Of course, God’s new golden-haired boy got things wrong, as all Adams do when given the opportunity of glorious kingdom. The metal man in his dream (the new “empire-Tabernacle”) only had gold at the head, but King Nebuchadnezzar’s obelisk was gold from head to foot. This new king, under whom Israel was now a “Covenant vassal,” would be taught by God that he, too, was subject to a higher authority.
The Restoration era Scriptures are the most misunderstood texts in the Bible. Our failure to recognise their recapitulation of patterns from the Torah — and the fact that they are not presented in chronological order but by genre — makes it hard for us to put the pieces together. [1] Very often, we miss great ironies because we don’t get the joke.
NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.
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Many theologians will tell you that the Old Testament Scriptures have little to say about resurrection. Yet, typologically, they scream about it constantly if we have eyes to see. Many modern conservatives don’t understand the nature of revelation. God paints the same picture of death and resurrection over and over again at both personal and national levels and all these gents do is record how many pixels are in each image.
For a visual blow-by-blow account of this death and resurrection process, get a copy of Bible Matrix and read it twice. Here, I want to concentrate on the significance of Melchizedek in the Last Supper.
Van Gogh’s work has been regarded by some as “hallucinatory,” however his letters show that few artists were as intelligent and rational. His work was not the product of his dark times but of his struggle against them.
“I am feeling well just now… I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible—and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger and makes haste in what he does.” [1]
From James B. Jordan’s fascinating Thoughts on Jachin and Boaz [1]
“The Tabernacle and Temple were not only pictures of the kingdom of God. They were also pictures of the human person (John 2:21). We have noted that the High Priest had a chain around his neck, and pomegranates and bells encircling the ephod. Without any difficulty we can see the 1-cubit collar of the pillar as a neckband, the lily as the head, and the bronze shaft as the trunk. The size and proportions are roughly equivalent to those of a 5’ man.
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From James B. Jordan’s Trees and Thorns: [1]
The water in the ground of the garden is associated with Eve.
What Adam was to guard was the Garden, and preeminently Eve, its mistress. This is precisely what he refused to do. Later in the Bible, new Adams meet their Eves at wells, and defend them there. Eliezar met Rebekah at a well, and brought her home to Isaac (Gen. 24:11ff.). Jacob met Rachel at a well, and unsealed it for her — a sign as it turned out of his coming marriage to her (Gen. 29:10-11). Good Shepherd Moses met Zipporah at a well and defended her against bad shepherds (Ex. 2:16-19).
From James B. Jordan’s Trees and Thorns: [1]
The land and garden of Eden were watered by a spring. Why call attention to the fact that God did not send rain? Why not just mention the spring and leave off the statement about rain? The reason, I believe, is to call our minds back to Genesis 1:2-9. We find in Genesis 1:2 that there was an ocean over the original earth. Then God created the firmament, and separated the waters above from the waters below. On the third day God gathered the waters below into areas below the surface of the land.
Now we have a clear distinction between waters above the firmament, the source of rain, and waters below, which would have to come up from under the earth. Both Genesis 1:2-9 and 2:5-6 set up the distinction eschatologically; ground water comes first, and then heavenly water.
The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.
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One thing that has struck me since becoming a preterist is how much evangelicals play down the badness of the baddies in the New Testament, i.e. the unbelieving Jews and Christian Judaisers.
Evangelicals would never believe that Jesus and the apostles were mistaken in their warnings of an imminent judgment (and let’s face it, this imminence is a facet of the New Testament that is inescapable). So the only other option they see as viable is a position that defies logic: an event that was near, at the doors, yet could happen at any time over next few millennia.
A critic wrote that Mel Gibson, with The Passion of the Christ, invented a new cinematic genre: the religious splatter film. This was intentionally disrespectful, but of course there is some truth to it. Perhaps more truth than we realise. God desired a world covered by blood.
The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.
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[1] A summary of James B. Jordan, Re-Creation in the Ascension Offering. Notice that the Tabernacle furniture itself, of course, also aligns with this structure of events, being a microcosmos.
[2] See Half the Blood.
[3] See also The Whole Bloody Bible.
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