather than by the true work of God in the hearts of contrite men and women, relying on badly composed, complicated statements by Reformers whose typological skills were not far removed from the sophistries of Rome, and thinking that because they have been sprinkled, witnessed so many sprinklings, and perhaps even performed their own sprinklings, this perversion must be the work of God. (I would draw a helpful diagram to demonstrate the difference between a womb and a tomb, but I haven’t got a crayon. I’m sure you can work it out.)

I hate paedobaptism because I love the Bible, which spits it out at every opportunity. But I also hate paedobaptism because I love the Gospel of repentance and faith, and an inheritance of the Spirit which expresses itself in willing identification with the sufferings of Christ. If this is offensive to you, you neither understand the promises to Abraham, or the promises in Christ. They are very different things, as different as the heavens are from the earth. They are obscured by well-meaning but carnal doctrine.

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[1] Penelope Trunk, 3 Things you need to know about people with Asperger’s.
[2] With such a misguided foundation, it is little wonder that my friend Luke Welch takes things to such shocking but logical conclusions. Apparently, the children of Christians are like Aaronic priests, who were symbolic sacrifices for sin.

“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

“So, perhaps the best conclusion is that John was not looking for encouragement, but giving encouragement. In effect, he was saying, ‘Get on with it, cousin!’”

The nature of the texts of the Bible is just like the spoken words God gave to Adam. A great deal remained unsaid, and Adam was to “read between the lines” based upon God’s revealed character as his Father. However, Adam let somebody else fill in the gaps with some conflicting information about God’s character, somebody who was very likely jealous of Adam’s commission and had an ax to grind (and even here, we are left to fill in the gaps as to Satan’s motive based upon later scriptures!)

The record of John the Baptist’s question to Jesus similarly doesn’t give us all the information. All the texts are written to make us think very hard and very deeply, and to call to mind things we have read in previous texts. Some Christian writers fill in the gaps concerning the reason for John’s question with a view to helping Christians who experience doubt (here’s an example). There are certainly other texts that speak of doubt which could indicate that this was what John was experiencing.

And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24)

But is this what is really going on here? Or is this interpretation one that shows both our ignorance of the Old Testament and of the Bible’s fundamental “Covenant” structure? What if the question asked by John had nothing to do with doubt, but simply his expectations of Jesus based on the roles in the Triune Office? (See The Triune Office.)

Unlike Adam, John would have had no doubts about Jesus’ Divine character. James Jordan observes that John would have seen his cousin at least three times every year at the regular feasts, which John would still have been required to attend even after he moved into the wilderness as an adult to begin his ministry.

John knew that Jesus was the Great Priest because he referred to Him as the lamb of God, who had come to take away the sins of the world. John also knew that Jesus was the Great King because he had then seen Him anointed directly by the Father (in the Old Testament, the prophets who anointed kings were often referred to as “father.” Likewise, Joseph is referred to by Pharaoh as “father.” See Peter Leithart’s book on 1 and 2 Samuel, A Son To Me.) James Jordan suggests that John’s question was about Jesus being the Great Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15), the one about whom the priests and Levites had questioned John himself (John 1:21). Priests do not do miracles. Neither do kings. Only prophets do miracles, and John was simply wondering if the Triune Office would be fulfilled in a single Adam. Was Jesus doing the kinds of things that prophets like Elijah and Elisha did, things that John himself, as “Elijah,” never did?

And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ ” In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Luke 7:20-23)

This also makes sense of the final sentence concerning “offense.” Historically, the prophets were killed because the Covenant-legal message they brought was offensive to the Covenant breakers.

So, perhaps the best conclusion is that John was not looking for encouragement, but giving encouragement. In effect, he was saying, “Get on with it!”

Moving from deduction by logic to literary structure, do we see this conclusion supported in the shape of Luke’s text? I believe we do. (Thanks to Albert Garlando for his initial work on the structure of this passage.)

