Bully's Blog

God uses symbols not only to reveal the spiritual character of physical people and events, but also to demonstrate their relationships to each other.

For instance, when Satan is called a serpent, it is because he is using the weapon of deceit, spewing it out of his mouth like counterfeit living water. When Satan is called a dragon, he is using the weapon of death, inciting a mob or government to kill God’s people.

The land and the sea are the physical land and sea in Genesis, but once God narrows His focus down to a priestly nation, Israel becomes the Land, and the Gentiles become the Sea. This demonstrates the boundary set by God between Jews and Gentiles. When Israel sins, the Gentiles rush in like a flood.

“…the conquest of Jerusalem corresponds to the initial battle of the conquest of Canaan, the destruction of Jericho. This comparison is true not only in the generic sense that both cities came under God’s condemnation, but in the more specific sense that both marked the first battle of a war of conquest. By Jesus’ day, many Jews had become Egyptians and Canaanites (Rev. 11:8). During the first generation, the church was like Israel in the wilderness, awaiting permission to enter on their full inheritance and letting the sins of the Canaanites become full. Conquest there was in the first generation, as there was before Jericho; but it was the second generation, those who lived through and beyond the destruction of Jerusalem, who first entered fully into the land of the new creation. The wilderness imagery of Hebrews 4 is, on this reading, applicable specifically to the generation living between 30 and 70. When that generation had passed, Jericho was destroyed and the conquest of the whole Abrahamic inheritance began in earnest.”

Matthew quotes Isaiah 53:4 to explain how Jesus removes illness and uncleanness (Matthew 8:17). Jesus radiates life, and that life heals the sick and raises the dead. Jesus also accepts death and uncleanness on Himself, to be borne away on the cross. This latter process shows Jesus as temple. Milgrom says that the tabernacle is Israel’s “picture of Dorian Gray,” the magnet where the uncleanness and sin of Israel registers. Jesus the new temple is the new picture of Dorian Gray.

You will remember that St. Paul is another Jonah and he takes the Gospel to the Gentiles. He forsakes the Jews and, in fact, at the end of Acts 28, he really casts them off and says judgment has come upon them to the uttermost. Of course, a few years later it does—in the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet Paul says, if it were possible, I wish that I could be damned for my brethren in Israel.

Paul had the same attitude as Jonah had, of wanting to see his own people saved. But unlike Jonah, Paul is willing to obey God… he sees that God has compassion on the Gentiles in and of themselves. Jonah, however, has to be persuaded of this. Jonah is so concerned about his own congregation back home that he doesn’t want to take the Gospel elsewhere for fear that it will have bad results in Israel.

James B. Jordan, The Book of Jonah lectures www.wordmp3.com

“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)

Like Joshua’s spies, Ezekiel and the Lord had spied out Jericho. The “seeing” was now over. The Temple had been measured right down to the hidden things. Judgment always begins at God’s house, so the Lord called for the Levite executioners and ordered them to begin their slaughter at the Temple. Six men with weapons appeared from the north gate, the gate of sacrifice. With a seventh man in linen, the men would pass through the city as seven trumpets, announcing its destruction. They stood beside the bronze altar, ready to offer the people as an atonement for the innocent blood shed on the Land. With that allusion to Abel, we next have an allusion to Cain. Cain was shown mercy and given a mark on his forehead to prevent his execution for the murder of his brother. As Samuel anointed David with oil from a horn from the Tabernacle, those who cried for the abominations committed in the Land were marked for mercy from the man’s inkhorn. These were marked with a tav —a Hebrew t—a cross, the seal of the Spirit.

The man with the inkhorn wore linen, which implies two things: he was the high priest, and it was the day of atonement. Ezekiel didn’t realise it at the time, but when he saw this man, he was looking at himself (Ezekiel 43:3).

We think that it is good simply for a man to love, for example, forgetting that it depends entirely upon what he loves. After all, John told us to love not the world, or the things in it. We believe it is a sin to hate, forgetting that this depends upon whatwe hate. But is the hatred according to the Word or not? We think that it is a virtue to tolerate, forgetting that the Lord Jesus rebuked a church for tolerating that woman Jezebel. Everything hinges on what we are tolerating, and our global love for smooth words indicates that what we are mostly tolerating is our own hardness of heart.

