Reformed theology is the best school in which to learn about covenant theology, yet it is also the worst place to learn about New Covenant theology. Why is this so?

Reading a to-and-fro between a baptist and a paedobaptist recently, it struck me that despite the fine manners and scholarly diligence on display in the responses of both gentlemen, neither of them really had a grip on what they were dealing with.

The prime example was the way in which each relied on the Abrahamic Covenant to support his case. The paedobaptist accused the baptist of spiritualising this covenant, while the baptist accused the paedobaptist of “carnalizing” it. Both of them were cherrypicking in order to support their take on God’s covenants in general.

Now, theologians love to generalise in order to avoid doing the grubby work of dealing with specifics, and one ubiquitous theological meme, dripping with clever evasiveness, is the statement that there is both continuity and discontinuity between each covenant, or each stage of the overall covenant of God with men. Apparently there is some entirely arbitrary “spectrum” of relevance in each covenant, and we are supposed to isolate the elements which are common to all covenants to discover what a covenant is. Then we can figure out whether “covenant membership” is based on faith, or heredity, or tribe, or all of the above.

“…both sides get an F when
it comes to covenant theology.”

On the “baptistic” side, things tend to slide into a realm where the physical rites, baptism and communion and even corporate worship, are considered to be less important than “my personal relationship with Jesus.” The New Covenant sign is “faith,” but since true faith expresses itself in willingness to submit to discipleship under Christ’s representatives, in examination of heart, in a desire to be with other saints, in prayer and good works and in legal testimony before the Church and the world, this error is easy to deal with.

On the “paedobaptistic” side, the focus on the rites, the “covenant signs,” leads to:

a) an illogical splitting of the sacraments in the withholding of communion until a baptised child comes of age;

b) united paedosacraments which merely serve as a legalistic “claim” upon the baptizand until they are truly born again; or

c) united paedosacraments which somehow regenerate the receiver without any requirement of actual repentance.

As I have written elsewhere, each of these three conclusions is an attempt to deal with the doctrinal fallout of the errant rite of paedobaptism in a slightly different way. The conflation of circumcision and baptism necessitates the redefinition, or scapegoating of something, somewhere. In order to preserve the tradition, the scapegoat chosen for sacrifice is either the necessity of personal conversion (and the redefinition of “faith”), or the global nature of the New Covenant, or the efficacy of the sacraments.

However, both sides, baptistic and paedobaptistic, get an F when it comes to covenant theology. The baptists are right when it comes to the necessity of hearing the Gospel and responding in faith as the defining characteristic of a Christian, but generally they have little idea of what a covenant with God actually is. “Covenant” is just a word to describe God’s “agreement” with Noah, Abraham and Moses. There is little understanding of a covenant as a process, with delegated authority, rules for success, desired results and accountability, and a use-by date. It is these “missional” elements which are the things common to every biblical covenant, yet somehow these are totally overlooked in the continuity/discontinuity debate.

“…the solution is an aspect
which both sides in this debate,
as far as I know, have either failed
to discern or failed to apply.”

The paedobaptists, generally speaking, at least understand what a biblical covenant is. The problem is that since they are stuck with their baptismal tradition, they pick the Abrahamic Covenant as their benchmark for covenants. This renders them enemies of many fundamental differences between the various covenants, which are simply the result of the fact that each covenant has a different mission. They are so keen on the maintenance of the notion of a “Covenant people” delineated by a sign that they force the covenants both before and after the Abrahamic Covenant into the Abrahamic mold. The rainbow is turned into a “sign” upon Noah and his family, when in fact it was a sign upon all creation, one which endures to this day. New Covenant baptism is turned into a “corporate” sign upon all members of a believing household, either conferring “covenant membership” (legalistic accountability) or “infusing” some level of faith without the hearing of the Gospel.

Paedobaptism is a mongrel of a doctrine, an ugly mix of conflicting designs and crossed purposes, which is why its meaning is impossible to define or agree upon even among those who practice it. But it gets worse. For some paedobaptists, the fact that there was no sign of “Covenant membership” upon females under the Abrahamic Covenant, as they believe there is under the New Covenant, means that they go looking for one. Some have suggested that the Levitical “purity rites” for Israelite women served as a sign of membership in some fashion. But although this is a rare assertion, it does demonstrate just how far off the track people will go when following an errant doctrine to its logical conclusion. Since every person within their imagined New Covenant boundary must be “stamped” by Jesus with their “hybridised” New Covenant baptism, this leads them to seek something similar under the Abrahamic Covenant when clearly there was no such thing. For a start, the Levitical rites can have no bearing on membership of the Abrahamic Covenant because they were not instituted until Moses, four centuries later. Females were under the Abrahamic Covenant without any personal sign. Even more inconveniently, there was no personal sign upon anyone whatsoever under the Noahic and Adamic Covenants. They have allowed the stipulations and purpose of the Abrahamic Covenant to distort their comprehension of the New Covenant, and then their perverted understanding of the New Covenant requires the distortion the Abrahamic Covenant. This is not “Covenant continuity” but enforced “equalisation,” the theological equivalent of gender neutrality. It is a wilful twisting of the Scripture to defend the indefensible, bordering on the brand of hermeneutical travesty committed by the Roman Catholic Church in defence of its own coercive and highly imaginative traditions. Yet regardless of how much they must sacrifice, doctrinally-speaking, and how many ludicrous notions they must consider to maintain this shibboleth, they consistently refuse to question their devotion to this age-old household god. I find this incomprehensible.

