Satan is currently bound from gathering the nations in kingly rebellion so that Jesus might gather them in priestly unity.

Everything which Scripture records for us, no matter how mundane or mysterious, exists as part of a process of growth to maturity. This transformation is achieved through relationships established by a Father who delights in His Son and rewards His faithfulness as “seed” with abundant fruit.

History is thus written in “harvest cycles,” and each of these ends with blessings and curses. As in Eden, after a period of silence which allows the righteous and the wicked to fulfill their potential, the Lord comes suddenly (Revelation 22:10-11). As in Eden, He inspects and collects the fruit and gives His trees a pruning. In history, each cycle lasts approximately 400 to 500 years, since that is the time it takes for a new Word to finish its work in a culture. From our beginning in Adam, these cycles also appear to come in pairs, a Forming and a Filling, resulting in “themed” millennia.

Continue reading at Theopolis Institute.

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

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Rachel Held Evans is a writer who likes the challenge of “asking tough questions about Christianity in the context of the Bible Belt” while consulting the howling void of modern culture for the answers. That is indeed a challenge. She takes Christians to task for referring to the de-Christianizing of Christmas as “persecution”, offering a helpful chart.

Doug Wilson provides some wisdom in response.

Part of the modern mindset is this desire to “classify” everything, to label it, which is fine, but in doing so we very often become blind to the relationships which all of these isolated things have to each other. Is minor persecution actually persecution or not? Do we have the right to complain about the castration of Christmas? I believe the Bible gives us an entirely different perspective.

Graded levels of persecution only matter if we are trying to avoid it. Paul did not see any level of persecution as an infringement upon his “life, safety, civil liberties or right to worship.” He saw every persecution, at every level, as an opportunity for legal witness to the resurrection and the Gospel of Christ, and therefore rejoiced in it. The bigger the persecution, therefore, the bigger the opportunity. But he did not pass up the little ones, either. Paul’s testimony, along with that of the apostles, ended the false witness of Herodian Judaism, and led to the end of pagan Rome and institution of the Christian calendar and its holidays.

A millennium later, with the Roman Church now corrupt as the Herods, it was the murder of the Reformers which resulted in the celebration of Reformation Day, a holiday which is seeing a revival in some quarters.

Persecution is also a misunderstood opportunity in the book of Esther. Under Mordecai’s instruction, the heroine did not take advantage of the little opportunities. She refrained from revealing her Jewish identity. This mask was the epitome of the attitude of the Jews, who were largely keeping their faith to themselves to avoid making waves. They failed to take advantage of the little opportunities, so God sent a really big one: genocide, with the sanction of the Emperor.

So, Mordecai and Esther failed at the start but God turned their failure into faithfulness. Added to this, there was the irony that Haman was not aware of the identity of the Queen, so God even used her lack of witness as the key to his downfall.

They ended up passing with flying colors. Indeed, their colors were nailed to the mast for every Jew from India to Ethiopia: Haman impaled on a pole, lifted up like a serpent. The end of the persecutors at God’s hand even resulted in a new festival, Purim, an extra “happy, holy day” which is still celebrated today.

Every seed that falls into the ground and dies results in a great harvest. Our God delights in “turning the tables.” Secularists should learn from history that anyone who challenges His work in any age always comes off second best.

So whether you are confronted with a sanitized “Happy Holidays” at the supermarket checkout, or hauled before the courts (which is coming), every level of persecution is an opportunity to move history forward, to let God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, the only courtroom worth worrying about. And, who knows, it might even result in a brand new Christian holiday. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

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ART: Woodcut from the title page of a 1499 pamphlet published by Markus Ayrer in Nuremberg. It depicts Vlad III “the Impaler” (identified as Dracole wyade = Draculea voivode) dining among the impaled corpses of his victims.

Here’s my all-time favourite joke in the Bible.

Jesus makes it clear that whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. This goes right back to the Garden of Eden. Adam did not humble himself under the Word and repeat it once more as a prophetic legal witness to the serpent and to Eve. In this refusal, he extended the exaltation of the serpent himself against the will of God. So Adam was humbled by God, and, very interestingly, the angel behind the serpent was exalted to a legal role in heaven. The serpent was lifted up, standing at God’s right hand as the accuser of Man.

If Adam had obeyed the Lord, he would have been worthy, as firstfruits of the Land (he was created in the Land and lifted up to the Garden) to “open the scroll,” in this case, the promises of dominion which the Lord had made to him. But the scroll remained closed. It would be a mystery to human eyes for four thousand years.

