The abandonment of the Son by the Father is made palpable not in the crucifixion of His body, since He willingly laid down His life, but in the darkness which covered the Land for three hours. But perhaps this darkness was a sign of the Father’s nearness rather than His distance.

Matthew, Mark and Luke document the darkness which covered the Land during the last three hours of Jesus’ life, and so do three extra biblical historians, Thallus, Phlegon and Africanus. But what was its purpose? It is wise to look for typological precedents for events in the Gospels, since Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. Concerning darkness we have the primeval world before the creation of light (Genesis 1:2), and the darkness which covered Egypt as the ninth plague (Exodus 10:21-23).

The details of this plague are interesting, since this was “a darkness to be felt” and “nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.” Only the land of Goshen where the Israelites dwelt was given light. Thus, the three hours of darkness at noonday were a sign of the coming three days in which Christ would be covered by the darkness of the tomb. But there is another instance of darkness and light as a judgment in Exodus, and that occurred at the Red Sea crossing (Exodus 13:19-20). The pillar of cloud gave light to the Israelites but the Egyptians were left in the dark. Thus the two were kept separate throughout the night.

My assertion here is that the darkness in each case was a visit from the glory cloud, the “mobile tabernacle” which served as God’s chariot until the Day of Pentecost. It was presumably this cloud which is described in Genesis 3:8, which would be better translated as “And they heard the sound/voice of the Lord God coming to the garden in the breath/spirit of the day and they hid themselves…” It is likely that this visitation was similar to the cloud which descended upon Sinai and upon the mount of transfiguration. It is also likely the same cloud which, when opened, provided a glimpse into heaven at the baptism of Jesus (with its allusion to Genesis 1, the Spirit hovering over the deep), at His ascension, and again at the martyrdom of Stephen. The Lord always comes “with” or “in” clouds, and when He does, He comes to judge.

Of course, judgment does not necessarily mean punishment. The Lord came down to judge Babel, Egypt and Sodom, and it each case the result was cursing. In the case of Ezekiel, it seems the prophet was actually taken up in or by the chariot in Spirit that he might witness the sins of Jerusalem, God and a “son of man” serving as two legal witnesses, explaining the phrase “Come, let us go down…” in Genesis 11:7, when God brought confusion. The pillar of cloud also brought confusion upon Pharaoh’s armies, and it was likely present when the armies of Midian were confused under the watch of Gideon. But when the cloud came upon the Tabernacle and Temple, upon the Son, and upon His saints on the Day of Pentecost, as a mighty, rushing wind, the Lord was happy to bless. The arrival of the chariot of God, unlike the chariot of Pharaoh, is a chariot which brings not only vengeance but also redemption. It is the chariot of the almighty ga’al, the one who bears a two-edged sword to slay the wicked and cut the bonds of the righteous.

So, is it beyond possibility that the chariot of God was the cause of the three hours of darkness, recorded across the oikoumene, while Christ was on the cross? After all, the final chapters of Ezekiel present this Jew-Gentile social construct as a temple, with the Land of Israel as its holy altar. The Lord was coming to His temple to inspect it for “leprosy.” According to the Law, the leprosy had to be cut out, but if it returned, the house would be destroyed. Jesus was crucified “outside the camp,” like a leper (see Leviticus 14, and The Leprous House). He was the one being “cut out” that the house might be spared. But as Jesus predicted, the cleaned house would be filled with even worse demons (see Seven Spirits More Wicked), and its response to being cleansed would be a return to corruption in an even greater way. The Veil of the Temple was torn, but when the Lord later returned “in the clouds” the Temple was torn down. Not one stone was left upon another.

And he shall break down the house, its stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and he shall carry them out of the city to an unclean place (Leviticus 14:45)

This means that the entire Land was under judgment, and Jesus was at the center of the court. He had been condemned by the High Priesthood (Garden), by Herod (Land) and by Pilate (World), the entirety of the oikoumene “Tabernacle.” Now He was being judged by heaven, and for the will of heaven be done on earth required the “bowing of the heavens,” that is, a visit from the heavenly court via the glory cloud, a symbolic reunion of the waters above and below in a prefiguring of final judgment (see “Bowing the Heavens” in my book Inquiétude for more discussion.) God was visiting the Garden, and Adam was exposed in His court. The events that transpired recapitulate those of Psalm 18 – including the earthquake –with one major difference: the Father did not hear, and did not deliver, the Man who cried out to Him.

The cords of death encompassed me;
the torrents of destruction assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.

Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.

Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.

He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.

He rode on a cherub and flew;
he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.

What does this mean for the significance of the three hours of darkness? That the Christ who “became sin for us” was trodden underfoot like an enemy, or a serpent, the blood upon the kapporet, the footstool of God (see Peter Leithart, The Footstool of His Feet.) To conquer sin, He became sin. To make His enemies His footstool (Psalm 110:1; Luke 20:43; Hebrews 10:13), He would first be trampled underfoot, and it would please the Lord to bruise Him (Isaiah 53:10). The holy presence which overshadowed Mary at Jesus’ conception (Luke 1:35) now overshadowed the entire nation at His death.

This abandonment of the Son by the Father was not “spatial” but legal. The Father presided over the Son in the seat of Moses, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. This courtroom “betrayal,” a perjury in the sense that He changed His previous testimonies concerning the blamelessness and authority of the Son, was as close-to-home as the kiss of Judas. In this final act, the Father crossed the floor and stood with Judas, with Ananias, with those who beat, spat upon and ridiculed Jesus, with Pilate, with the crowd, and with the thief who cursed Him on the cross.

The word “sacrifice” connotes the idea of “near bringing” (see James B. Jordan, Leviticus 1:2). It was this reversal of judgment, through substitutionary atonement, that the angels “standing at the four corners of the Land,” those who stood prepared to vindicate the Son by immediately destroying the city and the Land (as predicted in Daniel 9:25-26), were told: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God” (Revelation 7:1-3).

At the Day of Pentecost, the brightness of the cloud was visited upon those who believed, and the darkness of strong delusion upon those who refused to believe. In the Gospel, this dividing “sword” was extended right across the empire. This “visitation” by the Spirit, whose indwelling turned every believer into a chariot (epitomised and signified in the miraculous travel of Philip in Acts 8:38-39), explains the inspiration and perseverance of the Jew-Gentile saints and the strong delusion which confused and confounded their Jew-Gentile enemies, who turned on each other, eventuating in their destruction at the coming of Christ with all His martyred sons, including Abel (Matthew 23:35), on white horses as a cloud of “witnesses” (martyrs) against the first century “Babylon.” These saints were God’s chariot.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Behold, The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”

“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)

James Jordan has observed that Abraham’s “calling on the name of the Lord” was in fact evangelical proclamation of his faith. Abraham’s witness to the Canaanites was something for which they would be held accountable when Israel returned to claim the land. Chris Wooldridge sees this “vocal allegiance” as the key to understanding the meaning of the washing away of sins in the New Testament. Seen in the context of the last days of the Old Covenant, this was not baptismal regeneration but a public identification by the Jewish worshiper with the final sacrificial lamb (Leviticus 1:1-9).