However, for two thousand years in God’s economy (not today), one was either a Jew or a Gentile, either in Abraham or not, so there clearly was some kind of “membership.” Is there a way that we can understand the history of the greater Covenant, taking into account each of its varied stages, including the ways in which each stage uniquely complements and contrasts with the others, that enables us to discern both what is continuous or discontinuous and why? Most certainly there is, and the solution is an aspect which both sides in this debate, as far as I know, have either failed to discern or failed to apply.

“In some sense, only a twist on
the Copernican revolution in
covenant theology can unite
the schizoid sacramentology
of the modern Church.”

When Covenant history is diagrammed by the experts on both sides, it is inevitably linear. This is understandable, since history itself is linear. But a journey from the boundary of our solar system to the heart of our sun is also linear, although the solar system itself is not. My assertion here is that the various covenants throughout history are not segments but spheres, not lines but layers. Passing from the orbit of Mars to the orbit of the Earth does not render the orbit of Mars redundant or non-existent.

Likewise, we must understand that the establishing of the Abrahamic Covenant did not nullify the Noahic. The Covenant with Noah was in full force in its original form at least until the end of the Abrahamic Covenant in AD70, for the Gentiles were still obliged to keep its basic stipulations. This fact was the basis for the judgment of James at the Jerusalem Council of the Church in Acts 15. There was no need to put believing Gentiles under the Law of Moses. Nor was there any need to circumcise them as members of the Abrahamic extended family, the dispersed tribal nation of Israel. Yet, (and what follows here we must understand if the disgusting fissures in our sacramental unity are to be closed and healed) these Gentiles were still “under Covenant,” just not the Abrahamic one. This is because the Abrahamic Covenant did not exist after the Noahic Covenant, nor even alongside it, but within it, just as the orbit of the Earth exists within the orbit of Mars. In some sense, only a twist on the Copernican revolution in covenant theology can unite the schizoid sacramentology of the modern Church.

Since Covenant history resembles the medieval concept of the celestial spheres,¹See also String Theory the “outer limits” consist of the reach of the covenant intended to be ratified in Adam. The word “covenant” is never used of Adam, and this is because he failed to qualify for kingdom. The word is not used until God spoke to Noah, the first man to qualify as a righteous judge, a man who could legally represent God on earth because he was found faithful in the eyes of heaven. However, the curse of death remained. This was because the Noahic Covenant was ratified within the Adamic one. All men were still in Adam.

“…the Mosaic Covenant
was ratified not in opposition to 
but within the Abrahamic one.”

When Noah’s offspring sinned in ways that can be corresponded to the offspring of Adam, another global deluge was on the horizon, covenantally-speaking: the destruction of all flesh. To keep the promises to Noah, God divided humanity in two in Abraham. However, the Noahic order of priest-kings, such as Melchizedek and Jethro and Job, still ministered among the Gentile nations as “sons of God,” which may explain the persistence of accounts similar to the early chapters of Genesis not only in the Ancient Near East but also in just about every culture around the world. Every human being was still a “member” of Adam, and a “member” of Noah, yet only those in Abraham’s household were members of this new genealogical-tribal covenant. Noah was not replaced. Like Adam, he was “divided” that he might later be conquered and glorified.

The main players in the Abrahamic line reversed, in many ways, the failures of Noah’s sons, but in Moses they were brought to maturity, both in size (as a nation) and accountability (in ministry). Israel was baptised into Moses and another covenant was established, and here we see centuries of wasted ink revealed for what they are as we understand that the Mosaic Covenant was ratified not in opposition to but within the Abrahamic one. Every Israelite was still in Adam, and still in Noah, and of course in Abraham, but not every Israelite was a member of the tribe of Levi. The Levitical order served within Israel as yet another layer, smaller and with even more concentrated standards of purity. Within the tribe of Levi, only males of a certain physical and moral standard were permitted to serve as priests, and even then under a roster of temporary vows, a division between the common and the uncommon in holy office. Then, of course, there was the High Priest, the focal point of this particular layer, but even here, since the Aaronic order was genealogical, God made a covenant within it, giving Phinehas the succession since he was found faithful.