Joseph was a faithful firstfruits. Unlike Adam, he humbled himself continually and did not hide his relationship to God. This could have cost him his life, but he was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the double witness God had sent to the Gentile king in dreams. Once vindicated as faithful and wise, he sat at Pharaoh’s right hand (with Pharaoh’s ring or seal) and became Pharaoh’s “living word.”

Daniel was another firstfruits carried into a Gentile court. He, too, humbled himself, and did not hide his Covenant identity. Again, this could have cost him his life, but he was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the fourfold witness God had sent to the Gentile emperor in dreams. He, too, became the top wise man in the royal court, and it seems he may have had a hand in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian armies (under God’s guidance, of course).

James Jordan runs us through these similarites in his lectures, and how they all point to Christ’s faithfulness, His exaltation to the right hand of the power (finally usurping the satan), and His worthiness to “open the scroll” of the New Covenant, and sends out the four gospels (the horsemen of the harvest).

This really unlocks the book of Revelation for us, but the one that made me laugh was the instance in the book of Esther, which is already funny, but becomes hysterical when we have prior knowledge.

Mordecai was the Jew living in a Gentile city. Instead of submitting to authority, he refused to bow. (Bowing to Gentile kings, or any other human being, was not sinful for Jews, only bowing to idols because they are not images of the true God.) Mordecai also told Esther to hide her Covenant identity. As a result, another satan, Haman, usurped the role God had obviously prepared for Mordecai (we know this because of all the previous patterns, and also because Mordecai eventually received this role, a terror to the nations.)

Mordecai thwarts an assassination attempt on the king, which leads us to the divine comedy. Instead of the king receiving dreams from the Most High, he can’t sleep. If we were watching a sitcom with such a well-established pattern, seeing the king tossing and turning would surely justify some laughter from the live audience. He calls for the royal records and discovers Mordecai’s faithfulness (which, in context, we must understand as a submission to authority which God can bless.) He calls the self-righteous Haman in and asks his advice on what to do to glorify a faithful man. Here, Joseph or Daniel would “open the mystery.” Adam would obey and understand God’s intention behind the test. The purpose of the trial was to qualify His right hand Man so that a much greater authority could be conferred upon him and a much greater blessing could be poured out through him. (Notice the correpondence between Joseph’s grain and Jesus’ Pentecostal Spirit! In Daniel’s case it was the conversion of the king, but that would take a little more explaining than is wise at this point.)

Of course, Haman misinterprets the king’s will entirely, which is very funny, and repeats a theme which, as you can see now, unites the entire Bible from the first book to the last. Haman is just like Adam. He has himself become a lying serpent. He desired to exalt himself and he would be humbled. His wisdom was not the wisdom of God. But of course, a much greater humbling for him, and his sons, was to come. The serpent would be lifted up (Garden), along with his sons (Land) and the entire brood gathered in his spirit across the World.

Now, there are many Bible teachers who say that a type is only a type if it is explained explicitly in the text of the Bible. Never read Shakespeare or watch a good movie with, or lend a novel to, such a person. He is in the ranks of the illiterati and must not be permitted anywhere near such exquisite entertainments, especially the Bible.

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James Jordan’s lectures are available from www.wordmp3.com

Joe Rigney has a great piece on the Trinity House website. With apologies to Joe, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell, then make some brief observations. But make sure you read the entire article.
Turning Babel Into A Beast

Rigney asks what might be the church’s best strategy in the near future. Ignoring the same sex marriage debate would allow more time, energy and resources for the fight against abortion. It is better to work for the protection of those who are truly innocent.
But then he takes a step back, and notes that abortion and same sex marriage are symptoms of the same sickness. How did the prophets, Jesus and the apostles get to the heart of the matter in the Scriptures?

In his slaughter of the innocents, Herod the Great became a devouring dragon. But how did John deal with the Herod of his day (Herod Antipas)? He provoked him by publicly pointing out his adultery and calling him to repent. Herod was afraid to have him killed, but the wrath of Herodias forced his hand. This prefigured the events that would follow a generation later, when an army of Spirit-filled prophets would challenge the authority of the entire Herodian line. The false prophet, the harlot and the beast are the Herods, their post-Pentecost demonic Temple worship, and the authority of Rome with which they conspired. These were corporate, “fullgrown” versions of Adam, Eve and the serpent. But serpents only deceive. When they have “seed,” they multiply, take on a body, and become a devouring dragon.

