“But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:16)

The narrative of the Bible is fairly linear until we get to the kings. But once we hit the prophets the Scriptures turn into a box of puzzle pieces. The literature of the kings used Mosaic symbols to a certain degree but the prophets took all the concrete things we learned from the priests and kings and used them to make amazing promises that never quite materialized. Or did they?

One of the mysteries is the idea of the mountain of God. For everyone living before AD70, the promises were expected to be fulfilled upon the physical real estate of Mount Zion. God had appeared upon various mountains throughout history (which made Him unlike all other gods because He was not stuck to a particular territory) but for over a millennium His house had been in Jerusalem. When the Temple was destroyed by Roman armies and the entire landscape so defaced that we are still studying the “dental records,” the promises concerning the mountain seemed to evaporate. Did these promises become mere ideology? If they were not physical in nature, how are we to understand them?

As always, the many details given through the Bible appear to be random dots. But in hindsight, we are able to join them. The “seven mountains” in Bible history follow a pattern that is well-known around here. The seven points form a process of maturity which is Creational, Covenantal and also sacrificial. And once we trace the pattern, which happens to be a chiasm, some very interesting points begin to rise out of the clouds. The internal logic of the “mountain theme” becomes plain and we get the prophets as clearly as the writer of Hebrews did.

While there are seven in the complete pattern, the central three (as a three-cubed grid) illustrate Israel’s role in the ethical transformation of the world. On Israel’s first mountain the father offered the son —- the Most Holy. On her second mountain, the cloud appeared with blood, fire, smoke and trumpets — the Holy Place. Israel’s third mountain of God was Zion, into whose Temple the nations willingly brought their treasures.

What is interesting is that Moriah and Zion correspond chiastically, as the bloody Bronze Altar (Adam) and the fragrant Incense Altar (Eve). Zion was actually a different mountain in Judah until David’s purchase of the threshing floor for the site of a Temple. Moriah received “a new name.” Moriah (death) and Zion (resurrection) became one and the same. This also explains the strange reference to “1000 years” in Revelation 20. God mediated through “tent worship” for 1000 years, beginning with the offering of Isaac. Then He mediated through “house worship” for 1000 years, ending in AD70. The current administration from the heavenly mountain is thus for “1000 years.”

At Christ’s ascension, the role of Adam as the representative of the Physical world before God was finally fulfilled. He is the first five mountains, the Torah, combined into a single “fivefold” Old Covenant inheritance. Zion was the last “earthly” mountain and it ascended as sacrificial smoke. Jesus now advocates for the world until heaven (God owns…) and earth (…a thousand hills) are one (Psalm 50:10), just as Adam should have done.

ADDENDUM:

After some comments from friends (including Chris W. below) it needs to be stated that Jesus’ focus on the Mount of Olives pictured the true mountain of God in heaven. Christ ascended from it, yet the earthly version would be “torn in two” on the final “Day of Atonement,” divided between the blessed and the cursed, as predicted by Zechariah. The earthly mountain was opened like the veil to allow the Old Covenant saints to pass through into their heavenly country, just as Israel passed between Ebal and Gerizim into Canaan.

Also, Mount Carmel, which seems to be left out of the pattern, was a prophetic reminder of Sinai, a legal witness to the prophets of Baal.

If anyone has anything else to add, please feel free to comment!

Her husband is known in the gates,
When he sits among the elders of the land.
Proverbs 31:23

“A Christian is a living, walking, talking testimony to the end of the world—to a cosmic, judicial maturity, the ‘adulthood’ of mankind.”

Doug Wilson is right to emphasize the “eschatological reality” of the final judgment, but surely the requirements and mode of baptism should communicate that reality?

If the process of “salvation through Covenant” is pretty much the same under the New as it was under the Old, as he believes, why did circumcision become baptism? Why the change in the Covenant “road sign” if there’s no real change concerning what’s down the road?

Circumcision and baptism not only meant very different things, they also led to very different things. Yes, they are both signs, but they differed in their means (the roads) and in their ends (their destinations).

