“…life should still feel a bit more like chaos. It should feel more like the downside of the roller coaster. The life of faith flips the stomach. The Trinity is the God of surprises. Asses talk; water catches fire; the sun reverses; demons cry. And the God-man unhinges all of medicine by walking out of His tomb. Christ holds everything together, but He’s known for living on pinnacles. He doesn’t like to tell us the end of our stories. He’s teaching us how to live in the Trinity.”

Art: Brooklyn Museum – Jesus Carried up to a Pinnacle of the Temple (Jésus porté sur le pinacle du Temple) – James Tissot

During the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, the LORD said to me, “Jeremiah, since the time Josiah was king, I have been speaking to you about Israel, Judah, and the other nations. Now, get a scroll and write down everything I have told you, then read it to the people of Judah. Maybe they will stop sinning when they hear what terrible things I plan for them. And if they turn to me, I will forgive them”… (CEV) Jeremiah 36:1-3

God’s Covenants are always temporary. Every Covenant is a to and fro. It reflects the Word sent to the Son by the Spirit and the “bridal abundance” received in return by the Father. The Word is often pictured as a scroll, for obvious reasons. Scrolls were written and sealed with wax. The seal was temporary, something to protect the confidentiality of the contents, but something to be broken once the document reached its intended destination. The Bible Matrix makes plain the symbols used by God to illustrate this step in the Covenantal order of all He has made.

In the Creation week, Light is the Transcendent Lawmaker, and a seal is set upon this Covenant document on Day 2. It is the firmament, a scroll that is stretched out, opened, but one that hides heaven from earth. [1]

In the Tabernacle, it is the Veil, hiding Man from the consuming fire of the Covenant in the Ark.

In the Covenant/Dominion pattern, it is the delegation of a human representative (or representatives) who are sent to speak this word. At this point, Joseph receives a robe. Just like the Veil — and the firmament — Joseph’s robe was intended by God to be torn and bloodied as a witness that the Word had been carried out. In darkness, the delegated Man is made prostrate. He falls on his face and God writes on him as a living epistle. The Word is engraved into him, and he receives it with meekness (Jas. 1:21). The Man then makes an Exodus with the scroll, or rather, as the scroll.

The third step is the unsealing of the document. This occurs at the Ascension of the delegated Man, the Covenant head. The Man is Moses on the mountain, opening the Law to God’s people. We see this throughout the Old Testament, and in the gospels. Interestingly, pretty much every time an Apostle stands up to preach in the Book of Acts, it is at Ascension. The Apostles themselves had become Tables spread with bread and wine, and were unsealing the invitation to God’s people. But the invitations of God are bittersweet. They always contain blessings and curses.

Revelation completes the book Daniel was commanded to close, to “seal up,” concerning “what is to happen to your people in the latter days” (Daniel 10:14). The latter days refers to the Restoration era, the Covenant restored in Zechariah, and they ended in AD70. The book was closed because the time was in the distant future, half a millennium away.

Now John was given visions because that time had arrived. The latter days were coming to an end. Jesus’ warning was in no way a generic, long-term “picture book”. It was an urgent seismic alert to those on the empire-Land. But it was also an invitation to a New Covenant, a new Creation:

(Revelation 1:1-3:)

TRANSCENDENCE
Creation – Genesis
The revelation
…..of Jesus Christ,
……….which God gave him
……………to show
……….to his servants
…..the things
that must soon take place.

HIERARCHY
Division – Exodus
He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

ETHICS
Ascension – Leviticus
who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ,

Testing – Numbers
even to all that he saw. (Governing Law-Lights)

Maturity – Deuteronomy
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy,

SANCTIONS
Conquest – Joshua
and blessed are those who hear,
and who keep what is written in it,

SUCCESSION
Glorification – Judges
for the time is near.

Notice that the first “week” or “seven” is a microcosm of the entire introduction. In the first week (Sabbath), it is Jesus who is the delegate. Then it is the angel, the messenger, sent to speak to John. (In Revelation 5, there are seven blessings that correspond to the seven ruling lights in their order of ascension. Mercury, the messenger, is number 2.)

At Ascension, John is the bread-and-wine, the sacrifice on the Bronze Altar. The reference to sight at the centre (Testing) is a common one, and here it corresponds to the “show” in the first sequence.

Then at Maturity, it is the angels of the resurrected body, the church, who are to speak the words aloud as Moses did to the new generation of Israel.

At Conquest, the division between the goats is the difference between those who merely hear the words, and those who both hear and keep them.