This layered “geocentric” process can also be observed in the developments or refinements in the sacrificial praxes. Adam was to offer himself, but judgment for his failure was stemmed by God‘s mercy in the first substitutionary sacrifices. They were slain and offered whole but not burnt. The first burnt offering — or “ascension” — was presented by Noah, picturing his office as a mediator with authority from the heavenly court. Humans were now permitted to eat flesh, but not blood. In Abraham, picturing the division between Jew and Gentile, certain animals were chosen by God and cut in half by Abraham. Under the Levitical Law, animals were not only presented and cut to be offered by fire, but the various parts were allocated to different purposes, places and people. In a sense, the move towards the High Priesthood of Aaron was a cutting away at the flesh of Adam (or his substitutes) to get to the heart of the matter.

But of course, history did not stop there. The temple and priesthood were glorified under the inspired administration of King David, and here we observe yet another “eternal” covenant. Of course, you should by now understand that the Davidic Covenant existed within Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the Law of Moses (as expressed in the Psalms), being “under”, that is, accountable, to all of them, as they related to, operated within, mediated for and expounded upon each other. The holy center of this new, smaller, even purer, orbit, was not the hearing of the laws under priesthood but the incarnation of the law in true kingdom.

Following the failure of Israel’s kings, there was another division, and another covenant, this time with Jeroboam. His “orbit” was actually outside, larger than, the covenants with Levi and David, and his envy of their centrality was at the heart of his rebellion and idolatry. This envy was also at the heart of the rebellion of Korah, who apparently believed that every tribal leader in Israel should be a priest-king after the order of Melchizedek/Noah.

After the exile, a “new covenant” was established under Ezra and Nehemiah, Zechariah and Haggai, as predicted by Jeremiah.²See Jeremiah”s New Covenant. The priesthood would serve as keepers for the Davidic line, and now every Israelite, not just the priests, was required to prove his genealogical heritage. The latter prophets rail against the sins which led to the downfall of the previous kingdom, and this newly restored Israel, like the second generation in the wilderness, avoided the idolatries and adulteries of their forefathers. But the point here is that even this “new” covenant was ratified within all the previous ones.

Now we reach the center of this grand celestial construct, and it is of course the New Covenant in the blood of Christ, a covenant which was ratified within all the other covenants and yet fulfilled and succeeded them. In His baptism He was Noah, with the witness of the dove (Creation – Day 1). In His death, He was the circumcision of Abraham, cut off for the world (Division – Day 2). In His Ascension (Day 3), as the Lamb worthy to open the scroll, He was Moses on the mountain, receiving the Law of the Spirit. At Pentecost, He brought the kingdom of God, the law in the hearts of men (Testing – Day 4). In the testimony of the apostles, He was Israel scattered among the Gentiles, establishing New Covenant synagogues (Maturity – Day 5). In the destruction of Jerusalem, He was a new Israel freed from idolatry and adultery under “Babylon” (Conquest – Day 6). And with the covenantal knife finally reaching the heart of the matter, the construction of the Bride was complete, and it is in this light that we must understand the marriage feast of the Lamb in Revelation 19 as already fulfilled in history (Glorification – Day 7). All the old demarcations were eradicated, or more correctly, transformed.

Since our High Priest has entered into and recast the fiery center of the system, the entire Old Testament history is now a magnificent, seven-ringed “armillary sphere,” wheels within wheels, an apparatus of heavenly measurement which incorporates and employs in perfect harmony the specific authority of each of Jesus’ major Covenantal predecessors. It is now we who must follow Him from that center, from personal conversion into our families, tribes and nations to the outer limits, where the final enemy, death, will be destroyed, and the universe will be renewed. But all of these elements are already “in Christ” and thus already in our hands. In Emmanuel, God is with us, not only in our hearts, but to go up and possess our inheritance.

“All men, women and children
were always under covenant
with God in some form…”

The conclusion concerning “Covenant membership” and the concept of “Covenant children” in the binary sense as understood by many paedobaptists is that these were uniquely Abrahamic features and obligations, earthly stoicheia, carnal elements serving as stand ins for the heavenly parts of a much greater picture. Now it makes sense why God kept “moving the goal posts,” each level of promise and inheritance becoming redundant with the call to sacrifice it for something greater. Even Abraham understood that Canaan and his offspring were only object lessons for the possession of a heavenly country as tried, qualified and glorified sons of God, enthroned with Christ for rest and rule.

All men, women and children were always under covenant with God in some form, and the notion that baptism, especially paedobaptism, puts people “into the covenant” is absurd. Baptism is the foundation not for life, but for a life of service, of ministry, of accountability and discernment as a “son of God,” just as it was for the world under Noah, and for Israel under Moses.

All people, including all children, even the yet unborn (who cannot be paedobaptized if miscarried), have everything they could possibly have in the Gospel of Christ. The death of Jesus put them into this covenant, under obligation to the great High Priest and King of Kings, and also under His mercy. To limit His jurisdiction to some renovated or hybridised version of the Abrahamic demarcation is to grossly misunderstand Covenant history, defining the glorious New Covenant by one facet of its construction. Our “Covenant community” is not in here. It is out there.

