“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” John 15:1

One of the problems with exalting Enlightenment thinking over the Scriptures is that it disconnects theology from the real world. One is left to wade through and deal with the sometimes stimulating but mostly irrelevant tomes of philosophers who jettisoned our only source of light. The main reason modern Christians need to be up-to-speed on philosophy is to deal with godless philosophers in terms they can understand. I don’t consider myself to be up-to-speed, but from what I have read, many if not most of the questions they consider to be profound are really just the shadows left once Jesus is locked out. The average man has more pressing matters to contend with, and subsequently has a better grip on real life. For instance, we can spend hours swatting every available philosopher and lawyer on the existence or nature of natural law, and interact with all of them, or we could just ask the man on the land.

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.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Romans 7:21-23)

Interpreters debate the meaning of Paul’s words in Romans 7:14-25. Are we to apply these statements to a Christian or a non-Christian? Could a Christian utter these words? Perhaps a better question is, are these the words of an unregenerate man?

Did Paul as a Pharisee ever have such thoughts? As a friend wisely pointed out, the Pharisees were hypocrites. They condemned Jesus for healing on the Sabbath and then planned to murder Him on the Sabbath. “The thing that I hate, that I do,” would not have been the cry of their hearts. These are the words of one terribly aware of his condemnation under a just Law. David could certainly have uttered these words. Paul could not have entertained such thoughts as he incarcerated and murdered Christians.

Paul is expressing the “hunger for righteousness” which the Law brings about, by the Spirit, in a contrite heart. The Law had carried out this ministry for centuries in Israel and through her ministry convicted many Gentile hearts as well. The Law brings enlightenment concerning sin, but that is the limit of its power. And such enlightenment is often the awaking of monsters (as James Jordan has observed) who then plunge themselves into deeper darkness. They see their sin but do not repent, and it then becomes high-handed, sin with full knowledge that it is sin (Numbers 15:30). That is the flipside of the ministry of the Law. (I believe that in AD70, after one generation of mercy, Jesus, now enthroned, might have said, “Do not forgive them, Father; they know exactly what they are doing.” This is exactly the scenario facing Western culture right now.)

This hunger for righteousness, this desperate awareness of the void within, the chasm between desire to fulfill the Covenant and one’s natural ability, would be the difference between the hate-filled Pharisees and those Jews and God-fearing Gentiles who received Christ. Those who reject this position of tension, this state of desperation, are filled with seven worse demons.

The state that Paul describes is thus the state of the “blessed,” Temple vessels waiting to be plundered from the house of the strong man and filled to the brim with the righteousness of Christ.

Paul’s point is that the Spirit of Christ is not a revised but still powerless moral code. It is a satisfaction of this hunger for righteousness, as Jesus promised in His most famous sermon.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)

The chapter break between 7 and 8 is thus an episode cliffhanger. The words of Jesus had come to pass. Those who heard the Gospel and believed were New Creations. The Law had formed them and now they had been filled.

“They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore…” (Revelation 7:16)

A little while ago I posted a video which I found very helpful.

by Mark Horne (reposted with permission)

“What we need to ask ourselves is, why might a righteous and sinless human need to ‘die’ in order to “live”?”

In basic Evangelical Christian teaching, “sanctification” is a process in which a believer, by the working of God’s Spirit, is able more and more to put off sin and live in more complete obedience to God. That way of summarizing the teaching can be misleading since perception is not always the same as reality. After all, one part of the process might involve discovering hidden sin, which means one might, at times in one’s life, be sanctified by (apparently) becoming more sinful, not less. Furthermore (or perhaps the same issue), new stages in life can bring new and more powerful temptations which one might initially fail to resist.

But another problem with “sanctification” as understood as the basic process and calling in the Christian life, is that Evangelical teaching cannot, on this definition, allow that Jesus, from the time he was born to the time he died, went through sanctification.

Here is the issue:

1. The Bible teaches that Jesus was changed in his life.
2. The Bible holds Jesus’ changes as a model, empowerment, and hope for believers to change in their lives.
3. The Bible’s calling to believers to change as Jesus changed certainly seems to partly cover the ground that is commonly defined as “sanctification.”