Chris writes:

What does the book of Acts mean when it speaks of Baptism as the means by which sins are “forgiven” (Acts 2:38) or “washed away” (Acts 22:16). What does this mean and how do we reconcile it with the fact that we are justified by faith alone? When confronted with passages like this, there is often a tendency amongst evangelicals to overlook or avoid the obvious connections being drawn. But this is not the answer. In order to understand a passage like this, we need to consider its Covenant context.

Acts 2 records a sermon given by the Apostle Peter to a Jewish audience who were gathered together for the feast of Pentecost. The sermon begins by warning of a coming judgement. Peter, quoting from the book of Joel, proclaims:

And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. (Acts 2:19-20).

The first century Jewish audience, steeped in the Old Testament, would easily have understood the language of cosmic upheaval to be referring to a national judgment (e.g. Isaiah 13:10, Ezekiel 32:7), with the sun and moon representing the rulers of nations.

But this was not to be a judgment of any old nation. No, this judgement was a curse meted out against Israel for her rebellion against God. Peter made it clear that Jesus was a righteous prophet like no other, “a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know” (2:22). And how did Israel respond? By handing Jesus over to be crucified (Acts 2:23, 36). And now, this very same Jesus had been raised from the dead and set up as God’s judge and right-hand man.

No wonder the men were “cut to the heart” (2:27). They knew what happened when Israel disobeyed God and killed His righteous prophets. As Deuteronomy 28 made clear, when the people disobeyed God, the covenant curses were to be poured out upon them: famine, foreign invasion, exile and death.

It is in this context that we discover the reference to the “forgiveness of sins.” The “sins” in question are specifically transgressions against the Law of Moses and the “forgiveness” in question entailed a release from the consequences of those transgressions. For the Jew, Baptism was a public identification with Christ which washed away sin in a way no Levitical washing or atonement could. It declared openly a submission to a higher priest than the one in the Temple and an allegiance to a higher king than the one in Jerusalem. This is why it was performed “in the name of Jesus Christ.”¹Other New Testament passages, such as Romans 6:3-4 and Galatians 3:27, also speak of Baptism as a public identification with Christ.

For any Jew, quietly apologising for what they had done was never sufficient. A public rite was required. Now that rite was an act which made one an ally with the exalted Christ in order to be saved from the final curses of the Law. In forty years’ time, those Jews who wanted to affirm Christ without publicly identifying with him (and therefore against his enemies) were trapped in the city of Jerusalem when the armies of Titus Vespasian besieged the city.

Acts 22:16 is written in a similar context. Paul had unjustly murdered and imprisoned many Christians (Acts 9:1-2), but upon being confronted by the risen Christ he immediately realised his wrongdoing. For him to quietly return to being a Pharisee was impossible. He needed to publicly identify with Christ and with the Church which he had persecuted, in order to be saved from the wrath to come. This was the meaning of his Baptism.

So what does Baptism mean for us today, since we have no “Mosaic” curses hanging over us? 1 Peter 3 tells us that Baptism means than when others revile and slander us for our faith (3:9, 3:14), we can stand firm and identify with Christ (3:15-16). We know that God will judge the wicked and vindicate his people in history, if we are patient. Baptism assures us that, though the nations rage against Christ, he will have the final word. Baptism is not like Old Covenant rites which simply “put away the uncleanness of the flesh.” It is the legal “testimony of a good conscience before God” (3:21), an act which shows that we are not ashamed of Him, that He might not be ashamed of us.

Christian, remember what you declared at your Baptism.

The analogy between human beings and animals, seen throughout the Bible, means that in the animal world there are some who represent the whole.

A Brief History of “Sacrifice” According to the Bible: Part 5

by James B. Jordan, Biblical Horizons No. 253 (subscribe at www.biblicalhorizons.com)

And Noah built a communion-site (altar) to Yahweh.
And he took from every clean animal and from every clean bird,
And caused ascensions to ascend on the communion-site.
And Yahweh smelled the pleasing aroma.
And Yahweh said in His heart, I will never again curse the ground (’adamah) because of the man (’adam)… (Genesis 8:20-21a)

This is the first altar, or communion-site, we see built by anyone in the Bible. Likely Seth and Enoch and Noah before the Flood had places where they brought their gifts to God, and these might have been elevated mounds reminiscent of the high ground of Eden, but it is only now, after the Flood, that we see the notion of some kind of communion between God and man. And this communion is linked to the sending up of sacrifices to God. The ascension from the top of the mound (altar) creates a ladder to heaven and makes possible this communion.

It is communion at a distance. Noah is on earth; Yahweh is in heaven. Much closer communion comes with Moses, so that a Peace meal is added to the Ascension, and the Ascension itself takes on the meaning of going up the ladder to be next to God. This is because God will come down and put His presence on the earth in the Tabernacle. This has not happened yet.

Noah sent up “clean” animals and birds. Noah had been told to take on the ark seven pairs of these clean animals, and only one pair of the “not clean” animals (Genesis 7:2). We should denotive that these are not “unclean” animals. The technical term “unclean” (tame’) does not show up until Leviticus 5, where it means something associated with death when in the presence of the tabernacled-presence of God or His special people. Here at the Flood the difference is between representative and non-representative animals. The clean animals are those who can be sent up to God to represent all the rest of the world.

This notion of representation has been hinted at already. It is clearly the line of Seth that is the priestly and representative portion of the human race (Genesis 4:4, 25-26). The analogy between human beings and animals, seen throughout the Bible, means that in the animal world there are some who represent the whole. We don’t know what animals and birds this group consisted of. Later on, chickens and deer are considered clean, but are not put on the altars of Israel, and it seems that the limitation of animals to just five happens with Abraham (Genesis 15). Noah may well have caused many different animals to ascend.

These clean animals are sent up to God in Ascension as signs that Noah is giving the whole world to Him. Noah can do this because he is the first true king under God. He has passed through death and resurrection in the Flood and has been given, thereby, a true foretaste of the benefits of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He has become “like God,” and will “know (judge) good and evil” when his “eyes have become open” (Genesis 3).

Noah has ascended through the Flood-exodus to a new world. He is on a mountaintop, like the original high ground of Eden. Like God, he plants a garden. This garden is a vineyard, producing a more advanced kind of fruit that will become wine, the symbol of kingly rest in the Bible. There comes a time when Noah retires from the scene to rest, as God did on the seventh day, leaving Adam and Eve alone. Noah returns to his sons, his eyes open from sleep, and passes godlike judgments on them, determining the course of their futures—creating their futures as it were.

Noah can do this because God has announced the coming of limited human kingship. People are now officially permitted to eat animal flesh (Genesis 8:3-4). Godly people may have been allowed to eat meat before the Flood, but now it is made official and part of God’s covenant with man. The blood of animals, however, may not be consumed; only the “blood of grapes” (Genesis 49:11). Moreover, men in kingly positions are now authorised to pass judgment of life and death (8:5-6), just as God passed a death judgment on humanity in the beginning.

This is Noah’s new position, it is what qualifies him to be the first to offer up an Ascension to God. Adam gave the world to the devil. Now, since the king has given the world to God, it belongs to Him, so He will not destroy it again even though men are as wicked as before. After Noah, all people are allowed to send up smaller Ascensions to God, one animal at a time, thereby giving their own small worlds to Him.