This is why Reformed theology is the best school in which to learn about covenant theology, yet it is also the worst place to learn about New Covenant theology.

The abandonment of the Son by the Father is made palpable not in the crucifixion of His body, since He willingly laid down His life, but in the darkness which covered the Land for three hours. But perhaps this darkness was a sign of the Father’s nearness rather than His distance.

Matthew, Mark and Luke document the darkness which covered the Land during the last three hours of Jesus’ life, and so do three extra biblical historians, Thallus, Phlegon and Africanus. But what was its purpose? It is wise to look for typological precedents for events in the Gospels, since Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. Concerning darkness we have the primeval world before the creation of light (Genesis 1:2), and the darkness which covered Egypt as the ninth plague (Exodus 10:21-23).

The details of this plague are interesting, since this was “a darkness to be felt” and “nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.” Only the land of Goshen where the Israelites dwelt was given light. Thus, the three hours of darkness at noonday were a sign of the coming three days in which Christ would be covered by the darkness of the tomb. But there is another instance of darkness and light as a judgment in Exodus, and that occurred at the Red Sea crossing (Exodus 13:19-20). The pillar of cloud gave light to the Israelites but the Egyptians were left in the dark. Thus the two were kept separate throughout the night.

My assertion here is that the darkness in each case was a visit from the glory cloud, the “mobile tabernacle” which served as God’s chariot until the Day of Pentecost. It was presumably this cloud which is described in Genesis 3:8, which would be better translated as “And they heard the sound/voice of the Lord God coming to the garden in the breath/spirit of the day and they hid themselves…” It is likely that this visitation was similar to the cloud which descended upon Sinai and upon the mount of transfiguration. It is also likely the same cloud which, when opened, provided a glimpse into heaven at the baptism of Jesus (with its allusion to Genesis 1, the Spirit hovering over the deep), at His ascension, and again at the martyrdom of Stephen. The Lord always comes “with” or “in” clouds, and when He does, He comes to judge.

Of course, judgment does not necessarily mean punishment. The Lord came down to judge Babel, Egypt and Sodom, and it each case the result was cursing. In the case of Ezekiel, it seems the prophet was actually taken up in or by the chariot in Spirit that he might witness the sins of Jerusalem, God and a “son of man” serving as two legal witnesses, explaining the phrase “Come, let us go down…” in Genesis 11:7, when God brought confusion. The pillar of cloud also brought confusion upon Pharaoh’s armies, and it was likely present when the armies of Midian were confused under the watch of Gideon. But when the cloud came upon the Tabernacle and Temple, upon the Son, and upon His saints on the Day of Pentecost, as a mighty, rushing wind, the Lord was happy to bless. The arrival of the chariot of God, unlike the chariot of Pharaoh, is a chariot which brings not only vengeance but also redemption. It is the chariot of the almighty ga’al, the one who bears a two-edged sword to slay the wicked and cut the bonds of the righteous.

So, is it beyond possibility that the chariot of God was the cause of the three hours of darkness, recorded across the oikoumene, while Christ was on the cross? After all, the final chapters of Ezekiel present this Jew-Gentile social construct as a temple, with the Land of Israel as its holy altar. The Lord was coming to His temple to inspect it for “leprosy.” According to the Law, the leprosy had to be cut out, but if it returned, the house would be destroyed. Jesus was crucified “outside the camp,” like a leper (see Leviticus 14, and The Leprous House). He was the one being “cut out” that the house might be spared. But as Jesus predicted, the cleaned house would be filled with even worse demons (see Seven Spirits More Wicked), and its response to being cleansed would be a return to corruption in an even greater way. The Veil of the Temple was torn, but when the Lord later returned “in the clouds” the Temple was torn down. Not one stone was left upon another.

And he shall break down the house, its stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and he shall carry them out of the city to an unclean place (Leviticus 14:45)

This means that the entire Land was under judgment, and Jesus was at the center of the court. He had been condemned by the High Priesthood (Garden), by Herod (Land) and by Pilate (World), the entirety of the oikoumene “Tabernacle.” Now He was being judged by heaven, and for the will of heaven be done on earth required the “bowing of the heavens,” that is, a visit from the heavenly court via the glory cloud, a symbolic reunion of the waters above and below in a prefiguring of final judgment (see “Bowing the Heavens” in my book Inquiétude for more discussion.) God was visiting the Garden, and Adam was exposed in His court. The events that transpired recapitulate those of Psalm 18 – including the earthquake –with one major difference: the Father did not hear, and did not deliver, the Man who cried out to Him.

The cords of death encompassed me;
the torrents of destruction assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.

Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.

Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.

He bowed the heavens and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.

He rode on a cherub and flew;
he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
thick clouds dark with water.