To see an example of how Jesus did underwent this process see here, and perhaps more under my old wisdom category in general. Aside from Luke 2.40, 52, the author of Hebrews seems to emphasize this point repeatedly:

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, (Hebrews 2:5-11 ESV)

So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”; [from Psalm 2]
as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5:5-10 ESV)

So Jesus undergoes a process that, in the letter to the Hebrews, the readers are supposed to undergo as well. And it is a path to the world being put under their feet. It involves both one’s death at the end of life, but it also entails the willingness to “die” all through life. Don’t let the word “priest” make you forget that this is also all about being a king as well. Psalm 2 is about ruling the nation, and Melchizedek was both a priest and king. Following Jesus, in order to rule you have to die.

Die to what?

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:1-15 ESV)

This is why we more or less forget how what Christ went through to be raised, or divorce it from our own experiences. Jesus didn’t struggle with sin in exactly the same way we do because he never succumbed to it in thought, word, or deed. Thus, we tend to think that all his life and suffering was entirely a matter of some other arrangement. Perhaps God wanted him to act out a bit of drama before he died and was raised so that he could teach us how to act. Or perhaps it was important that the Sermon on the Mount be written.

But that won’t do justice to Scripture. What we need to ask ourselves is, why might a righteous and sinless human need to “die” in order to “live”? What does he need to learn through suffering that enables him to rule wisely?

Here I’m going to offer to suggestions:

1. Men and women have to die to their own enjoyments because they are called to bring about a better future.

God made us to enjoy he gifts and he gives many of them to us freely. We rarely spend time thinking about the air we breathe because it is just given to us without cost or any effort needed on our part. Adam and Eve were put in a garden with free food. But while enjoying gifts is good, is there not also another good, perhaps even a better good, that God wants us to enjoy?

I think so. As creative partners, God wants us to learn to make things better than they already were.

But think about what this requires. It means you have to take a step beyond the blessing God originally gave you. You have to stop consuming God’s free gifts (as much) and devote time and energy to pursuits you hope will bear better fruit in the future. You have to “die” to your old self and “live” in a new way.

The book of Proverbs is filled with warnings about not being stuck in the first stage. It is one of sins temptations to stop there. Solomon calls such people “sluggards.”

2. Men and women have to die to their own enjoyments because they are called to bring about enjoyments for others.

God made us to enjoy gifts, but he made us to love others and consider their enjoyments. But this is a new way of living before God. Rather than simply receiving things you like, you have to learn to give them to another. You have to find enjoyment in the beloved’s enjoyment rather than only in your own direct enjoyment.

This, again, I submit, is a second stage. It requires a movement from an “old way of life” to a new one. It requires a “death to self” and a “living for” the beloved.

“More Than Conquerors”

As people who struggle with sin in our very being, this is all challenging, but I don’t think the challenges are completely unlike the challenges that Adam faced before he Fell. He needed to die to self in a couple of ways in order to resist the serpent’s temptation. But he chose not to do so. While Satan tempted Eve (who never directly heard God prohibit the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), he remained silent. He ate food that was a delight to the eyes. The result was slavery to sin and the struggle that we believers still face even with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

But if Adam had died to self he would have been raised to a new life as a king. Only people who can think of the future and of others are fit to be real leaders. And thus Paul says that, in the midst of persecution, we are “more than conquerors.”

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31-39 ESV).

Paul is not saying that we simply endure these trials. After all Jesus was not raised to the right hand of God despite the cross and the grave but through the cross and the grave. And Paul’s choice of the word “conqueror,” is not random. Romans is about dominion and rule. Paul has already clarified the relationship between tribulation and our elevation by God:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:1-5 ESV).

Does Christ’s exhortation to His disciples in John 15 to remain in Him allow for the possibility of unregenerate New Covenant members?

Doug Wilson writes:

“For many Christians, [John 15:1-6] is a ‘problem passage.’ We want Christ to use a different figure. We want Him to be the Marble Box, with us as the individual marbles. When we are saved, we are put into the Marble Box, and we had better watch it, or we might find ourselves taken out of the Marble Box, losing our salvation. Or, if we know that salvation is not a possession of ours, which we could lose, we want the Marble Box to have a great big lock on it, and to be full of elect, non-loseable marbles” (To a Thousand Generations, p. 84).

We agree that the truly elect cannot be lost. We also agree that not all of the Old Covenant people were truly elect. But can we import this “not all Israel are Israel” into the New Covenant order?