The first circumcision led to a miraculous son, who was faithfully placed on the Altar. Circumcision was all about the firstborn, the firstfruits, the “Covenant head.” The Abrahamic Covenant was a genealogical road, with a genealogical end: the Offspring of the Woman. Faith was an important element, but Satan’s target was the Messianic lineage. The end of circumcision was Christ, and Christ brought the end of the Circumcision. The Romans circumcised Jerusalem with a trench and crucified the Jews who tried to escape. Note that many Jews trapped in the city were the hardliners who had traveled from all over the empire to participate in great Passovers to celebrate the completion of Herod’s Temple. It was a spiteful celebration of circumcision, so Jesus cut off the cutting off. [1]

What is the baptism road? What is it a sign of? Most Christians are aware of the texts used to defend credobaptism. But the Bible has a lot more to say about it typologically, and we need to use our imaginations.

I know the “Bible Matrix” isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it gives us a process I call “cross-eyed exegesis.” [2] When we line up many of the Bible’s narratives and visions and architectures, we can suddenly see many different facets as parts of the same diamond. This is because they all appear at the same step in the process of redemption. This is especially beautiful when it comes to baptism. It allows us to line up the springs of Eden, the Jordan, the Laver, the crystal sea, the Israelite robe [3] and the Day of Coverings. We can move beyond the obvious proof texts and identify the Old Covenant types of New Covenant baptism, rather than misreading circumcision as an “Old Covenant baptism.” [4]

During the Old Covenant, the heavenly government ruled over a crystal sea. When God “bowed the heavens” down to earth, the elders of Israel saw Yahweh walking on it. It was flat, “beaten out.” [5] John saw the heavens bowed once again. This time Yahweh was not alone on the sea, and the sea was no longer a sea. It was gone, or rather, it had been reshaped.

Just as God made the Red Sea to part and make a way through for Israel, and just as He made the overflowing Jordan to stand up as a wall, so the heavenly sea now stood up as crystal walls and gates. The round sea had become square. Nature had become culture.

Gates were a place of judgment. Elders sat there and delivered their verdicts. If exile from a city was required, the gate was the best place to execute that sentence. Revelation shows us that the Old Covenant saints and New Covenant martyrs now sit enthroned with Christ. With Him, they administer the New Covenant. [6] The gates of the New Jerusalem are apostolic. The apostles’ doctrine is our rule of faith, and when we believe and obey their legal testimonies, we share in the fellowship they enjoy with the Father and the Son.

The whole point of the Covenant signs was to make their respective eschatological realities real, not just to those inside the boundary, but to those on the outside. Circumcision had a very different eschatology (end) to that of baptism. Circumcision led to death on the Land. Baptism leads to life on the Sea. Circumcision led to fiery Adamic Sinai. Baptism leads to a Zion with four rivers (I guess this would be Evian?).

A credobaptism testifies to the truth of regeneration to those inside the Church, and it generally strokes the fur on those outside the Church the wrong way. It brings the division of the sheep and goats forward in time and makes it visible. To misapply it to a genealogical gathering is to misrepresent both what is now and what is down the road, that is, the current reality of the open gates of the New City and the Day they will close.

How does the Bible define those gates?

“Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

This means that our baptisms must represent as closely as possible the final day. The pure may enter. The defiled may not. The difference between sheep and goats is that sheep follow. Baptism itself is the gates of the city, flowing across the world until all that was round is square, until all that was raw is refined, until all that was unholy is holy. Paedobaptism baptizes nature before it is transformed. Judgment is miscarried at its gates.

If we are enthroned with Christ, we, like the resurrected firstfruits (the first resurrection) must be elders in the gates of the “city of elders,” that is, the greeters and bouncers of a city of “eschatological people,” Omega men and Omega women who have met their end. A Christian is a living, walking, talking testimony to the end of the world—to a cosmic, judicial maturity, the “adulthood” of mankind. [7] Circumcision put Israel under angelic guardians. Baptism makes believers into angelic guardians. [8]

This process of “judicial adulthood” in baptism puts the feet of every believer on the springs of the new Eden. And the only feet allowed upon those springs are feet that have heard the invitation of Christ, our Joshua, and consciously, willingly joined His foot upon the neck of the serpent.

Baptism is not about the Head. It is all about the Covenant Body. [9] It is the Trumpets of witness, the Incense Elders, and their enthronement over the waters. Infant baptism doesn’t communicate to the world what a Christian actually is: credobaptism says to the unbelieving world “I am a witness to you in my death and a judge over you in my resurrection.” If we are doing the right thing in, or rather, as, the gates of the city, there will be only Christians in deed.

