The unity Jesus is leading us toward has far less to do with hammering out a single organizational structure and far more to do with many different Christian tribes and tongues bringing their respective glories to the King.

There are many legitimate reasons to lament the divided state of the church. Fleshly pride, theological hubris, sectarian rivalries are each in their own ways modern versions of the Galatian heresy, refusing table fellowship with brothers and sisters for whom Christ died. And denominations have frequently played the same role as the names of Paul and Apollos in Corinth, for which we join in Paul’s manifesto to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified.

Yet, as we pray for the unity of the Body of Christ, as we labor to be one as the Father, Son, and Spirit are one, there ought to be just as much concern over the dangers of certain forms of unity. It seems there’s a romantic demon lurking in all the sons of Adam, and I mean that in a rather wooden etymological sense: there’s an idolatrous love of Rome and her ways that seems often lurking in discussions of catholicity. And by that I do not merely mean the Roman Catholic Church, but rather something subtler, more ancient, more pervasive in human nature. We do well to remember that Rome was the last of the great beasts that Daniel saw coming up out of the sea, a certain way of power, a style of consolidation, a promise of unity going all the way back to Babel that Jesus came to shatter.

Continue reading at Theopolis Institute.

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).

In the Bible, everything is confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (James Jordan notes that this is the basis for Hebrew parallelism and also verbal pleonasm. See Symbolism – A Manifesto.) An example of a “dual” witness from God would include the two dreams given to Joseph, and the two dreams given to Pharaoh. We see each Covenant confirmed by two witnesses as well. The Mosaic Covenant was a double witness at three levels: the two tablets of the Law, the second set of tablets, then a second giving of the Law in Deuteronomy.

A sign was given to Gideon to prove that God would save Israel by Gideon’s hand. He requested a second sign, and rather than chiding him, the Lord acquiesced. The Lord Himself asks us to prove all things. That explains the double sign, but not the ingredients of the signs, the fleece and the threshing floor. Fortunately, the consistency of biblical symbolism and structure not only gives us the answer, it reveals the events as a type of the events which followed, and, typologically, also shines light on the process of the first century apostolic witness.

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“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.

_____________________________________________
[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).

“Leithart’s real problem is that one can tell the difference between a circumcised boy and an uncircumcised one, but a sprinkled baby looks no different to an unsprinkled one.”

Chapter 1 continued

See the Baptism links page for all articles in this series.

Sacraments Are Not Signs, Means Of Grace, Or Symbols

In the next section, Dr Leithart deals with three errors:

1) The tendency to treat signs rationalistically, as nothing more than a means of communicating ideas from one mind to another mind; and,

2) Talking about sacraments as “means” tend to mechanize them, turning the sacraments into machines that deliver grace rather than moments of personal encounter with the living God.

3) Symbolic exchanges (such as language) are not the “real relationship,” which is invisible and could occur just as well without them.

Concerning the first, he concludes that if a sign is given to bring something else to mind, then the marriage between the sign and the reality takes place only in our heads. A sacrament is designed to teach, but it is also an action performed at God’s command by the church, and is thus a mighty act of God for the redemption of His people and the world.

Concerning the second, he concludes that baptism is not a means of grace but the grace of God itself. We cannot have God’s gifts without having God Himself.

Concerning the third, he concludes that the modern view that symbols are not “real life” is mistaken. The symbolism in the sacraments is less like that of a painting or metaphor and more like a handshake, a wave or a kiss. It is real because it is a relational act. Sacraments are graces that connect us with God.

A mighty act of God?

Leithart’s thinking here is clear and logical, and to some I’m sure he appears to make some real moves towards clearing up the confusion. To my mind, however, all he has done is grab the thick fog which surrounds the issue in Reformed circles, cut it into nice squares and put the vapor into neatly labeled boxes.

Concerning the communication of ideas from one mind to another, this minimum standard for signs is not even the case with either circumcision or sprinkling of infants. They haven’t a clue what is happening and never remember the event. Leithart’s real problem is that one can tell the difference between a circumcised boy and an uncircumcised one, but a sprinkled baby looks no different to an unsprinkled one.