Alpha and Omega

Since the sacred architecture of the Jew-Gentile social structure set up in Daniel was a spiritual expansion of the previous physical sanctuaries, we should not be surprised to find its shape serving as the foundation for the New Testament. Since the Holy Place symbolised the court of the King of Heaven, the Tabernacle sheds some helpful light on Jesus’ cryptic description of judgment from His throne in Matthew 25. It not only becomes clear why the Lord uses sheep and goats as symbols for Gentile nations, but their locations and destinies bring to an end a narrative thread which can be traced back to Genesis 4.

Matthew 25:31-46 is the “Judges” step of the Covenant Ethics component of Matthew’s five-fold Covenant progression. You can see where this passage fits in the overall structure here.

Following on from Matthew 24, its fulfilment is clearly first century, describing a judgment which would take place within a generation. Concerning the context and purpose of the passage, Chris Wooldridge wrote in a guest post:

In his covenant with Abraham, God had promised that nations would be blessed and cursed through him. In 70 AD, the Abrahamic covenant came to an end and the blessings and curses were distributed. Nations were resurrected, stood before Christ in heaven and were judged in accordance with their treatment of the people of Abraham. Israel herself would be judged in accordance with her treatment of the apostolic church. The blessing would take the form of reigning with Christ in heaven for the remainder of the new covenant era (Revelation 20:4-6). The cursing would take the form of returning to the grave in “shame and contempt” (Daniel 12:2) to await the end of the new covenant and eternal destruction in the lake of fire.

In context, this speech is a prediction of the judgment of the oikoumene [1], the final stage in what we refer to as the “Old Covenant.” All nations would be judged, yet, as we shall see, both the symbols Jesus uses and the pattern of Jesus’ words are very obviously Jewish.

A Ram and a Goat

The events leading up to AD70 avenged the blood of all the prophets beginning with Abel. In the primeval world, and in Temple architecture, this blood is tied to the demarcations of “Land” (both the Land outside Eden, and later the Land promised to Abraham), not the Garden or the World. Since the entire empire was considered part of the household of God during this era, instead of using the “World” beasts of Daniel 7 in Matthew 25 to describe the nations of the oikoumene, Jesus uses the sacrificial “Land” animals of Daniel 8. Concerning these symbols in Daniel, James Jordan writes:

Daniel sees two animals. They are not beasts this time, but sacrificial animals: a ram and a goat. They represent Persia and Greece. Each morning and each evening Israel would offer a lamb (Exodus 29:38-42). This fact is central to the present vision, and will explain why Persia and Greece are pictured as flockmembers. The flock of God is no longer only Israel, but also the nations of the God-established Oikumene, though not yet the whole world.

The ram of Persia has two horns, one behind the other. The one in back is later, but is also longer. The first horn is Media, the second Persia, but it is one ram. The ram conquers to the west, north, and south; since it comes from the east it does not need to conquer to the east. God gives everything to the ram, and lets it rule the world (vv. 3-4, 20).

Then a male goat comes from the west, as the ram came from the east. They collide, and the goat is utterly victorious. The goat’s swift advance represents the amazing progress of the conquests of Alexander the Great. The great horn between the goat’s eyes is Alexander himself, but the horn is broken very quickly, because Alexander died at the age of 30. Then four new horns arose and took over Alexander’s empire.

Then a little horn grew up out of their midst. This is usually considered to represent Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ruler of the Northern part of Alexander’s broken empire. I shall argue below that it is actually a symbol of the Herodian line. The little horn’s oppression of the saints is then described (vv. 9-14, 23-26).

The Lord tells Gabriel to explain the vision to Daniel. Gabriel explains that this vision pertains to the time of the end. The end of what? The end of the first creation, which came to a full close in AD70. Gabriel identifies the ram and the goat, and gives more information about the Herods (vv. 15-26)…

…we need to note that the ram and goat, or he-goat, are not “beasts” or wild animals, but “cattle” or domestic animals, and in particular they are animals used in the Levitical worship system. The ram, or male sheep, is required for the Trespass or Desanctifying offering, which is performed to cover high-handed sins, sins that in some sense put blood on the hands that needs to be washed off. The he-goat is required from a civil officer (hence, from a king) for a Sin or Purification offering, which is performed to cover sins of wandering (“inadvertency”), sins that in some sense put dirt on the feet that needs to be washed off. (Leviticus 4-5.)

The Passover ritual could use either a male sheep or a he-goat that was one year old (Exodus 12:5).

Perhaps more importantly, however, is what we find in Numbers 28-29, which is that on every important festival occasion, both a ram and a he-goat were brought to the altar.

As has been pointed out by Rodriguez, this is all related to the Continual of verses 11-12. The Continual, or tamid, is sometimes taken only for the evening and morning daily offerings, and this is indeed implied in verse 14 (“2300 evenings morning”). But the word is also used for all the continual daily activities in the Holy Place: the continual facebread, the continual incense, the lamp, and the fire in the altar.

What is the theology behind this imagery? It is this: The calling of Israel was to pray for and bring offerings near to God on behalf of the nations of the world. The ox was particularly for the High Priest and for Israel as a whole (Leviticus 4). But the daily offerings and the continual annual cycle involved the nations of the world, especially after the establishment of the Oikumene. The meaning is this: As long as the Jews are faithful and pray for the nations, offering rams and he-goats for the imperial leaders, then they will have good rams and he-goats as emperors. First the ram of Persia would come and deliver them from Babylon. Then, when the ram had ceased to do God’s bidding, a buck from Greece would arise and deliver them from Persian oppression (see Zechariah 9:1–8). But after the Greek deliverance, there would come a time when some evil Horn would wreck the Continual offerings. Such an evil Horn can only be a Jewish, and indeed priestly person, because no one else could wreck the system. Some pagan king putting a temporary halt to the offerings would count for nothing in God’s eyes. It was only His anointed priests who could defile the worship. In other words, the fact that the Horn is able to wreck the sanctuary and pervert the Continual makes clear that he symbolises, at least in part, a Jewish priestly power. [2]

Although Jesus uses similar sacrificial animals, His words concerning the judgment of the nations have a different purpose from Daniel 8. He is not speaking of separating Persians from Greeks. Greece conquered Persia, but those empires are not mentioned. Both animals were acceptable sacrifices, but Jesus accepts one and not the other.

As Jordan notes, the sheep concerned high-handed or deliberate sin (bloodied hands) and the goat concerned wandering astray (dirty feet).

Sheep: High-handed Sin
Goat: Wandering Astray

In Jesus’ day, the Jewish leaders were guilty of deliberate sin, since they possessed the words of God but instead taught their own distorted laws, misleading the people. It was the Jewish people who were guilty of “inadvertent sin,” since they were kept in ignorance, under the heavy burdens of the Oral Law, by their leaders. [3] Yet the leaders of Israel were to consider their people as brothers.

The Least Of My Brothers

An Israelite could take Gentile slaves, but not Hebrew ones. This was because Israelites were freedmen, and they would remain free as long as they faithfully served God, their heavenly master.