Douglas Wilson www.dougwils.com

The prime mover in history is always God. God creates the world and tells men what to do, and men do it, and then God comes and judges them, and tells them to do something else. History moves when God speaks. That is the reason preaching is so important. When the word of God is sounded out into a culture, history begins to move. People can no longer remain neutral, or pretend to be neutral.

James B. Jordan, The Book of Jonah lectures www.wordmp3.com

After the altar was rebuilt and the foundation for the Temple was restored, local opposition and intimidation brought a halt to construction. God’s people compromised and there was peace, but it was the stillness of stagnant water. The Lord used two witnesses, Haggai and Zechariah, as shoulders to lift the capstone.

Haggai dealt with the practical consequences of the people’s failure to complete the Temple. No matter how hard they worked, the Lord made sure their pockets had holes. Without making the house of God a priority they could not prosper. Haggai also encouraged them with promises, which included a prediction that the Lord would soon shake the nations and bring their riches to Judah. James Jordan pictures this as the Lord holding a man upside down and shaking all the money out of his pockets.

Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts… (Haggai 2:4-7)

The fulfilment of this is recorded in the book of Esther. The author of Hebrews understood the pattern. He quoted Haggai before the next great plunder of the Lord’s enemies (Hebrews 12:26), but in that day the plunder, and the house, would be spiritual and eternal.

There is no other world to compare God’s world to. There is no “music” except God’s. It can be “played” well or perversely, but there are no other raw materials at hand. God’s personality is fully displayed in the world, but it is easy for us to become deaf to this fact.

The Bible tells us that this deafness and blindness is sin: “For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened (Romans 1:21). This verse describes the origin of secular philosophy. The sinner does not want to see God’s personality displayed in His works, and so he comes up with alternative explanations of the universe. The “universe simply is.” In philosophy, this “is-ness” is called “Being.” Ultimately, all non-Christian philosophy assumes that the universe is uncreated and made of neutral “Being.” Such a universe is silent.

For the Christian, however, the universe is created by God, and constantly speaks of Him… All the world has been made with God’s stamp on it, revealing Him.

The universe and everything in it symbolises God. That is, the universe and everything in it points to God. This means that the Christian view of the world is and can only be fundamentally symbolic. The world does not exist for its own sake, but as a revelation of God.

James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes, p.22-23

Nebuchadnezzar fought hard against historical Tyre, but was not able to plunder it. Was Ezekiel wrong? Or does Ezekiel’s prediction of Tyre’s total destruction support the identification of the subject of this prophesy as Judah? It was Judah whose (bronze) pillars were brought down and her foundations made a bare rock. The Lord would instead pay his faithful Babylonian “servant” with the riches of Egypt (29:19-20).

The imagery of Pharaoh’s descent to Sheol in chapter 32 has the Exodus in mind. Egypt’s armies would be swallowed by Babylon in the way Pharaoh’s armies drowned in the Red Sea. All the uncircumcised nations would welcome him to hell, and Egypt is the last army to be drowned and made unable to cross over into the new world the Lord was creating.

Of the imagery reprised in Revelation, the foremost is that of a dragon of the Nile, most likely a crocodile. Pharaoh thought he was secure in the fertility of the river, but the Lord would put hooks in his jaws and throw him into the wilderness. The crocodile would be food for birds and beasts, a Covenant curse. Ezekiel is once again making a veiled insult against the king of Israel, using Pharaoh’s behaviour as an object lesson. Israel’s mission was to bring the river of life to the nations but she had instead brought them harm. Like the real Egypt, the nations had leaned on Israel as a crutch, and she had only brought them injury. For this, Egypt/Israel would be made desolate, then restored from captivity. But because she had usurped the Lord’s throne, she would forever be a vassal kingdom.

As Tyre, Solomon’s gold was stolen by foreigners. As Sidon, his oppressive taxation was cut off. And as Egypt, his many wives were taken captive and the horses he had imported from Egypt were finally drowned in the sea. The word of the Lord is sure.