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Take water from the Jordan and baptize the sons and daughters of Israel a second time.” Though all the people who came out had been baptized, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been baptized. So Joshua sent men among the children of Israel to identify which sons and daughters had been baptized and which had not been baptized, but since all the sons and daughters were infants at the time and had no memory of the events, and their parents’ carcasses had fallen in the wilderness so there were no longer any eye-witnesses, no one could discern who had been baptized and who had not been baptized. So the Lord slew them all.

All of Old Israel was “baptized into Moses” in the Red Sea. They were now dead, but the very fact that their descendents remained free of Egypt, and Joshua and Caleb were eyewitnesses of the event, meant that there was no question concerning who was baptized. All Israel was baptized as “one flesh.” This was a mighty act of God. There was an unquestionable result, an evidence of the act.

A personal encounter with God?

Of course, we can’t take the New Covenant sign and neatly insert it into the Old Covenant without making a mess of the entire narrative. I would argue that this is exactly what paedobaptists do by misinterpreting circumcision as “personal encounter with God” and then mongrelizing it with New Covenant baptism. They make a mess of the entire New Covenant narrative.

Besides the fact that this assertion of a personal relationship flies in the face of the claims of paedobaptists that the Covenant is “objective,” a paedobaptism is no more a “personal encounter with God” than is a circumcision. And we must ask why none of the Old Covenant females were allowed to receive this “grace.” If paedobaptists insist on such a high level of continuity between the Abrahamic and New Covenants, these are questions which they should be able to answer easily. But they have read their misunderstandings of baptism back into circumcision, and make a mess of both rites. A “Covenant child” under the Old Covenant was not defined by circumcision, but by the circumcision of those who mediated between them and God. Baby girls were “Covenant children.” And none of the male “Covenant children” were circumcised between the Red Sea and Jericho. Were they not “connected to the Tabernacle” (as Doug Wilson claims)? Of course they were, including the females. The question is how were they connected?

The answer is through the vow taken by all Israelites who could understand and speak (which makes nonsense of the paedobaptistic claims that credobaptism leaves infants, the mute and the retarded out of the New Covenant). The literary structures of the New Testament consistently correspond faithful profession and baptism to this Old Covenant oath and the Covenant Sanctions. Here is where we find the “personal encounter with God.”

This is also the reason why Moses needed to repeat the Law to the new “uncircumcised” generation of Israel. To hold them accountable to the Law, they first needed to hear the Law. So even within “the circumcision” we have levels of Covenant authority, hearers and speakers.

The New Covenant does have an “objective” aspect. The entire world, not just “the Lord’s people,” is under this covenant. Nobody asked the nations if they wanted to now be accountable to God, but they are indeed. God just did it, in Christ. All infants are already under this obligation, but baptism is for those who respond and become mediators of His grace. As my friend Don Schmitt recently posted, “The New Covenant is not about God and His people. It is about God and all peoples.”

So, who took the New Covenant vow? Well, Jesus did. He is the “Amen,” and unlike Israel, He kept the Law. Those who believe also take the New Covenant “vow” when we profess our faith. This makes us blameless mediators of God’s grace.

A real relationship?

The difference between the first Pentecost at Sinai and the last Pentecost at Zion must not be minimized. Three thousand were slain at the first and three thousand believed and were saved at the last. Paedobaptists consistently minimize the conversion experience because their baptism is defined by the first Pentecost. It takes the obligations of the Covenant vow and imposes them upon people who cannot keep it. Their “New Covenant” is still about stoicheia, external Law. Somehow, they think the Church is the only “people” who are under obligation to God. They obviously haven’t thought this through. Everything in God’s perfect Word is skewed and distorted to make room for this foreign body.

