Bully's Blog

During the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, the LORD said to me, “Jeremiah, since the time Josiah was king, I have been speaking to you about Israel, Judah, and the other nations. Now, get a scroll and write down everything I have told you, then read it to the people of Judah. Maybe they will stop sinning when they hear what terrible things I plan for them. And if they turn to me, I will forgive them”… (CEV) Jeremiah 36:1-3

God’s Covenants are always temporary. Every Covenant is a to and fro. It reflects the Word sent to the Son by the Spirit and the “bridal abundance” received in return by the Father. The Word is often pictured as a scroll, for obvious reasons. Scrolls were written and sealed with wax. The seal was temporary, something to protect the confidentiality of the contents, but something to be broken once the document reached its intended destination. The Bible Matrix makes plain the symbols used by God to illustrate this step in the Covenantal order of all He has made. Continue reading

For those attempting to deal with the status quo futurist interpretation of Matthew 24, one of the most important observations is the fact that Jesus’ material has an Old Testament literary context. Some of his language is quoted from Isaiah 13. His prediction that the stars would fall from heaven comes from Isaiah’s burden against Babylon. The prophet used the Creation week as a structure for his denunciation. Continue reading

(I was listening again today to the Biblical Horizons Preterism lectures from 1999 and thought I could see the offices of the godly in the Bible Matrix. Here are some quick thoughts, so feel free to comment and criticise as always.)

The Bible Matrix structures life at many levels. It structures the act that brings conception. It is the journey from ovum to live birth (what was the “placenta” in AD70?). It is the process of the working day and the working life — and family life, too. It structures a Bible-based, Covenant-renewal worship service. It is also the process God uses to make us what James Jordan calls “Great Prophets.” In this, every saint is a Tabernacle under construction, and every saint is a New Creation in progress. Continue reading

or Wandering Stars – 2

“Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, and all who are in the farthest corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.” -  Jeremiah 9:26

Reading through the Old Testament as a young Christian, I always felt the Bible got bogged down when the Lord started pronouncing judgments upon nations other than Israel. For starters, I hadn’t paid enough attention earlier to remember who these sovereign states were. And more to the point, wasn’t God losing the plot a bit? I mean, there were plenty of other peoples during these times which aren’t even mentioned in the Bible at all.

Unfortunately, few commentators take the Bible seriously enough to understand what is actually going on. Older books will fill you in on the background, which is certainly helpful. But the big question is Why is God doing this now?, both now in history and now in the prophet I am reading?

As usual, when the structure and context of things is understood, seemingly boring “classic” texts suddenly come to life. In the case of the prophets it is a consuming fire. Continue reading

Just as the Restoration, through death in Babylon, miraculously reunited Ephraim and Judah in a new body, the attacks on the Firstfruits church miraculously reunited Jew and Gentile. The Restoration body (pictured in Ezekiel 37) was a type of the Firstfruits church. In the big picture, this new body appears in the Bible Matrix at Maturity. It was an army from the grave, a multitude of shiny individuals united and animated by the Spirit of God, moving as a single shining entity. The Creation week pictures this as flocks of birds and schools of fish. The Tabernacle images it as clouds of incense. This is the warrior bride, terrible as an army with banners.

Light – Ark-Word (Sabbath) -
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit
through the bond of peace.

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or The Universe is Flat

The three density ratios (Ω omega) and the corresponding cosmological morphology. (Goddard Space Flight Center WMAP Cosmology)

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22)

The “firmament” is the most troublesome element of the Creation week. Even when we understand its symbolic counterpart in the Tabernacle (the veil), how do we account for its description as a physical part of the world?

On Day 4, God created the governing lights and put them in the firmament. If this refers to some sort of “water canopy” that later came crashing down in the Great Flood, the language referring to it as a home for stars is then visual. The Adam-to-Noah pattern puts the floodgates of heaven at “Atonement,” which means the opening of this original “proto-veil” brought men face-to-face with the Ark/throne of God and washed away the sin of the world, quite literally. All flesh was cut off. All sin was covered. And it was the end of that Covenant. The sky was rolled up like a scroll. In Noah, God founded a new heavens and a new (mediatory) Altar-Land. Symbolically, the old sun, moon and stars came crashing down. They were the “mighty men” of Genesis 6. Symbolically, God put new rulers in the firmament: a body of men and animals in a covered vessel.

But, of course, the actual governing lights remained. So, there remains something beyond this original watery “sea.” The word translated “firmament” means something flat, beaten out like metal. It is architectural. Cosmologists now tell us that the universe may well be both spherical, hyperbolic and/or “flat,” a bit like the surface of the earth, I guess. [1] God speaks of the mediatory Land as flat because it is an Altar. [2] Space is a veil between men and the throne of God. Filled with lights, it pictures for us the Holy Place before God’s throne, which is populated with angels and the redeemed. This cosmic hall of government resembled a crystal sea.

But there is something strange about the account of the creation of this veil, this dark garment stretched out on Day 2. Like the “waters above” of the original Covenant, space itself has a built-in obsolescence.

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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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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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or Jesus, the Destroying Angel

James Jordan says the Revelation is like one of those old human anatomy teaching aids, the ones with layers of acetate. One starts with the skeleton and overlays the nervous system, arteries, organs, etc. They are all connected and yet each is a system that is individually identifiable. This is literature that is irreducibly complex.

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or Plagues, Plunder and Platoons

“And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.” Isaiah 6:4

“The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.” Revelation 15:8

Step 5 in the Bible matrix appears to be the trickiest. Out of the seven points, it was the last one James Jordan figured out (see his article Re-Creation in the Ascension Offering.)

This step concerns the Covenant “body.” It is fundamentally “plural.” It concerns armies, or “hosts.” The symbols all picture multitudes, so some unlikely companions are tied together here: birds and fish, incense clouds, brothers, soldiers, and cold, hard cash.

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