Finally, at Glorification, we have Covenant succession, and a reference to the final line in the first stanza. Here it is ironic, however, because the Revelation is the final word concerning the Old Covenant. The final point concerns the future of the Covenant, but the Old Covenant had no future. Its generations, including its genealogies, were about to be cut off and thrown into the fire. [2]

But every time Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king would tell him to cut them off with his penknife and throw them in the fire. Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, but he ignored them, and soon there was nothing left of it. The king and his servants listened to what was written on the scroll, but they were not afraid, and they did not tear their clothes in sorrow. (CEV) Jeremiah 36:23 25

The Jewish rulers tore up the New Covenant, so the Lord tore up the Old. Removing the Veil brought them face to face with God’s Law.

This pattern structures the entire book of Revelation. It expands and expands like ripples from a pebble dropped into a pond, or more correctly, like soundwaves from the very Source of the Created Order. At Ascension, Jesus is presented as The Firstfruits Lamb, the Man on the Altar, Bread and Wine. He is the first Man worthy to open the scroll. Was this the scroll sealed up by Daniel? In one sense, yes, because although the opening of the New Covenant ended the entire Old Testament construct of centralised worship, its last incarnation was the Restoration Covenant. That is what Jesus was about to judge.

Daniel ascended to the right hand of King Nebuchadnezzar and opened the mystery of the next 500 years. But its very end was to be sealed, TOP SECRET. The Covenant that had been stretched out in Zechariah as a new heavens was about to be rolled back up, snapping shut upon those who refused to enter the New Order. What was in the secret document? The mystery of Jews and Gentiles in one body. The rejection of this truth was the offense that sealed the doom of those who were the “unwise” of Daniel 12. They failed to realise that every Covenant installed a “Jewish” head and was supposed to return to God with a hybrid body, an arkful of animals, ie. Gentile worshippers. The Restoration Covenant, despite the fact that many scholars fail to even acknowledge its existence, actually succeeded. Even while certain Jews and all the Judaizers were hardening their hearts to God’s fresh work, Gentile God-fearers were crawling out of the woodwork and coming to Jesus, their Noah, their Rest.

Tragically, but perfectly, the firstfruits church was the torn, bloodied robe presented to the Father before Jerusalem’s doom. The mystery of the Gospel was opened as a testimony for all time, for all subsequent history. It was publicly shouted from the rooftops. Even these saints, these martyrs were sealed as Covenant documents, with the earnest of the Spirit, only to be torn open. The Apostolic epistles are Covenant documents, witnesses both for the first-century prosecution of the Covenant-breakers and the first-century defense of the Covenant-keepers. To read them in any other way is to miss the point.

Well, I’ve slammed modern evangelicals. Now it’s time for the hyperpreterists. The scroll that was unsealed by Christ in early Revelation is not the scroll that snapped shut later in the book. The New Covenant was opened, but it is still open. This new, friendly sky will remain open until this Covenant, too, has carried out its work.

Another thought: The seal placed by the Jewish authorities (with the Romans in cahoots, ie. harlot riding beast) on Jesus’ tomb symbolised their deliberate intention of maintaining the integrity of the Old Covenant. Case closed. But the Old Covenant was designed to die, to be completed, to be opened, in the New. When the stone was removed, the seal was broken. The day dawned. What was loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven at the Ascension.

Application: The seal of the Spirit is not something to “keep me safe until heaven.” If I fail to live publicly for Christ, I remain a Covenant document with an unbroken seal, a message whose contents were intended by God to be sounded as Trumpets and poured out as Bowls.

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[1] See Firmament of Flesh.
[2] See Pedigree Papers.

Nothing could save the circumcision.
How do you save death itself?

To recap, the basic structure we have been contemplating is this:

F A T H E R  > < S O N  +  B R I D E
and
F A T H E R  > B R I D E <  S O N

The Tabernacle was a three storey building laid out upon the ground. Upright, it was the true Babel (I guess Christ was the first truly upright Tabernacle then, in His resurrection. The Old Covenant was a new body made from the dust, but still prostrate, awaiting the breathing in of the Spirit.) If we put this structure upright, we see the picture given to us in human relationships as holy architecture.

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[1] See Worship as Commerce and Unashamed Artisans.
[2] So the Trinity debunks hyperpreterism.

Infinite Room series links here.
INFROOM

“In my Father’s house are many mansions…”

There are various covenants in the Bible, just as there are in human life. Covenants are the way God does things.

