There are no “Abrahamic” promises concerning offspring — or real estate — for New Covenant believers.

Like the dogma of evolution, the doctrine of paedobaptism is not supported by indisputable evidence. Rather, the data must be interpreted through the lens of a pre-existing framework. The paedobaptistic lens is, however, a biblical one, being Abrahamic, and it comes in extremely handy when used in the right way. It deals with the few texts which paedobaptists rely on for proof, showing that they are not establishing a revised Abrahamic tent, but bringing the old one to an end.

The text I deal with here is Peter’s mention of the Jews, their children, and those afar off, in Acts 2. The idea that the phrase “you and your children” has anything at all to do with Christians is ruled out by the context. The audience was the “men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem” (2:14), “Men of Israel” (2:22), “brothers” (2:29), and “all the house of Israel” (2:36). Peter, who famously quotes Joel, was speaking to Jews about their accountability to the Covenant made with Abraham. But that Covenant was drawing to an end.

However, this does not explain why Peter mentions three groups of people, “you, your children and those afar off” (2:39). A clue to part of the answer is found in the preceding verses. Peter concludes his speech and the Jewish men respond:

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

The men are afraid because they have realised their blood guilt, not only of a brother like Abel but of the very Seed promised in Genesis 3, a promise later ratified in Abraham. Worse, these were likely some of the same people who, after Pilate washed his hands of the execution of Jesus, declared their conviction of his guilt by taking any liability for the shedding of innocent blood upon themselves.

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:24-25).

Among Orthodox Jews today, offspring is still of prime importance. A proselyte cannot convert to Judaism without a commitment to marriage and fatherhood. Jesus was cut off without any offspring, and these men, knowing the Old Testament, realised that they, too, were liable to being cut off without any “Abrahamic” inheritance.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. (Isaiah 53:8)

They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left, so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. (Deuteronomy 28:52-55)

The curses in Deuteronomy 28 did indeed fall upon Israel one generation after Peter’s proclamation, upon these men and their children, the children whom Christ told the women weeping for Him to weep for instead. The final generation of the children of Abraham according to the flesh was either destroyed or sold into slavery, carried back to Egypt in ships as Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 28:68).

The interesting thing is that these men and their children, those who believed, could be delivered from this terrible judgment upon Israel by putting themselves under the blood of Christ in a different way. In circumcision, in the blood sprinkling at Sinai, and in the Levitical rites, His blood had always been upon them, for blessing or for cursing.

And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. (Exodus 24:6-8)

But now in Christ, Abraham had obtained a heavenly country, so an earthly Abrahamic inheritance, both the fruit of the Land and of the womb, became redundant. This is why the Jewish Christians, unlike Jeremiah (Jeremiah 32:6-9), sold their lands (Acts 4:34-35).

So, there is really no doubt about who these children were. But the identity of “those far off” is more difficult to discern. Are they the Jews and Jewish proselytes scattered across the Roman empire, or is Peter referring to Gentiles? The Abrahamic Covenant promised an earthly inheritance of not only Land and womb (narrowing the curse of barrenness upon Adam and Eve to Abram and Sarai that it might be borne and resolved) but also promised that all the families of the “earth” (literally, ’adamah, the ground, and thus all mankind) would be blessed.

Not only was the promise of the Spirit for the Jews, but also the Gentiles, which later events in Acts make plain. Not only Jews but “those far off,” both Jews and Gentiles, received the Spirit of God. Paul uses similar language concerning Gentiles in Ephesians 2, where Jew and Gentile are united in a new household of faith. The Ephesian Christians were no longer “strangers” who could attend only certain festivals, but heirs along with believing Jews.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:17-18)

Paedobaptists assume that this language means Peter should really have said, in Acts 2:39:

For the promise is for you
and for your children
and for all who are far off,
and for their children,
everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

The problem is that this is not what Peter says, and to conveniently assume that this is what he meant is to ride roughshod over the entire Abrahamic Covenant, the one which is supposed to provide all that imaginary support for the practice of paedobaptism.

Not only is Peter’s audience different from that of Paul, Paul makes no mention whatsoever of children as part of the promises of the New Covenant. Certainly, he instructs the saints concerning parenting, and marriage, and even instructs the children, but there is no “promised seed.” This is because, after the flood, where all flesh was “cut off,” all the cutting off was done in the microcosm of Israel for the sake of the life of the world. The children in Acts 2 are mentioned because all of the Jewish rites, and indeed the Temple, were still in place. The children are mentioned because they were still under the curses of Moses if their parents disobeyed the Lord.

If the Jews would not be “brought near” in Christ (our “near bringing” or sacrifice), they would be brought near for destruction. If they would not celebrate “Ingathering” but instead rejoice as rebels in a Passover already made redundant by Christ and His cup, they would be gathered as food on the table for the Roman eagles.

All of the Jews who rejected Christ, and their children, and indeed all of the Jews and Jewish proselytes (whom Jesus called “twice children of hell”) from across the empire were trapped in Jerusalem by Titus, whose clever strategy had been to wait until Passover to besiege the city. If the identity of “those far off” in Acts 2 is indeed Jewish, these are the people whom Peter was referring to, those who were either still under the Law, or who had placed themselves under it voluntarily. I believe this is the most likely solution, given the context. But those curses were finished in AD70.

However, even if Peter is referring to Gentiles, the architecture of this favourite proof text of paedobaptists betrays them. It not only follows the Covenant-literary structure, hinting at the Ten Words, working from above, to beside, to below, it is actually a textual map of the progress of the Gospel, by the Spirit, from Jerusalem into all the empire before AD70. The shape of the verse itself defines both the temporal and geographical boundaries of its scope. So, whether “those far off” are Jews or Gentiles, either way, the reach of Acts 2:39 ended with the abolition of the oikoumene.¹The oikoumene was the “household” of the empires established by God in the book of Daniel. The destruction of the Herodian Land beast and the Neronic Sea beast in the Revelation ended not only the division between Jew and Gentile but the Covenantal authority of these institutions. See James B. Jordan, The Handwriting On The Wall, A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, or search this blog for the tag oikoumene.

TRANSCENDENCE

HIERARCHY

ETHICS

OATH/SANCTIONS

SUCCESSION

The architecture of the verse puts a three-level house at both altars, the microcosmic one (Jerusalem) and the Jews (or believing Gentiles) throughout the  oikoumene, neither of which exist any longer. The fulfilment of the Feast of Booths, also known as Ingathering, was predicted by Jesus in Matthew 24:31, and likely occurred just before the siege of Jerusalem.²See Sin City – 3.

