Bully's Blog

“…of the angels He says:
‘Who makes His angels spirits
and His ministers a flame of fire.’”

God is the source of all things, and He identifies Himself as such in His speeches. Every speech is Covenantal, and every preamble within His speeches is a statement of transcendence. “I am the Lord your God.”

After the initial call comes delegation, Covenantal Hierarchy. A man, a Moses, an Abraham, receives the Word with meekness.

We know that angels are God’s messengers, the sent ones. They administered the Old Covenant as our tutors, Satan becoming the first false teacher, the first corrupt ambassador, or, if you will, the first publican.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
Continue reading

The Word of God is architectural. Like Solomon, the apostles understood that there is a time to build up and a time to tear down. Here is one of John’s blueprints: Continue reading

The Mosaic Tabernacle was silent. It was a place of mysterious words, dark sayings, carried out in secret. Eventually, it was violated, torn apart. It was the body of death, with sacrifices of blood carried out by Israelite priests. Like circumcision, it was a place of silent witness (the tablets) and the cutting off of the old leaven. (The fact that Hannah was not drunk makes this her holy war – the OC ministers of death could not drink wine in God’s presence.)

The tent was resurrected as the Tabernacle of David, an open place of dancing and loud music, with a new body of worshippers, both Jews and Gentiles. It was a new body of life, the flesh and the blood reunited in an impossible hybrid, with sacrifices of praise. [1] Like baptism, it was a place of reunion and bold testimony.

Hannah’s prayer was silent. She mouthed the words with a despair that felt like death. But after the miraculous delivery of the desired son, (offered to the Tabernacle as a symbolic ascension) she prayed aloud. Continue reading

“His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” Luke 3:17

“I came to send fire on the Land, and how I wish it were already kindled!”
Luke 12:49

Feasts in Isaiah 8:1-18

Creation

Moreover the LORD said to me (Transcendence – Creation)
…..“Take a large scroll, (Hierarchy – Division – Firmament)
……….and write on it with a man’s pen (Ascension – Land and Man-Face)
……………concerning Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. (Ethics – Testing)
……….“And I will take for Myself faithful witnesses to record,
……….(Maturity – 2 witnesses)
…..Uriah the priest (Mediator Man – Conquest)
and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah (Covenant succession/offspring – Glorification)

This is just the first stanza of seven, being the Creation-Word. In the second, the prophet goes on his mission (delegation or “exodus”), and the Lawsuit “Word” becomes flesh. Continue reading

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you
and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.” Matthew 21:43

We unpacked the “face of the deep” of Day 1 and the “flat universe” created on Day 2. Time to analyse Day 3! Continue reading

Joshua Marchlewski has outlined the chiasm in Leviticus 24:13-23 (reposted here with his permission): Continue reading

The Wrong Kind of Blood, the Wrong Kind of Spirit

These six things the LORD hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:
…..A proud look,
……….A lying tongue,
……………Hands that shed innocent blood,
………………..A heart that devises wicked plans,
……………Feet that are swift in running to evil,
……….A false witness who speaks lies,
…..And one who sows discord among brethren. (Proverbs 6: 6-19)

Although Revelation describes two women, there was really only one. Solomon dealt with two prostitutes who lived in the same house. What Revelation does is cut the prostitute in two. At Atonement, Rahab was separated from Jericho; Mary Magdalene was delivered of her seven demons. Peter Leithart writes:

“Mary Magdalene functions in the same way in John’s gospel. She had seven demons (like Israel in Jesus’ parable!), but by the end of the book has become a new Eve, recognising Jesus as the New Adam in the garden of the resurrection. Since she is new Eve, it is entirely appropriate that Jesus call her ‘Woman’.” [1]

Continue reading

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. Continue reading

“When you read the Bible, be careful of adopting a bunch of mechanical rules to read by… You know, you can go to the Christian bookstore, or the seminary bookstore, and you can get books by popular writers and by professors of theology on how to read the Bible: ‘rules for reading.’ And there is much that is useful and good in some or all of those books. But we must ask ourselves, what other book have you ever read using rules? Do you have a book of rules to read the newspaper by? Or if you want to read a novel by Jane Austen, must you consult a book of interpretive laws? Or a textbook on American history? Or do you just read it? It’s kind of odd that we have covered the Bible up with ‘rules on how to read.’ We don’t read anything else by rules. So what’s going on here? Continue reading

“Let’s face it, even daytime television
is more inspiring than your sermons.”

Ray Sutton’s 5-point Covenant model is crucial when it comes to making sense of the judgments of God, both the blessings and the curses. As he says in his book That You May Prosper, “Everyone talks about the Covenant, but nobody does anything about it.”

When I was writing Totus Christus, I thought it was only natural that the 7-point Creation pattern and the 5-point Covenant pattern could be combined. Transcendence is Light. Testing and Ethics matched. The positive and negative Sanctions were quite obviously the two goats on the Day of Atonement (Ebal and Gerizim). So it was only a matter of figuring out how the 5 of Words becomes a 7 in history. [1] Continue reading