Pentecost brought a real relationship. It took those who claimed Abraham as their father, and those who could not, and connected them to the true Father by the Spirit. There were miraculous signs between Pentecost and Holocaust (AD70) because the Jews needed such a witness. But what was the thing that actually connected people with God? It was the Gospel, by the Spirit. It was not baptism. It was not the Lord’s Supper. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were not signs for believers so much as for unbelievers. When the writer of Hebrews exhorts the Jewish believers to keep meeting together, it was not merely the significance of meetings outside the Temple and synagogues that was important, it was the fact that they were meeting together with Gentiles.

Because a paedobaptism has no visible effect on an infant, and the infant does not respond in any “Covenantally significant way” (such as frightening armies with its superhero cry, based on the misuse of a bad translation of Psalm 8), Dr Leithart says that the baptism is the evidence of a real relationship with God. If this is the case, and this “real relationship” looks nothing like a two-way correspondence, why was there any need for another Pentecost? Tear away the sophistry, and view the New Covenant process without distortion, and we can see that the evidence of a real New Covenant relationship was repentance, profession and faith. Rather than extending a kind of New Covenant circumcision to all nations (which is what Dr Leithart’s vision boils down to), circumcision became obsolete. Why is this? Because the foundation of the New Covenant is not social but ethical. The personal encounter really is personal, not just in the minds of intelligent but deluded Christians. The real relationship really is a relationship, not just a legal contract. Neither of these things have to be redefined by the credobaptist as Dr Leithart attempts to do here.

But what about signs as a “mighty act of God”? This is a big problem, unless of course we are willing to approach baptism with the sacrificial mindset inherent in all of Scripture.

Abraham saw some great miracles, and showed great faith. But he did not conquer Egypt. The promises to him echoed the promises to Adam, which concerned fruitfulness of Land and womb. They were Physical. Jacob saw fewer miracles but showed greater wisdom, outsmarting the various serpents who would hijack the Covenant. His greatest enemies were his blind father (initially), his brother, and his treacherous uncle. His victories were fundamentally Social. Joseph experienced dreams but saw no miracles. Not a single one. Yet Pharaoh described him as a man filled with the Spirit of God. His faith was more mature than that of Abraham and Jacob. He conquered Egypt, and his victories were all Ethical. So, what was the sign in the narrative of Joseph? It was Joseph himself, a prefiguring of Jesus.

The fog in Reformed circles (and their confessions) concerning sacraments, signs and symbols clears completely when we realize that it is regenerate, Spirit-filled saints who are the signs. The New Covenant is fundamentally Ethical. All the miraculous signs were for the final era of childhood, between AD30 and AD70, after which only faith, hope and love remained, as Paul says. Infants cannot display these things in any way that would convert the heart of Pharaoh, or Nebuchadnezzar, or the Jews. The union of Jew and Gentile in baptism and fellowship was a reversal of the enmity, the hatred between them. Our love for each other remains a sign today.

To drag the New Covenant back to a souped-up mongrelized circumcision and relabel it as an “encounter with God” and a “real relationship” is to miss the entire thrust of the Bible, as illustrated in Genesis 3. Adam was called beyond childhood to maturity as a representative of God. If his heart was circumcised by the Law of God and he responded in faith, he would encounter God and have a real relationship with Him as a son in whom God was pleased. Jesus fulfilled that calling and was baptized and commissioned when ethically mature as a Prophet, a legal witness to those under Covenant. Paedobaptism is a confusion of that high calling with the curse upon the Land and the womb. We must not obscure the prophetic authority of the Church and the accountability of all people to God.

The New Covenant sign is “the sign of Jonah” (“dove”): the death, resurrection and efficacious witness of God’s prophets and prophetesses to the nations.

How does Peter see the apocalyptic imagery of Joel in the events of Acts 2?

The first step is to take note of the context of Joel’s prophecy. It is the coming destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. (Joel 2:32)

Even if we identify the context, it may sound to us as if Joel is still looking forward to the first century events at the end of his predictions. The unfortunate chapter break between 2 and 3 stops us reading further, but if we keep reading without a break, the beginning of chapter 3 makes it clear that Joel is still speaking about the restoration from exile. God would judge all the Canaanite nations, including Israel, who had behaved like a Canaanite. But only Israel would resurface from the “flood” of Babylonian control, while all the Canaanite powers remained scattered forever. And Israel would be vindicated across the world, from India to Ethiopia, in the events of the book of Esther (predicted in Ezekiel 38-39).

