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).

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

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

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

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

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Paul understood God’s ways. God’s ways are “Covenant-shaped,” they concern transformation, and the glory always comes at the end. It is the result of God’s Word going out and coming back with something good, His own goodness multiplied.

His doxology at the end of Romans 11 is not only the “glory” at the end of a Covenant-shaped dissertation, this glory itself is a process ending in glory.

The first thing I noticed is the threefold “from Him, through Him, to Him…” which is the Initiation, Transformation and Representation process of every Covenant. It is the “there and back again” with the Triune Man (Priest, King, Prophet) at the center.

Looking at the structure of each line reveals even more glory. The doxology concerns the end of the Jew/Gentile divide, the end of the Law, so it is fitting that this little passage is actually a recapitulation of the Ten Commandments, as “hidden riches.” [1]

Now, remember, to understand the Bible you must think like a poet, since that is how God thinks, and how His prophets (including His Son) speak. All their words were spoken (from Him), and written (through Him) to be sung (to Him).

The vertical progression starts with the hidden wisdom of God and works down to obvious glory, the revealing of His mind, so let’s not dispute about that. (If you do want to dispute that, you can leave the Resurrected Poets Society now.) The correspondences to the Ten Words are a little more subtle, but obvious if we are familiar with the internal logic, the hidden wisdom behind the Ten Words, moving from source to glory (left column to right column) at every step. The doxology is simply the same process expressed in different media.

TRANSCENDENCE

Firstly, the hidden riches are the source of all life, represented in the fatherhood of Adam, the first Sanctuary priest. Adam, as priest, was alone (which is why there are no priestesses). Those priestly (hidden) riches are expounded in kingly wisdom and prophetic knowledge. Although there are no priestesses, there are indeed queens and prophetesses. [2] Hidden riches are the silence of priesthood (listening to God in the Garden), while wisdom and knowledge are the Words of God spoken in State and sung in Church. These correspond to the prohibition of false gods (false word) and the prohibition of vowing falsely to God (false response).

HIERARCHY

Secondly, we move from the mind of God to those to whom He has delegated Covenant authority. The promises of God are always glory hidden behind a veil. The tearing of that veil requires obedience in faith (that is, trust in God’s character). This step also corresponds to the establishment of the Circumcision, which was a cutting of flesh linked to the fruitfulness of Land and womb, and a blessing to all nations.

ETHICS

Thirdly, the correspondence of murder and adultery might seem oblique, but murder is a cutting of flesh fueled by hatred, and adultery is a strange fire. These are the opposites of the purifying blood and fire in the sacrificial rite. The mind of the Lord does not find pleasure in the death of men, hence the institution of substitutionary sacrifice. Cutting into the sacrifice, dividing joints and marrow, pictures the Word of God revealing the heart. The counselor refers to Eve, or to the corporate “bride,” the Church, God’s helper and confidante.

OATH/SANCTIONS

Fourthly, theft corresponds easily to the blessings, given or stolen, as Covenant Sanctions, with the legal testimony of the one wronged in response. (Note that this is the point where Adam blamed God and the Woman!)

SUCCESSION

Finally, we have God Himself as the threefold house (forming), and all those in “the house of many rooms” as His glory (filling). God Himself is the only future.

So, there you go. Paul’s doxology is not only beautiful, it is legal.

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[1] See Q&A: Why Ten Words On Two Tablets.
[2] See The Throne of Eve.

My Federal Vision friends believe baptism is an important subject, from both theological and pastoral points of view. I agree, but for me it is also an issue of aesthetics. The Bible has a wonderfully consistent internal logic, and paedobaptism crunches the gears at every turn.

Peter Leithart just posted something concerning baptism, and it’s worth answering, not only “because somebody on the internet is wrong,” but also because it is an issue I’ve just finished dealing with in The Shape of Galatians. It should be noted that Trinity House is hosting some lectures on sacraments by a baptist, so Dr Leithart and his colleagues have a spirit that should be imitated by theologians everywhere. My own posts here are always bait in the hope of a bite, a friendly disputatio, so don’t take them the wrong way. If a friend has soup on his tie, or wax in his ear, or a fertility rite in his sacrament, what sort of friend isn’t going to point it out!?