Rigney calls on some helpful observations from Peter Leithart’s recent book, Between Babel and Beast: America and Empires in Biblical Perspective. Leithart rightly says that a Babel is an empire with a cultic heart. Rigney tells us that the way to deal with abortion and sodomy is to provoke Babel, the harlot and turn her into a beast. He writes:

“…it may be that the best way to hasten the demonstration of God’s righteousness and topple the abortion-regime is to awaken the ire of the unbelieving world by getting under their skin with respect to their sexual-otry, homosexual and otherwise. To put it in biblical terms, if we want God to judge the Herods for their baby-killing, idolatry, and greed, we should never tire of pointing out how offensive it is that he has his brother’s wife (or his wife’s brother, as the case may be). In short, we should endeavor to so speak and act that we soberly but gladly accept that putting an end to the massacre of unborn innocents may require us to get in between the Babel and the innocents, however we can.”

Rigney is calling us to become human shields, to allow our own blood to be spilled so that the blood of the innocents might be avenged. When Christians preach boldly, and some are martyred, this allows the powers to fill up their sins. Rigney asks the question we all ask: “Why has God not yet judged our nations for the slaughter of millions of unborn children?” The answer is that Jesus, by His Spirit, has legal representatives all across the earth. He is waiting for us to be provoked into action, to incarnate His own indignation against the wicked, to be His eyes and then to be His mouth. When the state begins to persecute and slaughter Christians, it is the “last days,” that is, the last days of that state. It was so with the power of Rome and with the power of Holy Rome, and it will be so with the secular monstrosity which Western Culture has become. The best way to hasten the destruction of the dragon, as it was with Pharaoh and with Haman, is to provoke it. When the dragon begins to devour the sons of God, God will avenge both them and the innocent sons of men.

“The Bible seems to suggest that the blood of martyrs fills up the cup of God’s wrath more quickly than the blood of innocents alone. It is this shift—-from the blood of innocents to the blood of martyrs—-that rouses God’s long-sleeping wrath which throws down the Beast, either through cataclysmic judgment or in massive Spirit-wrought awakening (or perhaps both).”

In the Garden of Eden, Babel was Eve, the mother of all living, who, with Adam’s approval, surrendered her offspring to the serpent. In the first century, it was Jerusalem, who through a Covenant with Rome, surrendered her truest sons, “Jews indeed,” to be devoured, and was filled with their blood. How would we identify Leithart’s definition of a “Babelic” empire today?

Based upon what I wrote yesterday, the beast of today is secularism, a counterfeit church, a religion masquerading as neutrality, as mere pragmatism. But this modern beast, as with all the previous ones, is a direct result of the Church’s failure to remain spotless and to witness boldly.

So I disagree with the idea of “turning Babel into a beast.” They are distinct entities, although united by adultery. Eve and the serpent were not one and the same. Herodias and Herod were not one and the same. Herod and Pilate were not one and the same: they were united in friendship over the murder of Christ. Herodian worship and the Rome which finally turned against Christians under Nero were not one and the same, though they too were briefly united over the murder of the firstfruits church. So who is the harlot today, corporately speaking? The harlot today–the murderess of modernity–is the only one that ever was. It is the unfaithful Church, hiding her identity. It those Christians who keep silent, who compromise with unrighteousness, who believe the godless when they tell them their protests are offensive and uncaring and intolerant, who ridicule those who believe in the Creation and the Bible’s chronology, who teach their own doctrines from the pulpit instead of the entire Word of God. Babel cannot be transformed into the beast. She is us. Babel can only ever be cut in two, placed on the altar and set alight as the daughter of a priest, passing through the fire to be divided once again into ashes (serpentine dust) and smoke (a resurrected bride) as she was in the Revelation and the Reformation. This means that all the current proceedings are allowed for the purification of the Church. God will let the innocents die, again and again, in Egypt, in Jerusalem, in America, for the sake of His true sons and daughters, those of the Spirit, His co-regents.

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)

This is actually where Rigney finally takes us: a call to purity and boldness for the Church. It is an altar call with real flames.

The systematic typology of the Bible Matrix allows us to follow the structures of the Torah thoughout the rest of the Bible. Here’s something that links the Restoration era with the book of Deuteronomy.