“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly. (Leviticus 25:35-46)

Taking a Hebrew brother as a slave began with Jacob’s debt slavery to Laban and continued with the sale of Joseph by his brothers. This was an issue close to the Lord’s heart. Under King Zedekiah, the Jewish aristocracy reneged on the oath they had taken to release their Hebrew slaves. At heart, Israel had become another Egypt. This was the last straw before the destruction of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them, that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother.

And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again. They obeyed and set them free. But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free, and brought them into subjection as slaves.

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I myself made a covenant with your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, saying, ‘At the end of seven years each of you must set free the fellow Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years; you must set him free from your service.’ But your fathers did not listen to me or incline their ears to me. You recently repented and did what was right in my eyes by proclaiming liberty, each to his neighbor, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name, but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your slaves.

“Therefore, thus says the Lord: You have not obeyed me by proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and to his neighbor; behold, I proclaim to you liberty to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine, declares the Lord. I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.” (Jeremiah 34:8-17)

Sheep and goats are “brother” animals, different yet closely related, hence the need for a discerning shepherd to separate them. The Passover lamb could be either a sheep or a goat (Exodus 12:5), but the Firstfruits sacrifice could only be a sheep, and after the bull sacrificed for the priesthood, the Atonement offerings could only be goats. This seems to indicate that the spiritual character (or office) of a man is indiscernible at birth and only becomes apparent as he matures. Before God, is he a sheep or a goat, a priest or a king?

It seems that sheep picture the priestly head, which is why Jesus has hair as white as wool (Firstfruits). Goats picture the Covenant body (Atonement), which is why Jacob wore goatskin on his arms. Government is a robe which sits upon one’s shoulders. So the sheep pictures the Church and the goat pictures the State. The sheep dies in the stead of a blameless priest for the high-handed sin of Adam in the Sanctuary, a sin committed in full knowledge of the truth. The goat dies in the stead of a faithful king who serves his people rather than lording over them like Pharaoh.

Jacob the shepherd was the priestly brother. Sheep’s wool is soft and was used for clothing. Esau the hunter was the kingly brother. Goat hair is course and was used for tents. Goats are “hairy ones” like Esau. Peter Leithart writes:

Esau is a “hairy man” (sa’iyr), something we learn only when Jacob dresses himself in goat hair to approach his father (Genesis 27:11, 23). Jacob becomes a hairy one, subbing in for his brother. The only other use of the word in Genesis is in 37:31, where it describes the “kid” killed to fool Jacob into thinking that Joseph has died. Both passages involve substitution, and both involve deception of a father.

Leviticus 16 is the great chapter about hairy goats. The word is used 14x in the chapter to describe the two goats used in the day of atonement rite. On the day of “coverings,” Israel is covered with goat skin to receive the blessing of the firstborn; on the day of coverings, a hairy kid is killed in place of the beloved son. [4]

I believe this is the background for the distinction between sheep and goats in Matthew 25. It is a division between the nations within God’s extended household (the oikoumene), those with a priestly character towards the “least” of Jesus’ brothers, and those who were tyrants and abused them as slaves.

By the time of this judgment, heredity had become meaningless. It did not matter whether a nation was Jewish or Greek. Descended from Esau, the Edomite Herods and all those who served them had aligned themselves with Rome. This judgment concerned not the circumcision of the flesh, but the circumcision of the heart. The nations (including Israel) who abused the true Jews were repeating the sins of Edom, the false brothers who not only refused to feed Israel in the wilderness, but also looted Jerusalem after its sacking and enslavement by Babylon.

Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: “Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the hardship that we have met: how our fathers went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time. And the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our fathers. And when we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt. And here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory. Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or vineyard, or drink water from a well. We will go along the King’s Highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.” But Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.” And the people of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway, and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then I will pay for it. Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.” But he said, “You shall not pass through.” And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, so Israel turned away from him. (Numbers 20:14-21)

Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob,
shame shall cover you,
and you shall be cut off forever.

On the day that you stood aloof,
on the day that strangers carried off his wealth
and foreigners entered his gates
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were like one of them.

But do not gloat over the day of your brother
in the day of his misfortune;
do not rejoice over the people of Judah
in the day of their ruin;
do not boast
in the day of distress.

Do not enter the gate of my people
in the day of their calamity;
do not gloat over his disaster
in the day of his calamity;
do not loot his wealth
in the day of his calamity.

Do not stand at the crossroads
to cut off his fugitives;
do not hand over his survivors
in the day of distress.

For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations.
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
your deeds shall return on your own head.

(Obadiah 10-15)

The First Shall Be Last

All this background sits behind Matthew 25, which is not only near the end of the Bible, it speaks of the end of the Abrahamic Covenant, with its blessings and curses upon surrounding nations depending on their treatment of his children.

However, to make sense of where Jesus positions the separated oikoumene ”livestock” — the goats on His left and the sheep on His right — we must briefly trace it back even further, to the first brothers, Cain and Abel.

Due to Adam’s failure to submit to God as a priest, true kingdom was denied him. Blood was required to enjoy continued fellowship with God. Likewise, Cain usurped the ministry of his priestly brother. Cain, the firstborn, was disinherited by God. It is Christ who reveals to us that Abel, and all those like Him, would inherit the kingdom.

The Tabernacle is cruciform, and therefore humaniform. In this Man’s left hand is priesthood, the Table of bread and wine. In his right hand is kingdom, the Lampstand. Yet in Matthew 25, the priestly sheep are on the right, and the kingly goats are on the left. The first is last, and the last is first, an ironic take on the usurping of priesthood committed by Cain, who was supposed to make his offering after Abel. The “earth” is taken from the kings and given to the priestly, the meek. The inheritance is taken from the Esaus and given to the Jacobs. The “hairy ones” who refused to aid their suffering brothers are exiled forever.

There is a “chiastic” form to this brother-swap, which Jesus employs in the shape of Matthew 23:12:

This is precisely what we see in Genesis 48, when Jacob, whose eyes are failing, blesses Joseph’s sons:

And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance… And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near him. And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands (for Manasseh was the firstborn)… And Joseph said to his father, “Not this way, my father; since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head.” (Genesis 48:5-6; 13-14; 18)

Matthew 25 is about tyrannical “kings” being butchered and given to sacrificial flames, and faithful servant-kings inheriting their houses and vineyards. As it was concerning the rich man and Lazarus within Israel, so would it be with the “ecumenical” nations over whom Christ, the First and the Last, was now enthroned.

In part 2, we will look at the Covenant structure of the passage and its allusions to the Ten Commandments.

_______________________________________
[1] Oikoumene means “inhabited world,” related to the extent of the realm or domain of a single code of law.
[2] James B. Jordan, The Handwriting On The Wall: A Commentary On The Book Of Daniel, 416-421.
[3] See When Judaism Jumped The Shark.
[4] Peter Leithart, Scapegoat.

James Kirk learns via Vulcan mind meld that he will never marry.