This means that the particular “day of judgment” had already passed by the time Peter quoted the prophet, so he is not quoting the prophecy to announce its soon fulfillment. He is, however, announcing a similar destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, with all that this entails.

The New Testament writers always quote the Old Testament “covenantally,” that is, the way God redeemed and avenged at such-and-such a time is now being repeated. A similar example is the reference in Hebrews to Jeremiah concerning “a new covenant.” In Jeremiah, the new covenant would re-unite Judah and Israel, north and south. By the first century, this was an event long fulfilled. The author of Hebrews is using the previous national “death-and-resurrection” to illustrate the inter-national one which was occurring in his day, that is, not a reunion of Israelite and Israelite into one natural body, but the reunion of Jew and Gentile into one spiritual body.

The second step is to take note of the meaning of the prophetic language. Blood and fire and smoke are potent images but together they speak of a process of transformation, the sacrificial rite. Blood is the natural body upon the altar. Fire transforms it into something new. Joel—and Peter—as prophets of God, are putting the Israel of their respective days on the altar. How is this possible?

These are things that take place on the “Land” (not the “earth”) because the Land throughout the Old Testament is a flat, four-cornered altar. The obedient offering of the firstfruits (such as Isaac) would allow the will of God to be done on earth as it was in heaven. It was an act of faithful gratitude which would allow God to pour out the rest of the harvest as a blessing to true Israel. For the unbelieving, an abundance of blessing would be a chance to fill up their sins and incur a greater judgment.

We see this on Mount Carmel, where Elijah’s holy sacrificial model of Israel (a twelve stone altar) calls down fire from heaven, and the entire mountain becomes a new Sinai, with the false priests slain and God vindicated. The Tabernacle was a model of Sinai, with the Bronze Altar as the raised earth, and the furnitures in the Holy Place signified the sacrificial blood (the Table), the fire (the Lampstand) and the fragrant savory smoke (the Incense Altar). The fragrant smoke was pleasing to God, a “legal witness” that the Law had been satisfied. Blood, fire and clouds of smoke make all Israel “the holy place.”

In the first century, the death of Christ was the offering of blood. Pentecost was the “holy fire” coming down from heaven, and the testimony of the apostles to an apostate Jerusalem and to the surrounding Gentiles was the savory smoke, after which came God’s blessings and curses upon the Jews for all time in AD70. In the Jewish war, as on Carmel, the liturgical model of Christian worship brought down the “days of vengeance.” Jerusalem herself was laid upon the altar, the entire Land covered in blood “up to the horses’ bridles.” Just as Israel was surrendered by God to Babylon due to her harlotries, idolatries, sorceries and abominations, so she would be left unprotected to be desolated by Rome, whom God would bring against her. At Pentecost, the glory of God did not fill the Temple but the faithful. As the faithful were gradually expelled from the Temple over the following decades, the presence of God was also expelled, which left it unprotected against invasion and plunder by Gentiles. The liturgical blood, fire and smoke of the New Covenant Israel resulted in literal blood, fire and smoke for old Israel.

The book of Revelation is strange to us because it is a sacrificial liturgy. It is the final sacrifice of the Old Testament: Israel herself. The believers ascended as smoke (the ascension offering in Leviticus 1, the true Isaacs, sons of Abraham by faith) and the unbelievers were swallowed by the Land, descending into the earthen Altar, as ashes, Adamic dust, like the false priests, the sons of Korah. The Altar was then split in two (symbolically under the feet of Christ) and the ashes poured out. All these allusions help us to understand what is going on. To refuse to understand the Bible on its own terms (with its constant sacrificial/liturgical models) is to refuse to take it as it was intended.