Concerning Esther’s entry into the Emperor’s beauty contest, James Jordan writes:

“[W]hat is Mordecai’s problem? It seems to be this: He is a schemer who seeks to acquire influence through political manoeuvering rather than through faith in God. When the king’s men round up pretty girls as potential queen candidates, Esther is among them. We can dismiss the notion that gangs of Persians went around seizing all the pretty girls. No, Esther shows up as a candidate because Mordecai wanted her to.

She only did what he told her (2:20). Mordecai tells her to conceal her Jewishness, and she obeys him even after she was married and owed her allegiance to her husband (compare Psalm 45). In this way, Mordecai causes Esther to sin.

We do not know why this man wanted to keep his Jewishness and that of his niece a secret. We know full well that this king had allowed the Jews in Jerusalem to rebuild their temple (Ezra 6). So, why conceal one’s Jewishness? There is absolutely no evidence of any anti-Jewish prejudice in the ancient world — we may not read European history back into Biblical history.

So, we don’t know. What we can see, however, is that whatever else good might have been part of Mordecai’s personal makeup, he was playing a political game. [1]

This theory might seem arbitrary, but Jordan’s “mere assertions” have an uncanny habit of playing out as one does further study. There is no more than circumstantial evidence in the text. Or is there?

Surely Mordecai’s “coerced” presentation of Esther near the beginning of the narrative chiastically mirrors Esther’s willing presentation of herself near the end. Despite Mordecai’s “threat” of the possible disaster, the final choice was left up to Esther herself. The external law had become internal. The first “robing” was Delegation (Hierarchy), the last was Vindication (Sanctions). From The Covenant Key:

We saw this exact pattern in Bible Matrix concerning Joseph. In his first cycle, he receives his robe of authority at Division (Hierarchy). At Conquest (Sanctions), the robe is stolen, torn and covered with blood. In this initial cycle, the Covenant pattern is corrupted. It was Joseph who was supposed to execute Sanctions against his brothers. Instead, he was made the scapegoat.

Of course, we see this pattern reversed at the end of the narrative. He tests his brothers with, among other things, a cup, to see whether or not the “wilderness” years have transformed them. He discovers internal Law. When he reveals his face, the Veil of Joseph’s Egyptian office is opened and he is vindicated. [2]

Joseph represented the Covenant Head, and Moses the Body. Daniel represented the Head of a New Covenant (the one predicted by Jeremiah [3]), but Esther represented the Body. The women in the Emperor’s harem represented the nations — both historically and typologically. Babylon had seized them all, disempowered them, and put them under tribute as his “chattels.” But this new king of kings viewed them differently.

The book of Esther retells the entire story. Israel was like Vashti who refused to submit to her Covenant husband and was exiled before her insubordination spread to every household. That Old Covenant is dead, and a New Covenant is to be made.

This emperor is a better Solomon than Solomon’s successors were. He rules in a higher court — a “Melchizedekian” one of all nations – and as Christ He chooses Israel above all the other nations. Initially, He chooses her because of her outward beauty. But later, He chooses her because of her courage and wisdom — inward beauty (2 Tim. 2:9).

Esther is Israel. She is transformed by holy fire. This new Israel is not simply a restoration of the old, and here is where we see a reflection of the process in the Torah. In Exodus, the Ten Commandments include a man’s wife as one of his chattels that must not be coveted. Israel then passes through the “holy fire” in Numbers, and the Law is repeated to a new generation. But in Deuteronomy, the “wife” is elevated from simply being part of the household to being a co-regent over the household. This is the difference between the priesthood of Aaron (Israel) and the priesthood of Christ (the Church), the Law of Moses and the Law of the Spirit. One is a household of servants and children. One is a household of sons and wise men, which brings us to New Covenant baptism.

The book of Esther follows the “Tabernacle” matrix, and there is baptism typology in the narrative. It corresponds to the Laver, and it is when Esther robes herself and bravely stands as a martyr (witness) on the Emperor’s “crystal sea.” [4] She is then no longer one among many, nor even merely an honoured wife. She, like the church, is accepted as an advisor/mediator, and is instrumental in taking vengeance upon those who sought her destruction.

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[1] James B. Jordan, The Astounding Adventures of Myrtle Morningstar, Part 3: Introducing the Troublemaker, BIBLICAL HORIZONS No. 208, March 2010. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com
[2] Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key, p. 223.
[3] See Jeremiah was a Bullfrog?
[4] Notice Peter doing exactly the same thing after spotting the resurrected Christ on the beach.