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. (1 Corinthians 7:6-7)

Reliance upon rules and regulations is a sign of immaturity. There’s nothing wrong with them, of course, just as there is nothing wrong with the “gutter guards” used to keep the ten pin bowling ball moving towards the pins for children’s parties at the bowling alley. Likewise, there was nothing wrong with creeds, rosary beads or religious paintings in their early days. They were simply mnemonic devices for the illiterate. But, just as it was with the Pharisees in the first century, these lifeless, inflexible “stoicheia” become a problem when they turn into legislation and become mandatory. Failing to tithe one’s kitchen herbs leads to certain destruction. The celibacy of certain prominent men in the Bible is part of this discussion. The question is not “Is celibacy holier than marriage?” but why were these spiritual giants, including Jesus, celibate at all?

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

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Getting towards the end of a book on biblical architecture, I am thinking that perhaps the answer to Peter Leithart’s very good question concerning the “missing heart” in Leviticus might be found in the layout of the Tabernacle. He writes:

Ancient Israelites offered the inner organs of sacrificial animals – entrails, kidneys, a portion of the liver. The heart is never mentioned. In all of the complicated sacrificial instructions of Leviticus, the word leb never appears, even once. We learn what happens to the stomach (Deuteronomy 18:3) but not the heart.

This is all the odder when we realize that the heart is often associated with one of the sacrificed organs – the kidneys (kilyah). Yahweh examines heart and kidneys (Psalm 7:9), tests the mind and heart (Psalm 26:2); when the Psalmist’s heart is embittered, it is as if something has pierced his kidneys (Psalm 73:21; cf. Jeremiah 17:10; 20:12).

And it is odd because the heart is so central to Hebraic anthropology. Out of it come the issues of life (Proverbs), and Israel is commanded to be devoted to Yahweh with the heart (Deuteronomy 6:5). What better way to  express this than to offer the heart ceremoniously into the altar fire?

Perhaps the heart is implied in the qereb, the “inner parts” that are placed on the altar (the “inner parts” and heart are juxtaposed in, e.g., Psalm 64:6). Even so, why not make it explicit?

No theories here. Only questions.

Perhaps the best place for me to begin in presenting a theory is the structure of the text in the Creation of Adam. It not only recapitulates the “forming and filling” of the Creation Week, it prefigures both the furniture of the Tabernacle and the rite of sacrifice:

(Genesis 2:7 – for more discussion see Spirit of Adam – 1)

If the heart were to be identified in this passage, where would it feature? It seems that “all flesh” would correspond to the Bronze Altar. (On the stone altars before the establishment of the Levitical law, it was indeed all flesh which was consumed. Men did not eat with God.) Adam’s lungs were filled in a prefiguring of Pentecost.  It wasn’t until his lungs were filled that he became a living being.

So, my theory is that the reason the heart is not mentioned is because the Lord will not separate it from the lungs. The central three “Ethical” steps of this Covenant-Man are a symbolic union of heaven and earth (dust and air). They result in the first use of a human windpipe as an instrument. Only once this Priest-King-Prophet process is complete does the human heart begin to beat.

I did find a reference to these body parts in the Babylonian Talmud:

HE HOLLOWED OUT THE BREAST AND GAVE IT TO THE ONE TO WHOSE LOT IT HAD FALLEN. HE CAME TO THE RIGHT FLANK AND CUT INTO IT AS FAR AS THE SPINE, WITHOUT HOWEVER TOUCHING THE SPINE, UNTIL HE CAME TO THE PLACE BETWEEN TWO SMALL RIBS. HE CUT IT OFF AND GAVE IT TO THE ONE TO WHOSE LOT IT HAD FALLEN, WITH THE LIVER ATTACHED TO IT. HE THEN CAME TO THE NECK, AND LEAVING TWO RIBS ON EACH SIDE OF IT HE CUT IT OFF AND GAVE IT TO THE ONE TO WHOSE LOT IT HAD FALLEN, WITH THE WINDPIPE AND THE HEART AND THE LUNG ATTACHED TO IT.

— Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Tamid 31a
Soncino 1961 Edition, pages 23-24

The Tabernacle layout is humaniform (and indeed cruciform), so upper part of Adam corresponds to the Holy Place. The heart, which is situated slightly to the left of the human body, would correspond to the Golden Table, which symbolises the Firstfruits offered to God (both bread and wine, flesh and blood). But there are two lungs, not just one, so the Tabernacle imagery breaks down. Or does it? Rather than requiring two lampstands on left and right (which we do see in Solomon’s Temple, but each of the ten lampstands has its own Table, since it is a “bridal house of resurrection”), it would seem that the lamp is the reception of the light of the Law from heaven, and the lungs themselves picture “the house filled with smoke,” the clouds of incense which are a response to the Law, the testimony of a good conscience, the fragrant witness of an accepted sacrifice, the law written on two tablets of flesh. Indeed, the first words spoken by Adam are for the purpose of naming his bride.

So, there it is. The life is in the blood, but that life is sourced in heaven. Lungs and heart are treated as “one flesh,” a permanent tryst between heaven and earth.

or Where Kenneth Gentry Is Wrong on the Revelation

Part 1 here.

I’ve been meaning to write this post since I wrote Part 1 (over two years ago). A friend’s recent question concerning Kenneth Gentry’s lectures on the Revelation encouraged me to bite the bullet and bust a gut and get it done. The question is this: Is the Revelation to be interpreted in the light of Josephus’ Jewish War, or in the light of the Bible itself?

Just as the Tabernacle rebuilt by David included Gentile worshipers, the reinstitution of worship in Israel after the exile likewise required the inclusion of Gentile sponsors. We saw in Esther in Ezekiel’s Temple that the oikoumene was a Jew-Gentile social architecture, with the city of Jerusalem itself serving as a kind of holy altar within a larger temple. [1] Just as the four-horned altar served as an image of the (symbolically) four-cornered Land (not earth; see The Earth Is Flat), so now the entire city was referred to as “holy,” and the genealogy of every Jew was considered “priestly.” This upgrade in holiness of what was once common was the result of Israel’s exile, a death-and-resurrection which purged her of idol worship. So, what could go wrong?

Of course, these new blessings could and would be twisted into curses. The holy city itself and the genealogy of every Jew would become Israel’s new gods.

This is the situation into which the Messiah was born. The outcome of this idolatry was the requirement for a new death-and-resurrection. In Israel’s place, Christ initiated it, and Israel followed Him through the process over the next generation. Like the bronze altar outside the Tabernacle, the entire city itself would be considered “outside the camp,” and even its sides would be splashed with the blood of the atoning sacrifices. As the law decreed, the crimes of the murderers would be atoned for with their own blood.

Consequently, it would be no surprise that the deep structure of the Revelation recapitulates the order of sacrifice. The Revelation is not a description of the Jewish war, though it is part of the outcome. It is a liturgy describing the sacrifice of the priesthood of Israel for the sake of the nations. Herod’s Jerusalem would be offered up in a spectacle of blood, fire and smoke. Any other reading of the final book of the Bible, using, for instance, uninspired second Temple literature, the works of Josephus, or the latest news headlines, to interpret it, is a gross misunderstanding of the purpose of the text.