Covenant structure of Luke 7 – 8

Alan Kerr (The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (Library of New Testament Studies), 71) offers this comment on Jesus’ statement that Nicodemus had to be born of the Spirit before entering the kingdom: “It is almost universally accepted that Spirit here refers to the Spirit of God. But at this stage in the Gospel there was no Spirit (7:39), because Jesus was not yet glorified. It is not until Jesus is risen and appears to the disciples and breathes on them and says, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ that the Spirit is given (20:22). So from the point of view of Johannine timing what Jesus says to Nicodemus should only be realized in a post-resurrection setting. Properly speaking he can only be reborn from above when Jesus is glorified.”

This obviously affects the use of John 3:5 as a proof text for the doctrine of regeneration.

Is this support for the ‘giving of the Spirit’ in paedobaptism?

Read Bowing the Heavens.

Firstly, we must make a distinction between the Spirit “coming upon” people and “indwelling” people. The world is sacrificial in nature. The process of sacrifice is a recapitulation of Genesis 1. The process begun in the physical Creation (Genesis 1) is repeated in the social Creation (Genesis 2) and then the spiritual (ethical) Creation (Genesis 3). Flesh is cut, the Spirit comes down (upon it) and the flesh is transformed into a smoky (spiritual) body, a one-and-many.

When Jesus breathed on His disciples, they didn’t receive the Holy Spirit. That happened at Pentecost. All they received was His physical breath (as did Adam in Genesis 2). But the physical breath was a “liturgical” promise of spiritual, that is, ethical breath. Adam would not only have life, but “abundant life,” that is, life in the Spirit, life that reproduces not only the form of God in flesh, but the filling of God, making men of one mind with God and with one another. Only one this threefold process was complete would Adam be a “living sacrifice.”

So, generation (flesh) and regeneration (fire and smoke) are part of the same process, but they are not the same events in that process. With that sacrificial process in mind (flesh, fire smoke), we can get down to business.

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

This is a reference to God’s cloud, the one Jesus was taken into just before He sent the Spirit. Jesus was taken up in the flesh (take note hyperpreterists), He sent the fire of the Spirit, and His disciples, the true Jews, became a cloud of fragrant smoke (note that the Judaizers are describes as a ravenous cloud of sulphur in the Revelation).

Nicodemus speaks of a second earthly (earthy?) birth. Christ says the second birth is from above. Water and Spirit refers to His baptism, at which Jesus was the same as all John’s previous clients according to the flesh (just like Samuel working his way through all Jesse’s sons before the Lord chose David. See A King Among Sons). What was different about David (“Beloved”) and the Beloved Son? Not the flesh.

Jesus turned John’s “waters below” baptism into a “waters above” baptism, which is exactly what the first Elijah did on Mount Carmel. [1] The baptism of John was the water Elijah tipped over the altar. Physically it was the same as the altar of Baal, only wetter — until the Spirit descended and heaven met earth. Then it became prophetic. Elijah “bowed the heavens” — calling them down so that God’s will would be done on earth as in heaven. As in the days of Noah, the waters below came up and the waters above came down, and washed the Altar-Land clean. The end came with a flood and the wicked were washed away.

Elijah’s twelve-stone altar, like Jesus’ body, was the holy mountain in miniature, a representative of all Israel. Because it was a faithful reproduction, God honored it and reproduced it at full-size. What Elijah did as “liturgy,” God then performed in reality.

Then the whole mountain became Elijah’s altar, and the blood of the priests of Baal was the blood in the brook at its base. The singular descent of the Spirit turned God’s people into fiery chariots. Elijah “bowed the heavens”, which is what John did at Jesus’ baptism. Eyes were opened, men were suddenly in the heavenly court, and the truth was exposed. Jesus was vindicated from heaven. Unlike John’s earthly model, Jesus’ “waters above” baptism designates us as representatives upon the crystal sea, the place of vindicated elders who eat and drink with God on the mountain and come down as flaming swords.

John 3 is certainly a reference to Pentecost. Even though the events had not yet taken place, every event in the Old Testament prefigured what was about to take place at the centre of history: the descent of the fire upon all flesh. Some men would be smoke. Others would be ashes. Jesus is talking about every individual becoming a glory cloud, a chariot, a mysterious prophet motivated by unseen things, marching to God’s drum — a miniature of the whole New Covenant prophetic body.