In the Garden of Eden, the Covenant “Oath” was the failed confession of Adam, his unwillingness to submit to the authority of heaven, and the Covenant “Sanctions” was the limited curse of barrenness upon the fruit of the Land and womb. This is the difference between baptism (oath), and circumcision (sanctions). The testimony of Jesus is the oath upon the lips of the faithful, and in Him there are no Mosaic Sanctions upon our fruitfulness. This is why there are no “Abrahamic” promises concerning offspring — or real estate — for New Covenant believers. There are certainly correspondences, but they transcend the originals. We are called to give up our families and possessions for the sake of the Gospel, yet are told we will receive siblings, sons, houses and lands in this life the way Jesus did (Matthew 19:29; Mark 10:29-30; Luke 18:28-30), by adoption, since one day we shall possess them all. Land and offspring were closely related in Abraham’s earthly inheritance, but the New Covenant is about a heavenly country, and about “sons of God,” those who believe the Word as Abraham did, and become the friends, the confidants, of God (Isaiah 41:8; John 15:15; James 2:23).

My friend Burke Shade recently outlined the structure of Matthew 15:32-29:

My first thought concerning the symmetry of Bread – Fish – Christ – Fish – Bread was that it reminded me of Peter Leithart’s observation concerning the “architecture” of the structure of the New Testament. Since the loaves represent the abundance of the Land and the fish the abundance of the Sea, the sequence moves from the Land to the Sea and back again. Leithart writes:

The gospel comes to the Jews first. When they resist, Paul turns to the Gentiles. But he hopes to provoke the Jews to jealousy by his ministry among the Gentiles, so that in the end Jews would be saved along with Gentiles. The gospel moves from Jew to Gentile and back to Jew.

The NT canon, arguably, does something similar. The gospels describe Jesus’ work in Israel, with the occasional contact with Gentiles. Acts begins in Jerusalem, but ends with Paul turning from the Roman Jews to Gentiles. Turn the page, and Paul is writing to Christians in Rome, a neat epistolary continuation of Acts. His letters are mainly addressed to Christians in Gentile areas, and to what are partly (if not predominantly) Gentile churches. If Hebrews is Pauline, it marks a shift in focus, a canonical replication of Paul’s argument in Romans 9-11. (Hebrews makes a neat numerological conclusion to a Pauline corpus – 14 letters.)

The Catholic epistles continue the trend of Hebrews, epistles to Jewish believers. James addresses the “twelve tribes dispersed abroad” (1:1). This does not, I’ve argued elsewhere, refer to the diaspora of Jews in general, but specifically to the diaspora of Christian Jews following the outbreak of persecution (see Acts 8:1ff, with its diaspora language). Regardless, James is writing to Jews. Peter appears to do the same, addressing the “scattered” (“diaspora”) believers who have been scattered from Jerusalem (1 Peter 1:1). If 2 Peter is addressed to the same audience as 1 Peter, which seems clear, then 2 Peter is also addressed to these Jewish Christian aliens (assuming, of course, I’m right about the interpretation of “dispersed”).

I’ve been working with 1-3 John recently on the assumption that he is addressing late Judaizing secessionists. If that is right, it fits the canonical paradigm I’m suggesting. (See more on this in my posts on Cerinthus and Ignatius.)

I’m not sure about Jude.

Revelation is the capstone, a final letter from Jesus to His people in Jerusalem. There is a numerological thing going here too. Seven “Catholic” (or perhaps “General Hebraic”) epistles, then the seven letters to the churches of Asia minor, and the “eighth” letter in Revelation, the really big long letter, is sent to the Harlot Jerusalem as a warning of her impending doom. Along the way, thousands of Jews turn to Jesus, and the final vision shows a new creation emerging from the destruction of the great city.

Thus I suggest this narrative and redemptive-historical logic for the organization of the NT canon: Gospel/Jew, to Pauline/Gentile (14?), to General/Jew (7), capped by the letter of Jesus in Revelation.¹Peter J. Leithart, Jew Gentile Jew. Regarding gnostic Judaism, see Leithart’s The Epistles of John Through New Eyes: From Behind the Veil.

At the centre of the structure, Jesus asks the disciples to command the people to sit on the “land.” Liturgically, they are enthroned as priest-kings, holy knights of an order which will usurp Herodian rule just as Jacob replaced Esau. The inclusion of fishermen and fish in this new worship is a sign of a fundamental shift in focus from “who can come in” (sin covered: blood – Bronze Altar) to “who can go out” (prophetic office: smoke – Incense Altar). By the fire of the Spirit, Jews are no longer Esaus (outside the tent) who smell of the field, but Jacobs (inside the tent) whose savour pleases the true Father, and whose witness will bring a blessing to all nations.

Note that although the loaves are mentioned on their own, the fish are never listed without the corresponding bread. Until the destruction of the Temple brought an end to Judaism, this “bread of the face” — fulfilled first in the sufferings of Christ and then in the suffering of His disciples — was the testimony of Israel to the nations. There could be believing Jews without believing Gentiles, but there could not be believing Gentiles without believing Jews. This testimony throughout the oikoumene was the purpose of the diaspora: Israel was scattered as seed, and the apostles were sent into the harvest. The Word did not return void. The workers returned with their sheaves, and their success with the Gentiles formed part of a legal testimony against apostate Jerusalem.

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. (Matthew 10:23)

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)

The Death of Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah

The heart of typology is representation, and representation is the heart of sacrifice.

A great deal of so-called theology seems to me to be a waste of time, breath and ink. Theologians and commentators insist on applying a “lens” to Scripture, or building a case from cherry-picked particulars or accumulations of fragmented data, when the answer to the debated question is staring right back at them. Literary structure should be the first recourse, not the last. When it comes to the Bible, literary structure is the label on the tin.

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For as in those days before the flood
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day when Noah entered the ark…
(Matthew 24:38)

The Oath/Sanctions section of the Revelation seems to have three parts. The judgment begins in the house of God (Temple bowls – Garden), then follows the revelation of the “mystery” of the Woman and the kings of the Land, and finally the judgment reaches out to the borders of the World (the oikoumene). This corresponds not only with the Garden, Land, World architecture of the nations in Genesis 1-10, it brings an end to the “intermarriage,” the compromise of the Priestly people with idolatrous kings. It is fitting that the third part of this judgment (chapters 18-19) culminates in a Red Wedding.

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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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The final vision of Ezekiel is one of the most hotly debated passages in the Bible. Since the structure described has never been built, those who take the passage as fulfilled in history believe it to be figurative. However, the building is described in such careful detail that common sense suggests that something else is going on. The precise measurements remind us of the instructions given concerning the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple for the purpose of physical construction. Is Ezekiel’s temple a false prophecy, or does it describe a third, and as yet unbuilt, Temple in Jerusalem?

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But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:25)

ACT I – An End to Sacrifice

“In AD70, the ‘office’ of Jew was finished forever (there are no more Jews in God’s eyes) and the “office” of Gentile was also finished. The middle wall was broken down. Any distinctions now are merely human distinctions.”

All Christians know that, in the death of Jesus Christ, God put an end to animal sacrifices, at least legally.

“Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.” (Daniel 9:27)

Although Jesus’ death made animal sacrifice redundant, this wasn’t fulfilled in the “week” in the middle of which Christ died. Jesus’ forgiveness of His murderers left that week at a three-and-a-half. In God’s longsuffering towards Israel, they were not cut off “like Sodom” but given another generation. As this prophecy played out in the first century, the week in which the Covenant was “ratified … with many” was the final seven years, in the middle of which a “firstfruits” of martyrs left Sodom without any righteous remaining in it—ripe for judgment. [1]

In their rejection of the atonement achieved by the Son of God, the Jews kept the sacrifices going for another few decades. But as He had done with the previous Temple, God brought the hordes in as a flood to wipe out the sacrilege.

