Bully's Blog

or OH&S in Eden

I mentioned in a post the other day that silver is bridal, and that silver was relegated to the tent poles, the outer court, until the Tabernacle died, was resurrected and transfigured into the Temple of Solomon. [1] The reason was that the Sanctuary was the King’s Court, a place that was not safe for criminals. It demanded that justice be satisfied with a constant presentation of fresh blood.

As bloody circumcision was a symbol of the enmity between Jew and Gentile, the Tabernacle was a bloody symbol of the enmity between men and God. The Old Covenant was bloody walls and bars and gates. Everything touched by man was unclean, and everything touched by God was exterminated. Israel was a quarantine, a sterile airlock, between God and the nations.

Standing face to face with God (as Facebread) was a role for a bloodied Adam (either his blood or the serpent’s). [2] The Old Covenant was an ongoing courtroom battle, between the Accuser and the accused, and the bloody battlefield is not a place for women or children.

Under Solomon, gold was so plenteous that silver was counted as nothing (1 Kings 10:21). So the incorporation of silver into the Temple furniture was a prefigurement of the New Covenant, a bridal Covenant where Eve was indeed the mother of all living, a glorious, ubiquitous church.

So, Christ was the Tabernacle, a tent where all the glory was hidden on the inside. By His death, justice was satisfied and Eve was invited to stand alongside her husband in the Garden sanctuary, now that the glory of the Law was revealed, or on the “outside.”

“This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee,
and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”
(John 2:11).

But what was Eve invited to do, now that the Holy Place was safe?

The Bible history is full of Covenant heads, true and false, and Covenant bodies, true and false. Satan continually attempts to gather the nations against God’s people and their true worship. But the only true gathering is that of the Spirit. [3]

James Jordan observes that Jesus, unlike Adam, protected His “bride” when the serpent-soldiers came to arrest Him. He stood in the gap as Mediator, a human shield. The bride is His army, His disciples, a true gathering.

So too with Joshua, who invited his men, his “bridal army” to stand on the necks of the five kings gathered under the false “Covenant head” of Adoni-Zedek, king of Jerusalem (a bad Melchi-Zedek, a false “priest of the nations”, an anti-Christ). It was the true gathering against the false one.

Adam (Table of the Bread of the Face) steps in between Eve (the Incense Altar) and the serpent (false Lampstand), and crushes its head, snuffs its lights out. [4] He is then given the mantle, the tutorial authority of the Wise Serpent–a promotion. As Lampstand-teacher he invites his bride to partake in his victory. She becomes joint-heir by placing her foot on the neck of the serpent before Adam lops off its head and hangs the false body high on a pole, to be eaten by the birds and other beasts, under the curse of the Law of God which it deliberately twisted for its own purposes (remember King Saul). Eve becomes an army of ten silver-and-gold lampstands.

“And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” Romans 16:20

This has huge implications for worship, but particularly for the role of women in ministry.

New Testament worship fulfills the Old. Women are now allowed into the space which fulfills the Holy Place as helpers BECAUSE IT IS SAFE. The serpent has been defeated and expelled. But Adam had to go in there, into the cave-tomb, first, and sprinkle His own blood. Women cannot stand and image the MOST HOLY. They can only enter into the tomb after Adam has left it clean and empty. That is the job of an Adam, always. Adam forms a safe place and Eve fills it. It is no less true in our worship today. It is not a cultural thing. Nor is it a Jew-Gentile thing. It is a Creational thing, and will last until the male/female divide is finally made obsolete by glory.

The Most Holy is not an equal opportunity zone. [5] This is the one place where church and state are entirely separate. The triune architecture, top-down, is

Garden
Land
World

or

Most Holy
Holy
Courts

or

Word
Sacrament
Government.

The outflow of the Word is also top-down (or bottom-up because the Most Holy is also a grave). So Deborah the Judgess, Margaret Thatcher and Julia Gillard are nowhere near the Most Holy. They are in Government, which is in the Outer Court. And they are only there as a judgment of God upon our culture. When Israel sinned, God judged them out of the mouths of their “babes” who had memorized the Law (Deut. 31:21; Matt. 21:16). When we lack vertebrate males, women and children rule over us.

But Jesus stands as a Lamp at the right hand of the Father. His foot is on the serpent’s head, binding him, so that he cannot gather the nations until the end of history, and only then for a short season. Why? Because Jesus is gathering the nations, and He does it by inviting us to stand on the neck of the fiery snakes that threatened us before He was lifted up. [7]

___________________________________________
[1] See No Bronze Wedding.
[2] See The Holy Headbutt.
[3] See Totus Diabolus, There Can Only Be One and Under Your Feet.
[4] See Fighting Over the Children.
[5] See Liturgical Man, Liturgical Woman.
[6] These verses have nothing whatsoever to do with baptism or “paedofaith.” It is the one subject concerning which a level-headed, Spirit-filled Presbyterian or Anglican will handle the Word with the contextual dexterity of a Jehovah’s Witness or a Tim LaHaye.
[7] See Twelve Thrones.