So, regarding regeneration, it’s not either/or. The process of regeneration begins with santified (set apart) flesh on the altar, but the “watershed” moment is the descent of the fire.

What was the result of this fire? Seeing the kingdom of God. To “see” the kingdom is to “perceive” or “discern” it — like the prophet opening the eyes of his servant to the spiritual war behind the flesh and blood.

And Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.”

Being “born again” makes one a spiritual warrior. The fire that came upon now indwells, and God’s people become His body. This means Baal and the other flesh-cutters are goners, as they were in AD70.

Even at its best, paedobaptism could only ever be a baptism of John, and that was only for the twelve stone Altar, for repentant Jews awaiting the Spirit, like Nicodemus. The sacrificial body was washed and placed on the altar. But it wasn’t alive.

As a corollary to this, once the body was transformed by fire, there was no going back, no apostasy possible. There are certainly pretenders to regeneration, but over time the saints get a whiff of sulphur and have to drag them back to the Altar and the knife of the Gospel.

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[1] Interestingly, for Israel, the Nile was the “waters below” and the rain of Canaan, the “waters above.” Now that Herod had slain infants, the Jordan was a new “waters below.”

From Tim Gallant’s blog:

The Sabbath and the Day of Yahweh

It strikes me that people tend to read the conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees in the Gospels as a matter of incompatible casuistries. “The Pharisees are applying the fourth commandment wrongly because they don’t make the proper exceptions for works of necessity, works of mercy and works of piety.”
But when we consider the Gospels themselves, it is hard to take that approach all that seriously. The Gospels globally are not about Jesus needing to correct the moral vision of His opponents in connection with their reading of Torah (even if that may come up occasionally on the fringes).

The Gospels are about JESUS. The reason He comes into conflict repeatedly with the Pharisees on this is not merely that they have too many minutiae attached to the rulebook, nor that they forgot some categories of exceptions.

Rather, the reason is that Jesus presents HIMSELF as the embodiment of true Sabbath, doing what Torah could not do. We look at Jesus’ Sabbath healings and conclude: “Aha, works of mercy are exceptions to the general rule.” But although Jesus observes that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath, that is hardly His fundamental point. We should not miss that Jesus is performing HEALINGS by a power that His opponents did not have, no matter how good they may have been at lawkeeping.

So long as we view the Gospel Sabbath episodes primarily as moral directives, we will misread them. They are primarily signs of an inbreaking kingdom that transcends the old creation and its Torah.

This of course is why the supposed problem of “only nine commandments” is beside the point. As Jordan says, the Ten Words were Israel’s charter. While the other Nine Words are transformed but retransmitted to the Church, it is not at all problematic to say that the Fourth Commandment does not simply switch days of the week and carry on. In the Gospels, the Fourth Commandment plays a key role, but not because it needs to stick around in any independent way. It plays a key role because Jesus is emerging from its heart with something new: His arrival is the arrival of the Day of Yahweh, promised throughout the prophets.

It is no accident that in Matthew 11-12, the narrative flows from John the Baptizer to Jesus the rest-giver, and on into Sabbath conflicts. In Malachi 3-4, the Day of the Yahweh would be marked by the messenger of the covenant purifying the sons of Levi as well as bringing justice and hope to the poor and oppressed. A time of new creation would arrive. This would be preceded by “Elijah the prophet.”

Jesus’ Sabbath healings are not merely intended as a generalized picture that doing generic good (“works of mercy”) is a suitable activity for the Sabbath. Rather, they demonstrate that in Him, not only is a “greater than the temple” present, but that the Day of Yahweh has arrived, transcending the Sabbath. The seventh day Sabbath is part of the first creation, but now, in Jesus, the new creation has come in the eschatological Day of Yahweh.

He is Yahweh; and His ministry is the Day of Yahweh.

And thus He says, “Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”—a rest that the law’s Sabbath could not give.