Ordo Sacrificii sub Apocalypsis

In the book of Leviticus, the simple process of the whole burnt offering (“the ascension” [3]) blooms like a flower, revealing myriad parts with different purposes. Yet each of these remains a process of transformation, one whose pattern can be traced back to Genesis 1.

Creation – Day 1 – Called (Sabbath – “on the Lord’s Day”)

What is the correspondence between the choosing of the blameless animal and Day 1? The baptism of Jesus is a great help. The dove hovers over the water and identifies the Lamb from hundreds of His repentant brothers. We see a similar process at the anointing of David, the shepherd. In the Revelation, it is the vision of the glorified Jesus, the one who has already ascended.

Division – Day 2 – Sanctified (Passover)

In biblical terms, sanctification is not a growth in holiness but a setting apart. In sacrificial terms, it is the delegation of a purpose, much as one might set apart food for a special event. Thus, sanctification has more to do with election than the kind of practical holiness which the word brings to mind today. In Genesis 1, this is the parting of the waters. In Exodus, it is the parting of the Red Sea to set Israel apart from Egypt. In Galatians, Paul combines these two images in his use of Hagar and Sarah as symbols of Egypt’s river and Canaan’s rain, the waters below and the waters above (see The Shape of Galatians, pp. 155-165). In the Revelation, it is the Division of the New Israel, represented by the seven churches, from the Old Israel, the city of Jerusalem who now embodies the worst traits of Egypt, Sodom and Babylon, and worse, flaunts these in God’s face through her continued sacrifices, following the murder of Christ and most of His apostles. Jesus calls these new “sons of God” out of Egypt and “passes over” them, “trimming the wick” on each lampstand. He cuts off the leaven of the Pharisees in each church before He cuts off “Egypt” altogether (see The Eighth Letter and Living Menora).

Ascension – Day 3 – Presented (Firstfruits)

The Passover sacrifice could be a lamb or a kid, but the Firstfruits animal offering was a lamb. Revelation 4-5 reveal the Lamb, ascended to heaven as the firstfruits from the dead, representing all who believe. Since the work of Day 3 was twofold, Land and fruits, Altar and Table, Christ is the connection between the earth (His grave in Israel) and the heavens. Instead of grain and fruit plants, Christ is flesh and blood, bread and wine, offered upon the Table.

Christ opens the scroll, which ends His ministry in the Garden, and sends the four Gospel witnesses into the Land (or, in Tabernacle terms, moves the action from the Most Holy into the Holy Place). The seven seals follow the same sevenfold pattern in microcosm.

Testing – Day 4 – Purified (Pentecost)

Just as Christ is the Head of the sacrifice (offered without being washed), chapter 7 reveals the firstfruits Body: 144,000 believing Jews. Note that the Body is washed (v. 14). These are the sheep which Peter was to feed for the slaughter. The process of “counting” alludes to the book of Numbers. Only the men were counted, because men are sacrificial “heads,” hence circumcision for Israelite males. But there are Gentiles as well, yet these are not counted. They are numberless. Peter’s haul of fish was counted, an offering from the sea presented upon the “altar” on the beach (a fire of burning coals). The fact that these Gentile “human sacrifices” are not counted means the Covenant is moving from earth to heaven, from the Cainite ground to the “Abel” (hebel) clouds of heaven. This is a new heavens and earth, a new creation, and the description of the end of their suffering aptly follows the order of the Creation week (see Saved From The Green Horse). The centre of this promise concerns the striking and scorching heat of the sun, which leads into chapter 8. This is a description of the holy fire from heaven, the Spirit of God descending upon both Jews and Gentiles from the Day of Pentecost onward. From heaven’s point of view, salvation was a call to become a human sacrifice, since Christ has made us “acceptable” to God (in sacrificial terms). We no longer need animal substitutes.

Maturity – Day 5 – Transformed (Trumpets)

This is where our concept of “sanctification” comes in. It is spiritual maturity, so in biblical terms a better word for it might be transformation. The flesh has been consumed and is now fragrant clouds, able to pass through locked doors (as we see in John and Acts), following the High Priest who entered through the torn veil in clouds of incense on the Day of Atonement.

New Israel – Good Trumpets

Maturity corresponds to the Feast of Trumpets (see above), describing in “Mosaic” terminology the witness of the Apostles leading up to the destruction of the  Temple and its now obsolete – and corrupted – worship. The seven trumpets follow the same sevenfold “creation-through-sacrifice” pattern. As the Feast of Trumpets, they muster the troops of Israel. However, as is described by Paul in Romans, there were now two Israels. The Judiastic Israelites are described as Egyptian/Babylonian locusts, and the saints are described as human Tabernacles, temples of the Spirit.

In chapter 10, a part of the New Covenant authority is delegated to John, a son of thunder, who, as the Last Apostle, will speak the final words of judgment upon the rulers of the Land (“kings of the earth”). For a description of the angel, see The Church As Colossus and The Last Trumpet.

The two witnesses are the Law of Moses and the Testimony of the Prophets embodied in the Apostolic Witness as the testimony of Jesus, hence Moses and Elijah deferring to Christ at His transfiguration, and the Father vindicating Christ as He did at His baptism. Just as that act ended Christ’s personal testimony to Israel, so these two witnesses end the Apostolic testimony to Israel. Both Head and Body have now spoken and been slain.

What is interesting here is that the Word began in the Garden, worked its way out through the Land to the World. Here we have three pictures of the testimony of the Firstfruits Church, which reverse the order: A great army crossing the Euphrates into the Land (World), the witness of John as seven “Sinaitic” thunders (Land), and the Law and Prophets as two cherubim (Garden). These symbols follow the High Priest as He makes His way from the court, through the Holy Place and into the Most Holy, just as He does in Leviticus. So the final verse of this section referring to the Ark of God in His temple should be no surprise if we have a handle on sacred architecture. The blood of the human sacrifices is being offered by Christ as the “washed Body” (Leviticus 1:9 – supporting baptism by full immersion of the body). However, this brings a new fire from heaven, one which will be administered by the Roman armies.

Old Israel – Bad Trumpets

Following the pattern of Psalm 1, Maturity has both blessings (the Apostolic witness) and curses (the response of the rulers of the Land). This dual witness is the “Deuteronomy” of the book of Revelation (read Deuteronomy 28). In their warnings, the Firstfruits Church not only “filled up” (multiplied into an abundance, as Brides do) the sufferings of Christ, but also provoked unbelieving Israelites to harden their hearts like Pharaoh did, and to “fill up” their sins. Paul describes this Jew-Gentile ministry and the imminent judgement of Jerusalem:

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God’s wrath has come upon them at last! (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16)

I hope it is becoming plain how erroneous is most exposition of the Revelation, including that by many preterists. Throwing proof texts at each other is like arguing about jigsaw pieces without reference to the picture on the box, which is found in the Torah.

Anyhow, from Revelation 12, the pattern of the Trumpets (Maturity) is repeated. It begins with a negative Pentecost. Just as David received the Spirit and Saul received an evil spirit from the Lord, so false Israel became demonic after the “enlightening” of Pentecost (Hebrews 6:4). Satan was kicked out of his “legal” role in heaven and took up residence on the earth, or more specifically, on the Land, in the Temple of the Herods (the source of the Edenic “springs” described in the final chapters of Ezekiel). So, that’s the Herodian Garden corrupted. Notice it begins with the Woman and the Herodian Dragon, a clear reference to Genesis as the beginning of this legal pattern.