We receive baptism, but is membership of the visible New Covenant body entirely objective? The Old Covenant church, “the Body of Moses,” was Adamic. The Tabernacle was a Babelic tower, a ladder to heaven, laid out prostrate on the ground. The New Covenant Body, the Body of Jesus, is Evian. As a Temple filled with the Spirit of God, it stands upright and walks on the Crystal Sea.

I’m a Calvinist, but baptism is about the willing response of the New Covenant bride, initiated by the witness of the Old Covenant Adam. To try to divvy it up into subjective/objective is to miss the point of relationship. It takes two to tango.

Baptism was pictured for us by the animals gathering and submitting to Adam to be named, the animals gathering and submitting to Noah to be sheltered, the Gentiles submitting to the government of Mordecai and Esther (predicted by Isaiah with the Noahic symbols of holy branch, wolf and lamb [1]), and fulfilled in the Gentiles (beasts) miraculously listening to Paul once the Jews (Adams) reject the gospel. Yes, baptism is received, but it is an authority conferred.

Perhaps this is the difference between a mark and a seal. A mark is a cutting of the law into a dead tablet. The marks on repentant Israelites in Ezekiel’s vision and the mark of the beast in Revelation are like this: external tattoos on skin. But a seal is a sign of completion, and mission. It is the king’s authority on a “living” epistle, one that contains the Law inside and is ready to ride out into the world. [2]

When Jesus opens the New Covenant seals, the gospel horsemen ride out into the Land: Word, Division, Increase/Decrease, then Judgment. The horses were the legal witness of the Apostolic church.

In these two, mark and seal, we may have the difference between circumcision and baptism, Word and Spirit, external law and internal law.

If so, this means that “sealing” babies is like sealing empty envelopes. As far as New Covenant virility goes, it’s the equivalent of shooting blanks. [3]

[1] See The Wolf and the Lamb.
[2] See The Secret.
[3] See New Covenant Virility.

Peter Leithart writes:

“Why so much attention to the pillars of Solomon’s temple in 2 Kings 25? It is likely that these were the last major items left. Ahaz had already dismantled the bronze sea and the water chariots. King after king plundered the temple for bribe money. When Nebuchadnezzar came, not much was left. Perhaps even the ark was among the ‘gold’ items removed earlier.” [1]

Like most things in the Temple, the bronze pillars had multiple significances. Jachin and Boaz were priest and king, church and state. Anointings took place before them. They were silent witnesses.

Being stately representations in the court (World), they represented dualities in the two levels above them. Jachin and Boaz were the public representations of the Gold Table and the Gold Lampstand hidden inside, (Table and Jachin on the north side, the side of sacrifice, etc.). As the bronze weathered to green, they also represented the two trees in the Garden of Eden, bread and wine, priest and king, obedience and rule, youth and eldership, submission and exaltation, Alpha and Omega. In this, they represented the two great cherubim in the Most Holy Place, flanking the flaming sword of the two tablets (Tablet I: church; Tablet II: state) within the fiery chariot-throne of God, the Ark.

They were also the two bronze-armoured legs of a mighty metal man, the true Goliath, the Colossal Totus Christus stretching from heaven to earth Who would one day stand on the Land and Sea, Jew and Gentile, and unite them with a word, and also call down the Covenant curses upon the Herodian “kingdom of Saul.” The Tabernacle was a mobile, flying tent. The Temple was stationary and thus had landing gear.

The Restoration Temple was bereft of these pillars. Priest and king were no longer exterior, and no longer separate. In Zechariah, the High Priest is given a kingly crown to wear. The old Table and Lampstand were united in a nation of kingly-priests, an Altar of Incense, flesh and Spirit united in resurrection. The church-state that was intended was a stately Daniel advising a Nebuchadnezzar, a Mordecai advising a Darius.

Dr. Leithart recently noticed a Creation pattern (well, de-Creation) in the description of the dismantling of the pillars. [2] It was, after all, the end of the old Eden, the two trees on the old mountain of God finally swept away in the flood; the original sanctuary made desolate because of the abominations committed by the sons of God.

He focusses on the items listed, and there is most certainly a chiastic arrangement. I’ll give it a go with the structure of the passage itself, and then step out a level to see what we find.

Firstly, we seem to find the 5 books of Moses. This is, after all, a recording of the execution of the curses of the Covenant.

