Bully's Blog

The movie Superman Returns ends with some powerful iconography. Lex Luther has used a crystal stolen from Superman to create his own ‘new earth.’ Unlike Superman’s white-as-snow fortress of solitude, this is made of dark stone, Adamic earth. It rises up out of the sea and its growth threatens mankind.

Superman carries the weight of the entire sinful rock, and its growing kryptonite ‘spears’ pierce him. He ‘dies’ in the air and his fall to earth creates a ‘tomb.’ It’s worth a watch.

My point is, the idea of Christ being ‘lifted up’ is more than the bronze serpent, more than us ‘lifting Him up’ in our witness. [1]

Lifted up between heaven and earth, He was an open scroll. The bloodied lid of the Ark, the Word engraved (opened) on tablets of flesh. [2] In the sky, He was a new kapporet [3], a firmament covering to replace the old one that was ready to vanish away. He was a veil that was open, still protecting yet providing full access.

The Old Testament is full of mediators who are ‘lifted up.’ Revelation shows the Satanic new earth (Herod and Rome) thrown down from her mediatory position ‘in the air’, and the saints ascending to meet their Lord ‘in the air’ as a new mediatorial city.

a)  Christ was lifted up.
b)  Satan was thrown down.

a1)  The saints of the New Jerusalem ascended.
b1)  The compromised mediators were thrown down.

Satan is no longer the prince of the powers of the air.

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[1]  A Herod also fulfilled the bronze serpent image, eaten alive by maggots on his throne ‘in the air’ after speaking ‘like a god.’ He prefigured the dirty scavenging birds feasting on the harlot in Revelation.

[2] The Tabernacle layout is a symbolic cruciform man. Notice that Christ on the cross was beneath ‘the Name’, an open scroll containing the disputed truth of His identity. The Lord’s Name was said to dwell above the lid of the Ark.

[3]  See Peter Leithart, The Footstool of His Feet.

The Ark was always to be carried by human legs, never on a beast or a man-made cart. The Jewish rulers and religious leaders were content to keep God in a box, symbolically hidden behind a veil. But in Christ, the Ark was free and walking around on human legs with the eyes and mouth of a Man. When the Ark was mobile, the people of God followed, seeking rest and scattering His enemies on the way (Numbers 10:33-34).

The Ark was a covering that protected Israel from the consequences of face-to-face exposure to God’s Law. With the Ark taken by God, the Restoration Covenant would be different. The synagogues would come into their own, and the Law would be studied by all Jews throughout the empire:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31)

The next fulfilment was the bodily incarnation of the Words, Jesus Christ. He was both the Law of God written on tablets of flesh, and the blood covered container that protected Israel from extermination. They all knew Him, from the least to the greatest. Like the Ark, His words were a flaming sword that would bring either life or death to His hearers.

And of course, we are familiar with Paul’s explanation of this being applied to believers who are His body. Our words also bring division:

“…clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart… for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor. 3)

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

Did God replace Judaism or merely put it on hold?

Being a Jew was never a matter of bloodline, but of Covenant. Think of Abraham’s servants circumcised in Genesis 17, the Egyptians at the Exodus, Caleb the Kenizzite, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah, etc. It seems the Old Testament keeps throwing us examples of people “grafted in.” The only actual bloodline of any importance is the one we are given, the family tree from Abraham to Christ.

Israel’s captivity and Restoration gave us a perfect picture of the New Covenant events. The Temple and walls of the old Israel were ‘de-created’ and God Himself (the ark) died in Babylon for the sake of a new Jerusalem with impregnable walls.

Christ was the human ark. Judaism, intermarried with Roman political power, became Babylon.

My point is, the captivity was a death-and-resurrection of first century Israel (the resurrection as predicted in Ezekiel 37) in type. The first century was the antitype. Thus, whatever remains of Judaism today is like exhumed idols from the eras of Jeroboam, Ahab*, Omri and Manasseh.

It is not about blood. It never was. It is about Covenant, and there is only one of those. Despite its various death-and-resurrection renewals, there has only ever really been one covenant. There is no replacement of God’s people, only transfiguration from glory to glory.