________________________________________
[1] See Sin City – 1.
[2] See Cross-eyed Exegesis.
[3] See Healing in His… Tassels?
[4] See Walking on Water for the significance of the water motif at Conquest.
[5] See Bowing the Heavens and Firmament of Flesh.
[6] See Jesus’ New Broom and Communion of Saints.
[7] See Judicial Maturity.
[8] See Better Angels.
[9] John’s baptism was limited to Jews (Head), but through death and resurrection, Jesus transformed it into a baptism that united Jews and Gentiles as Christians (Body). Even baptism itself had to be slain and resurrected for all nations.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot.
Would that you were either cold or hot!” (Revelation 3:15)

The world is a cosmic Tabernacle. The first domain of Mediatory Man was between the waters. The waters below (springs) were necessary for life but they were not “a place to live.” The waters above did likewise. However, these were temporary veils, boundaries to be crossed in an increasing advance-by-faith.

The crystal Sea was the Laver before the throne of God. In AD70 it was raised up by the breath of God as “watery walls”, a crystal city for the government of the saints of the old administration. This Sea was a blessing to the saints but a curse to sinners. It was a boundary they could not cross without a ministry of death. In Revelation 19, as final judgment upon the Old Covenant approached, this crystal Sea also became a Laver of bronze, a lake of fire, so the water above must be temporarily divided in some way. The New Jerusalem has a moat. This fiery aspect of the Sea remains until the final judgment, the destruction of the devil.

Genesis 1-10 follow the same “Tabernacle” structure as Genesis 1. The Edenic “mediatorial springs” on Day 6 become the flood waters in the greater pattern. The waters are a Day of Atonement, the sixth feast, a festival of death-and-resurrection.

Interestingly, Creation scientist Barry Setterfield believes that Noah’s flood (or its initial release) was scalding hot. There was most certainly volcanic activity involved in the event. Imagine magma-heated boiling water bursting from the deep.

We also read that it rained. Most people seem to ignore the fact that the springs burst forth and concentrate on the rain, presuming a vapor canopy which collapsed as being the major source of the waters. There may have been some kind of a vapor canopy over the early earth, but it would have been much higher than the clouds we see today if life on earth was to have survived. The majority of the rain which fell was from the waters which had burst forth, carrying with them massive amounts of pulverized debris from under the crust. They would have burst forth to a height greater than even our volcanoes of today. This would have produced a hot rain full of rocks and mud as well as remains of any vegetation and biological life which were in the vicinity of where the waters burst out. In other words, this was a rain that was like no other before, and there has been none other like it since. [1]

I disagree with his idea that the deluge was due to a natural process simmering away since the Creation and waiting to burst. That’s not how God ever works. The earth was blessed. The soil was blessed. The dust was not cursed until after Adam’s Fall. Now, the sea was cursed. Now, the entire globe was “out to get him.” The flood was a miraculous judgment, a transformation of blessed springs into a cursed flood upon Man. Even the mouth of God cannot be a spring of blessing and cursing upon the same Man. The bitter river of the generations of Adam had “filled up” the world. The rivers of blood–and the tyranny that was their source–had to be washed away.

In the Great Flood, both the Sea above and the Sea below became a firmament of burning bronze, closing in and closing forever as great doors on the primeval world, a scalding, hissing mist that brought death to “all flesh.”

Of course, it’s only speculation, based on “cross-eyed exegesis,” but God’s symbols are consistent.

ADDENDUM: Of course we see the same elements of fire and water in the Red Sea crossing. Plus, Psalm 77 tells us there was water above and below in the ministry of Moses and Aaron.

___________________________________
[1] The Bible  and the Geologic Column.

or The False Bride Will Never Get A Management Position

“…the only unity that will be allowed by the Father is the unity that Jesus requested from the Father in John 17.”

One of the interesting “universal themes” that James Jordan has uncovered in the Bible is that of Satan’s various attempts to “gather the nations” against the Church. You can read about that in a series of blog posts called Amalek Debunks Hyperpreterism (click here and scroll down).

The history of Israel was the qualification of a Covenant Head, fulfilled in Jesus, who now rules the nations from heaven, with the Old Covenant saints in a crystal city. The evil one has been bound so that he cannot gather the nations against the Church until he is released just before the end. He will immediately attempt to gather the nations but be destroyed. The Church will once again be the bait in a trap, as it was for Pharaoh, and for the Herod/Emperor alliance.