Genesis – DEFILED SANCTUARY:
The bronze pillars that were in the house of the LORD,

Exodus – CHARIOTS AND SEA:
and the carts and the bronze Sea that were in the house of the LORD,

Leviticus – NEAR-BRINGING:
Bronze Altar-Land: the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried their bronze to Babylon.
Table of Facebread: They also took away the pots, the shovels, the trimmers, the spoons, and all the bronze utensils with which the priests ministered. (ie. the stuff that sits on the surface)

Numbers – REFINING/RULERS: (Gold and Silver – Sun and Moon – Lamptand)
The firepans [fire] and the basins [blood], the things of solid gold and solid silver, the captain of the guard took away. [Lampstand: the Temple had ten lampstands made of solid gold (rulers – fire), 1 Kings 7:49, as well as lampstands of silver (armies – smoke), 1 Chron 28:15

Deuteronomy – PLUNDER/PLAGUES INNUMERABLE AND COVENANT REPEATED:
The two pillars,
…..one Sea,
……….and the carts,
……………which Solomon had made
……….for the house of the LORD,
…..the bronze of all these articles
was beyond measure. [vapour of smoke]

Joshua – MEDIATORS/CONQUEST/HEAD & BODY:
The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the capital on it [was] of bronze. The height of the capital was three cubits, and the network and pomegranates all around the capital were all of bronze. The second pillar was the same, with a network. (The pillars were also pictures of men. [3])

There is no stanza seven, no glory, no more Promised Land. Solomon’s kingdom was the Sabbath of a process begun in Ruth (domination of Garden and Land), yet, as a new Adam, he failed to enter into a greater Sabbath. Domination of the World was given to a kingdom that would bring forth the humble fruit God desired: a kingdom ruled by Nebuchadnezzar.

The theme of this 6-verse structure is plunder, mostly bronze. Bronze was the “outer” metal of the Tabernacle, the brown Land. Iron was the outer Gentile courts (cf. Daniel 2 for the Gentile Tabernacle within which the Restoration Jews were to be wise men/prophets). This would suggest that this section is the Step 5 of a greater structure. What do we find if we take a step out, fractally, and look at the entire chapter?

Creation:
King
…encampment (tent/veil)
……siege wall / Zedekiah (de-Ascension of head)
……….famine (un-Pentecost)
……wall broken through (see BMX p. 181-183)
…king escapes between two walls
by way of the plain (no mountain of God)

Division:
Pursuit by Chaldeans (delegated authority)
…Zedekiah taken to Riblah
……brought up before the king
………sons killed before eyes, eyes taken out
……bronze fetters
…transported
to Babylon

Ascension: (Holy Place constructed but not filled)
Nebuzaradan the servant
…comes to Jerusalem
……Burns the houses:
……Lord’s house
………King’s house
……Great’s houses
…City houses
Burned with fire (Shekinah)

Testing: (death in wilderness, new ruler mentioned repeatedly)
Chaldean army
…captain of the guard (delegate)
……Jerusalem walls broken down (ascension)
………Nebuzaradan (ruler opening Law)
……multitude taken captive (plunder)
…defectors separated (Atonement)
poor as vinedressers (Booths)

Which brings us to our chiasm at Maturity: Temple Plunder
Trumpets is fairly consistently plural, so the two pillars feature: priest and king dismantled instead of resurrected

Conquest: Atonement: Murder of Gedaliah

Glorification: Booths: Future of Covenant – food and shelter – of Jehoiachin in Babylon

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[1] Peter J. Leithart, Pillars.
[2] Peter J. Leithart, Temple Plunder in Kings.
[3] See Pillar and Man.

Of course, God’s new golden-haired boy got things wrong, as all Adams do when given the opportunity of glorious kingdom. The metal man in his dream (the new “empire-Tabernacle”) only had gold at the head, but King Nebuchadnezzar’s obelisk was gold from head to foot. This new king, under whom Israel was now a “Covenant vassal,” would be taught by God that he, too, was subject to a higher authority.

James Jordan observes that the four “animal” empires correspond to the four cherubim guarding God’s throne. The animals do not match exactly, because symbols are relationships. The animals describe the relationship of each empire to the people of God.