Revelation shows the Herodian harlot (a corporate Herodias) being destroyed by the Roman beast. But then the empire beast is destroyed. This confuses conservative commentators because they don’t understand the four empires as corners of God’s throne, four guardians for God’s people who turn bad, one by one, and are replaced. Rome didn’t attack the Church “outright” (as the Church) until Nero’s reign. In the Revelation, after failing to destroy the firstfruits Church with Jewish persecution and then false doctrine, this is the point where Satan calls up a new beast from the Sea. [2]

So, Rome was not destroyed in AD66-70, but it was most certainly all shook up. Four emperors in one year ended the old system. Jordan observes that the subsequent emperors were of a different nature. The empire’s office as a guardian for God was finished. In AD70, the “office” of Jew was finished forever (there are no more Jews in God’s eyes) and the office of Gentile was also finished. [3] The middle wall was broken down. Any distinctions now are merely human distinctions.

In Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom, Peter Leithart makes the crucial observation that the first Christian emperor “desacralized” the pagan world through, among other things, a “baptism” of public space.

Paganism still had its place, but temples were increasingly overshadowed by large, and numerous, churches. (Leithart, p. 125)

As is ever the case, cultus is the foundation for culture. The unjust vengeance of Lamech led to the massacres in the days of Noah. The bloody rites of the pagans led to institutionalized bloodshed in the arena.

Combats in the arena reenacted the founding sacrifice of Remus by Romulus. According to Rome’s founding myth, Romulus “killed his brother for jumping over the walls which would define Rome and separate it from the non-Roman.” (Leithart, p. 192.)

The arena was also an instrument of imperial policy in the provinces. The spread of Roman power was marked architecturally by the spread of  amphitheaters. Not only were the arenas — built in a distinctively Roman style — visual reminders of the sometimes distant power of the emperor, but the bloody combats that took place on the sands reminded viewers of Rome’s willingness to use violence and gave restless provincials pause. Arenas embodied the empire; the gladiatorial shows and their amphitheaters were the “imperial process in microcosm.” (Leithart, p. 194).

Constantine’s discouragement of pagan offerings, and his promotion of the teachings of Christ, also put an end to the human sacrifices in the arenas. Criminals would no longer be punished by “serving” in the amphitheaters, but through a bloodless exile to the mines. (p.196.)

Constantine’s laws were more often Christian in effect than in intent. Outlawing gladiatorial shows struck down one of the main institutions for the propagation of Roman values, culture and power and was more transformative than Constantine could have known. (p. 304.)

So, the end of sacrifice in the Garden (through Jesus), led to an end of sacrifice in the Land (the final “Old Covenant” martyrs, the apostolic Church). This is what eventually led to an end of sacrifice in the oikoumene, the first century World.

[In Galatians 4,] Paul radically flattens out the distinction between Jew and Gentile. Unlike in Romans, here he does not say that all are under “sin” but rather that all are in bondage to the stoicheia. For Gentiles, as much as Jews, this bondage meant adherence to animal sacrifice, the keeping of days, the avoidance of contamination. (Leithart, p. 325.)

The “baptism” of Jesus and the “baptism” of the firstfruits church led to the “baptism” of Rome.

ACT II – The Baptism of Rome

“This ‘baptism of Rome’ was not in fact the investiture of Rome at all but an investiture of the Church.”

Through Constantine, Rome was baptized, and sacrifice in all these senses either came to an end or began to. Constantine stopped the slaughter of Christians. He refused to sacrifice at the Capitol during his triumph in 312. He ended sacrifice for officers of his empire, thus opening imperial administration to Christians, and eventually outlawed sacrifice entirely. He closed a few temples where sacrifices were being offered, though he permitted various forms of divination to continue… With Constantine, the Roman Empire became officially a desacrificial polity. If he did not entirely expunge sacrifice, Constantine displaced sacrifice frrm the center of Roman life and pushed it to the margins and into dark corners. Constantine’s reign marked the beginning of the end of sacrifice. He took away the smoky food of the not-gods (Galatians 4:8), and the demons began to atrophy. (Leithart, p. 328).

Leithart’s argument is that the Church did not “fall” in the fourth century, seduced by the principalities and powers. The principalities and powers that structure the world are not simply temporarily useful, potentially dangerous and ultimately doomed. Instead, they are there to be transformed from within. In effect, Constantine replaced the old sacrificial system with a new one. In a cultic sense, Rome was “decivilized” and “recivilized.” It was indeed the death and resurrection of an empire at its very heart. Leithart observes that Constantine welcomed into his city another city.

Christ’s is the founding sacrifice of the new city, the eschatological city. But that sacrifice is perpetuated by the body in mutual love and service… By virtue of this sacrifice, the Church does justice… When the Roman world passed through its “baptism” from bondage to the stoicheia, Constantine eliminated sacrifices to the gods in the earthly city and thereby renounced any claim that the Roman city was just a city. (Leithart, p. 330)

Through Constantine, the death of “brother Jesus” as a better Abel at the hands of the Cainite Herods exposed and usurped the death of Remus as a foundation for identity. The deaths of the apostles eventually exposed and usurped the arena as a foundation for culture. Identity and culture no longer needed appeasement. For Constantine, the future no longer needed to be constantly “bought.” The price was paid once and for all. The city could exist because the New Jerusalem was unassailable.

The baptism of Rome was indeed supposed to lead to the baptism of Romans, but not simply because they were Romans. While I agree with Dr. Leithart’s eye-opening reassessment of Constantine, I believe his adherence to the erroneous practice of paedobaptism causes him to misunderstand the baptism of Rome.

In the end it all comes round to baptism, specifically to infant baptism. Rome was baptized in the fourth century. Eusebian hopes notwithstanding, it was not instantly transformed into the kingdom of heaven. It did not immediately become the city of God on earth. Baptism never does that. It is not meant to. Baptism sets a new trajectory, initiates a new beginning, but every beginning is the beginning of something. Through Constantine, Rome was baptized into a world without animal sacrifice and officially recognized the true sacrificial city, the one community that does offer a foretaste of the final kingdom. Christian Rome was in its infancy, but that is hardly surprising. All baptisms are infant baptisms.

Yoder is famed for his patience, but in dismissing Constantine and the world he left behind, his patience failed. For Yoder, Rome was not radically Christian, Rome’s adherence to the faith was infantile, and because of that, he reasons, it was not Christian at all but apostate. He failed, as Augustine said against Pelagius, to give due weight to “the interim, the interval between the remission of sins which takes place in baptism, and the permanently established sinless state in the kingdom that is to come, this middle time [tempus hoc medium] of prayer, while [we] must pray, ‘Forgive us our sins.’” He failed to acknowledge that all—Constantine, Rome, ourselves—stand in medial time, and yet are no less Christian for that.