Isn’t the whole point of Spirit over Law the fact that the Law is being fulfilled in us? Where the Law was weak, the Law is now strong by the Spirit because the Spirit can take the Law beyond the letter, beyond the “blueprint” requirements and actually build a lasting house by the power of God. All Israel is now truly all Israel. The border is no longer flesh on Land but the curtains of the Holy Tent.

Sure, we see baptized Christians fall away. We see denominations fall away. But Pastor Wilson’s purpose in discussing this passage is to create a handy-dandy divide between the visible, historical church and the eschatological church so he can wheel prams into the gap.

As I’ve said before, the Old Covenant process was from Law to Repentance. Yes, many believed, but as a “church body” it was a period of childhood. The New Covenant process is from Repentance to Resurrection. There’s no need for perambulators for the upright.

Jesus’ analogies very often slice through our neat doctrinal systems, but we know that the most crucial interpretive factor is not timeless truth, nor culture, but Covenant. What would come to mind as a first century Jew when Jesus says He is the true vine? The Feast of Tabernacles. Throughout the Old Testament, I have found that the mention of “vine” coincides with the final step of the Feast/Creation/Dominion matrix. It’s almost always a dead giveaway, particularly in Isaiah. It’s the Jew/Gentile rest entered into after the “Joshua” Conquest at Atonement.

Firstly, in context, if Jesus is the true vine, who is the false vine? The system of Herodian worship presiding over the Covenant people, or “the kings of the earth” as many English translations unfortunately render it. Only Jesus could bring true peace, and He would do it by opening the Veil, His own flesh, ripped in two like the animals cut by Abraham, reunited by fire.

Secondly, what time of year is it? As mentioned, it is Booths, also known as Ingathering. The word “abide” or “remain” is fairly consistently used to refer to Booths in biblical literary structure (see the cycles in Acts, for instance). It is God’s people gathered into God’s house, and in Acts it is usually Gentile houses!

Pentecost brings wheat, but olives and grapes take longer to mature. In Israel’s “big history,” Pentecost was the time of the Davidic Kings, the “mighty men,” whose failures eventually brought the Trumpets of the prophets. The Atonement period was from Joshua the High Priest to Jeshua the High Priest, type to reality. Now Israel was ready to throw the biggest Jew-Gentile God-fest—Tabernacles—in history, and it would cost her both her High Priests, the true One and the false one, and tear her prostituted Veil in two. It would also reclothe her in something better.

While the True Tabernacle, at its completion, would be filled with Shekinah, the false Herodian Temple would be filled with seven demons, seven eyes of darkness, the same false Lampstand encountered by Adam in Eden. “So shall it be with this generation.”

So, Jesus’ warning here is tied to Old Covenant Israel. Can we apply it today? Yes, certainly. We can apply all Scriptures to ourselves with Covenantal and historical qualification.

But, tying Jesus’ words to Paul’s, grapes and olives, it seems the “branch” period was limited to the apostolic “firstfruits” church. The “wild olive” branches were Noahic believers, carried by the Dove-Spirit, a fertile, holy remnant from the Old Creation. Those branches founded the New Order, an apostolic structure which would bear the weight of all future hybrid fruit. And God loves godly hybrid marriages. Not only is the food interesting, but the children are better looking. [1]

This would mean that the period of ingrafting was completed in AD70. It means that Jesus’ and Paul’s references to olive tree and vine were not implying a permanent harvest, for there is no such thing. Harvests are never permanent. It means that Jewish branches did not exist after AD70, because the Jew/Gentile divide was gone. It means that the only thing that grows out of the tree now is fruit. AD70 completed the framework and the “millennium” is glorifying it, “filling it up.” [2]

So, for the Husbandman, the Great Tribulation was the Great Purge. And for Pastor Wilson, the pram parking space was a figment. Even if the Firstfruits Church had made room for a baptism that deliberately included the unregenerate, (and this is an extremely tenuous assertion) the post AD70 church most definitely cannot. The ingrafting refers to the establishment of a New Covenant elder-priesthood, and they are now ruling in heaven on thrones, the redeemed of the First Resurrection.