What does this mean for the significance of the three hours of darkness? That the Christ who “became sin for us” was trodden underfoot like an enemy, or a serpent, the blood upon the kapporet, the footstool of God (see Peter Leithart, The Footstool of His Feet.) To conquer sin, He became sin. To make His enemies His footstool (Psalm 110:1; Luke 20:43; Hebrews 10:13), He would first be trampled underfoot, and it would please the Lord to bruise Him (Isaiah 53:10). The holy presence which overshadowed Mary at Jesus’ conception (Luke 1:35) now overshadowed the entire nation at His death.

This abandonment of the Son by the Father was not “spatial” but legal. The Father presided over the Son in the seat of Moses, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. This courtroom “betrayal,” a perjury in the sense that He changed His previous testimonies concerning the blamelessness and authority of the Son, was as close-to-home as the kiss of Judas. In this final act, the Father crossed the floor and stood with Judas, with Ananias, with those who beat, spat upon and ridiculed Jesus, with Pilate, with the crowd, and with the thief who cursed Him on the cross.

The word “sacrifice” connotes the idea of “near bringing” (see James B. Jordan, Leviticus 1:2). It was this reversal of judgment, through substitutionary atonement, that the angels “standing at the four corners of the Land,” those who stood prepared to vindicate the Son by immediately destroying the city and the Land (as predicted in Daniel 9:25-26), were told: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God” (Revelation 7:1-3).

At the Day of Pentecost, the brightness of the cloud was visited upon those who believed, and the darkness of strong delusion upon those who refused to believe. In the Gospel, this dividing “sword” was extended right across the empire. This “visitation” by the Spirit, whose indwelling turned every believer into a chariot (epitomised and signified in the miraculous travel of Philip in Acts 8:38-39), explains the inspiration and perseverance of the Jew-Gentile saints and the strong delusion which confused and confounded their Jew-Gentile enemies, who turned on each other, eventuating in their destruction at the coming of Christ with all His martyred sons, including Abel (Matthew 23:35), on white horses as a cloud of “witnesses” (martyrs) against the first century “Babylon.” These saints were God’s chariot.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

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).

Christ at the centre of history is the entire Creation in one Man: Forming, Filling and Future.

“…the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
(Revelation 19:10)

The Creation Week, although sevenfold, consisted of three days of Forming, three days of Filling, and then a Future, the dominion of the world promised to Adam. But before Adam could be considered qualified to rule the world as the representative of God, Adam himself would have to be a new creation.

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“A baptism which does not discern between the fruit of the womb and the fruit of the tomb is anti-Christ, denying He has come in the flesh.”

This post follows on from Exposed To The Elements.

An online paedobaptist friend commented that he had never heard sacred architecture offered as an argument for credobaptism before. My experience with the brilliant Bible teaching by the various Federal Vision gents is that I get a principle under my belt, then automatically begin to see its implications for all of Scripture. But then numerous times I would be surprised when no one had thought of applying it consistently. The main offender is paedobaptism. Despite their claims, it is a rite that does not spring naturally from Scripture. In fact, it has to be protected from Scripture, from the very principles I have been taught by paedobaptists.

There’s a reason that people with Asperger’s are being employed to find bugs in software. We can hold a lot of data in “working RAM” at once, which means we can “spot the difference” visually. Penelope Trunk writes:

 I have a feeling that what gave me the ability to bridge from a quirky writer to a marketable writer was focusing obsessively on Generation Y. Nobody could memorize the facts as fast as I did, and because they were all in my head I could synthesize them faster than everybody else and come up with trends. [1]

My friend Chris Wooldridge is a data analyst. His job is to find trends in data and present them pictorially. I have no doubt this is why he has picked up the Bible Matrix so quickly and is parsing passages like an old hand. To some degree, this ability requires having all the other key instances of the matrix in a “holding pattern” so they can be overlaid and compared. It is immensely beautiful, and it is one of two reasons why the practice of paedobaptism irks me so much. It is the fly in the ointment, the bug in the software. The Bible Matrix is the DNA of the Scriptures, which, like DNA, have a mechanism of self-correction. The matrix process of maturity rejects paedobaptism in every instance. Not only is the practice never described or commanded in Scripture, forces the redefinition of Christian, Church, Gospel, faith and just about everything else in its perverted path, the very DNA of the Bible treats it as a foreign body to be neutralized, a bug to be exterminated, an error to be corrected. The structure of the Scriptures themselves is as fussy as someone with OCD.

Now that I have many of my readers in defensive mode, I would like to take a look at a very simplified version of the architecture which makes paedobaptism the impossible doctrine. This has to do with the definition of “son of God.” Are sprinkled babies children of God? Both James Jordan and Peter Leithart maintains that the Gospel “redeems” natural patterns. I agree with them to some point. But their conflation of the image with the imager is an unwitting form of idolatry, with infants as the idols. They claim that paedobaptism is a New Covenant version of circumcision, at least as far as defining the boundary of the Covenant people (Jordan rightly says that circumcision is not baptism, and we strangely agree on many other points.) But a son of God is not a son of man. Paedobaptists love to abuse the Covenant with Abraham to support their well-meaning but perverted rite. I want to undermine that by taking us right back to the Garden of Eden.