Dr Leithart writes:

Paul calls circumcision a “seal of righteousness” in Romans 4:11, and that same phrase has historically been applied to baptism.

But what does it mean to be a “seal of righteousness”? A seal (Greek sphragis) is an identifying mark. The word is used to describe brands on animals, identifying tattoos on slaves, signs that identify a man’s regiment in the military. To be sealed is to be identified in some way.

A “seal of righteousness,” it would seem, is a mark that identified the one sealed as “righteous.” That’s true for Abraham: He trusted Yahweh’s promise, Yahweh counted it for righteousness and thus considered Abraham to be righteous, and the seal of circumcision imposed that status on Abraham’s flesh. Abraham would have explained his circumcision as a seal that Yahweh considered him righteous.

But then that same seal is applied to the infant Isaac, and then many other infants, on the eighth day. It’s still a “seal of righteousness.” Changing Isaac’s nappies, Sarah could have seen Isaac’s circumcision and thought, “Yahweh sealed my little son as a righteous one! Praise to Yahweh!”

When we apply this logic to baptism, as paedobaptists are wont to do, what are we to conclude? Is baptism a “seal of righteousness,” also for our children?

Firstly, what does Paul actually say in Romans 4? Abraham became the father of a priestly nation because he believed. He believed first, and then received the Circumcision. The question here is this: if Abraham and the men in his household believed before they were circumcised, why wasn’t Isaac required to believe first? Because Abraham was sealed as righteous, and through him all Israel were given promises. It says nothing about Isaac being sealed as righteous. He was the fulfillment of the promise.

Notice that Dr Leithart doesn’t mention males, but infants. That’s the classic bait-and-switch. Circumcision wasn’t about child rearing but child bearing, about a physical seed. Yes, Sarah would have praised God every time she changed Isaac’s nappy. She would also have praised God every time Abraham was naked before her. Circumcision was a reminder of their previous barrenness, which was removed because Abraham believed God. Both the birth and circumcision of Isaac were a sign of Abraham’s righteousness, and nobody else’s.

So, why were Abraham and Sarah barren in the first place? Because they were a new Adam and Eve, the beginning of an “Edenic” nation which would carry the curse for all nations. Abraham plants trees and buries Sarah in a tree-circled grove. Thus, Circumcision was about the Land and the womb, the firstfruits and the firstborn. It was about cutting off Cain and cutting off Canaan. It was inherently Edenic, because the original promises were given to Adam and then distributed by Noah.

God promised fertility to Adam, constructed Eve, and then qualified Adam to receive that fertility as a gift. The Land and the womb would not be opened until Adam was qualified. He sinned, but the shedding of blood allowed God to bless him still with a fertility in Land and womb that was tempered, not cut off, by a curse. Circumcision was likewise a shedding of blood that would allow God to give a faithful Man a fruitful Land and a fruitful womb. But things had progressed, because although death was mitigated in Eden, human blood was still shed. The mitigating blood in Circumcision was now human blood. In a sense, every male Israelite was cut off as an Abel that he might not be a Cain. Isaac himself was a son offered as an ascension sacrifice. He was symbolically slain as a Cain and “born again by faith” as an Abel, hence the constant battle for Covenant Succession between firstborn and secondborn sons, right up to Christ and the Herods, upon whom all the righteous blood from Abel would be avenged.

Because of his faith, righteousness was counted to Abraham. Working through Galatians I noticed a structural correspondence between Paul’s reference to this counting, and the counting of the sons of Israel. The name of the book Numbers refers to the two censuses which bookend it, the generation which came out of Egypt (“my firstborn son”) but died in the wilderness, and the new uncircumcised generation which took possession of the Land. The children of Israel are numbered so many times it gets boring. But the point is that they are counted. As Dr Leithart has himself noted, Revelation 7 alludes to Numbers when it counts out the 144,000, the “firstfruits” of the Land, the first Jews who believed the Gospel. But notice that the Gentile believers are not counted. They are count-less, like the stars in the sky or the sand of the seashore. To be “counted” is to be a sacrifice, an ascension offering like Isaac. The counting of righteousness to Abraham resulted in the counting of sons and their inheritance in the Land. Israel’s physical and agricultural fertility were evidence of the faith of Abraham in the promises of God.