He calls a representative,
…..delegates His authority,
……….gives the mission,
……………allows time for it
……….to be accomplished,
…..assesses the outcome
and throws a party.

If the outcome is good, the delegate and his mission subjects are invited to the feast. If the outcome is bad, the delegated head and his corrupt body are the meat on the table. And the Holy Ones rejoice over their doom. There is always an outcome, a reckoning, a succession, an “offspring.”

A Working Relationship

Covenants are thus “working” relationships. There is no permanent rest in this life because life is covenantal. It is a job. Covenant is an opportunity to relate to God either positively or negatively. Neutrality is impossible. Doug Wilson writes:

“…The claims of Christ are therefore total. There is no way to read through the New Testament and miss this. The claims of Christ are total. He is the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and over any creature that can be named. Christ is King. Jesus is Lord. This is the basic Christian confession (Romans 10:9-10). And here, if you are not with Him, you are therefore against Him. There is no spiritual equivalent of Switzerland. In the cosmic war between light and darkness, there are no neutral parties, and there is no third way. There are only two activities in every realm of human existence, and those two activities are obedient gathering and disobedient scattering. Only two.” [1]

This New Covenant is the Adamic Covenant transfigured. The Great Commission is the Adamic Commission transfigured. Flesh has become Spirit. The very act of being human is a Covenant within which we live and move and have our being. We are never outside of a Covenant. James Jordan writes:

“…human beings can never be covenantally neutral before God. Some would say that human beings are, by nature, outside of any covenant with God. Then God enters into covenants or contracts with people, such as the covenant of works or the covenant of grace, or the various specific covenants in Bible history. I maintained that this conception does not go far enough. Human beings, the images of God, are by nature covenantally related to God. Some would say that human beings are always in covenant with God, but which covenant they are in varies from time to time. We can never be outside of a covenant, but there are various covenants. This notion I also rejected. There is but One Covenant, which is the intra-trinitarian life of God. Human beings were created already woven into that life as “junior partners.” Human beings would mature in the covenant from being apprentices to being journeymen, but God would always be the Master. Thus, I taught, human beings are always related to this One Covenant. They may become negatively related to it through sin, in which case they feel the anger of God and the curse of the One Covenant, but they never escape the Covenant. To be a human being is to be in covenant with God, one way or another. Also, our covenantal relationship with God may mature and go through various stages and phases, but it is always the same One Covenant. The New Covenant, I argued, is the Adamic Covenant completed through transfiguration.” [2]

All biblical Covenants image the Trinity. The Father is the Covenant Lord…

F A T H E R >  S O N

…and the Son His willing vassal, the One in Whom He is pleased.

F A T H E R <  S O N

This presupposes a binary foundation for reality, and yet God is Triune. What is the Covenantal work of the Third Person?

The Holy Place

The Trinity is the ultimate Covenant within which we live and move and have our being. The Son is the perfect image of the Father, and the Spirit is the to and fro between them. The Spirit is both the initiating Word from the Father, and the evidence of the “Covenant faithfulness” response of the Son. This “place between,” created by initiation and reflection, is an infinite room.

F A T H E R >  S P I R I T  <  S O N

This relationship is echoed throughout the Creation at many levels. In fact, it was the means of Creation.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Despite modern cosmology’s view that the position of the earth is entirely random, the heavens and the earth are in a binary Covenantal relationship. Like Israel, there is nothing in the earth (the Covenantal “Land”) of itself that makes it worthy of “esteem.” What makes it special is the irrevocable Covenant call of God. Heaven speaks, earth submits and brings forth fruit. The search for extraterrestrial life is futile. No other world is in Covenant with God. (Not yet anyway. Jordan thinks postmillennialism includes such an expanded dominion of the New Adam.) The Spirit was between — hovering, vibrating, fluttering — over the waters. Word creates an open place and obedience fills it. The Spirit is in operation in both these directions, mediating to and fro. The Holy Place in the Tabernacle was the place between. It was a place of blood presented (the Table) and fruitful fire (the “almond tree” burning bush of the Lampstand).

The Third Person

Like the white stone and black stone in the pouch on the breastplate of the High Priest, all history is binary in Word. But our obedience or disobedience within this “working relationship” has an outcome. The outcome, the fruit, makes the relationship triune. Whether positively (blessing) or negatively (cursing), we are always within a Covenant as mediators between heaven and earth. [4] So, of necessity, there are two kinds of spirit with which we may be filled. James tells us to test the spirits of those who claim to be in relationship with God to see whether they are truly of God. The identity of this “third person” is the evidence of the nature of the relationship. We are known — either vindicated or exposed — by our fruits, our outcomes.