Jesus called Himself “the Son of Adam,” a fact made clearer by the use of the phrase concerning the prophet Ezekiel, in whose book it appears over 90 times. I believe the reason is that Ezekiel is the only prophet given access to the heavenly Sanctuary, the throne of God. He is made, as Jordan observes, a kind of “rival High Priest in exile,” much as was Jesus many centuries later. The prophet is symbolically slain, falling on his face, then lifted up and filled with the Spirit of God. As a new Adam, he goes through a process of death and resurrection, and the rest of the book describes the same process measured out upon Israel.

But Jesus also called Himself “the Son of God.” This has an entirely different meaning. It is not genealogical, since it does not refer to an earthly father but the heavenly Father. An earthly father is most certainly an image of the heavenly Father, but the two cannot be conflated. The Pharisees who challenged Jesus had Abraham as their earthly father, and the devil as their heavenly father.

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and bhas nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:44-47)

Based upon the relationship between the Father and the Son in heaven, that which is at the heart of earthly sonhood is Representation. This is why the Succession step of the matrix process often concerns physical offspring in many Old Testament passages. It refers to genealogical Succession in history, God’s faithfulness to many generations of the faithful. But the New Testament moves the goal posts. Instead of physical offspring, it puts Gospel messengers at this point in every instance. The emphasis has moved from earthly sonhood to heavenly sonhood, from sons of Adam to sons of God. The switch began at the baptism of Jesus, the only Adam who was both.

At Jesus’ baptism, the Father chose Him from among all the other circumcised sons of Israel. It is the same scenario as that which brought about the anointing of David. All the possible choices were circumcised in the flesh, but God looked upon the heart of Jesus. This heart alone pleased Him. David’s name means “Beloved,” and I have no doubt that this is why the heavenly Father says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Since Christ was the only one who truly displayed Priestly submission, He was chosen to be King.

From that moment, Jesus, like David, was no longer under the authority of His earthly father. This was hinted at in the event of Jesus’ disappearance at age 12, a kind of “Firstfruits.” Baptism for every Christian is the point when the individual becomes directly accountable to his new Father, to Christ, and to Christ’s Church. As Jesus did, the baptizand bows to the authority of heaven that he or she might speak with the authority of heaven.

At the instant of Jesus’ baptism, there was only one true Jew, a brand new Adam. Just as Adam was a man without genealogy, whose Father was God, so for Jesus, all heredity, all circumcision and non-circumcision, was left behind in the water of baptism. This included allegiance to Abraham, the earthly father, since the heavenly Father had now revealed Himself for the first time in history.

So, what of circumcision? This is simple, indeed, so simple that it amazes me that so many bright Reformed theologians and Christians have not thought things through with any consistent logic, especially the ones who are aware of the dominion promises in Genesis 2. If Adam was faithful as the son of God, God would make Adam a father. Both the womb and the land would be opened to him, producing their fruit in season, just as Adam had produced the fruits of righteousness, a circumcised heart, to his own Father. In Abraham, the “Great Father” who was by nature barren, both the curse and promise concerning the land and the womb were repeated. Canaan was initially barren, but we will deal with that another time (it’s quite fascinating!) and of course Sarah was barren. Circumcision was given to Abraham because he was faithful. It was a symbolic “pruning” that both the womb and land might be opened. At every point, the Firstfruits was to be given to God, including Isaac. Baptism is a rite not for the inheritance but for the inheritor. The “architectural” background of all the Psalms is Edenic.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
(Psalm 127:3-5)

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the Lord.
(Psalm 128:1-4)

You can see from the diagram above that baptism is a rite that concerns circumcision of heart (things above: the Edenic Laver/Spring) that God might bless the believer with fruitfulness (things below: the Bronze Altar-Land). With the coming of Christ in the flesh, the promises to Abraham were fulfilled. The relationship of heredity to the Covenant was removed forever. It no longer mattered whether one was a Jew or a Gentile. The only household is the household of faith. The only sonhood is submission to the Father by the faith of the Son. A baptism which does not discern between the fruit of the womb (Land: below) and the fruit of the tomb (Garden: above) is anti-Christ, denying He has come in the flesh. Why do many of the world’s best Bible teachers, including many friends, fail to see this practice for what it is, especially those who know their way around biblical architecture?

Baptism is thus not about generation but regeneration. James Jordan claims that “regeneration” refers not to individuals but to the regeneration of the world in general, thus unregenerate offspring can be included in this process. But that is not the picture given in Scripture at all. Once again, the image is conflated with the original, the source confused with the result. And all the support given for paedobaptism relies on “Abrahamic” verses, texts about the earthly image. [2] In paedobaptism, the heavenly Father is conflated with earthly fathers, and the heavenly Son who, like Melchizedek has no genealogy, no earthly father, is confused with the sons of Aaron for whom genealogy was crucial.