What can we expect in this middle time? Not much, Yoder thinks. He says that the project of Christianizing the state is doomed. The time when that could happen has long ago passed away. If he is right, we are facing nothing short of apocalypse. I believe that here too Yoder is wrong, and that we can escape apocalypse. But this can only happen on certain conditions: only through reevangelization, only through the revival of a purified Constantinianism, only by the formation of a Christically centred politics, only through fresh public confession that Jesus’ city is the model city, his blood the only expiating blood, his sacrifice the sacrifice that ends sacrifice. An apocalypse can be averted only if modern civilisation, like Rome, humbles itself and is willing to come forward to be baptized. (Leithart, p. 341-342)

Dr Leithart is, to some degree, longing for “the good old days.” He sees the future of Christianity in a “purified Constantinianism,” with infant baptism as the sacramental key. Yet it was precisely infant baptism that led to its failure.

Baptism is a new beginning, but it is not a birth “according to the flesh.” It is a second birth, an investiture with authority following submission to the Law of the Gospel. The end of sacrifice was only the baptism of Rome’s cultic heart, and Rome’s sacred heart was now the Christian Church, which had submitted to suffering and was now being exalted. This “baptism of Rome” was not in fact the investiture of Rome at all but an investiture of the Church.

What the investiture of the Church did, under Constantine, was put the entire empire officially under the sound of the Gospel. It condemned the entire empire to the death of repentance. But that is not submission to the gospel. It was the label of regeneration without the regeneration. This meant that Christendom eventually ran out of steam, out of Spirit. The culture is dying because it lost its cultic heart. And it lost its sacred cultic heart because paedobaptism distorted the very definition of what a Christian is. It confused culture with cultus because it replaced the walls of the New Jerusalem with the walls of the old one. It used baptism as a carnal, hereditary division (culture) rather than as the mark of repentance and faith (cultus). It introduced a new circumcision, invented a new version of the wall which the Son of God eradicated in His death and resurrection.

Worse, the conflation of citizenship with baptism through paedobaptism actually replaced the true Christian cultic heart with a false one. God is in control of history, and, as Dr Leithart demonstrates, Constantinianism was the need of the day. But what the invention of paedobaptism brought about was a reintroduction of pagan sacrifice in a very subtle way. It was, in fact, an apostasy, a falling back into the old ways, a “resacralizing” in a way that is entirely foreign to the New Testament. Paul called the first century Circumcision “the mutilation,” possibly referring to the self-cutting of the priests of Baal (Philippians 3:2). They attempted to make themselves acceptable to God without obedience to God. Although human sacrifice was never commanded by God, circumcision was always a symbolic child sacrifice, the real blood being shed by a substitutionary “innocent” victim, a redeeming animal. The priests of Baal sacrificed children to secure the blessings of their lord upon their culture. It was a “stimulation” of the natural order to achieve the supernatural. The Ethics of the Covenant are replaced with Magic. [4] Dr Leithart sees infant baptism as a “cutting off” of the flesh by water, but it is in practice an offering of flesh, an attempted “stimulation” of the natural in plain disobedience to God. [5] What our children need is the gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

In Christ, circumcision or uncircumcision, that is, hereditary divisions, became nothing (1 Corinthians 7:19). According to Paul, heredity is a pile of shit (Philippians 3:8). Paedobaptism, like circumcision, is a hereditary distinction, and heredity is nothing, unless that heredity brings with it the hearing of the gospel. But hearing is not believing.

In Christ, all hereditary divisions, all genealogical divisions, were wiped away. In Christ, Jew and Gentile became one new Man, but not through generation. It is only through regeneration. A Christian nation is a great blessing, but, contra Leithart, a Christian nation is not one where everyone is baptized. A Christian nation is one under the sound of the Gospel, ruled by the baptized, the “invested.” The goal is not worldwide baptism. The goal is worldwide regeneration-and-baptism.

I have argued recently that paedobaptism is “another gospel.” [6] It usurps the place of the gospel as the “first contact.” There must be the bloody death of a cut heart, and repentance, before there can be the resurrection of water. In the approach to God, the outer border is always blood; the inner/upper is always water. By placing the “water” boundary at the edges of the empire instead of at the boundary of the regenerate within the empire, Constantine’s Christian state sowed the seeds of its own destruction.

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ACT III – The Corpse of Constantine

“…the nations that adhered to Christendom as tribes rather than as individuals never forswore their love for their own ethnicity. On the contrary, they longed for eternal life in their own Gentile skin rather than in the Kingdom of God promised by Jesus Christ.”

Since AD70, any “holy” distinctions now are merely human distinctions. The boundaries of the New Jerusalem are defined not by flesh but by faith. We can see this within Israel at the microcosmic level: priesthood and people, with a boundary of water, the Laver. What Christ did was expand this “Land” model to encompass the World. Outside of credobaptism, there are to be no other boundaries recognized by the Church of Christ.

Paedobaptism is a fundamental misunderstanding of this act. It sees no fundamental change in the nature of the Covenant community, and so, seeking the same “Baalistic” carnal security of a boundary of blessing that is visible to the naked eye, it ties the boundary of Spirit to the boundary of family. Instead of “going viral,” the Gospel is locked up in Adamic family cells. Or worse, it is locked up in the boundary of the state. But the Gospel won’t be restrained. It not only transcends all human boundaries and distinctions (because the eyes of God no longer recognize them) it destroys them.

The body created by Constantine was only ever another boundary to be crossed. The investiture of Christ at His ascension led to the death and resurrection of Israel (the firstfruits, the first resurrection). The investiture of Israel led to the death and resurrection of the Jew-Gentile Church under Roman power: Garden, Land, World.

But God works in fractals. The investiture of the Christian Church under Constantine would inevitably lead to the destruction of Constantinianism. The Spirit is always working to break the old wine skins. How does He do this? He does it virally, that is, through regenerate individuals, the true baptism.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to see things objectively. I have quoted an atheist concerning baptism. [7] Now it’s time to hear from a Jew. In It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You: The Great Extinction of the Nations, David P. Goldman writes:

Neither Christian nor Jew cares much about the logic of salvation. The soul stands in fear and trembling, sick unto death—which is the same as sin—and reaches out for grace. The Jews do this as a kinship community—Blutsgemeinschaft, in Franz Rozenzweig’s world. Christians must do so as individuals, because as Christians they abandon the doomed ties of Gentile kinship and instead join the assembly (ekklesia) that calls them out from among the nations.

The remnants of Christian state religion rot and stink on the dying continent of Europe. Christianity cannot persist except as a continuing revival, a recurring conversion—as a sequence of singular events rather than as an orderly process.