But the third promise was this countless blessing to all nations. The nations, generally speaking, were never under such a curse of barrenness. Their offspring were always countless, and their swarming hordes were held back by God when Israel was faithful, and brought by God upon Israel in a “flood” of judgment when faithless. And the famines also seem linked to the presence of Abraham and his sons. Indeed, it was the very fruitfulness of the nations (in both Land and womb) which deceived Israel into worshiping their gods of fertility, the Baals. Just as it was in the Garden, Molech was simply another dragon hijacking the offspring of the woman with an offer of certain food. [1]

So, what kind of sons is Paul talking about when he refers to Gentiles who have Abraham as their father? Obviously, it is those who believed.

Paedobaptists take this faith as “household by household” to tie it once again to offspring, but for Gentiles it was never about offspring, or the Land, which were always tied together, just as Abel and the ground were tied together. This question is answered by taking note of the nature of this great blessing for all nations. Once again, it takes us back to Genesis. Just as the Land and womb were opened by the mitigation of death, so also the curse upon Land and womb was swallowed up in the defeat of death. The resurrection of Christ made Circumcision, the Jew-Gentile distinction, redundant. [2] This is why the writer of Hebrews works his way from slavery to death (World), to the children of Abraham (Land and womb), to Adam’s temptation (Garden), in Hebrews 2:14-18. Jesus was a better Adam, then a better Abel, and then a better “son of God,” [3] a priest king after the order of Melchizedek, a priesthood of all nations:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

So, the blessing upon the Gentiles was not a fertility which they already possessed. It was the removal of the fear of death. Israel bore their barrenness as a substitute, and then Jesus, as Israel, bore their death as well. The significance of the womb of Sarah and the tomb of Sarah were united in Christ. The very Land itself shook with birth pangs at His resurrection, and again just before the first resurrection, as Jesus predicted. There was never any need for a sign upon infants. There was a sign upon all Abrahamic males as  Cains who received God’s mercy and subsequently enjoyed the restoration of the fruit of the Land.

Now that the seed had come, and the old Land had “given birth,” a new sign was required, a sign which pictured a new Land rising from the abyss, a heavenly country. The New Covenant, and its sign, are not about the fertility of Christian wombs but about the fertility of Christian tombs. This is not hard to understand.

Baptism has nothing to do with physical fertility, but that is where the baptismal regeneration of the Federal Cision, er, Vision, takes us. A Federal Vision friend recently celebrated the birth of another child, and commented that this birth was another victory against Satan. That floored me, but this is surely the next logical step. The second and third generations of the Federal Vision are not going to be scared to claim the crazy things that the first generation would be reluctant to say out loud.

To claim that a baptized infant is “righteous” is not only to misunderstand and misrepresent baptism (and thus misrepresent the Gospel itself) but to misunderstand and misrepresent Circumcision as well.

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[1] See “Kids in the Kitchen: Passover in the Motherland” in God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink.
[2] The New Covenant didn’t institute a refurbished distinction concerning offspring and territory, which is why paedobaptism historically has always been perverted into religious nationalism, the “Cainite” kingdom of the Herods, and indeed the very same offer which Satan made to Jesus in the wilderness. The reason this will always occur is because it is inherent in the “tribal”nature of the rite.
[3] Genesis 6 concerns the priestly line of Seth intermarrying with the godless, autonomous Cainite kingdom, which brought about the end of all flesh.

or Nailed to the Mast

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

Doug Wilson provides some wisdom in response.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But Peter said, ‘I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you.”’ (Acts 3:6)

Israel consistently failed to keep the final feast, the Feast of Sukkot, because she took her calling to be elitist rather than priestly. She thought her calling, gifts and purification were for herself, rather than for the healing of the nations.