This interpretation is simply an assertion, of course, but it does take into account the principle of “first audience.” And it means that the only malignant growths the church now deals with are fruits hanging over the wall, picked in bad judgment from the Enemy’s tree (Bunyan). As the “heavenly country,” the Body of Christ is to vomit them out (Leviticus 18: 25, 28; 20:22; Revelation 3:16). [3]
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[1] See Forbidden Mixtures.
[2] See Communion of Saints.
[3] See Spat Out at Jesus’ Table.

The debate over infant baptism at Doug Wilson’s blog continues. Pastor Wilson writes:

“The Gentiles were threatened with removal from the same tree the unbelieving Jews had been in. But if this were the tree of salvation, then the elect can lose their salvation — which cannot be defended biblically. And if this is the tree of the covenant, then the point stands” (To a Thousand Generations, p. 36)

This looks logical enough, but trees are a process of maturity, from seed to fruit. So is righteousness, and so is sin.

Israel was a trunk, a single genealogy stuck, stationary, in one plot of Land. Her history follows the feasts (see Bible Matrix, p. 189-191). In this structure, the coming of Christ brought the final harvest, Booths.

After Jesus’ Day of Atonement (tasting the cup for potential poison, for every man) there was wine for every man, both Jew and Gentile. The Jew-Gentile God-fest came after this High Priestly Day. All nations could now be Booths, as predicted by Zechariah.

During the Restoration era, the tree trunk sprouted branches, and when the Christ came He was looking for fruit. By and large, all He found was an Adam hiding in leaves.

What does a good farmer do? He cuts off the fruitless branches and, in this case, grafts in some stronger, wild ones, just as Rahab and Ruth were grafted in to bring new life to a weakly, inbred, barren tree.

Why was the tree weak? Not because of obedience, but because of disobedience. The Jews became elitist instead of being a house of prayer. They should have been made strong as the nations came to them for Atonement and shelter (Booths). But they came to rely on the empire instead of God for their strength.

In Romans, Paul refers to the Feast of Booths. The fruitless were cut off. Ingrafting requires two cuts: one of the tree (Christ) and one of the new branch. This second cutting was repentance.

Under the Old Covenant, males could be grafted in by circumcision, by adherence to the Law. But it was not about branches. Worship was fleshly and central. It was all about the trunk, about Israel connected to the Land. Males became part of that tree trunk that was always destined to be cut for the sake of the nations.

But, as with a tree, the Covenant grew up, from earthly country to heavenly country. Adam was a singular trunk. Eve is multiplied branches (and I reckon we can also see this in Old Covenant “singular,” stationary scrolls with wooden rollers and New Covenant, portable codices with many “leaves.”) Repentance and baptism grafts us in as branches.

Circumcision had been able to graft Gentiles in as part of the “fleshly” trunk. That was no longer possible because the Covenant had changed. Even when Jews were grafted back in, they had to be repentant. This, too, is no longer possible as there are, Covenantally, no more Jews (being a Jew was a priestly office which was decommissioned in AD70.) If Gentiles (and, logically, there are no more Gentiles either) were cut off because of unbelief, such a cutting came after harvest time. They were cut off because of lack of fruit. We see Jesus, the gardener, pruning the Lamp-trees in Revelation 2-3, warning the pastors that those baby sins would grow to resemble the eighth church He was about to judge, Old Covenant Israel. Paul’s context here is entirely first century. We can apply it now, through church discipline. We see an application of it in the Reformation, another harvest time.

So, under the Old Covenant, this tree was a promise of shelter and fruit. The stump was good, but as it turned out, not all the branches were. The New Covenant is not a trunk, it is a shelter, a Booth.

Covenant membership of infants is trunk stuff. Not only was it Adamic (males) but trunk stuff is over. We are into branch stuff, Eve, the history of a mature Covenant people post-Wedding Supper.

We have no business baptizing babies because they have not repented, they show no fruits of repentance, and they provide no shelter. The requirement for a New Covenant grafting in is repentance and faith. History has moved on, as trees tend to do. Salvation by faith has been constant, but the Old Covenant genealogical tree trunk has become a tree of salvation. The change in the requirements for membership, and in the Covenant sign, reflect this. Jesus can now have a branch in every neighborhood.

Are our babies left out in the cold? No. They shelter under the Covenant tree, “sanctified,” set apart, until they can be grafted in.