Awaiting execution in Hitler’s prisons, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that, in a world come of age, the Christian religion no longer could exist as organized practice but only as an expression of individual conscience. America was created for precisely this purpose, to replace state religion on the European model with a religion of individual conscience. Such a religion must be schismatic, multisectarian, short on doctrine but long on inspiration. America’s kaleidoscope of Protestant denominations, so bewildering to Europeans, constitutes the only type of milieu in which Christianity has flourished during the past generation. Although Christian communities are burgeoning throughout the world, they seem to succeed best in emulation of the American version. With right the Vatican may defend the record of the Spanish inquisition [on the premise that, under state religion, heresy implies disloyalty to the state], but it alters not a jot or tittle of the awful sentence—oblivion—that history has passed on European Christianity…

All nationalism worships God in the carnival mirror of its own reflection. The exception is the Jewish nation, which understands itself to exist because God called it to his service. As Franz Rosenzweig observed, once the Gentile nations embrace Christianity, they abandoned their ancient fatalism regarding the inevitable extinction of their tribe. It is the God of Israel who first offers eternal life to humankind, and Christianity extended Israel’s promise to all. But the nations that adhered to Christendom as tribes rather than as individuals never forswore their love for their own ethnicity. On the contrary, they longed for eternal life in their own Gentile skin rather than in the Kingdom of God promised by Jesus Christ.

After Christianity taught them the election of Israel, the Gentiles coveted election for themselves and desired that their own people be the chosen people. That set ethnocentric nationalism in conflict both with the Jews—the descendants of Abraham in the flesh—and with the Church, which holds itself to be the new People of God.

Christian universal empire, from Charlemagne in AD800 to the Habsburgs in 1914, was by definition multinational, if not antinational. The Christians were the ekklesia, those called out of the nations, and only a truly universal elite could rule them…

Nationalism was to be suppressed. That is why the sixteenth century church did not tolerate translation of the scriptures into the vernacular… [But] Catholic universal empire, the “prison of the nations” in its nineteenth century Habsburg expression, ultimately was a failure. By contrast, the United States, a melting-pot nation of immigrants, achieved a transcendent kind of universality and thereby became the world’s dominant power. (pp. 42-49)

Bonhoeffer’s “expression of individual conscience” is anathema to the Federal Vision. On the one hand, we have Yoder decrying state religion, and on the other we have Leithart calling for a return to it. We have Leithart promoting the Church on earth as “one” and Yoder asserting it should only ever be a sort of underground “many.” What if they are both right and both wrong?

What it boils down to, possibly, is the failure to understand the sacred heart of the Shekinah, the incarnation, the glory of God dwelling in flesh. Leithart believes in a carnal (hereditary) baptism, a “one” in flesh, a unity based on blood. It clumsily identifies itself with Covenant at the cost of a true identification with Christ.. [8] Yoder, I assume, believes in a “one” that is only one in Spirit that cannot, or should not, ever achieve a governmental status.

The truth is that “Rome” itself cannot be baptized until the final day, the day of the “investiture” of the World. But until then, the Church is indeed already one, despite appearances, working like yeast within the nations. There will indeed be “growth rings” along the way, such as the fourth century, but they will only ever be an incomplete picture of the final reality. There will always be an “us and them” demarcation, a baptism, and it must never be confused with a human distinction of any kind, whether familial, national, cultural or international. That sort of baptism is the kiss of death to whatever parasite it was attached to. This is because human distinctions cannot by definition be universal.

Yoder doesn’t have a vision, let alone a federal (Covenant) one. Dr Leithart’s Federal Vision, being practically ethnocentric, simply isn’t big enough. If the Federal Vision doesn’t get “de-sacralized” at some point, it will take its place in the abyss relegated by the death and resurrection of Christ to all the “stoicheian” institutions of history.

A Constantinianism that is truly purified would be a Constantinianism without paedobaptism. In the long run, all paedobaptism can do is delineate another doomed tribe.

But the truly catholic Church marches on, and there is no locked door through which it cannot pass, no human institution it cannot transcend, and no boundary it cannot cross.

___________________________________________________________
[1] See The End of Shadows.
[2] See James B. Jordan, The Handwriting on the Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel.
[3] See The Future of Israel Re-examined.
[4] See Ray Sutton, That You May Prosper, Chapter 3, “Ethics” (p. 59ff) [PDF] and Baal’s Stimulus Package.
[5] See Cutting Off Flesh by Water.
[6] See Another Gospel – 1.
[7] See also An Atheist ‘Gets’ Baptism.
[8] See Another Gospel – 2.

or Gentiles Trouble Me

In our weekly Bible study, we’re working our way through John, with the help of the Gospel of John DVD. It’s really very good. Watching the presention, one realises the impact of many of Jesus’ words upon His hearers moreso than when we read them and their familiarity washes over us.

One thing that jumped out in John 12 was the fact that it was the appearance of Gentile seekers that led to Jesus’ talking about His approaching death. Israel’s ministry was to be a living sacrifice for the life of the world. And Israel’s sacrifice was imminent.

The structure of this passage is amazing. It is like a flower blooming, a red flower. As it progresses, lines get expanded into their own stanzas, and lines of those stanzas get expanded into their own stanzas. This is all to make a point, and I hope that laying it out as I have below will hammer home the beauty and the significance of the structure of the Word of God.

Sabbath – Initiation
Now there were certain Greeks (Initiation)
…..among those (Delegation)
……….who came up to worship (Ascension – Altar)
……….at the feast. (Presentation – Firstfruits)

It’s interesting that this stanza is incomplete. The structure appears to put the sacrifice on the Altar awaiting the holy fire, which, if you are familiar with the matrix, you will see the Gentiles seeking in the next stanza. Perhaps it supports the idea that the four-cornered “Land-Altar” was larger than the borders of Israel. Since the captivity, the territory under God’s eyes was the oikoumene.

Passover – Delegation
…..Then they came to Philip,
……….who was from Bethsaida of Galilee,
……………and [kept asking] him, saying,
………………..“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
……………Philip came and told Andrew,
……….and in turn Andrew and Philip
…..told Jesus.

Here we see the disciples doing exactly what Jews were supposed to do: lead Gentiles to God as faithful priests. The mention of Philip’s town of origin allows water at step 2, and also a possible reason why they approached Philip. Notice their persistent “prayer” at Ascension.

Firstfruits – Presentation
But Jesus
…..answered them,
……….saying,
……………“The hour has come
……….that should be glorified
…..the Son of Man.

Following the Greek word order, there seems to be no final line (Glorification). There is certainly glory at step 5, but it is the glory of the sacrificial smoke. At step 6, the Son of Adam stands in the open Veil, veiled in a screen of fragrant smoke, again, awaiting fire. This time it is not the fire of the Law, but the “Bridal fire,” the Shekinah. The ascended Jesus sent the Spirit to gather His bride at Pentecost.

Pentecost – Purification
“Most assuredly, (Day 1 – Light)
…..I say to you, (Day 2 – Firmament)
……….unless a grain of wheat (Day 3 – Land/Firstfruits)
……………falls into the ground and dies, (Day 4 – Rulers)
……….it remains alone; (Day 5 – Swarms)
…..but if it dies, (Day 6 – Mediators)
it produces much grain. (Day 7 – Rest/Offspring)

We see that Jesus’ word choices were not arbitrary. Not one of them is idle. His reference to grain here concerns Pentecost. His personal holiness would result in a corporate holiness, a harvest of righteousness. The slain Covenant head would be raised with a Covenant body. The singular Mediator would be multiplied into a corporate Mediator.