A couple of years ago, I heard Al Stewart at the Katoomba Men’s Convention give a good summary of the first part of the book of Daniel. Unlike liberal scholars, he corresponded the four beasts with the empires beginning with Babylon, not the Medes (the liberals can’t believe that Daniel wrote about Rome because it didn’t exist at that time in history, so they have to make Greece number 4. They split Medo-Persia into two empires, which doesn’t work at all since they were contemporaneous.) When Al got to Rome, he told us that Daniel’s prophecy doesn’t match history. He didn’t do what dispensationalists do and tell us that God’s Jewish clock stopped, but he didn’t have an explanation.

The explanation is one you will only find in Jordan’s work. The Roman empire did continue to exist after AD70, but Daniel, and all the prophets, view the world as God’s Tabernacle. The characters on the stage are viewed by their respective Covenant callings as they contribute to the plan of God in history. They are priestly or kingly ministers in His court.

This is a crucial factor to understand. It solves the mystery of the identity of the sons of God in Genesis 6. It explains why the Revelation describes the destruction of the Roman “Sea beast” in AD70. And it also explains why, in God’s economy, there are no more Jews. Their calling as “sons of God” was terminated with the Temple. Or rather, it was transformed through death and resurrection into a new calling. As John says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God…”

Just like Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar came to a full understanding his calling as a vassal king through a process of death and resurrection. He was exiled by God as a Gentile beast into the wilderness and returned as a Man, an Adam, a Covenant head. Just as Joseph converted Pharaoh through his faithful service, Daniel converted Nebuchadnezzar.

The fact that these four Gentile empires were under God’s throne, vassal subjects in the kingdom of God, explains why their authority was transferred over the 500 year Restoration period. It was a form of “Covenant succession.” If the emperor cursed the people of God, the empire would be cursed, the kingdom handed over to another who would bring forth the fruit desired from their delegated authority, their Covenant calling. Belshazzar lost his kingdom overnight. Esther and Mordecai saved Persia from an unspeakable fate at the hands of God through the intentions of the serpent Haman. But Persia eventually fell to Greece, and Greece to Rome. The Revelation describes Rome’s “de-conversion” from a metal man back into a beast. The guardian put in place by God to provide a framework of law, protection, infrastructure and civilisation for the spread of the gospel was manipulated by Satan against the people of God. The family dog was turned against the children it was called to guard.

Rome did not cease to be an empire in AD70. Just as the calling of the Jews passed to the Christian church, Rome ceased to be a guardian for the people of God when the fifth empire arrived. Adam succeeded the animal kingdom on Day 6 and was supposed to be enthroned over it, rule over it, on Day 7. Jesus as Adam succeeded the animal kingdom—the Gentile empire—and took on the calling of the vassal emperors as guardian of the church. In these last days of the Old Covenant, God shook the world one more time, and the “times of the Gentiles” came to an end. [2]

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[1] Have you got The Handwriting on the Wall yet? You will find all this and much more in Jordan’s groundbreaking work.
[2] This is actually the context of the “sheep and goats” judgment of the nations in Matthew 25. It is history, although it was most certainly a microcosm of the final judgment at the end of the Revelation.

It’s cat-among-the pigeons time again.

Identifying the Bible Matrix in Acts reveals in quite a number of places that the author, Luke, has a sense of humour. Or the Holy Spirit does. In Acts 8, at Ascension (Firstruits), the Ethiopian eunuch asks Philip to hop up into his chariot. [1]

Philip opens the Law for him at Pentecost, the man is “resurrected” at Trumpets, baptized at Atonement (the Laver), and at Tabernacles we have both a Jew and Gentile whose witness flows out into the nations.

I think I’ve dealt with the significance of the position of the Laver as baptism elsewhere around here. Today I want to deal with the significance of the Covenant model as it overlays onto this passage.

As Eric Rauch has very helpfully summarised for us, the pentamerous Covenant model is:

1  Transcendence: Who’s in charge?

2  Hierarchy: To whom to I report?

3  Ethics: What are the rules?

4  Sanctions: What happens if I obey or disobey?

5  Succession: Does this relationship have a future? [2]

I believe that this pentamerous pattern as WORD becomes the heptamerous pattern as HISTORY when the central point (Ethics) is split into three. The Law is given to the Covenant head (Ascension), opened to the Body (Testing) and received by the Body (Maturity), unless of course the Body breaks the Law, in which case Moses has to bring a new set of Tablets (deutero-nomos) at Maturity.

This is exactly what we see in Acts 8. The Eunuch possesses the scroll; Philip “opens” it for him; the Eunuch receives it. Baptism follows at Sanctions (Atonement) and the Eunuch’s life is “cut in two.” And then, at Succession, which is my point, HOW CAN A EUNUCH HAVE COVENANT CHILDREN?