Next, he spewed this corrupted (“bitter” Wormwood) river into the Land, and the false Church sucked it right up. This was the false doctrine which the apostles had to battle against, referred to over and over again in the epistles (so much for the attempts over the centuries to identify this false doctrine as anything but anti-Christian Judaism).

Satan’s final attempt to kill the Bride was to turn to the World for aid, so he called upon the Sea Beast, Rome (see Three Strikes, Binding and Loosing, and Serpents and Dragons). AD64 saw not only the completion of Herod’s Temple (proving Jesus to be a false prophet) but also the burning of Rome, the first time Roman authorities recognised Christianity as separate from Judaism. Satan’s ploy was to attack this strange new Jew-Gentile Body with a Jew-Gentile counterfeit, just as Herod and Pilate became “friends” after the trial of Christ.

After a description of this false worship and its false kingdom (presented as an Aaronic golden calf, the image of a beast), the “transformed” sacrifices are seen as “holy smoke” on the mountain with Christ, Head and Body now united. Their flesh and blood was “harvested” as bread and wine. Like the blood of Abel, it cried from the ground and calls upon God for vindication and vengeance. However, unlike the first murder, this vengeance would not be delayed. The blood of all the prophets from Abel onwards would be avenged upon that generation. The Land is described as an altar overflowing with blood “as high as a horse’s bridle.”

Conquest – Day 6 – Vindicated (Atonement)

Jerusalem had been surrounded by saints with Gospel “Trumpets”, but the final day had come. As it was with Jericho, the firstfruits of the Land, “all flesh” would be cut off in Jerusalem, as the firstfruits of the World. The entire city would be cut around, or circumcised. This brings us to the seven bowls of wrath, which correspond to the seven sprinklings of blood from the hand of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. However, on this day, the Roman general Titus would step over the Body of the apostate High Priest (see End of the Abrahamic Rift and Jesus’ Caesars).

What is the source of the seven bowls? Only the structure of the text reveals this (which means exegetes with little or no poetic sense will write this observation off as speculation). Interestingly, it is the Lampstand, the light of the Law now available by the Spirit (see Seven Bowls of Wrath). The Spirit would no longer strive with old Israel. For a sample of the beauty of the “de-Creation” described under the image of these Temple bowls, see #41 in 50 Failed Predictions part 9. For a complete rundown, see James B. Jordan’s The Vindication of Jesus Christ.

Chapters 17-19 describe the separation of the harlot and the bride, corresponding to Hagar and Sarah (Israel as Egypt versus Abraham’s “heavenly Canaan”), and also the two prostitutes whose hearts were discerned by Solomon. Since this entire pattern recapitulates the Testing of Adam in the Garden, the Father is discerning the heart of the Bride (Numbers 5) whom Christ has presented to Him as a chaste virgin. Not only are her eyes open (Luke 24:31; Acts 9:8,18), but she is liberated by the obedience of her Adam.

Glorification – Day 7 – Sent (Booths)

The final section of the Revelation is also sevenfold. It describes the ministry of the now-enthroned Firstfruits Church in heaven during this current period (see For A Thousand Years and Altar of the Abyss – 7). The sacrificial process enacted in the Garden and re-enacted in the Land would now be recapitulated throughout the World through the testimony of saints from every nation.

I hope to write a complete “Shape of the Revelation” some time soon, but will wait for Peter Leithart’s 2015 commentary because he will no doubt present many insights I can rip off include! In the mean time, get a hold of James B. Jordan’s Revelation lecture series.

But I hope you can see that the Revelation is not a symbolic account of the Jewish War, as important as understanding that history might be. Of course, I do recommend Kenneth Gentry’s Before Jerusalem Fell, which is extremely helpful when it comes to dating the book and establishing its purpose in the biblical canon.

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[1] For an introduction to this subject, see Peter J. Leithart’s The Four: A Survey of the Gospels. For a more in-depth study, see James B. Jordan’s The Handwriting on the Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel. And you can search for “oikoumene” here on the blog.
[2] See Peter J. Leithart, Skinned and Cut, Biblical Horizons No. 35 (March 1992)

ART: A souped up version of the original cover artwork for David Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance. Chilton makes a similar error to Gentry, but is still well worth a read for his many insights.

Jesus’ reference to Daniel 7 in Matthew 26:64 (and Mark 14:62) is a source of some confusion. To figure out what is actually going on in Daniel’s vision, we have to go back to Leviticus 16. James Jordan writes:

…when Jesus calls Himself “the Son of Man,” He is referring to Ezekiel, not to Daniel 7 (except perhaps indirectly). Jesus is the Greater Ezekiel. Christians are those who are “like the Son of Man,” like Jesus.

The Day of Coverings: Coming With Heavenly Clouds

Turning from Ezekiel, there is another passage in the Bible with which the Jews were very familiar, that is farther in the background of Daniel 7, and that is Leviticus 16. On the Day of Coverings (of “Atonement” in English Bibles), the High Priest took off his glorious garments and dressed simply in linen in order to remove the sins of the people once a year. Then, after finishing this work, he was reinvested with glory, and once again took up his position as spiritual ruler of Israel.

Two coverings happened on the Day of Coverings. First, the Ark-Cover was sprinkled and thereby covered with blood. This was a covering for propitiation, justification. Then the High Priest put back on his garments of glory and beauty. This was a covering for glorification.

Now, removing sins is not in view on Daniel 7, but other aspects of the ritual are. We have seen that Ezekiel was a kind of high priest, and it follows that in Ezekiel “son of man” is a title for the High Priest, the spiritual ruler of God’s people. Adam was priest in the Garden of Eden, and the “son of adam” is a new Adam, ruling in the symbolic sanctuary garden of the Tabernacle and Temple. Hence, “son of Adam” or “New Adam” is entirely appropriate as a title for the Chief Priest of God’s sanctuary.

An examination of the ritual in Leviticus 16 will clarify aspects of Daniel 7 for us, aspects that would have been much clearer to Daniel and his friends who “meditated on the law day and night” and who had observed this ritual annually before they were deported to Babylon.

The ritual is delineated in Leviticus 16. We read in verses 12–14 that the High Priest was to take coals from the fire of the Bronze Altar in the Courtyard. Then he was to fill the hollow of both his hands with incense, place it upon the coals, and carry this incense into the Holy of Holies directly before Ark-Throne of Yahweh. This incense was most holy, or “holy of holy” (Exodus 30:34–38). Its ingredients were prescribed by God and it was used only in the Tabernacle/Temple, which was a symbolic model of God’s heavens. The cloud of incense, thus, was a symbolic cloud of the heavens. Being “most holy” this incense could travel into the Most Holy room. [1]

As the High Priest walked from the Altar on the earth upwards (symbolically) through the heavens and into the highest heavens, he did so accompanied by this heavenly cloud. Inside the Holy of Holies, the High Priest held the incense pan in one hand, and a bowl of blood in his other hand, from which he flicked with his finger blood toward the Ark-Throne. This blood was to cover his sins and those of the other priests (Leviticus 16:11).