The “Day of Yahweh” is translated “the Day of the LORD” (Kuriou) in the LXX (Greek OT) and thus into the New Testament. It is therefore no surprise when we get to the Revelation of St John, and he uses another form for that genitive: “the LORD’s Day” (Rev 1:10). On the first day of the week, when the disciples around the Roman world were gathering into the presence of the God of Israel, John was alone, exiled on Patmos, but “in the Spirit” he enters into God’s throne room where that host of believers has also gathered for worship.

And there, John sees what? He sees the unfolding apocalypse (revelation) of “the Day of the LORD,” beginning with preliminary judgments and culminating in the final one.

It is fair to say that in the New Testament vision, Lord’s Day worship is a miniature, a preliminary anticipation of the final Day of Yahweh. The reason that Hebrews says not to forsake the assembling together “as you see the Day approaching” is that the assembly itself partakes of the character of that Day.

The Sabbatarian vision is too small. This is why Paul chides the Galatians for observing “days and months and seasons and years.” The Sabbath, along with the Torah administration as a whole, belonged to the stoicheia, the “elements of the world,” the things that constituted the first creation.

But for us, there is something more than that. We gather into the Day of Yahweh, and find not merely physical rest, but an eschatological event that is busy setting the kosmos to rights, even as Yahweh incarnate did throughout His earthly ministry.

“Now therefore fear the Lord (T)
and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. (H)
Put away the gods that your fathers served (E)
beyond the River and in Egypt, (O)
and serve the Lord.” (S)
Joshua 24:14

40 Years of Harlotry

Israel famously wandered in the wilderness for forty years. They were tested, offered as a sacrifice and refined with the holy fire of the Law of Moses. This “threshing” process appears at the centre of the Bible Matrix. It is pictured as the time of harvest (Pentecost – the giving of the Law), and as the burning eyes of the Lampstand watching over Israel (sun, moon and five visible planets). In the Covenant pattern it is the “Ethics,” the bit where God lays out the rules for success. Threshing is also a biblical euphemism for sexual relations. At this point, under the Lawful eyes of God, Israel is either shown to be a faithful bride or an adulteress. Is the fire of her desire true or “strange” (foreign). We can see this pattern in James 1:15. It is a sick parody of the Covenant process because it begins with a “false word.”

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

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ART: Burning of the Golden Calf by Moses, by Robert J. Tiess, blenderartists.org

T R A N S C E N D E N C E
Creation : Day 1 – Spirit/Ark – Genesis
The Lord commands Samuel to fill his horn with oil

H I E R A R C H Y
Division : Day 2 – Firmament/Veil – Exodus
The Lord sends Samuel under the pretense of making a sacrifice.

E T H I C S – 1
Ascension : Day 3 – Land & Sea – Grain & Fruit/Altar & Table – Leviticus
Samuel obeys and travels to Bayith-Lechem (House of Bread). He commands Jesse and his sons to consecrate themselves. The first son is presented as the “Head,” the firstfruits, but is rejected.

E T H I C S – 2
Testing : Day 4 – Ruling Lights/Lampstand – Numbers
Jesse’s seven sons pass before Samuel. The Lord rejects them all.

E T H I C S – 3
Maturity : Day 5 – Swarms/Incense – Deuteronomy
Jesse reveals that there is an eighth Son, David (“Beloved”), who is keeping the flocks, the “Body.” Samuel commands him to bring him in, or there will be no rest.

S A N C T I O N S
Conquest : Day 6 – Mediators/High Priest – Joshua
David has bright eyes, (literally) a blood-filled face, and is attractive. He is the Facebread (Ethics 1) and the Lampstand (Ethics 2), and the Incense (Ethics 3). The wilderness has made him into a Holy Place.

S U C C E S S I O N
Glorification : Day 7 – Rest/Shekinah – Judges
Samuel takes the horn of oil and anoints David. The Spirit rests upon the Beloved from that day on.