If the Lord had slain Adam and Eve for Adam’s sin, it is obvious that the fruit of the womb and the land also would have been cut off. But Adam’s death was the source of this lack of natural fruit. Adam’s death had to do with his relationship to the heavenly Father. So baptism is not related to either the fruit of the Land or the fruit of the womb. It has to do with the fruit of righteousness, and these other things are only the result of that initial “Garden” fruit. Jesus’ death as Adam was prefigured in His baptism. He was not sprinkled or poured upon by John. He was submerged, slain, like the entire world during the Physical Flood, like Israel under Babylon and Rome in Social Floods. Only submersion pictures the complete end of the Old Order and the beginning of the New. The dove is never present over the Land, but only over the waters. If you have never been immersed, you have failed to publicly testify as Jesus did, that the old is gone and the new has come.

A paedobaptism is a false testimony. It says that a son of Adam is by nature a son of God. Even Jews would never claim such a thing. Every “begat,” every “bar,” was a testimony to earthly lineage. Even they understood the difference between physical offspring and those who represented not their earthly fathers but the heavenly Father. A son of God is one who has Sanctuary access not by the flesh but by the Spirit because they please God, having been slain and lifted up like Ezekiel, leaving that fiery courtroom as His representative on earth, to divide between light and darkness with his words as Adam did not and Jesus did. Jesus did not come to have earthly sons but heavenly ones (Hebrews 2:13), images of Himself not Physically or Socially but Ethically.

Now, my friends like to claim that their sprinkled children have Sanctuary access because they received the Spirit in their baptism and are now a child of God. Some even claim that infants who have not heard the Gospel have faith in God (the stupidity of this still blows me away. Who needs the Gospel, then?). This all stems from their unwillingness to discern the difference between earthly parents and the Eternal Parent, the image and the reality. Here is an example from my otherwise wise friend Toby Sumpter, who tweeted:

 Christians who spank their kids in love are high sacramentalists: they believe the Spirit saves souls through material means (Proverbs 23:14).

This is as confused as the claim that infants are believers because they trust God on their mother’s breast (Psalm 22:9). The Psalmist conflates the heavenly with the earthly poetically because one leads to the other, but they are not the same thing. The natural comes first, and then the spiritual. It is a process of maturity. The entire point of baptism is that one no longer needs to be spanked by one’s parents because one now serves the Father in heaven. Again, baptism is for the inheritor, not the inheritance, for the earthly father, not his babies. When Jesus blessed the children, who was the baptised one? It was Jesus. Somehow, everyone overlooks the obvious because they are looking for support for something else.

The blindness involved in such teaching mystifies me. Baptism is for heavenly sonhood and confers Sanctuary access as a representative of the Father. The only choice for paedobaptists is to eliminate the efficacy of baptism (and deny Sanctuary access) or to maintain the efficacy and minimise the requirement for heart circumcision. Both are really stupid, unbiblical ideas, and the solution is incredibly obvious. But I have no doubt they’ll keep fighting over this for decades to come, trying to unite heaven and earth by the will of man rather than by the true work of God in the hearts of contrite men and women, relying on badly composed, complicated statements by Reformers whose typological skills were not far removed from the sophistries of Rome, and thinking that because they have been sprinkled, witnessed so many sprinklings, and perhaps even performed their own sprinklings, this perversion must be the work of God. (I would draw a helpful diagram to demonstrate the difference between a womb and a tomb, but I haven’t got a crayon. I’m sure you can work it out.)

I hate paedobaptism because I love the Bible, which spits it out at every opportunity. But I also hate paedobaptism because I love the Gospel of repentance and faith, and an inheritance of the Spirit which expresses itself in willing identification with the sufferings of Christ. If this is offensive to you, you neither understand the promises to Abraham, or the promises in Christ. They are very different things, as different as the heavens are from the earth. They are obscured by well-meaning but carnal doctrine.

________________________________________________
[1] Penelope Trunk, 3 Things you need to know about people with Asperger’s.
[2] With such a misguided foundation, it is little wonder that my friend Luke Welch takes things to such shocking but logical conclusions. Apparently, the children of Christians are like Aaronic priests, who were symbolic sacrifices for sin.

Why are there four Gospels? There would be so much less confusion — and theological spade work — if there were just the one. The most obvious answer is that each one was written for a different audience, as described here. The least obvious answer is that God was not only writing the commandments in human flesh, He was also “measuring out” the architecture of the Tabernacle in humanity.

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For seizing the devoted plunder of Jericho, Achan was stoned to death and burned with fire, along with his children, livestock, and all his possessions. This judgment appears to contradict Deuteronomy 24:16, which forbids the punishment of children for the sins of their fathers.

It seems that the solution is architectural. Here’s an excerpt from the forthcoming Sweet Counsel:

. . . . .

Achan’s sin threatened the Covenant Oath taken by a new generation of Israelites and their possession of the promised inheritance. The golden tongue (Head) and Babylonian robe (Body) were false Word and stolen Government, with the rebellious Man unwilling to be the obedient Sacrament.