Finally, there are those who believe that the apocalyptic language in Peter’s quotation is still unfulfilled. They state that because Israel rejected the Spirit the full pouring out was postponed until “the last days” of Israel which are still future. Incredibly, these teachers overlook the destruction of Jerusalem as an important event in Covenant history. Not only this, but they fail to see that this is another death-and-resurrection of Israel, who emerges from the flames once again renewed, but this time as the Christian Church. There is no Israel besides the Church. So, how should we then understand the phrase “the last days” in Peter’s quotation? The New Testament documents are legal documents written by legal witnesses, giving testimony about a coming judgment. Following the pattern of the Old Testament prophets, they are preaching to cause a moral response in the audience of their day. So although we can apply their warnings in certain ways today, their warnings are obviously concerning the last days of the Old Covenant, not the last days of the New. The failure of most of evangelicalism to notice this is why the New Testament has little grip on reality in the lives of modern believers. The fulfillment of the warnings in the judgment of God, in Christ, is either overlooked or erased entirely from our understanding of the birth of the Church.

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ART: St Peter Preaching at Pentecost, sculpture by Christopher Slatoff.

or Mr White and the Black Hat

“There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

King David committed far worse sins than did King Saul. Saul was not an evil man, yet his judgments caused the deaths of many people, including Jonathan, his other sons and even the priests of God. Why did a reign that began so well end in such tragedy?

David, for all his sins (adultery, murder, trusting in armies), was not disqualified, yet Saul was rejected by God for lesser sins. What was the difference between them? Besides the fact that David owned his sin and Saul blamed everybody else, the difference was that David understood that his rule as a king over God’s Covenant people would only ever be on God’s terms. He could never be a king like those of the Gentiles.

Although his power was sourced in Israel’s priesthood, David was to embody the Covenant in a greater way than the priesthood. He was to be “Pentecostal” in the sense that he was to be not only under the Law, he was to embody, open and expound upon the Law for his people. He was to be the Law of Moses incarnate, and from David’s anointing by Samuel we see his soul broken as a priestly sacrifice, exalted in kingly fire, and finally taking on a prophetic nature. The fundamental point here is that the Law was a light to David’s path. He saw the future through God’s eyes, which means he could see a lot further ahead, by faith. He had a wisdom beyond his years.

“I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts.” (Psalms 119:100)

Saul’s victories led to a misguided belief in his own divinity, which is possibly why he honoured Agag by sparing his life. As kings, they had something in common. They trusted their own judgment. Saul’s “Pentecost” became instead the ministry of an evil spirit, and the anointing of David by the Holy Spirit. Saul was a wily warrior king, but his was not the serpentine wisdom that is harmless as a dove. His judgments were based on the pragmatism of the flesh, which can only see so far. Guided by his own wisdom, rather than becoming a “Covenant shelter” for his people, Saul’s manipulation of and meddling in the Covenant processes of God put at risk those in his care. Like Walter White, those for whom he fought were the very ones he put at risk, alienated, grievously harmed and eventually lost.

David’s various sins still brought tragic consequences, but when challenged he crossed the courtroom floor to stand with God against himself and received mercy. He listened to God. Saul refused to listen, and when God stopped speaking to him he sought guidance through witchcraft. God simply repeated, through Samuel, what He had said before. The voice of Samuel was “deuteronomic” but not in a good sense. It was a legal witness against Saul from the courts of God and would end his tyranny. Saul’s own blood atoned for his kingly sins. Obedience (prevention) would have been better than sacrifice (cure).

In hindsight, Saul’s unwillingness to be a living sacrifice and place himself in the hands of a faithful, just and merciful God, is easy for us to condemn. But in so many ways this is exactly how we live our lives. Saul loved the gifts of God more than God Himself, which is an incredibly subtle form of idolatry when it is the good things that we love. If we attempt to preserve the mind of the flesh (false Altar), we will then turn to a false spirit (false Lampstand) and the spirit of prophecy, the legal witness, will not be for us but against us. The outcome of our “Covenant” missions will be plagues instead of plunder.

