Bully's Blog

or The Art of Noise

Must be wizards week!

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (NKJV) Hebrews 4:12

But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (NKJV) James 2:18

The firmament was a veil to hide God’s throne from Man until he was ready to see God face to face. Of course, we see types of this throughout the Bible, Job, Jacob and Moses being notable examples. But no man had seen God until after Christ ascended and was presented as Facebread.

Your face is a veil of flesh that hides your brain, the source of your intentions. Your head is a microcosm of the Tabernacle at one level, and your entire body at another. You are a Garden and a Land.

Deceivers mask their true intentions with facial expressions and body language. Good spies can even pass a lie detector test. Between their true intentions and the flesh that is supposed to be communicating it, there is a deliberate disconnect. As in the Garden, it is the mind of a beast speaking with the eyes and mouth of a man.

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Many atheists think it is their void-given right to make disrespectful, insulting or condescending remarks about religion. One I have heard a number of times is a common atheist response to “Your atheism is a religion”: If religion were a hair colour, then I am bald.

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Art is man’s interpretation of the world, but the world itself is the original art. Everything is physical, literal, historical, but everything is also symbol. This is not an interpretation imposed upon what we observe. The Creation was actually made as symbol. Without the Word of God, we are rendered unable to interpret it. [1]

The meaning of the sun, moon and stars in Genesis 1 is not simply a poetic idea. The purpose of the heavenly lights is actual and practical. Moreover, it will be measured out in human flesh over and again throughout history.

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After reading (“orthodox”) preterists for a few years, the failure of modern evangelicals to read the New Testament in its historical context, and to understand its constant allusions to Old Testament event structures now floors me. How is it that we so easily underestimate the importance of the destruction of Judaism in AD70? And worse than that, how is it that we fail to understand that the imminent warnings of the apostles as prophets related to that event? Here’s a perfect example that hits both these ugly birds with one stone; some pure gold from Peter Leithart this week:

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The Distress of the Covenant-keeper

Dear friends, don’t be surprised or shocked that you are going through testing that is like walking through fire. (CEV) 1 Peter 4:12

The Covenant documents are the foundation for history. God sets things in motion, like any good farmer, and returns later to pour out the promised blessings or curses, to separate the wheat from the weeds. To be under Covenant is to be under these Words, to be transformed through testing into the shape given in blueprint on the mountain. This necessary process of being sifted like wheat is both personally and communally distressing.

From Douglas Green:

The most frequently recurring Psalm form is the lament. Out of 150 psalms, 50 concern individual lament and another 70 concern communal lament. That’s almost half the Psalter.

If the Psalter is a poetic portrayal of life in Covenant fellowship with God, then it is a lamentable life. It is a life with a surprising amount of hardship and suffering, conflict and pain, or to use Philip Johnson’s summary word, distress.

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Adam couldn’t face God. Cain’s face fell. Moses’ face shone with reflected light when he returned from the mountain of God. Bezalel and Aholiab constructed the Table of Facebread, which corresponded in the cherubim to the Face Of The Man. David and his men ate the facebread. Saul feared Goliath, but David’s face was red, literally “filled with blood,” before he bloodied Goliath’s face and the usurper fell facedown. [1]

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Some Perspective

(Pilfered from Tim Gallant’s blog.)

A quote from David Field’s Samuel Rutherford and the Confessionally Christian State:

Evangelical defeatism is a failure of Biblical perspective. After all, the risen Lord Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and has been made head over all things for the Church; he is the ruler of the kings of the earth and he is currently putting his enemies beneath his feet; he has presumably asked the Father for the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession – and so he will receive them. All nations will bow to Jesus and all kings will serve him and his kingdom will grow to become the largest plant in the garden with the nation-birds finding rest in its branches. His kingdom is the stone which crushed the kingdoms of men in Daniel 2 and which is growing to become a mountain-empire which fills the whole earth. He is the firstborn from among the dead and therefore it is right that in all things he has the first place. He has been highly exalted and not only will every knee bow to him but every knee should bow to him.

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A second Bible Matrix review on amazon.com, by Andre Rook:

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But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)

The structure of God’s work in the world finds its origin in His trinity: Word, Sacrament, Government (Discipline). Often in the prophets, the man of God is given a sign which is a type of a greater event to come. The prophet is the sacrament that mediates the Word of discipline to the People.

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or The Spirit Bids Geldings Be Fruitful

It’s cat-among-the pigeons time again.

Identifying the Bible Matrix in Acts reveals in quite a number of places that the author, Luke, has a sense of humour. Or the Holy Spirit does. In Acts 8, at Ascension (Firstruits), the Ethiopian eunuch asks Philip to hop up into his chariot. [1]

Philip opens the Law for him at Pentecost, the man is “resurrected” at Trumpets, baptized at Atonement (the Laver), and at Tabernacles we have both a Jew and Gentile whose witness flows out into the nations.

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