Tongue Lashing

The Lord’s intention in every case is that the Word from heaven might purify the Mediator (or priesthood), and that this Mediator/priesthood might then speak this Word to purify the nations.

WORD: angels, (Heaven) – Most Holy Place
SACRAMENT: Jews (Land) – Holy Place
GOVERNMENT: Gentiles (Sea) – Temple Courts

At the center of the Bible Matrix (Step 4), the fiery tongue of the Law executes the Sanctions upon Israel and purifies her, as we see in the book of Numbers.
At Step 6, it is the fiery tongues of the newly-purified, newly robed (baptized) members of Israel executing the Sanctions upon the nations, as we see in the book of Joshua. As with all prophets, all mediators, Israel gets tongue-lashed in the wilderness, then Israel becomes the tongue-lasher in the Land. [1]

This explains the apparent contradiction between the judicial stoning of Achan, his family and his livestock, and Deuteronomy 24:16, which prohibited the execution of Israel’s children for the sins of their fathers. Achan’s punishment was an echo of the ban upon the first city of the Gentiles rather than the Covenant Sanctions upon Israel. He was not being “tongue-lashed” as an Israelite but as a Gentile. He had not coveted his neighbor’s house and contents (Exodus 20:17), but that which belonged to God (Joshua 22:20). [2] He was condemned as a Canaanite, but also as part of Jericho, the “Firstfruits” of the Land, a whole burnt (ascension) offering in which “all flesh” was cut off.

ADAM
WORD: God (Father)
SACRAMENT: Man images God (Son)
GOVERNMENT: Animals submit to Man (Spirit)

ACHAN
WORD: Achan as his own “captain” (tongue and robe)
SACRAMENT: Achan’s offspring in the Land
GOVERNMENT: Achan’s livestock as wild beasts

Through unbelief, Achan put his entire house outside of Israel and under the ban. Through faith, Rahab saved everyone in her house, an event which resembled Israel’s Passover. The house of Achan bore the judgment of the house of Rahab, and was buried under a pile of stones.

These two houses represented two brothers, Perez and Zerah, the sons which Tamar bore to Judah. Rahab married into the Messianic line of Perez, and the cutting off of Achan’s family ended the line of Zerah.

_________________________________________
[1] See Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key, 195, for a diagram which demonstrates how the fivefold Torah relates to the sevenfold Dominion pattern.
[2] In the Ten Words, the commands against theft and false witness (the sins of Achan) are followed by the two commands against coveting (house and contents), which together align with the Feast of Booths (ministry to the Gentiles), and the Covenant Succession of Israel. See Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key, 63. and also The Guild of Thieves.
[3] This reversal resembles the twofold “blessing and cursing” of Jericho and Israel by Elisha, and also the reversal of the fates of Naaman and Gehazi.

ART: Joshua, Achan Stoned, Maciejowski Bible (illuminated manuscript).

 And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. (Revelation 6:5)

 The book of Revelation is a mystery, yet like all good mysteries it is a book made entirely of clues. It is a glimpse through the torn veil of the Temple, that is, the flesh of Jesus, into the heavenlies. The cloud into which He was taken up is opened to John’s eyes that he might see the horses and chariots of God (2 Kings 6:17). But John is a prophet who knows the Bible, and like John we will only understand the symbols if we know the Bible. The conversation at God’s table is for those who know their Master’s mind, who hear His voice as children and thus quit themselves like men. To them, this is indeed a Revelation. To those outside His commission, it remains an enigma, terrible lightning and thunder and the sound of trumpets (Exodus 19:19; 20:18).

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“Modern commentators seem to overlook the promise of children in Genesis 1, and how these unmentioned ‘innocents,’ yet in Adam’s loins, are silent but crucial characters in Genesis 3.”

When Paul refers to Abraham as the father of all who believe, the one through whom all nations would be blessed (Romans 4:9-22), we must be prepared to interpret his inspired words through the lens of the House of God, the ever-present architecture of Eden.

The Name of the Father

God’s household in heaven was a tent of servants—the angels—but there was only one Son, through whom came all Creation. This means that the first verses of John’s Gospel, which describe the pre-incarnate Word, can tell us a great deal about God’s intentions for Adam, the incarnate image of God. All that Jesus was in heaven, Adam was to be on earth:

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“What is in the nature of these materials?”

The Bauhaus, founded in Germany in 1919 by architect Walter Gropius, had a profound influence in every area of design, from graphics and typography to clothing, furniture and architecture. The institution was not so much a style as a method, its philosophy based on the idea that if something is well-designed it will be beautiful of its own accord. The means to this end involved the founding of an art school where every student was also a tradesman, and every tradesman was also an artist. The Bauhaus manifesto expresses Gropius’ desire to unite the trades and the arts that their works might possess the grace of an inseparable marriage of function (design) and form (beauty).

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