The evil one is currently bound from gathering the nations so that Jesus can gather them plundering the “strong man’s house.”

The Glass Ceiling

The Church on earth is one with the crystal city, and is currently ruling the world through prayer and faithful service. Whenever the nations attempt to build Babel, whether by military conquest or economic unions, they hit the glass ceiling put in place in AD70. Their mortar gives way and the various unions fragment once again.

The nations will not be allowed to unite because they would eventually be united against the Church, and the Church isn’t yet complete. Whatever happens over the next few years in the economy, or environmentally, or internationally, is all about the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He, and His Church, are central to everything that happens.

Final Fantasy

The final feast in Israel’s calendar was Tabernacles (or Booths). This was also known as ingathering, the time when Jews and Gentiles were temporarily one. The first century was the “ingathering” of the Old Covenant. The Herods were making ungodly pacts to unite Jew and Gentile, all the while Paul was gathering the faithful into the New Covenant by the power of the Spirit.

This is what we see now, but on a global scale. We can sing “It’s A Small World” all we like, but the only unity that will be allowed by the Father is the unity that Jesus requested from the Father in John 17.

Tabernacles was the end of the working year, the final harvest, the time of olives and grapes, oil and wine. The Gentiles seek to enter into “God’s rest,” the place reserved for wise judges, a feast of wine. But as long as they reject Jesus, they will continually be turned away — as bread to be broken once again, in the process of the glorification of the world.

Who’s in Control?

The markets might be volatile, the world might be at war, but Jesus is in control and He knows exactly what He is doing. As He scatters His enemies, He is gathering His people. And if we fear Him, we have nothing else to fear.

In Jesus’ economy, the false bride will never get a management position. Yet, as His true bride, we ascend by faith every week to join in the worship, praise and prayer that truly governs the world. Knees bowed to Jesus are royal knees.

The glass ceiling that shatters the nations is the crystal city, the New Covenant firmament, the New Jerusalem.

_____________________________
See also Totus Diabolus, The Ten Toes, Armageddon’s Big Sista, Jesus’ Long Day. How to be Really Evil, There Can Only Be One, Postmillennial Suffering, Three Babylons, Communion of Saints, Better Angels.

“…how we feast and celebrate is a reflection of our beliefs concerning the salvation of the world.”

Sermon Notes on Deuteronomy 14:22-29 – Part 2
Guest post by Michael Shover

The Garden City

According to Leviticus 23 the Feast of Booths, or The Feast as it was later called, was an eight day celebration.

It says in Lev. 23, “Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the growth of beautiful trees – palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook – and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God for seven days.  . . . You shall dwell in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall dwell in booths.”

This command was later demonstrated in Nehemiah 8:15, which says, “Go out to the hills and bring olive branches, and oil-tree branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.” So, essentially what they were supposed to do was to build tree houses. Not like tree houses we have today. Instead of going up into the tree and building the house, they brought the tree down to the ground and built little shelters out of the branches. This seems like a strange thing to do, but God commanded them to do it. The reason why God commands them to do this was “So that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt” (Lev. 23:43).

What is odd about this rationale is the Israelites did not live in leafy booths when they came out of Egypt. In fact, as one person commented: “First, sukkot (or leafy booths) are generally not found in the desert. Leaves, branches, reeds, foliage, wood, and hay are not such materials one would find in the desert wasteland? So, where would they have found enough foliage to make booths for 600,000 men and their families in the middle of the desert?”

Secondly, outside of this lone verse in Leviticus, the Bible never claims that the Israelites stayed in booths. There are several descriptions of the camp of the Israelites in the desert, but not one pictures the tribes dwelling in sukkot. Tents are occasionally mentioned, but never booths. Why does Leviticus 23:43 suddenly assume that the Israelites dwelled in sukkot, while the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy know nothing about it.

One answer to this problem begins with noticing that right after leaving Egypt, the Israelites dwelt at a place called Sukkoth. Sukkoth was, in fact, the first place the people went after leaving Egypt, which is where the Feast of Booths finds its origins. But they did not dwell in booths while they were in Sukkoth. So why does God say they did?