*Remember it was Jezebel’s daughter Athaliah that almost DID destroy this single bloodline that mattered. Jehoash was the single son who escaped, an echo of Moses and a type of Christ.

I received horrified reactions for using this phrase. God hates divorce, and yet…

“Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.”(Jeremiah 3:8)

Q: How could God divorce and remarry, and yet keep the Law? Marriage is “till death.”

A: Through death and resurrection.

The only way the Lord could make a new covenant was through death and resurrection. Not only did Israel die, but the Covenant died – the Ark was taken by God. Jeremiah predicted the Restoration Covenant, and redeemed some Land to prefigure what God Himself would do after the captivity.

The entire pattern was repeated in the first century. Christ, the Ark, ascended to God as firstfruits, and Israel also died, and was resurrected as the Christian church. There were two feasts in AD70, predicted towards the end of the Revelation. 1 The marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven, and 2 the feast of the unclean birds as Jezebel-Judah was finally destroyed under the Covenant curses.

The book of Daniel begins with the captured vessels from Solomon’s Temple being carried off to Babylon. We assume the ark, with its solid gold lid, was melted down. The golden lampstand, however, shows up at Belshazzar’s feast just before the fall of Babylon to Persia. Cyrus decrees that the Jews can return and rebuild the Temple. They carry the vessels, minus the Ark, across the Great River Euphrates.

Zechariah later sees a flying scroll with the dimensions of the Tabernacle (10 x 20 cubits). These are also the dimensions of the Ark plus cherubim in Solomon’s Temple. The Ark had been offered as an ascension and created a new heaven – unrolled a new scroll. The Restoration Covenant cost the Ark its “life.”

Now to Acts. The human Ark, Jesus, had ascended to heaven and left the “seven churches”, the New Covenant Lampstands with tongues of fire, to rule and conquer Babylon (Jerusalem). The church did so, and we see the firstfruits church army, the “kings from the sunrising” crossing the Great River in Revelation 16, entering a new earth like Joshua over Jordan.

They sent therefore fifty men. And for three days they sought [Elijah] but did not find him. And they came back to [Elisha] while he was staying at Jericho, and he said to them, “Did I not say to you, ‘Do not go’?” (2 Kings 2:17-18)

It seems the Ark was “taken” like Enoch. If it was carried to Babylon, perhaps it was melted down with other conquered “gods” to contribute to Nebuchadnezzar’s “golden calf.” It fits the pattern if the Ark “died” on the altar of false worship “outside the city.” Continue reading

“Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.” Mark 16:9

The relationship of the Ark to the Lampstand is important. The Ark is the single ‘light’ in the darkness of the Most Holy Place. It rules the first three days of creation. Continue reading

Revelation 20-21:21 as a new Tabernacle

This passage seems to follow the Tabernacle furniture (and the Feasts, but more subtly). It concerns the inauguration of the new heavens and new land, the gospel age as a new creation, beginning with the closing of the heavy lid of the false ark.

Day 1 Throne The Ark of the Abyss – Satan thrown into the pit (cf Zechariah 5)

Day 2 Firmament The Laver of the Abyss – Satan’s final rebellion ends in the lake of fire

Day 3 Altar (Land & Sea) The Altar of the Abyss – Land and Sea give up their dead to be judged

Day 4 Lampstand The Lampstand of Heaven – the Holy City (Eve lights) is ready for her Adam light

Day 5 Altar (Incense) The Altar of Heaven – True and false Eve armies are separated

Day 6 Firmament The Laver of Heaven – the Old Covenant crystal sea is replaced with a crystal city

Day 7 Throne The Ark of Heaven – the bridal city is described as pure gold, the Shekinah

Greater Eve, the virgin bride, is enthroned over the nations, a human government in heaven.

This pattern reflects the testing of Adam in the garden. Jesus deals here with Adam’s usurper and rescues Eve from the serpent by filling her with the light of the Law. She becomes a “fulfilled Ark” as the pattern is measured out across the world.

The remainder of Revelation begins a new pattern, but it ends halfway through at the same test Adam faced – the Tree of Life.

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The image above is from Elizabeth – the Golden Age, which contains some truly awesome ‘warrior bride’ iconography. TAOTA