Part I   Part II

This brings us to the New Testament, and the final years of the Mosaic Law. Jesus was dealing with the house of Israel but also with Gentiles, as a precursor to the ministry of the apostles. His ministry, like that of Moses, included the appearance of the glory cloud at significant moments. Through Jesus’ atonement for sin, Israel was about to enter into God’s rest. This time, it was the heavenly country perceived by all the saints, not a temporary house of branches like Canaan. However, this Feast of Clouds would require temporary shelters to become “houses of fire,” as a witness to the glory of God in His people.

The first sign was the Day of Pentecost. A single house was filled with a mighty, rushing wind, signalling the presence of God, just as His presence moved into the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple once His instructions had been obeyed. The Spirit anointed human lampstands with oil and tongues of fire measured out Yahweh’s architecture not in gold or silver (Acts 3:6) but in human character restored to health.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. (Acts 3:6-8)

However, this Pentecostal house was but a single house. A greater sign was required to indicate that the third promise to Abraham was finally being fulfilled: the blessing to all nations. After Pentecost, Acts records four events where entire households were visited by God. These correspond to the four “Altar horn” corners of the Land, whose territory was later expanded into four Gentile beasts as guardian cherubim around God’s throne. It appears that they correspond these four Gentile empires, but also to the four gospels, which are the horsemen of the apocalypse. Now that Christ had ascended, the four horns of atonement had become four winds of the Spirit.

This final “household” sign is also the point at which Paul completes his official witness to Jewish synagogues. Maintaining their allegiance to Herodian worship, they have become houses filled with demons, strange fire. At Maturity, the Bible Matrix pattern moves from head to body, from Israel to the nations, from heaven to the filling of the sky and the sea.

These “household conversions” were clearly not the norm, because the fact that all believed before they were baptized is specifically mentioned in three of the four instances. (The fact that it is not mentioned in the case of Lydia is beside the point, since Acts makes clear what were the qualifications for baptism, and it was not membership in a believing household.)

Moreover, the normal effect of the Gospel was a house divided. Jesus had stated that the Gospel would be a sword: “…a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” (Matthew 10:36) To claim that these miraculous events are the norm to support an unbiblical agenda is akin to claiming that the apostolic gifts continued unabated after the destruction of the Temple (which was also heralded with miraculous signs), or that all babies in the womb are filled with the Spirit as was John the Baptist. If a signpost is the norm, it isn’t a signpost. It’s a fencepost.

So, what was the purpose of these four “household” events?

The movement in each is from a faithful household head who believes to an entire body of believers (including family members and servants), just like the initial “house-filling” of Pentecost was being measured out “architecturally” across the empire. Each event also incorporates a Jewish witness and Gentile “sponsors,” Graeco-Romans who bring their glory into the Church. The first and last are vindications of prior belief of entire households (Day 1 and Day 4), and the other two are conversions of entire households.

These believing households were four horns which put the old Israel, the Jewish rulers who rejected Pentecost, on the Altar, ready for the fires of the Roman armies.

These believing households were also four compass points on a new Israel, four Tabernacles at an empire-wide Feast of Clouds. They were a Pentecostal sign to the Jews that their Abrahamic ministry to the nations had been fulfilled. The transformation of these signature Gentile households into “booths” meant condemnation for Herod’s “Tabernacle.” As it was with Peter’s speech on the Day of Pentecost, and the miraculous apostolic gifts, these new hybrid (mixture) houses were a warning to Jews during the “overlap” of Covenant administrations between AD30-70. This was the final stage of the Abrahamic Covenant before it was finished. It could at last be seen that all of Israel’s history was prefigured in her festal calendar (see Bible Matrix).

We don’t hear about household conversions after Acts 18. It was an “Abrahamic” sign, but the end of Abraham, not a new beginning. Israel was finally purified, the ungodliness banished from Jacob (Romans 11:27) and she had completed her ministry. The only “household of faith” mentioned after this is the gathering of believers.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:10)

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God… (Ephesians 2:19)

As Revelation 2 shows us, every Church is a household with its own fire, a Lampstand de-centralized and able to multiply across the world. But these lamps are trimmed and oiled by Jesus, who judges them first, nipping their sins in the bud, and then judges the house where they were allowed to become full grown.