A few notes:

1. Read the passage for yourself and see it you can see the 7-fold structure of each of the seven sections.
2. Both Samuel and John the Baptist were Nazirites from birth. In a greater sense, all the “sons of David” passed before John as he was baptizing in the Jordan. All were rejected until Jesus presented Himself “to fulfill all righteousness.” The Spirit descended, and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
3. Perhaps this is the background to the phrase in Ephesians 1:6, “accepted in the Beloved.” Israel could not truly cross the Jordan, could not truly “enter into rest” until her Captain arrived.
4. Read Peter Leithart’s A Son to Me: An Exposition of 1 and 2 Samuel, for some background on Samuel as Saul and David’s “father.”
5. Notice that the next passage concerns a spirit coming upon Saul. These two “sons” become two atonement “goats.”

A blog post from my friend Albert Garlando, republished here with his permission.

Marriage, Divorce and the Gospel

Jesus is interrogated by the religious ‘mob’ concerning his views on divorce (Mark 10:1-12). The mob are trying to get him to make a call on the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 24:1-4) provision for divorce and remarriage. The 1st Century rabbis did not agree in their own interpretations of this, so they pestered Jesus about it.

Their big question was: “What makes divorce OK?”

True to form, Jesus’ response is, “You have missed the point and are asking the wrong question.”

The better question to be asking is “How can we prevent divorce?” or perhaps, “How should we understand (and enjoy!) God’s idea of marriage?”

In reading the Bible, you’ll soon see that divorce is never required or encouraged – it is only ever regulated. The OT passage provided a regulatory protection for the woman to make sure that she was not unfairly discriminated against or ostracised.

The passage in Deuteronomy suggests that there was at that time (circa 1400 B.C.E.) a practice in the Middle East that involved the exchange and trade of women in the guise of marriage, divorce and remarriage – this is what Moses is discouraging. (see Laney for more detail).

Any plans that a man might have concocted to profit by divorcing his wife, then having her marry another, get an inheritance or gift from him and then return to the first husband were outlawed by this clause in Moses’ teaching. This use of women as a type of trading chattel was an abominable practice that God’s people ought to have separated themselves from, thus the command in Deuteronomy.

In both that instance, and the instance where Jesus is being challenged, they had lost sight of the original design and purpose of marriage: God created it, and it shows us his unity.

At the time there were two main view points. The disciples of the rabbi Shammai held to a strict interpretation (divorce only for unfaithfulness) while the disciples of Hillel held to a lenient interpretation (divorce for almost any reason).

Instead of taking sides with either Shammai or Hillel, Jesus went back to Moses and the first marriage (Gen.1:27; 2:21–25). From the beginning, marriage meant one man and one woman becoming one flesh for one lifetime. Moses’ commandment in Deut. 24:1–4 was a concession to the Jews because of their hardness of heart. It does not represent God’s ideal for marriage.

The added subtly of the encounter goes beyond an interpretive debate though. The Pharisees are setting Jesus up against Herod (the Roman ruler – and the one who had John the Baptist murdered.) Herod had married his brother’s former wife. This is a high profile case of divorce and remarriage. If they can get Jesus to come out against Herod it will give them a chance to charge him with a capital offense and have him killed.

Instead, Jesus brings them back to the final authority and sufficiency of scripture – This is God’s intention for marriage: i.e. it’s a picture of the unity of God and his love for us and desire to be reconciled.

Ephesians 5:31-32 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

In the gospel, we are re-joined with God as our Father through Jesus. When Adam and Eve sinned they separated themselves from God and we have followed in their footsteps. The gospel brings us back together with God. The gospel is all about reconciliation and forgiveness. In any marriage there is going to be many opportunities for you to receive and to experience both. Acknowledging you both are in need of the gospel is going to go a long way towards understanding (and enjoying!) God’s best for your marriage.

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Matthew 3:11 

I remember a scene from X Files where they printed out a binary code and laid the pages out on the floor. When viewed from a distance the ones and zeros made the image of a face. There was a similar scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies, where there was a search for a secret passage and it turned out to be a large X on the floor when viewed from above. This is just my view, but it seems a lot of theologians spend a great deal of time walking in circles in the jungle, lost in the details of prooftexts when we have Old Testament “Google maps” at our fingertips.

