Bully's Blog

Or Old Covenant baptism

“The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes.”  Numbers 15:38-39

Every Israelite was to wear a robe with four blue tassels. The Hebrew word for tassel is the same as for wing. Israel, as mediator-nation between heaven and earth, flew about in the air between heaven and the abyss. Malachi prophesied that the Messiah, the Sun of righteousness would come with healing in His wings, or, healing in His tassels. The four blue reminders of the letter of the Law would no longer bring death, but life.

The sick woman in Matthew 9 touched the hem of His robe and was healed of a disease that made her ceremonially unclean (see also Matt. 14:36; Mark 6:56). She had touched the curtain of a new Tabernacle and her sin was identified with Him instead of with her. The flow of blood (death-by-Torah) was stopped, and a flow of cleansing water was begun. We have to take things a little deeper to get the full picture.

Circumcision is this death, and every male Israelite was circumcised. The “fountain of life” was purified with the shedding of blood. But then, every Israelite (not just the men as far as I can tell) was robed with four tassels. This is baptism. Every Israelite was a picture of the slain Lamb at the centre of the New Jerusalem, a four-cornered city with water flowing out to heal the nations.

The beginning of life is bloodshed in the secret place, the Most Holy, the source of the life-giving Word. The first word of the Bible is b’reishit, “in the beginning”, or literally “at the head.” And the end of life is a river of living water as an open reward–godly offspring. Both are sacrificial. Adam’s blood, Eve as city; circumcision as protology, baptism as eschatology (or teleology?). Passover and Atonement. Head and body.

The Law kills, but the Spirit gives life. But the Spirit can’t give resurrection life until after the Law kills. Salvation comes after conviction of sin. Baptism comes after salvation. By Jesus’ life-giving blood, the Torah becomes an instrument of life instead of death. The Word washes us instead of incinerating us.

The Israelite robes, symbolising mediatory government, were Old Covenant baptism. Every person was a miniature mountain of God, with blood sacrifice as a foundation, and four rivers flowing out across the world.

Jesus stopped the flow of blood (Daniel 9:27) and began the flow of resurrection water, a sign of heavenly government on earth, a picture of the four walls of the crystal city.

The cross fulfilled circumcision. The four tassels are fulfilled in the four horsemen of the gospel, the saints carrying the cleansing Laver to the four corners of the earth.

Zechariah 8:23 : “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, “Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.”‘”

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See also:
Baptismal Wings
Crystal Walls 1 – God’s Bouncers
Crystal Walls 2 – Godly Intolerance
The Altar of the Abyss – 7
Comparing Apples with Apples
The Law is our Tool