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17)

The Black Sabbaths were over for everyone except the old tent of God, whose priests and kings had kindled a strange fire and become a new Egypt. She would lose her lampstand be burned with fire. The gloom of utter darkness had been reserved for her wandering stars. The day had dawned and the entire world was now filled with light. And all Jerusalem, once the Abrahamic navel of the world, was a barren womb shrouded in the darkness of an empty tomb.

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[1] Ascension concerns the blameless man bound and exalted, like Joseph or Daniel. The correspondence for Greece might have something to do with the rescue of Jerusalem from an invading Alexander.

Flavius Josephus in “The Antiquities of the Jews” Book XI, chapter VIII, p 350. Tells this story of Alexander the Great arriving in Jerusalem:

“And when he (the High Priest) understood that he (Alexander the Great) was not far from the city (Jerusalem), he (the High Priest) went out in procession with the priests and the multitude of citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations … and when the Phoenicians and the Chaldeans that followed him (Alexander the Great), thought that they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high priest to death, which the king’s displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse of it happened; for Alexander, when he (Alexander the Great) saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed in fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of G-d was engraved, he (Alexander the Great) approached by himself, and adored that name (the name of G-d), and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did altogether, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; where upon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind (They thought Alexander was crazy for bowing before the High Priest). However, Parmenio alone went up to him (Alexander the Great) and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, “I did not adore him, but that G-d who hath honored him with his high-priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit (high priestly garment), when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself, how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he (G-d) would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is, that having seen no other in that habit (high priestly garment), and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.”

There is a tradition that says when the high priest met Alexander the Great outside Jerusalem that he took with him the book of Daniel and showed Alexander the prophecy concerning him. It is said that this so moved Alexander that he went to the temple to offer a sacrifice and worship God. [link]

[2] Justus means “upright, just,” and Crispus means “curly headed.” Perhaps the combination of priesthood and kinghood in the Great Shepherd (Revelation 1:13-14).

How to Fulfill the Law

“…men are enthroned as elohim (judicial ‘gods’) but not as God intended. Those who sit in the seat of Moses often lack his meekness before God, and their rule is like that of Lamech. Their seventy times seven ‘fulfilling of the Law’ is vengeance not forgiveness.”

We continue with the Deuteronomy section of Galatians, which has seven cycles. Paul moves from an Ascension/Firstfruits motif to an Testing/Pentecost motif. Being the center of this final group of cycles, and at the center of its Ethics cycles, here we have its turning point. The first half of this cycle is about sacrificial binding. The last half is about being loosed on account of the sacrifice.

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Paul’s Deuteronomy

That day Moses charged the people, saying, “When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. (Deuteronomy 27:11-13)

Paul now moves into the Deuteronomy section of his epistle to the Galatians, and it becomes clear that, structurally-speaking, Galatians gets no further than Moses. The epistle is fivefold in nature, a recapitulation of the Torah, and thus it ends on the wilderness side of the Jordan. Like Moses, Paul will not live to see the new order, except from afar.

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The Blessings of Abraham and the Curses of Moses

This is the fourth cycle within the “Numbers” section of Galatians. Since the next section concerns the Christians’ identity as sons of Abraham (Succession), this cycle seems to correspond to New Covenant Sanctions.  I’ll take a risk and outline the epistle as I see it so far, so you can keep a handle on it. (The headings for the sections we have already covered are links to the relevant blog posts.)

 
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“Show Us the Father And We Will Be Satisfied” (John 14:8)

This is the third cycle within the “Numbers” or Ethics section of Galatians. Paul is contrasting the external Ethics of the Law (requiring the perfect obedience of Man) with the internal Ethics of the Spirit (resulting from trust in the perfect obedience of Christ). But there is something deeper here which, it seems to me, is often overlooked.

The first thing to note is that, unless we take into account the “Covenant literary” structure of Paul’s writing, we are not going to entirely understand the reason for everything he includes in his argument. This is not simply a bunch of facts presented to the Galatians to set them straight, nor even a bunch of facts presented in a linear, set-by-step argument. Every cycle is truth arranged in the same shape as the very process by which God justifies the ungodly, and it is occurring at multiple levels. To pull a verse out of this “Covenant process” and use it as a proof text is like attempting to pull the three eggs out of the cake you baked.
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