One theologian suggests that “Sukkoth” might not be the name of the place Sukkoth, but rather Sukkoth was a description of the environment in which the people dwelt. And that environment was an environment of clouds.

Now bear with me. There is a whole lot of imagery involved here that help us understand this. I am not going to go into all of this in great detail, but there is going to be some detail. I want you to think with me. I am just going to give you the quick version of it.

The most important meaning of the word sukkah, from which we get Sukkot, means “covering.” There are passages in the Bible that use the root of this word to describe coverings. For example, the veils of the tabernacle cover the Ark (Ex. 40:3, 21). God’s wings cover His people (Ps. 91:4), and the wings of the cherubim cover the Ark (Ex. 25:20; 37:9, 1 Kings 8:7; 1 Chron. 28:18). And what is important for us is that trees are said to cover and shade from the heat (Job 40:22). Jonah is even said to have built himself a booth after he left Ninevah to see if God was going to destroy it or not.
Putting all this together, we find that a sukkah or booth is a covering or a shade. It is analogous to the shade of a tree, and thus is made of leafy materials. It is also analogous to the covering and shade of God’s Glory Cloud, and to the symbol of that Cloud, the tabernacle, which is also why it is called the Feast of Tabernacles.

With this understanding, we can see how the Feast of Booths memorializes the time in the wilderness. During that time, Israel dwelt in the covering of God’s Cloud. They were shaded by His Cloud. We get this understanding from Psalm 105:39 which says, “He spread a Cloud for a covering, and fire to illumine by night.” The imagery presented to us here shows God’s Cloud over the people forms a Great Booth, within which they lived. That Cloud over them is like the canopy of a leafy tree, and thus the reproduction of such a leafy canopy during the Feast of Booths is a symbol of God’s Cloud.

Now in Exodus 12:37 – 13:20 after the Israelites came out of Egypt and after they left Sukkoth, not before, we see that the Pillar of Cloud appears. Exo. 13:20 says, “Then they set out from Sukkoth and camped in Etham on the edge of the wilderness. And Yahweh was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might go by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.”

So on the one hand there is this imagery of God’s people being redeemed out of Egypt to dwell in the cloudy booth of God’s presence and protective covering. The people were to build for themselves booths to remember God’s salvation and protective covering presence that was with them when they came out of Egypt.

But living in leafy booths for eight days, booths which were made up of boughs of fruit trees, and olive oil trees, and palm tree leaves was also meant to recall life in the Garden of Eden. It was a return to Paradise. Just as the Tabernacle and the Temple was designed with engravings of pomegranates, and palm trees, and gourds, and flowers, so too, these little tabernacles, in which God’s people were to feast in the presence of the Lord, were designed to be little reflections of life in the Garden.

Think about it. In the Garden, Adam didn’t have to work for his food, it was all right there for him to pluck off the trees. So too, in the Feast of Booths, the Israelites had at their disposal all the food they could eat and all the drink they wanted to drink. They didn’t have to work for it during that week. The feast symbolized paradise for a week, feasting in the Edenic Clouds of God’s protective covering and salvation.

Now the Bible is full of imagery and allusions about returning to the Garden of Eden. But one of the most interesting things about the Garden is that the Bible begins in the Garden and it ends in a Garden. But the garden in Revelation is in a city, New Jerusalem. So New Jerusalem is a Garden City.

Now tell me, if you have everyone in all of Israel going to the city of Jerusalem all setting up leafy booths throughout the whole city, what does it look like? A Garden City perhaps?  This Feast was an acted out prophecy of the future glory of God’s people and the salvation of the world in the new Creation.

Here’s a great post from Doug Hayes’ blog, republished here with his permission.

When Rich Bledsoe was with us at Family Camp he mentioned a paper he wrote: Sex and the City, [PDF] which we have now placed on the RCC website. It is an interesting piece of  biblical social commentary worth thinking about.

Bledsoe contrasts the great ancient cities with the great city of God, the New Jerusalem and their respective sexual commitments and activities. At the base of his comments is the presupposition that it is important for us to think about cities because “the entire planet is ‘metropolizing.’ Everywhere, human  beings are leaving their rural roots and are moving into the city.”