Trumpets – Transformation
“He who loves his life will lose it, (Ark)
…..and he who hates his life in this world (Veil)
……….will keep it for eternal life. (Altar)
……….“If anyone serves Me, (Table)
……………let him follow Me; (Lampstand)
……….and where I am,
……….there My servant will be also. (Incense)
…..If anyone serves Me, (Mediators)
him [My] Father will honor. (Shekinah)

Trumpets concerns the mustering of a new army, and resurrection. Notice that Jesus is the Light of the Law, and we follow that Light. Also notice the bread and wine on the Altar/Table is a promise of a greater Table at Glorification (a common feature of the matrix). Finally, notice that there are TWO WITNESSES at Maturity. The stanza takes us from the proto-light of Day 1, through the greater light of the Law on Day 4, to the perfect light of Day 7. How brilliant is that?

The next feast is Coverings, or Atonement. It began with a day of mourning. So does this stanza.

Atonement – Vindication
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? (Genesis)
…..‘Father, save Me from this hour’? (Exodus)
……….But for this purpose I came to this hour. (Leviticus)
……….“Father, glorify Your name.” (Table)

This stanza takes us to the same point as stanza 1. But this time there is an answer, and it is five-fold and fiery–a Covenant Word from the Father sets the sacrifice alight.

……………(Lampstand)
……………Then a voice
………………..came
…………………….from heaven, [saying,]
………………..“I have both glorified [it]
……………and will glorify [it] again.”

……….(Incense – Trumpets)
……….Therefore the people
……………who stood by and heard [it]
………………..said that it had thundered.
……………Others said,
……….“An angel has spoken to Him.”

The next stanza does a similar thing. The first three steps have a line each, then Jesus speaks as the Lampstand at the centre.

…..(Mediator)
…..Jesus answered and said, (Ark)
…..“Not because of me came this voice, (Veil)
……….but for your sake. (Altar/Table)

……………(Lampstand)
……………“Now is the judgment of this world;
……………(Creation)
………………..now the prince of this world will be cast out.
………………..(Division)
…………………….And I, if I am lifted up from the [Land],
…………………….(Ascension)
…………………………will draw all to Myself.”
…………………………(Firstfruits – Nearbringing)
…………………………….This He said, signifying
……………………………..by what death He would die.
…………………………….(Pentecost – death under the Law)

Notice the (possible) allusion to “dying, you shall die.” Also, the Nearbringing allusion confirms His deity. The nearbringing allows Adam to have access to God. But here, we are being brought near to the Son, that we might be brought near to the Father in the Son.

…………………………(Trumpets – Swarms – Deuteronomy)
…………………………The people answered Him,
……………………………..“We have heard from the law
………………………………….that the Christ remains forever;
………………………………………and how [can] You say,  (Testing)
………………………………….‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’?
………………………………Who is this Son of Man?”

This one is interesting. It seems to be running backwards, which I have seen in a few places at Trumpets. The message seems to be that resurrection turns time backwards [1]. But it is also a perversion of the order of authority, so the structure enforces their questioning of His authority! If this is the case, it is the Ark that is missing at the bottom, the Transcendent authority of God. But, and here’s the killer, John puts it in for them!

………………………….Then Jesus said to them,

……………………..(Atonement)
……………………..“A little while longer the light is with you.
………………………….Walk while you have the light,
………………………………lest darkness overtake you;

…………………………………..he
……………………………………….who walks
……………………………………………IN DARKNESS
……………………………………….does not know
…………………………………..where he is going.

………………………………“While you have the light, (Plunder)
………………………….believe in the light, (Mediator)
……………………..that you may become sons of light.” (Succession)

…………………(Un-Booths – No Shekinah)
…………………These things Jesus spoke,
……………………..and departed,
………………………….and was hidden from them.

Wow. That is some Lampstand. It’s like the one in Zechariah 4, 7 lights x 7 lights. Even though Jesus’ witness was multiplied Light, the rest of this passage is related in the darkness of unknowing. The text in red above is when the blood is sprinkled in the dark on the Day of Coverings.

The way to prevent the Ascension and Rule of darkness is to become light. This ties in with the prediction of the apostles as stars in Daniel 12.

The Trumpets section contains two legal witnesses, that of Jesus (as a new Moses – the Law) and that of Isaiah (the Prophets)…

……………(Incense – Prophetic Witness)
……………But although He had done (Transcendence)
………………..so many signs before them, (Hierarchy)
…………………….they did not believe in Him,
…………………………that the word
…………………….of Isaiah the prophet
………………..might be fulfilled,
……………which he spoke:

……………“Lord, (T)
………………..who (H)
…………………….has believed (E1)
…………………………our report? (E2)
……………….. And the arm of the LORD (E3)
………………..To whom (O – Oath)
……………was it revealed?” (S) [2]

Notice the military allusion at step 5. Who and whom are at Delegation and Vindication.

……….(Mediators – Day of Israel’s Covering)
……….Therefore they could not believe, (T)
……………because Isaiah said again: (H)

………………..(Ethics 1 – Flesh)
………………..“He has blinded their eyes (No Light)
…………………….and hardened their hearts, (Pharaoh)
……………………. Lest they should see with [their] eyes,
…………………….Lest they should understand with [their] hearts
…………………….and turn,
………………..So that I should heal them.”

…………………….(Ethics 2 – Eyes)
…………………….These things
…………………………Isaiah said
……………………………..when he saw
…………………………His glory
…………………….and spoke of Him.

………………..(Ethics 3 – Life)
………………..Nevertheless
…………………….even among
…………………………the rulers
…………………….many believed
………………..in Him,

……………(Oath – Sanctions)
……………but because of the Pharisees (T)
………………..they did not CONFESS [Him,] (H)
…………………….lest they should be put out
…………………….of the synagogue; (E)
………………..for they loved the praise of men (O)
……………more than the praise of God. (S)

This stanza puts the Pharisees at the beginning as Transcendent authority.

……….(Succession)
……….Then Jesus cried out and said,
……………“He who believes in Me,
………………..believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me.
…………………….And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.
………………..“I have come [as] a light into the world,
……………that whoever believes in Me (Mediator)
……….should not abide in darkness. (Booths of Light)

Notice the authority of the Father bestowed upon the Son at Ascension, just as when Jesus rose up out of the water. He is worthy to open the scroll.

Well, that brings to an end John’s incredible expansion of Atonement, but with the theme of sight. We are, after all, right in the middle of the Gospel of John.

Booths – Restoration
(Transcendence)
“And if anyone hears My words and does not believe,
…..I do not judge him; (Passover)
……….for I did not come to judge the world (E1 – Law given)
……….but to save the world. (Table)
……………“He who rejects Me, (E2 – Law opened)
……….and does not receive My words, (E3 -Law received)
…..has that which judges him –

the word
…..that I
……….have spoken
…..will judge him
in the last day.