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Art by Erica Maule

Related posts on the Feast of Booths:
A Place Called Clouds
Time to Party – 1, 2 and 3
Seven Thousand Who Have Not Bowed to Baal – 2

Tabernacles was the final annual feast, a Godfest to be thrown by Jews as a ministry to Gentiles. At the Feast of Clouds [1], every household temporarily became a new house of God, a “local branch” of the Tabernacle, a “priesthood of all believers.” Of course, we see this fulfilled in the book of Acts. Just as we see Paul exhort the Ephesians (Gentiles!) to put on the mediatorial body-armour of the High Priest, [2] his final exhortation to the Roman Christians alludes to not only Israel’s feasts but Israel’s priesthood. Pretty much every church he established was a “booth” made of natural Jewish branches and ingrafted Gentile branches. [3] At Pentecost, the same cloud that received Jesus filled the house. [4] Now every household of faith was a Tabernacle, a glorious cloud with a government of human angel-elders. [5] In the Bible’s literary structure, a recurring motif at Tabernacles is good fruit, godly offspring. God wants more than just a covering of leaves. As in Eden, future generations hang upon wise government.

Creation/Ark… “Now I beseech you, brethren,

[The initiating word]

Division/Veil… mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

Church discipline is a ‘Passover’ darkness dividing true and false households. Note that Paul is exhorting them to divide from those who cause division! Discerning godly division from ungodly division takes wisdom and love. Splitting a church over eschatological details, or over whether women should wear open-toed shoes, is faithless sin.

Ascension/Altar & Table; Covenant… For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly

ie. they eat the sacrifice instead of being the sacrifice.

Testing/Lampstand-Law… For your obedience is come abroad unto all men.

Maturity/Incense Altar… I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.

Obedience brings wisdom, no matter how crazy the command of God seems at the time. The Tabernacle of David is always at Maturity. It is a resurrected “bridal” tent with music, singing and Gentile worshippers—a new body. It is the fruitfulness of an Eve led by a faithful Adam, hence the barrenness of Saul’s daughter Michal. This is the step at which Adam failed. He became wise concerning evil, and his disobedience came “abroad” to all men, a kind of reverse-Pentecost, estrangement instead of military unity. The ground and the womb became barren.

Conquest/Laver; Open Veil… And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.

Reference to both Genesis 3 and Joshua’s men standing on the necks of the kings from the cave. Again, this is how the Lord should have found Adam, not hiding in the leaves like a creeping thing but standing, with his foot on the royal creep’s conspiratorial neck. Possibly also a reference to Solomon’s execution of David’s enemies, the old leaven, to usher in his kingdom of Shalom. The Conquering Mediator is a human Laver. He has clean feet and can stand on the crystal sea as God’s governor. [6]

Glorification/Shekinah… The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Rom. 16:17-20).

Doug Wilson has some great thoughts on this exhortation here. I have some thoughts on the crushing of Satan here.

This also means that Rome’s later claim to being “the” Tabernacle on earth is false. One major reason for AD70′s end of Temple worship was the decentralisation of worship on earth so it was no longer corruptible at its heart, as the deluded Roman church later demonstrated. She forgot she wasn’t the tree but just the local branch. [7]

It also appears that this complete structure, as the second last cycle, concerns Conquest/Atonement. The overall subject is a godly, governmental division between the two “identical” goats. The difference between the altar of Baal and the Altar of God is not subtle. Both have a bloody division, but only one has the Pentecostal fire.

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[1] See A Place Called Clouds.
[2] See Armour of God.
[3] See Seven Thousand Who Have Not Bowed to Baal – 2.
[4] See Not Just Any Old Cloud.
[5] See Big Government.
[6] See Walking on Water.
[7] See Revived, Not Arrived.

TAKE HEED:
We must face up to our constant temptation to draw contrasts between our position as Christians and the Jews’ position in the Old Testament. The New Testament consistently draws parallels, and we (for the sake of our traditions) want to draw these contrasts. But the way Israel fell into sin is set before us regularly (1 Cor. 10: 1-11; Heb. 3: 7ff; 4: 11; Rom. 11:17ff), and we are consistently warned against doing the very same thing. This means that the fact that Rome received this letter two thousand years ago does not make the warning less relevant, but rather far more relevant. How long before Paul wrote these words had the Jews been called through Abraham? Two thousand years—that is what created the temptation for them. And we should take care as well. Eventually the Westminster Confession will be two thousand years old.

Full post here.