He says that, biblically, cities are portrayed as and symbolized as women. “Both of the cities at the Bible’s end are feminine, and  both are symbolized by women… The first city [in Revelation] is Babylon the Great who becomes the Whore of  Babylon [metaphorically, Jerusalem]. The second is the new Jerusalem who becomes the Bride of Christ… The power of sexual relationship, and the fact of metropolis belong together. The city is the great trysting place, the place of renewal or destruction of relationship, the place where souls and bodies are  bought and sold, or where truth and fidelity create new life.”

What is so helpful in this article is the assertion that “the sexualization and exclusiveness of marriage was the gift of the Torah and  of Judaism… the model for both parenting and for marriage as found in the Old Testament is found in Jehovah’s relationship to Israel and Jerusalem as Father and finally as Husband. All peoples model themselves on their gods, and Israel likewise modeled herself on the God she belonged to.”

As post-Christian society has emerged in the West, corresponding Christian sexual morality has been receding as a foundation for cultural morality. Christian ethics is being replace by pagan “polymorphous sexuality” that is reflective of ancient worldviews and practices. And just as Christianity has always been intolerant of other religious and ethical systems, so too, modern society is increasingly hostile toward both Christ and Christian morality. Just as most ancient pagan cultures used sex as an expression of their religious commitments and cultus, so too, modern cultures use sex as an expression of liberation from Christianity. Again, Bledsoe:

Both of these cities (in Revelation: Babylon the Great and the New Jerusalem) are now active historical powers… Real cities in the real world partake of the reality of both of these cities right now… A city that worships like Babylon the Great, will be a city that models its sexual relationships after the harlot and the beast and the kinds. A city that worships as a part of the new Jerusalem will model its marital covenant after the Bride and her Husband. The question is which city will dominate in any given city in the world in which we live. One city is corrupt..and is under judgment…given to destruction. The other city is the city of the glory of God and the glorified humanity… where ultimately all human potentialities are fulfilled… The first city is marked by sexual debauchery… the second is marked by fidelity and love in the bonds of marriage.

He goes on to demonstrate that any culture that lacks sexual discipline and commitment to monogamous marriage will be unable to sustain their cultural energy and creativity, resulting in weakness and decline. True cultural greatness requires moral and intellectual discipline and focus that is undissipated by meaningless and distracting sexuality. Without a committed and future-oriented sexuality – no culture has any meaningful  future to anticipate.

The Word of God is architectural. Like Solomon, the apostles understood that there is a time to build up and a time to tear down. Here is one of John’s blueprints:

Old Covenant – Jewish tent of death

Do not love the world or the things in the world. (false Ark)
…..If anyone loves the world,
…..the love of the Father is not in him.
…..(Veil – false Mediator: closed door/darkness)
……….For all that is in the world — (false Altar)
……….the lust of the flesh, (Table – false sacrifice)
……………the lust of the eyes, (Lampstand – false [oral] Law, eyes full of darkness)
……….and the pride of life — (Incense – false resurrection)
…..is not of the Father (first goat – the firstfruits Church)
…..but is of the world. (second goat – Judaism)

New Covenant – new Jew-Gentile Temple

(Notice this final structure is actually point seven of the one above.)

And the world (False source)
…..is passing away, (Veil torn)
……….and the lust of it; (Law of death)
……………but he (Ruling star)
……….who does (Law of life)
…..the will of God (Mediation)
abides forever. (Eternal succession)

The Christian life isn’t all mountaintop experiences. Like Moses, we are given the pattern on the mountain, then told to go down into the wilderness and build it. The apostles built a New Jerusalem around Greater Solomon, and then, from Twelve Thrones in heaven, tore down the old one forever.

Also, notice the similarities to the seven woes upon the Pharisees in Matthew!

“According to I Chronicles chapter 15, 16:4-6, 37-43, David rearranged the Levitical priesthood into 24 courses (orders); he assigned 16 courses to Eleazer, and 8 courses to Ithamar. This rearrangement was chartered because of a population explosion in David’s reign.” [1]

More evidence for a human government installed in heaven in AD70 (the firstfruits church). If the rebuilt Tabernacle (the Tabernacle of David [2]) prefigured both the restoration of the Jews after the captivity (which is what Amos is actually referring to) and the Jew-Gentile church, what could David’s rearranged priesthood mean typologically?