There’s been some discussion about the baptism of John: why his disciples needed to be baptized again, and why we never hear of the disciples themselves being baptized.

James Jordan points out that John’s baptism was Red Sea, but the baptism the disciples ministered was Jordan. The first was an exit; the second an entry. [1]

But what about those pesky disciples who only had their feet washed? What’s the bird’s eye view? Why, it’s the familiar Tabernacle floorplan!

Ark – Completing His own ‘personal’ Adam-cycle, Jesus is transfigured. Peter suggests the construction of tabernacles. As ‘Great Prophet’ He initiates the next cycle, the ‘Eve’ (Light – Sabbath)

Veil – Jesus is crucified (Firmament – Passover)

Altar & Table – Jesus is resurrected from the earth (new Land) and ascends as fulfilled ‘grain and fruit,’ bread and wine on the table (Rev 4-5 – Firstfruits)

Lampstand – The Spirit descends as fire (Apostles baptized – Pentecost)

Incense – The Apostles, as elders in the new government, [2] preach to Jews (the old house is comin’ down – Trumpets – swarms) in Gentile tongues [3]

Laver – The Apostles baptize Jews (new Adams – Atonement)

Shekinah – Gentiles are also invited and the house is complete (Tabernacles)

It is a new Creation and a new Temple. And it is the end of the old week. Worship is moved from the last day to the first day.

And, as we see many times in the Old Testament, this initial structure foreshadows a similar structure at a much larger scale. It set the pattern for history between AD30 and AD70.

ADDENDUM: Those who are familiar with the Bible matrix might also notice it in the verse quoted above.

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[1] See the links on baptism here.
[2] See Big Government.
[3] See That Which is Perfect and Three Babylons for more on this temporary gift.

Ark (Word) – Creation
Jesus answered and said to them, ”Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard:

Veil (torn!) – Division
that the blind see,

Altar (new four-cornered mediatorial Land from the Sea) – Ascension
the lame walk,

Lampstand (new rulers) – Testing
the lepers are cleansed,

Incense (new eldership) – Maturity
the deaf hear,

Laver (Jordan) – Conquest
the dead are raised,

Shekinah (Rest) – Glorification
the poor have the gospel preached to them.

I thought the lepers being at the centre was a bit weird, but the centre of the pattern is very often the cross or the tomb, or some symbol of these. Perhaps because the centre of the matrix is the wilderness testing (Numbers) and lepers had to live outside the city, outside the camp (Hebrews 13:13). He makes a new priesthood out of those who were the living dead, those who were excluded under the old Law. The Law itself would be slain and resurrected, transfigured by Jesus. It would become a Law (structure) filled with the Spirit (glory) that could truly impart Aaron’s priestly “clean”. The singular “Light” of the Ark (Day 1) became the plural “lights” of the Lampstand (Day 4 – Pentecost).

On point 5, Kelby commented:

“Seems to make sense, though I’m not completely sure how ‘the deaf hearing’ fits into the pattern of summoning an army/maturity/incense clouds. Seems to me a central idea of testing would be cleansing (baptism/investiture), or possibly the revelation of such a cleansing.”

I think Maturity here is a new generation of Israel who will hear a new Moses and His transfigured Law. Step 5 is Israel summoned to Moses in Deuteronomy. The clouds/swarms in the greater NT pattern are the Gentiles who joined the new Israel and rescued her from barrenness. [1] The completion of the Jew-Gentile church was Revelation’s seven trumpets to Herod’s Jerusalem.[2]

“Since they could not agree among themselves, they started leaving. But Paul said, ‘The Holy Spirit said the right thing when he sent Isaiah the prophet to tell our ancestors, “Go to these people and tell them: You will listen and listen, but never understand. You will look and look, but never see. All of you have stubborn hearts. Your ears are stopped up, and your eyes are covered. You cannot see or hear or understand. If you could, you would turn to me, and I would heal you.”‘ Paul said, ‘You may be sure that God wants to save the Gentiles! And they will listen.’”  Acts 28:25-28