This Saul versus David, first Adam versus last Adam pattern was replayed in the first century. Saul’s sins were lesser than those of David, but we must remember that the anointing of David is what put the brakes on Saul’s reign. It was the Ascension of Christ and the Day of Pentecost which empowered those Jews and Gentiles who were “after God’s heart.” But the events of Pentecost also “enlightened the eyes” of many who saw Jesus for who He is and yet rejected Him, blaspheming His Spirit. From that day on, the Rabbinic Judaism of the rulers of Jerusalem, with its pragmatic compromises and manipulation of the priesthood and Temple, became entirely demonic. The persecution of the saints by the Jewish leaders was inspired by the same jealousy that filled Saul. As Saul employed Doeg the Edomite to slay the priests who had fed the Showbread to David and his followers, so the Edomite Herods slew Christ and then set about wiping out the New Covenant priesthood.

The Herodian “voice of God” which they listened to (Acts 12:22) was Covenantal sorcery, and it was the prophetic witness of the apostles which condemned them to the great Day of Coverings. Unwittingly, the Herods had offered Christ as the Head of the sacrifice and His Church as the Body, making their own Temple redundant. Like Saul and his sons, Jews attempting to escape the Roman armies were “lifted up” for the birds and the beasts in mass crucifixions. Like David, Christ became a Covenant shelter and an eternal table for the remaining sons of Saul. [1]

The Jewish compromise was born of earthly pragmatism, a short-sighted wisdom. They sat in the seat of Moses but they trusted in their own wisdom. Their “Pentecostal” Lampstand eyes were filled with darkness. God’s ways are not our ways, and they are most often veiled to us, but we can trust Him, and walk in His ways, in the knowledge that He knows the end, and our end will not be the end of Saul.

[1] Walter White has a crippled son. And his lawyer’s name is Saul Goodman.

See also Spiritual Power.

“In circumcision, Adam was Divided.
In baptism, Adam is Conquered.”

It seems to me the assumption that the New Covenant “people” includes infants because the Old Covenant people did has to overlook Pentecost. Are we to believe that once the Gentiles were included things went back to business as usual, with churches simply serving as Jew-Gentile hybrid synagogues, another “genealogical” people of God?

I just saw this quote from R. T. France posted online, and it’s relevant here:

“The Failure of Israel

John the Baptist called Israel to repentance in the light of coming judgment. His new type of baptism symbolized what he explicitly proclaims, that this judgment threatened the ‘children of Abraham’ themselves, whose deed had not matched up to their privileged status. And Matthew takes care to show Jesus’ ministry as in direct succession to that of John, as the bringer of ‘Holy Spirit and fire,’ the one who is to implement the judgment.” [1]

In the early church, the opposite of circumcision was not baptism but uncircumcision, the Jew-Gentile division. Baptism—credo-baptism– wiped them both out by slaying them and resurrecting them both as something new.

Not:

CIRCUMCISION     >     BAPTISM

but:

CIRCUMCISION     >           BAPTISM            <     UNCIRCUMCISION

But there is still a division, isn’t there? Circumcision or uncircumcision became nothing for those who believed. Those outside are those who do not believe. To baptize infants is to misinterpret baptism as simply an update to the Mosaic division. [2]

To go back to Covenant “business as usual,” we have to treat baptism as circumcision, that is, it has nothing to do with the final status of a Covenant member. Circumcision had nothing to do with the final status of the Covenant member. But that is not how baptism is presented in the New Testament. Baptism is very clearly presented as an expression of the final status of the Covenant member. It pictures for the true saint not the beginning of salvation but the end.

Some argue that we don’t know whether a church member is a sheep or a goat until the final day. Yes, there was, and is, further threshing to be done, but the requirement for baptism was not birth but rebirth, that is, Pentecost. Baptism brings the first birth to an end.

We cannot be certain about regeneration when it comes to individuals, (their own personal standing on the final day) but we can be very certain about what baptism is intended to mean for each individual by what baptism means in the big historical picture.