After this, as a second ritual, the High Priest did the same thing with a goat slain for the sins of the people, taking incense into the Holy of Holies and sprinkling the blood of the goat before the Ark-Throne (Leviticus 16:15).

After all the rituals were completed, the High Priest took off the garments he had been wearing, and put back on his garments of glory and beauty (Leviticus 16:23–24). These garments included the twelve tribes engraven on his shoulder stones and also on his twelve-stoned breastplate. In other words, the High Priest was given the kingdom on the Day of Coverings — he put the kingdom back on himself.

Now if we look back at Daniel 7:13–14, we see the same sequence. We see someone like Ezekiel, who was a kind of high priest for the exilic community. This High Priest approaches Yahweh with the clouds of heaven. Then he is given a kingdom that will never pass away.

We must remember that the High Priest represented the people. The High Priest is the son of man, and the people are those who are like this son of man. In Leviticus 16, the High Priest comes with heavenly incense clouds first for himself, and then he comes a second time for the people. Thus, there are two cloudy ascensions in Leviticus 16, the first of the son of man, and the second of those who are like the son of man.

In Daniel 7:13, the one like a son of man does not come riding upon heavenly clouds. He is not a cloud-rider. He is not a “divine figure.” No, he comes with heavenly clouds, and can be recognized as the High Priest, or rather, as those who are like the High Priest. In Daniel 7, the Ancient of Days, the Cloud-Rider, has already arrived.

We are not surprised, then, to read that the one like a son of man is identified not with any particular person, such as the coming Messiah, but with the saints (Daniel 7:18, 22, 25). Now, Daniel would not have been aware that the Messiah would be the incarnate Yahweh. Hence, he might well have seen the one like a son of man as the Messiah coming to Yahweh to receive the kingdom. That is, Daniel could have seen this figure as both the people and their Messianic head. At the same time, as we have seen, the clear allusions to Leviticus 16 might have complicated things for Daniel, because there are two ascensions, one of the son of man and one of the people of the son of man. We, however, cannot be confused. The Ancient of Days is Yahweh, and taking his seat must be the ascension of Jesus and the opening of the books seen in Revelation 4–7. The one like a son of man, like Jesus, is the saints, who ascend to receive the kingdom in the year AD 70.

For Christians today it is not so clear, because the background of Daniel 7 in Ezekiel and in Leviticus 16 is not well understood. They see Jesus ascending to heaven in the clouds (Acts 1:9) and they think that is all there is to it, forgetting the second cloudy ascension in Leviticus 16. But Leviticus 16 makes clear that first the High Priest ascends in a heavenly cloud, and then afterwards the people (represented by the goats and the High Priest) ascend.

Similarly, Christians have been too quick to read the various statements in the New Testament about the “son of man coming in/with clouds” to refer to Jesus Himself. In some passages this may be the case, since Jesus is the Son of Man and He did ascend in the clouds. But in other passages, it seems that it is the second ascension, that of the saints, that is in view. We shall conclude this chapter by examining these passages.

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[1] Frankincense in the system was “holy,” but compound incense, being a mixture, was “most holy.” Mixtures are always holy, which is why the layman was to avoid them. I have treated this matter fully in James B. Jordan, The Law of Forbidden Mixtures. Biblical Horizons Occasional Paper 6 (Niceville, FL: Biblical Horizons, 1989).

(James B. Jordan, The Handwriting On The Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, 337-340.)

Jordan’s discussion of the “cloud-coming” passages in the New Testament is enlightening, as is the rest of his must-have commentary on Daniel, available here.

From the forthcoming Bible Matrix III: The House of God:

As we have seen, The Tabernacle was not only a model of heaven but a microcosm of a new earth, that is, a new Land. Its triune pattern would be measured out fractally in Levites serving god (Priestshood), Israelites worshiping God (Kinghood) and priests and people, left hand and right hand, as a witness to the nations (Prophethood).

Just as with Noah and his family, Israel would not simply be a new Man but a new Mankind, an entire culture, a “Church-State,” ready to be planted and multiplied. So, before this Ethical Garden could be planted in the Physical World, a new society had to be organized to mediate between the two.

Sex and Death

Leviticus is a book all about sex and death, and the nakedness inherent in our beginnings and endings. If we are reading the Bible “cumulatively,” this should make us think of the curses upon the naked Adam and Eve: Adam returning to the dust of the Land over which he sweats, and Eve’s manifold difficulties in producing offspring.

Leviticus takes these curses and expounds upon them in a manner intended to teach us about blamelessness. It is a “liturgical surgery” which deals with the flesh not through cutting and stitching, but through cutting and consumption by knife and fire, the flaming sword between God and men.

Since the spirit of Man was darkened, Levitical Law was Covenant Ethics incarnate in the Social and the Physical, much like the single Law in the Garden regarding the forbidden fruit (seed, flesh and skin). Levitical Law was a “dark saying” designed to bring light, to force men to meditate, and we are still chewing on it. The faithful wrestle and are nourished, and the unfaithful choke and die. Only with a submissive attitude can Adams and Eves discover the hidden intentions of God.

Levitical Law “measured out” the ministry of the Tabernacle in the flesh of Israelites. At various levels of holiness, it made every Israelite a Tabernacle. This means that none of Leviticus is obsolete for the Christian. In fact, it is even more beneficial for us than it was for the children of Israel. Unlike them, we all have the Spirit of God to illuminate these strange laws, which are heavenly truth engraved in earthly materials.

Perfect Skin

In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus stated that he did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them. This was not completed until the destruction of the Temple, and with it, the offering of “blameless” animal substitutes.

The Law was fulfilled in Christ, and He is in heaven advocating for us as the Lamb. There’s no need for any atoning sacrifice on earth, nor is there any need for a Jewish priesthood with “blameless skin” or any other physical attributes. The “office” of Israel is now redundant, carried out entirely by Christ on our behalf.

Despite that fact that Leviticus is still useful for instruction and meditation, the Laws themselves have a “built-in obsolescence” as far as practice is concerned.

In Bible Matrix II, we spoke about every Covenant being a “tour of duty,” a commission which has a definite beginning and a definite end, like a harvest cycle. The Levitical Laws were for the Firstfruits, a commission which served to teach the nature of blameslessness until the Blameless Man fulfilled them. As the perfect and final “nearbringing,” His ascension would open heaven and allow God to pour out the blessing of a greater harvest. It should be no surprise that the Levitical Laws contained clues from the very beginning that they were a temporary arrangement.

The first seven chapters describe “private sacrifices,” following the fivefold Covenant pattern. They are a process of consecration, service, and deconsecration, a vow which has a beginning and an end.

Since they follow the Covenant pattern, they are also “cruciform”—a cross-shaped process around a cross-shaped house by a cross-shaped nation…

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ART: Detail of Andy Warhol’s Gold Marilyn (1962) and Electric Chair (Red) (1964). As confused and immoral as he was, Warhol attended mass weekly during his entire life. These confronting works made icons out of sex and death. Like the Levitical Law, they say nothing and yet speak of everything.