Throughout the Old Testament, this step of the pattern concerns either having children, or being made barren. Elisha atones for the sins of Jericho with a bowl of salt (barrenness) and the Gentiles are made fruitful. Then he sets the bears onto the Israelite children of Bethel (home of a golden calf). One bloodline is reconnected with history, and another is cut off. [3] He is doing exactly the opposite of what Joshua did to Jericho. He is cutting off the “old” Covenant of stones so a new one can be made—a new set of tablets, written on flesh.

So, what kind of stones does the Ethiopian get in this new, new, New Covenant. Jesus went about healing people of things that made Israelites ceremonially unfit to approach God. [4] So did the apostles. If these strange laws weren’t simply pedagogical, why didn’t Philip make this gelding truly fruitful and restore him physically?

Because, in the true New Covenant, having children doesn’t require that kind of testicles.

In his book on the Covenant structure, That You May Prosper, Ray Sutton wisely wrote, “Everyone talks about the Covenant, but nobody does anything about it.” What is it, exactly, that we are to do under the New Covenant?

The theonomy movement has helpfully reapplied the Bible to many areas long-neglected by evangelicals: to family, to economics, to politics. Under God’s Law, obedience brings blessing at Sanctions instead of cursing. As it did in the Old Testament, it still brings an abundance of children, prosperity and godly government. This redux is slowly fixing the myopic gnosticism of evangelicals who think that we under Covenant have nothing to do but witness and wait.

My problem with all of this wonderful stuff is that it takes the focus off witness. Brave testimony takes the kind of balls that Philip gave the Ethiopian eunuch.

Baptism isn’t about physical offspring at all. It gives any believer (child or adult) the authority to conceive and raise the kind of “children” an Ethiopian eunuch can have—by testimony. The New Covenant sign is outward-looking, not inward-looking. It’s not about crowding around the offspring of the Woman any more because the Child has already come. It’s about proclaiming this truth to the nations and watching them submit and join the church.

So, should Christians be careless about discipling their children under the Covenant? Of course not. God is cutting off an apostate western culture by rendering it childless.

Should Christians be careless with their finances? Of course not! Look at the debt the west is in.

Should Christians neglect to vote or run for office? Of course not. Look at the corrupt individuals in office.

None of those things has been rendered unimportant by the New Covenant. Disobedience in any of those areas still brings barrenness to a culture. But that is not the heart of the issue. Under the New Covenant, Christians also have the kind of fruitfulness that Noah’s animals, Ruth’s womb and Mordecai’s willing vassals all pointed to: a permanent, miraculous supply of true dominion by the Spirit at the very heart of the cultus: a Covenant body kept fruitful by the constant addition of willing Gentiles from outside: NEW BLOOD. We obey God and witness (as martyroi), and He gives us kingdom on a platter. [5]

Thus, I believe credo-baptism is the only kind that is truly postmillennial.

Eunuchs and barren women can be as fruitful as anyone else in the church. This is “New Covenant” life from the dead. That is the kind of offspring the New Covenant is, foremost, about, and these children are just as much “flesh and blood” as the ones that come out of the womb so the accusation of gnosticism rolls like water off a duck.

For all their myopia when it comes to the Covenant, this is one thing that even the most liberal, modernist, gnostic Baptist gets totally right, and it builds big churches. Paedobaptism, in practice, brings relative sterility. A tree is known by its fruit, and paedobaptism, like circumcision, seems to me to do little more than maintain the status quo.

I wonder if the ever-reforming Reformed church will contemplate reforming on that one.

I’m not saying big churches build quality Christians or culture. They don’t. But why can’t we have both in the one place? Under the New Covenant, we can have quality and quantity, and it will come as we submit entirely to the Word and its obvious patterns.

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[1] The only reason Luke mentions sailing under the Sign of the Roman Twins in Acts 28 is because he is following the Feasts/Tabernacle pattern and he’s at Atonement. He needs two identical goats and a laver (sea).
[2]  See A Jaw-Dropping Book.
[3] See Dashing Her Little Ones and Elisha’s Short Fuse.
[4] See Why Jesus Healed Some.
[5] The significance of the nationality of the eunuch comes (mainly) from the Book of Esther.

Art: The Royal Procession of the Ethiopian Eunuch by Julian Van Dyke.