Baptism actually brought Israel’s historical Day of Atonement to an end [3] and began the world’s Day of Atonement (the Laver, this age of baptism) [4]. Baptism is actually all about the final day, with the Church called to discern, as closely as possible, the spirits within men. This age is the final day, and to use baptism to denote only “Christian hopefuls” rather than actual regenerates is to treat it as simply a co-ed version of circumcision. It is not. Baptism exterminates every human demarcation, beginning with circumcision and uncircumcision. It is only for those who have legally and willingly “departed” this life for a better one. What baptism was for all Israel, and is for the Christian Church as a whole, must be replicated in the baptism of individual Christians. In circumcision, Adam was Divided. In baptism, Adam is Conquered.

So, this is the age that divides the whole world. It began with Israel, ripping Judah in two, Veil to Temple (30 to 70), and it continues today. To use baptism in any other way is to misrepresent the “ripping,” harvesting results of the Gospel and confuse it with the planting work of the Gospel. It is to say, “Jesus has gone, and taken his sickle with him. Phew! Back to (Old Covenant) business as usual.”

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’”
(Matthew 3:7-9)

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[1] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 51.
[2] I have written elsewhere on here that if baptism were simply the new circumcision, for the firstfruits church it would have meant that Jewish baby boys would have to be circumcised and baptized. This is unthinkable. The first Christians understood that baptism concerned personal faith. It is logical to believe that the confusion concerning infants could begin only after the destruction of the Temple at the very earliest.
[3] See Bible Matrix, p. 191.
[4] See Bible Matrix, p. 215.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11)

This passage (or pericope?) retraces the Covenant pattern, which is also played out in the flow of the history of Israel. We’ll have a look at the structure of the passage and then I want to discuss the significance of the literary placement of “every tongue.”

WARNING: Weird ahead.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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“…and their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”
(Genesis 3:7, cf. Matthew 9:30; Luke 24:31; Acts 9:8)

Jesus’ sermons are all literary masterpieces. Perhaps it was not only the explicit content of His speeches that riled the rulers. He not only claimed to be Yahweh, His sermons all follow the structure of the speeches of Yahweh. They are Covenantal not only in content but in form. No other man spoke like this man, except perhaps Moses and the Prophets, who repeated the Words dictated to them by God.

TRANSCENDENCE – Initiation
Do not think
…..that I came to destroy
……….the Law

……….or the Prophets.
…..I did not come to destroy
but to fulfill.

This stanza is deliberately missing its “Pentecost.” It follows the Creation pattern but the Law has not yet been “opened.” As Robert Alter claims, much of the Bible’s communication relies on repetition of establishes forms but with modification, additions, and omissions. Sometimes what is not said is the elephant in the room. Jesus would fulfil the Law at the centre of history and send the Spirit. He would kindle the fire on the Altar of Israel at Pentecost, and it would be totally consumed in AD70. He does it again in stanza 2.

HIERARCHY – Delegation
For assuredly, (Initiation)
…..I say to you, (Delegation)
……….till heaven and [Land] pass away, (Presentation)
……………[No Holy Fire, no Pentecostal Purification]
……….one jot or one tittle (Transformation – Law repeated)
…..will by no means pass from the law (Vindication)
till all is fulfilled. (Restoration)

Notice that heaven and Land are at Day 3,  the Ascension offering. Genesis (Initiation), Exodus (Delegation), Leviticus (Presentation)… All the tribes possessed Land except Levi because the Levites were the holy Firstfruits upon the Altar-Land.

ETHICS – Purification (Israel threshed)
Whoever therefore (Creation)
…..breaks (Division)
……….[of these commandments the least] (ironic Ascension)
…………….(No Testing)
……….and teaches men so, (Maturity)
…..shall be called least (ironic Conquest)
in the kingdom of heaven; (Glorification)

Notice that this stanza follows the Creation week’s 1-2-3 (least), 1-2-3 (least) forming and filling. In this case it is a failure to form and a subsequent failure to fill. It is Adam at Day 6 who is least.