“Paul knew his kinsmen. This is a group of people on whom this tactic would work.”

Doug Wilson has been preaching through Romans (subscribe to his podcast now!) and recently commented on his blog about Romans 11, and the relationship between Christians and Jews today.[1] I’ll have to listen to his sermon to figure out whether Doug sees this as interpretation (“all Israel” is yet to be saved), or application.

I made some comments and a gent called Lemuel replied, and I made some more. It brings out the significance of the phrase “the sons of God.”

Mike:

There are no longer any Jews – or Gentiles – in God’s economy. That went out with Circumcision. So did the provocation. God made a short work on the Land.

Doesn’t mean there won’t be (or isn’t currently) a time when many Jews will convert. It’s just not what Paul’s talking about in Romans.

I think Jordan’s essay The Future of Israel Re-examined, although controversial, covers Jewish history, identity and eschatology very well. And it makes sense of Romans.

Any application of this to post AD70 “Jews” is exactly that – application.

Lemuel:

To say that Jews (Judaeans) and Gentiles no longer exist in God’s economy because in the church they are united is kind of like saying that men and women don’t exist in God’s economy because of Galatians 3:28. Admittedly, the usage of “Jew” varies. There is the inward Jew, whose heart is circumcised. There is the Gentile who gets fleshly circumcision. And then there is the genetic Israelite, the descendant of Israel – the way in which tribes/ethnic groups are identified, just as Amalekites descend from Amalek, Semites descend from Shem, etc. One of the groups discussed in Romans is ethnic Israel, Paul’s kinsmen according to the flesh, his race. None of this would necessarily rule out a 70 A.D. fulfillment, but I think Christians spend too much time pretending that racial groups don’t exist.

Mike:

Good point, but Galatians 3:28 is not the argument. There were Jews and Gentiles in the church together before AD70. The writer of Hebrews insisted that they keep meeting together (in defiance of those who were falling back into old habits?) as they saw the Day approaching. After that Day, it was no longer an issue.

Although we do need to accommodate for racial groups, the Judaism Paul was dealing with no longer exists. As the apostles kept preaching (and dying), the unconverted Jews (and the apostates) hardened their hearts like Pharaoh. During this period of “plagues”, Judaism became something else entirely — a synagogue of Satan.

In context, Paul is not dealing with “racial” Jews at all, but with their calling as mediators to the nations. This calling was the reason that the judgment for all the innocent blood shed from Abel fell upon that generation. Both the blessings and the curses of their Covenant calling were irrevocable. But that calling ended with the Old Covenant when it finally passed away with the Temple.

In the first part of Romans 11, Paul follows the pattern of Israel’s feasts, ending with the “branches” of Tabernacles. See Seven Thousand Who Have Not Bowed to Baal – 2.The book of Ruth also follows this pattern. The “fullness” of the Gentiles came in in the first century, just as Ruth came into the Covenant and bore Obed on barren Naomi’s lap. [2] So does the account of Noah: “Gentile” beasts substitute for the faithless “branches” who died in the flood. [3] And AD70 was a flood (Dan 9:26; Matt 24:37-38). Notice that the sin of the “sons of God” (those with the priestly calling) in Genesis 6, in Ruth, and in Matthew 24 is ungodly “intermarriage”.

AD70 revealed who were the true “sons of God.” It wasn’t the Circumcision. (Romans 8:14-19; John 1:12; Phil 2:15; 1 John 3:1;-2).

The context of Romans 11 is the imminent judgment of Herodian worship and the end of the Jews. As much as it distressed Paul, God’s wisdom in this process of “jealous inspection” blew him away (Numbers 5; Rev. 14:10). By AD70 it was all over.

One more comment. This would also mean that those with the title “the sons of God” in Job were not angels but priestly, mediatorial men (an obervation I have heard from Gary DeMar). Satan envied them, accused them, as he always does. They are Adams in the garden, Covenant heads, and he hates them. Job was a priest-king.[4]

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[1] Preliminary Thoughts on Envy and the Jews.
[2] See Fairy Tale in a Field and Feasts in Matthew 13 for more on this.
[3] This gives greater significance to the dove’s olive branch. Concerning Noah’s animals and their use in Isaiah, see The Wolf and the Lamb.
[4] See Jordan’s Was Job an Edomite King? Part 1 and Part 2.