(Hierarchy)
“For I have not spoken
…..on My own [authority;]
……….but the Father who sent Me
……………gave Me a command,
……….what I should say and what I should speak.
…..And I know that His command
is everlasting life.

(Ethics)
Therefore, what
…..I speak,
……….just as the Father has told Me,
……………so I speak.”

____________________________
[1] See If I Could Turn Back Time.
[2] Abbreviation of five-fold Covenant pattern: T. H. E. O. S.

or Inheriting the Earth

Structure of Daniel 7 – Part 3

Now that we have covered the central point, Testing, we are working out way back out from the centre of the chapter. The main revelation is always given at Ascension to the Covenant Head (as in Moses on Sinai), opened at Testing (as in Numbers) and received by the people from the Covenant Head in Deuteronomy. Daniel 7 echoes this formula. The vision was given in “sign language” by God’s finger, and is now being received by Daniel in plain language. Of course, we see a similar pattern between the Old Testament’s dark sayings and the plain statements of the New, the two linked by the life of Christ.

However, this second part — the second witness — contains its own complete seven-fold pattern. Read on to find out why.

Creation – Transcendence
ARK – MOST HOLY
My spirit was distressed, (Ark)
…..I Daniel, within [my] body, (Veil)
……….and the visions of my head were alarming. (Altar)
……….I came near (Table – Nearbringing)
……………to one of those who stood by, (Ruling Lights)
……….and asked him the truth of all this. (Law repeated)
……….So he told me and made known to me (Sanctions)
the interpretation of these things: (Succession – Future)

So much for Sabbath! This stanza puts Daniel face-to-face with the Law of God. The Ark always causes trouble for fallen Man. Notice Daniel is humbled before he is “lifted up.”

There is a similar reference to “those who stand” in the book of Zechariah. They are the angelic elders who advised God and administered the Law until the saints inherited their thrones in AD70. In the Revelation, they vacate the heavenly Holy Place one by one, each ministering a judgment on the way out.

Division – Hierarchy
VEIL – HOLY PLACE
‘Those great beasts, which are four, (Light)
…..[are] four kings (Firmament)
……….[which] arise out of the [Land] (Land)
……………[and] receive the kingdom (Ruling Lights)
……….[shall] the saints of the Highest (Swarms/Clouds)
…..and possess the kingdom forever,
[even] for all ages.

You might notice I have “translated” this differently. I have followed the Hebrew word order because it fits the matrix better!

Using the four empires, the Lord formed the oikoumene, the “empire house.” But as with the Land of Canaan, God would come has a thief in the night and take everything the godless had toiled for and give it on a platter to His people. Succession has to do with “inheritance in history.” The meek (submissive to God) would inherit the Land, as Jesus reiterated in His famous sermon.

“Most High” is the Gentile name for God. Here it is at Maturity, the place of Gentile swarms. The very name of God used here gives us a hint of the mystery yet to be opened: Jew and Gentile in one Body.

Ascension – Ethics 1
BRONZE ALTAR
Then I wished to know the truth
…..about the fourth beast,
……….which was different from all the others,
……….(a head above the rest? A Gentile king)
……………exceedingly dreadful,
……….[with] its teeth of iron and its nails of bronze,
…..[which] devoured, broke in pieces,
…..and trampled the residue with its feet;
and the ten horns that [were] on its head, (Succession)

The fourth beast has its own stanza. If Ascension is divided in two (and it often is), the first part is the Altar (earth lifted up) and the second part is the Nearbringing, the Sacrifice. The final form of the earthly “Land” was the “four corners” of the boundary of the Roman empire, within which Paul conducted his “harvest” journeys.

Instead of grain and fruit, proto-bread and proto-wine, growing out of it, we have a Succession of emperors, men who will not give up their lives, men who eventually claimed to be gods.

Regarding “dreadful.” Trembling often appears at Testing. Isaiah uses it ironically when Israel fails to tremble at God’s Law. But here, the Covenant people are trembling instead at the power of Rome, the beast they were supposed to conquer and convert, as Joseph and Daniel did: men at the right hand of the power, imaging Christ. This is exactly what we see in the Revelation concerning the relationship of the Jewish elite to the beast.

Iron and bronze here are at Maturity. Metals appear here frequently, as plunder. But here they are the tools of plunder.

When feet appear at Conquest, it is the ruling mediator, walking on whatever “Sea” of dominion God has marked out at that time in history. Mouth is Word; Hand is Sacrament; Feet are Government. The world is now being put under Jesus’ feet.

GOLDEN TABLE
and the other [horn] which came up, (False Transcendence)
…..before which three fell, namely, (Hierarchy)
……….that horn which had eyes (Ethics)
…..and a mouth which spoke pompous words, (Sanctions)
whose appearance [was] greater than his associates. (Succession)

The “Firstfruits Man” is lifted up because he has humbled himself before God. But here it is the line of the Herods, who lifted themselves up by twisting the arms of three emperors (from memory. See Jordan on this.) With eyes “full of darkness” from their sorcerous Oral Law, and a mouth which spoke self-aggrandizing words instead of honoring the Covenant Oath (note that this appears at Sanctions/Oath). The fact that it seems to be a five-line stanza means that the Law here at Ascension remains closed when it should be open. The Herods were not worthy to open the scroll because they were not unblemished lambs but foxes (Luke 13:32). Without the Bible Matrix structure, much of the “Covenant irony” here is not apparent.

The fact that his appearance was greater means perhaps that here was the real driving force behind the corruption of the oikoumene. Revelation is not a polemic against emperor worship. The Covenant is always central. It is a lawsuit against those who married idolatry instead of converting the idolaters, again, the sin of Solomon.

Testing – Ethics 2
LAMPSTAND
“I was watching; (Sabbath – Light)
…..and the same horn was making war against the saints, (Passover)
……….and prevailing against them, (Firstfruits)
……………until the Ancient of Days came,
……….and a judgment was made [in favor]
…..of the saints of the Most High,
and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom.

The little horn has short-sighted eyes, but humble Daniel sees his future. Here at the centre is the changing of the guard. Adam was confronted with a beast at Testing. Jesus faced the spirit of the same beast, yet overcame, so the saints filled with His Spirit would also overcome. There is perhaps a structural allusion here to the battle against Amalek, who prevailed until Moses was seated in judgment as prophet with His arms supported by Aaron (priest) and Hur (kingly Judah). Here it is Christ flanked by Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets, the two (or three) witnesses required for a Covenant execution.

How brilliant is the second line? The Herods are ascending, yet the first century church is the true Firstfruits! According to Jordan, this is the subject of Revelation 14.

Maturity – Ethics 3
GOLDEN ALTAR
“Thus he said: (Light – Ark)
…..‘The fourth beast (Veil – Hierarchy)
……….shall be a fourth kingdom on [the Land], (Altar)
……………Which shall differ from all the kingdoms, (Lights)
……….And shall devour the whole [Land], (Table)
…..[and tread and crush]. (Laver – Feet – No Mediators)
(No Succession, No Entry into God’s Rest)

Notice that the Land beast, instead of being true holy, fruitful Land, is treading and crushing the grain and fruit under its feet.