SANCTIONS – Vindication
but whoever (Creation)
…..[shall practise (Division)
……….and teach, (Ascension)
……………this one] (Testing)
……….great (Maturity)
…..shall be called (Conquest – Vindication)
in the kingdom of heaven. (Glorification – Succession)

Finally, we have a Man in the middle.

SUCCESSION – Restoration
For I say (Genesis)
…..to you, (Exodus)
……….that unless your righteousness (Leviticus)
……………exceeds (Numbers – Testing)
……….the scribes and Pharisees, (Deuteronomy)
…..you will by no means enter (Joshua)
the kingdom of heaven. (Wise Judges)

What did Jesus mean in this final stanza? The purpose of the Covenant process is to put Man under God’s eyes at Ethics/Testing, so that Man might become God’s eyes by the end, and initiate the next cycle as God’s tried and tested representative. Adam failed so God moved to the next generation, which also failed. The failures continued (except for Enoch as righteous Firstfruits) until Noah become the first righteous judge, and was handed the sword of judgment instead of being scattered by it.

The scribes and Pharisees came to an end with the Old Covenant in AD70. They were denied Succession. The key is that this entire structure above recapitulates God’s Covenant plan for Adam. Jesus is saying that unless you have eyes that judge righteously between good and evil, by obedience to the Spirit of God, you will be as blind as the Pharisees, who judged according to outward appearances only. The Spirit’s choice of the Son of David was the same as it was for David. The Pharisees were not looking upon Jesus’ heart. But God was, and it pleased Him.

All those who have the Spirit of God are not missing the “Pentecostal” line of the Covenant poem. Obedience to the gospel allows God to pour out the holy fire and transform the sacrifice. Baptism is the vindication of such a person by the Church. At “Sanctions” and “Glorification”, we find robes and wine.

Robes and wine are for those who are spiritually, and judicially mature. But the watershed is one’s own personal Pentecost. The first birth is (fundamentally) about growing in stature, rising like a loaf of bread whose purpose is to be broken. The second birth breaks the bread, and its purpose it that we are to be poured out like wine.

For sure, we are to grow into even greater maturity after conversion, but if we have the Spirit of Christ, we are justified and have the wisdom of Christ guiding us into all truth. Certainly, there are stages of maturity within the regenerate, but the indwelling Spirit of God is quite clearly the baseline, and repentance and baptism are the first “baby” steps of obedience in our new life.

The beginning of this “judicial maturity,” this righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees, is someone being cut to the heart, recognizing that they are unrighteous and Jesus is righteous, that light is day and darkness is night. Conversion begins a new creation — in that individual. It is a Covenant process that is both objective and subjective. Jesus calls His sheep and His sheep responds.

Paedobaptists object to credobaptism because it’s hard to tell if a child is ready. And if they are ready at aged 7, how can this be the Maturity that the Covenant process demands. We like to pin maturity down to how old someone needs to be. The Old Covenant pinned everything down so they didn’t have to think. Ages were specified. That’s priestly. It’s childhood. The New Covenant doesn’t do that. We are led by the Spirit, and babies aren’t.

To clarify, the “age in years” is more about the first birth than the second — a maturity that is practical and valuable but nonetheless a carnal wisdom. The wisdom the New Covenant requires is a gift of the Spirit of God. There are certainly overlaps (elders should be elders) but that concerns a maturity that comes with years of rule by the Spirit. A newborn Christian, born by the Spirit, that is, receives a Spirit of judgment far beyond anything the Pharisees could hope to possess. Their eyes were full of darkness, so Jesus fulfilled the Law and became a light to their path. When Pentecost finally came, they continued to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and His conviction of their unrighteousness. The only place for them was outer darkness. But the Spirit-filled man — or child — has wisdom beyond his years: the riches of the wisdom of Christ.

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See also Matthew’s Literary Artistry.
Art: Sermon on the Mount by Laura James.