AD70 saw the old mediatory governments get shafted, both in heaven and on earth. Twenty-four angels carried out their final Old Covenant tasks and left the Sanctuary empty. Their final task was tipping out seven Atonement “sprinklings” (the bowls) upon the earthly mediator, the demonic harlot “in the air” over the waters of the nations.[3] The triumphant firstfruits church entered as a new administration. [4] The New Jerusalem followed as Solomon’s “bridal” temple, and the true Jew-Gentile Feasts of Tabernacles was fulfilled on the mountain of God, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

The first century saw a “population explosion” in the people of God. A rearranged priesthood was required. The saints entering heaven are a combination of Old and New Covenant martyrs, 12 apostles and 12 tribal princes. They sit as judges in the pearl gates of the New Jerusalem.

Another support is the structure of the entire Bible itself. You guessed it, it follows the Bible matrix.

Sabbath - Creation to Abraham

…..Passover - Circumcision divides humanity in two

……….Firstfruits - Under Moses, a priesthood ascends before God,
……….and draws near over blood sacrifices

……………Pentecost - In the biblical pattern, this central point is always
……………testing in the wilderness. This is the life of Christ,
……………who is tested in the way all men are, but who does not sin

……….Trumpets - Christ assembles the New Covenant church,
……….making out of Jew and Gentile one new man in the first century

…..Atonement - A corrupted Judaism is destroyed as Jericho, vindicating
…..the words of Christ. This is the first conquest of the age
…..in which we now live

Booths - the final coming of Christ and the last judgment,
after which the saints live with Him in glory

Just as the beginning and end of the circumcision correspond chiastically [5], Mosaic Israel and the firstfruits church also correspond chiastically. When we overlay the Tabernacle speeches (Ex. 25-31), we find that Mosaic Israel and the firstfruits church also correspond to altars. Mosaic Israel drew new to God as the bronze Altar (Day 3, the Land), and the firstfruits church drew even nearer to God as the Incense Altar (Day 5, the next generation “swarms”). So, just as the old priesthood governed for God on earth, the firstfruits church now governs worldwide from heaven as Joshua divides up the inherited Land.[6]

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[1] From an excellent summary of The Levitical Priesthood.
[2] See The Sacrifice of Praise.
[3] See Jesus’ New Broom.
[4] See In the Air.
[5] See A New Heavens and A New Earth.
[6] I believe this observation has deep ramifications for the meaning of baptism. See Weapons of War 3, 4 and 5. This observation also puts hyperpreterism to death with a single right hook. There, I think I’ve managed to alienate eeeeveryone now.

Is this verse simply teaching that if we “divide up” the Scriptures correctly, we’ll get an AWANA[1] merit badge from God? Hardly. It is flanked by condemnations of those who fight over the Scriptures to no profit, and those whose vain babblings are gangrenous.

Paul speaks of a soldier and a farmer, and then a productive workman. Paul is concerned about building saints and churches, and they are built by a straight and true cutting of the word. Like most of Paul’s statements, there is a very long, fully-loaded freight train of Old Testament history and typology right behind it, and it’s coming right at you, right now.

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And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the Land. (Revelation 5:6)

The Bible is the story of the historic battle between the serpent-king and the servant king. Both sit on bloody thrones. Herod slaughters the innocents, and is then slaughtered by God. The innocent Christ is slaughtered, then sends His followers into the world as seven Spirits (Lampstand/Pentecost), but also as lambs among wolves.

What I love about the verse quoted above is that the Lamb is not only in the midst of the throne, but in the midst of His angelic government, surrounded by ministers in the wilderness.1 Later in the book we see Him surrounded again, but by a human government — the apostles as gates and walls, with the Lamb at the centre as Light. This could only occur if these saints themselves were slain as the Lamb was, which we see in Revelation 14.

Every week, the Spirit calls us in, and we gather around the slain Lamb. Then, as a glorified, Metal Man, He sends us out again into the world to expand the borders of the City, the frontiers of His Canaan conquest. Like the cherubim, we are both gates to the blood-covered repentants, and walls to the condemned sheeptraders.

There is blood at the centre, and blood at the border, the gospel miracle of 30AD and the miracles at the frontier. Between these there is the peace of New Jerusalem, which can only be maintained if the servant-kings go to war when they should (2 Sam. 11).

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1. The slain Lamb with seven eyes in the midst of the elders is a unification of the Table of Showbread, the Incense Altar and the Lampstand. Which means Christ’s defeat of Satan also destroys Satan’s Tabernacle.