This stanza is also very interesting because it has two parts. We are back to the Land beasts. This Golden Altar chiastically mirrors the Bronze Altar and Golden Table of Ascension: Beast – Horn / Judgment / Beast – Horn. This time, the saints are the incense crushed during the Great Tribulation (beginning around AD64), and set alight, a holy, fragrant cloud passing through the Veil to complete the Totus Christus and celebrate the marriage feast.

INCENSE
The ten horns [are] ten kings (Genesis – Transcendence)
…..[Who] shall arise from this kingdom. (Exodus – Hierarchy)
……….And another shall rise after them; (Leviticus – 3 levels)
……….He shall be different from the first,
……….And shall subdue three kings. (Firstfruits)
……………He shall speak [pompous] words (Numbers)
……………against the Most High,
……….Shall persecute the saints of the Most High, (Trumpets)
……….And shall intend to change times and law. (Deuteronomy)
…..Then [the saints] shall be given into his hand (False Joshua)
For a time and times and half a time. (Failure of Judges)

The central point is the Ethics. Here is the false prophet speaking the “Hath God said” in the second Temple garden. This is the explanation of the use of the Balaam (Head) and Balaamite (Body) symbols in the Revelation. The first century priesthood was a false prophet who would cause Israel to commit adultery and suffer the Covenant curses.

Conquest – Sanctions
But the court shall be seated,
…..And they shall take away his dominion,
……….To consume and destroy [it] forever.
……….Then the kingdom and dominion,
……………And the greatness of the kingdoms
……………under the whole heaven,
……….Shall be given to the people,
……….the saints of the Most High.
…..His kingdom [is] an everlasting kingdom, (Head)
…..And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.’ (Body)
This [is] the end of the account.

Here, the curses of the Covenant are poured out upon those who wilfully remain under the Old Covenant. The matrix structure is forming and filling, Law and Grace. So here, structurally, the Law of the flesh is abolished, and only the Law of the Spirit remains.

In the wilderness, Satan offered Christ all the kingdoms of the World. Here, those kingdoms are at Testing, the Wilderness step. Jesus shared His rule with the martyred Firstfruits Church, who now sit on thrones–alive–in the place of the Old Covenant angels. The disciples sat on twelve thrones and judged the twelve tribes. It’s history.

Glorification – Succession
As for me, Daniel, (Source)
…..my thoughts greatly troubled me, (Veil)
……….and my countenance changed; (Facebread Man)
……………but I kept the matter in my heart. (Internal Law)

This is hilarious! It’s just like one of those movies that is set up for a sequel. Just as the saints would be subject to the Roman-powered Herods for a three-and-a-half (Testing), [1] so the Succession stanza leaves the story unfinished, open, ready for the coming of the Lord. The stanza itself is a time, times and half a time.

If you remember, the first half of the chapter was also a three-and-a-half. It finished at Testing. This second part, the interpretation, fills out the complete pattern, yet the final verse reminds us that the actual fulfilment was yet to be revealed.

Finally, notice the architectural similarity between the Lord’s throne in heaven with its four beastly guardians, the nation of Israel on earth serving within four beastly guardian empires, and Daniel in the den of lions. His experience was the template for the Jews for the next 500 years. They were to tame the Gentile kingdoms by faith, not aspire to be like Gentile kings (as Saul did). The devouring lions became ministers of God’s judgment upon Daniel’s enemies! Daniel himself was a lion of Judah.

For the cover of James Jordan’s complete lectures DVD box (see right column), I used a lion head door knocker. For those willing to listen, Jordan’s lectures are a very practical gateway to understand the Bible, and I wanted to communicate that very simply. The image links the two-edged message of traditional “gargoyled” doors with the two-edged gospel: for the faithful, the Lion of Judah is a guardian and a door; for the unfaithful, He is merely a guard at the door.

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[1] This half-week was completed by the Jewish War, three years of hell on the Land, the Herodian harlot being devoured by her beastly Roman lover. See The End of Shadows.

For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.  And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:14-18)

So, the New Jerusalem—at least the way it is described in Revelation 21—is the culmination of all the “Day 6s” since the original in the Garden of Eden. And, like the walls of water at the Red Sea and Jordan crossings, this entire, miraculous arrangement is held together by the Mediator-Man, the Lamb standing at the centre.

What’s interesting is that Old Covenant Israel’s Day 6 was seen by Daniel as a giant metal man. As Jordan brilliantly describes, this man was a Tabernacle made of the Gentile empires within which Ezra and Nehemiah’s New Jerusalem would act as a priestly advisor. When this structure got down to earth, however, this Old Covenant man got cold feet, feet of clay. The red dust of the Esau/Edomite Herods would not “intermarry” with the Roman metal however hard they tried. Revelation gives us the next episode in the story of this man. [1]

In Revelation 10-11, Christ stood with one foot on the Land (Israel) and one on the Sea (the Gentile oikoumene) until Jew and Gentile were a complete body. [2] What the Herods failed to do by might and power, Jesus did by His Spirit. Jesus commanded John to measure (test) the Temple and gave him a little book containing seven verbal thunders that would bring this decayed old worship construct tumbling down—DE-Creation. [3] The single man of Israel’s Day 6 (Atonement) was replaced with a married man at her Day 7 (Booths). Totus Christus, the complete Jew-Gentile man, replaced the Gentile kingdoms’ metal man in AD70. [4]

But Israel’s Day 7 was only the beginning of the World’s Day 6, as we have described. The Totus Christus is a Great High Priest of Whom we are a part. Now, from head to foot, He reaches—we reach—from the highest heaven to the lowest pit. [5]

“If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” (Psalm 139:8)

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[1] See The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men 1 and 2.
[2] I won a bottle of plonk at trivia for guessing what the Mercedes Benz logo means. Thanks to JBJ, I guessed right. The three-pointed star symbolises dominion over air, land and sea.
[3] It’s interesting that in Revelation 11 we have the Christ who has begun to reign, and in 12 we have the Woman and the dragon. As in the Creation Week, the rulers are at the centre. As in Genesis 3, the rulers at the centre are Adam, Eve and the serpent. See also Seven Bowls of Wrath.
[4] VERY interestingly, the 666 passage in Revelation is the sixth stanza in a “Creation Week” pattern. This occurs many times in Revelation, only with this passage, THE SEVENTH STANZA IS MISSING. As far as I can tell, this is the only place in the Bible where this occurs. This signals the end of the Herods’ attempt at rebuilding Solomon’s kingdom with borrowed Roman power. See my book Totus Christus for more detail on this structure. 666 denotes the beginning of Solomon’s corruption through his amassing of gold. The same sin in the Herods brought down the metal man of the oikoumene. When tested—threshed/sifted—the failed Adam returned to the dust (Daniel 2).
[5] On the church’s new relationship to the Abyss, see Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not and The Greatest Consumer.