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” (James 3:17)

We see this to and fro in the Bible Matrix as the Covenant “Ethics” become Ascension – Testing – Maturity. From Father to Son it is Law-Word. From Son to Father it is Obedience. For the Father is it Pleasure. It is Priestly Sword, Holy Fire, Fragrant Smoke. The Holy Place was also a place filled with fragrant smoke from the Incense Altar. The Word divides to create a bloody Holy Place and the Obedience of the Son fills it with delight. The obedience of the Son is a “soothing aroma,” but as this takes on flesh in history, the “smoke” represents the Bride, the mother of all the living. This fruitfulness, the fullness of the Spirit, the evidence of the “Covenant faithfulness” of the Son — is a Third Person. The Third Person is the Spirit’s identity and the Spirit’s work. _____________________________________________________
[1] Doug Wilson, The Politics of Sodomy
[2] James B. Jordan, An Introduction to the Seven-fold Covenant Model, with Notes on the Five-fold Covenant Model, Biblical Horizons Occasional Paper No. 29. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com
[3] See God’s Gamble.
[4] This has implications for theistic evolution. See Hugh Ross and a Shotgun.

Infinite Room series links here.
INFROOM

A gripping sermon from Doug Jones in 2007. He contrasts unitarian and trinitarian worldviews.

For the unitarian, freedom is removing obstacles in the way of my destiny. I am my own master. “Hell is other people.” I end up a slave, alone in the void. For the trinitarian, it means removing obstacles for others. God is my Master, and His service is freedom. I am never alone. Freedom is found within the constraints of fellowship.

Doug covers a lot of ground, including how unitarianism has played out in Western society and U.S. foreign policy. It is well worth a listen.

Whose Freedom Are You?

This beautiful gem from Paul Huxley (reposted here with his permission):

A man finds some treasure in a field, he covers it up, joyfully buys the field and gets the treasure. Does that sound familiar? That’s right. It’s the plot of the book Ruth.

A man, Boaz, finds a treasure in a field (2:4), he covers it up (implied by 3:9), joyfully buys the field (4:9-10) and gets the treasure (4:13).

Of course, you’ll recognise the story from Matthew 13:44.

In the circles I’m in, we’re quick to point out that Boaz is a type of Christ, redeeming his people (sometimes understood corporately, sometimes singularly, occasionally referring to the gentiles). However, the parable in Matthew 13 is always us finding the treasure of the gospel, giving up everything we have for the Kingdom of heaven.

Because the God is three-in-one, I don’t have a beef with either of these, nor having multiple correct understandings of the same passage. But I think we could do with some sharper thinking on Matthew 13.

This post partly sponsored by ‘who the man?’ on Christ the Truth.

If you’ve read my book you’ll be familiar with the Bible Matrix’s correspondence of the ark animals, plunder, Gentile brides, and Gentile money offered to support the Jerusalem church during a famine.[1] Systematic typology opens a lot of doors.

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[1] See What the Seraphim Really Said.

A commonly held opinion is that Samson was stupid. However, his earlier acts were inspired by the influence of the Spirit, carefully calculated, spectacularly executed and achieved the desired results.

For instance, Samson only told his wife the answer to his riddle so he would know where the leak came from when she was tested.

This reminded me of the test for harlotry in Numbers 5. The priest administers the bitter word to the woman, and if she passes the test, she will be a fruitful blessing.

Samson’s wife failed the test, and the outcome was a bit like that after the harlotry with the golden calf, with Samson as the slaughtering Levite.

Speaking of which, Numbers 5 comes right before Numbers 6 — the Nazirite vow. Men who took this vow became, basically, warrior brides. Their uncut hair was a sign of submission. Revelation draws on this imagery to describe the apostles and first century saints as virgins.

So Samson’s wife betrayed him, and Samson betrayed his own covenant ‘husband,’ the Lord.

Doug Wilson points out (somewhere) that biblical relationships are more complex than those of Islam. In Islam, the line of authority is linear, the natural outcome of a simple god of power. Might is right, from top to bottom. With Christianity, the submission of the members of the Trinity within the Godhead overflows into family and society, with the members submitting to one another, and constantly bestowing good upon one another.

So Samson can be both a bride and a bridegroom. Facing heaven, a minister is part of the bride. Facing his church, he images the bridegroom.