Greater Solomon

The structure of Revelation passes through two large heptamerous cycles (1-11 and 12-19). But the book as a whole follows the same pattern as Ezekiel. In the last three chapters, following Ezekiel’s pattern, John is shown the destruction of Gog (Amalek) in the Land, and a vision of a new Jerusalem. However, unlike Ezekiel, these events are beyond the second cycle of the book, and for good reason. This final “east-west” section exiles the Accuser to the Abyss (Azal) and enthrones the Bride. It is the only part of Revelation that directly concerns our own day.

Continue reading

Land.

I read David Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance in 1989, and it sure surprised me to learn that the word ‘earth’ in the Bible also means ‘land.’ This simple fact alters the scope of John’s Revelation entirely. It is about God’s ending of the Covenant He restored after the Babylonian captivity, and so first century Judah is the main subject. It was a repeat of events in Jeremiah’s day, so let’s backtrack a little…

Continue reading

The LORD will attack those nations like a warrior fighting in battle. He will take his stand on the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem, and the mountain will split in half, forming a wide valley that runs from east to west. Then you people will escape from the LORD’s mountain, through this valley, which reaches to Azal.” (Zechariah 14:3-5)

diSpENSATIONALISTS love to quote verses from Zechariah and apply them to modern Jews. While this breaks all the rules of interpretation (context, first audience, book structure, common sense, etc.), those who realise its events were all fulfilled, culminating in the first century, still have a lot of trouble with the details. But the answers lie in Old Testament typology.

Not only does the entire book of Zechariah follow the ‘Egypt to Canaan’ pattern, each of the ‘post-vision’ chapters does so individually. There is too much detail to go into here, but I want to deal with the splitting mountain.

The Ark was the Lord’s footstool. It, along with both the incense and bronze altars, had to be purified with blood. The Lord will only stand in a clean place, and indeed even required His priests to have clean feet. As a square altar, Canaan was purified with blood by Abraham. It was purified with blood again under Joshua in the ‘devotion’ of Jericho. Immediately after this victory, the people were divided between Mounts Ebal and Gerizim, one for the blessings of the Law and one for curses (Joshua 8). Blood, and a split mountain, made a way into the new Land.

Here’s where the structure of the passage is important. It follows the feasts pattern (Lev 23) and this section appears at Atonement (Covering). One goat was blessed and ascended to God; the other carried the curses to destruction (ez azal). As the Lord’s footstool, the Mount of Olives was divided to the north and the south, just like the Temple veil was torn in two. With Christ’s death as Passover, Olivet became symbolically like Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal at the birth of a new Promised Land, the heavenly Canaan, the New Jerusalem.

The mountain was split from the east to the west. The faithful would enter from the east, the opposite direction to Adam’s expulsion. The death and resurrection of Christ tore the Garden door open, and there were earthquakes. The death of the first century church under Herod/Rome also tore the Land in two. Old Israel became the garment of the old High Priest, torn under the Covenant curse (Matthew 26:65) to be eaten by birds and beasts.

Revelation also uses the symbolism of two mountains. One was a flaming Sinai, thrown into the Gentile sea as Jesus promised (curses – Matthew 21:21). The other was a new, heavenly Zion – the one mentioned by the writer of Hebrews (blessings – Hebrews 12:18). The saints prayed as Jesus commanded and Judaism and Christianity were split in two when Christ came in vengeance in AD70. Judaism went to Azal.

When God is making something new, He begins by tearing something in two. If it happens to be you, the something new might not be you. This is something Adam knew.

(Zechariah’s visions showed two bronze mountains allowing the Restoration era ‘gospel’ to go out into the world after the rebuilding of the Temple in 6:1. The events of Zechariah’s day prefigured the restoration of Israel in the Christian church.)

Why were Jerusalem’s “gates” left open to the enemy? Josephus records miraculous warning signs during the period of Revelation’s Trumpets. Once again, the death angel stood at the threshing floor holding a sword over the city for the king’s “numbering” of the saints:

“Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.

Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it…

“Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them.”

“Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple], as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.”*

*Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, (vi:v:3), quoted from David Chilton’s compilation in Paradise Restored, A Biblical Theology of Dominion. The chariots in the clouds were also reported by the Roman historian Tacitus: “In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure.” (Tacitus, The Histories,translated by Kenneth Wellesley).

I’ve seen every movie ever made… or one very much like it.

I posted last week a quote from Jordan’s worship series which observed that all western culture flowed from the church. I took my daughter on Saturday to see Cavalleria rusticana & Pagliacci at the Sydney Opera House. Christian (and Catholic) symbols abound, most notably the spilling of wine on a white table cloth as a challenge to a duel. The loser’s body was later laid on the same white cloth.

The final scene of the movie Fight Club (a film based on a book which is both ingenious and perverse) is more biblical than the author or producers might imagine. [Don't read the following if you haven't seen the film].

Continue reading

Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

In Hebrews 10, the writer (most likely Paul) tells the Jewish Christians that if they turn back from following Christ they will be destroyed. Instead of offering a lame explanation to prove this passage doesn’t contradict the New Testament teaching that believers can’t lose their salvation, we should understand where the original audience was in history. If we do that, we find no explanation is necessary.

Continue reading

And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4:4-7)

Abel was the keeper of sheep, but as his older brother, Cain was Abel’s keeper. Cain was his watchman, his Aaron, his ‘High Priest.’ In the first century, the High Priests were not faithful watchmen but spiritual Canaanites. Like Cain, their hypocritical sacrifices were rejected by God, but the firstborn of the Creation ascended to heaven in clouds. Satan was deposed from accusing at the gate (door) of the Temple in heaven and thrown down to the Land. “Cain” again failed to rule over him. Satan took up residence in Herod’s Temple, and the firstfruits church, as Abel, was massacred in the late 60’s. The Lord had said, “If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” The full arrival of the New Creation ended the mercy shown to the prophet-killers. Vengeance on them was seven-fold.

Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:31-36)

“…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.”

So the destruction of AD 70 was not an act of anti-Semitism. Rather it was an act of divine judgment. 

…That was the end of Judaism as it had been known for hundreds of years. The priesthood was at an end. The animal sacrifices were at an end. The worship life that centered on Jerusalem and the Temple was at an end. And it has never been restored to our own day. Judaism as we know it today in Minneapolis and New York and Tel Aviv is not the same way of life practiced before AD 70.

What is the meaning of this cataclysmic event for Judaism?

It was a witness to the truth of Christianity. Jesus predicted it. And it came to pass. Christians did not fight against Israel in this revolt. In fact, Christians suffered in Jerusalem with Israel because of the revolt. As far as Rome was concerned Judaism was the tree and Christianity was the branch. If they could destroy the tree of Judaism, they could wipe out Christianity as well. Jews and Christians suffered together in AD 70.

So the destruction of AD 70 was not an act of anti-Semitism. Rather it was an act of divine judgment. That is what Jesus says in Luke 19:43-44: these things happened“ because you did not recognize the time of your visitation,” — that is, you did not recognize the coming of the Messiah. It was God’s testimony that the coming of Jesus was in fact what the book of Hebrews says it was — the replacement of shadows with Reality — Christ himself.

One of the early church fathers, Athanasius (born A. D. 373), put it like this,

It is a sign, and an important proof, of the coming of the Word of God, that Jerusalem no longer stands. . . . For . . . when the truth was there, what need any more of the shadow? And this was why Jerusalem stood till then — namely, that [the Jews] might be exercised in the types as a preparation for the reality.

In other words, one might say, the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem was God’s way of saying: “Wake up to the meaning of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament.”

from Jesus: Mediator of a Better Covenant by John Piper, Deember 22, 1996

Here is a comment I posted on another blog. The blog accuses God (and the Bible) of cruelty as a basis to reject the Scriptures:

And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 2 Kings 2:23-24

Continue reading