Bully's Blog

Leaving Wilderness Behind

In Through New Eyes, James Jordan notes that the wilderness was Havilah, the place mentioned in Genesis 2 that was rich in raw materials. Israel stripped Egypt of her gold, then plundered the desolate places of hidden wealth. She came out of the desert with a High Priest clothed in gems, and a new generation of soldiers born of God’s threshing floor.

The manna began to fall just after the Hebrews’ victory over Pharaoh. As with Jacob, the Lord was faithful to provide for His chosen one. But perhaps, in covering the ground, there is also the idea of a firmament (this might sound strange to some readers, but I have found the concept is a frequent one). The wilderness is the place of the humble bread of priesthood, displayed in obedience to God. It was the next generation that would drink the wine of Canaan after obedience under Joshua.

A Memorial

The Lord commanded that some manna be put into the Ark as a memorial. Symbolising manna, the white stone is a memorial of faithful priesthood. Joshua’s crossing of the Jordan was memorialised by large, engraved, white stones.

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Abraham had gone to extreme measures to make sure Isaac didn’t intermarry with Canaan and pollute the promise. He sent his most faithful servant as a forerunner to find a bride for his son. Like John the Forerunner, the most faithful servant found the beautiful bride, Rebekah, by the water in a garden of God. And like Paul the apostle, the servant adorned her with gold in preparation for her presentation to the Bridegroom. Like Herod and the Jews, Laban and his mother didn’t want to let her go, and were given no choice but to bless her with their riches.

I just noticed that the passage concerning the slain Lamb (Rev. 5) and the passage concerning the victory of the church  (in 9-11) correspond chiastically.

The first is the Adam conquering Herod’s Egypt and moving out through a bloody door (Passover/Circumcision)

SCROLL: Word – Most Holy Place – Garden

……LAMB: Sacrament – Holy Place – Land

…………NATIONS: Government – Courts – World

These cover the three territories corrupted by Adam, Cain and the ‘sons of God’. Between this ‘first generation’ (head) and the ‘next generation’ (body), there is a battle in the first century ‘wilderness’.

………………WILDERNESS BATTLE: Gospel as Pentecost Law

Later, there is the redeemed Eve conquering Herod’s Jericho and crossing the river into a heavenly country over the corpse (Atonement/Baptism)

…………SUNRISE ARMY of 200 million Jew/Gentile saints: 
…………Government – Courts - World

……CHRIST the true brother/High Priest with the little scroll:
……Sacrament – Holy Place - Land (and Sea)

TWO WITNESSES, saints as the Ark cherubim: Word – Most Holy Place - Garden

Not only does this pattern follow the seven feasts of Leviticus 23 (if we include the central wilderness), each of these seven points contains the same sevenfold structure within itself. It is like Zechariah’s Lampstand with 49 lights. And this is just another overlay on the already manifold structures in Revelation. There really is no bottom to this book.

Peter Leithart writes:

Reflections on a class discussion earlier today about place, our connection to the ground, and gnosticism.

1. Blood and soil are “powers” that can and have dominated human life, and caused lots of human misery.
2. Jesus overcomes those powers.  We are identified by water and feast, not by blood or color or place.
3. YET (here’s where my thought is undeveloped): Jesus doesn’t just overcome and send the powers packing.  He pacifies and reconciles powers; He turns them to the purposes of His kingdom (Col 1-2).

The dilemma: How to express the reconciliation of blood and soil without falling back into the old creation, and without going fascist? How to express Jesus’ pacification of “blood” without letting it usurp the place of the water, and how to express Jesus’ pacification of “soil” without letting it usurp the place of the feast?

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“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.”

Jesus prayed these words shortly before these disciples betrayed, deserted and denied Him. As High Priest, the twelve were still just names etched on His shoulders. Unformed and uninteresting.

After Pentecost, with God’s breath breathed into them, each would become a precious stone, differing in glory from the others. They would be fully formed elders surrounding the slain Lamb (Rev. 5:6), walls and gates of a new Jerusalem.

With the seven eyes of the High Priest, the light of the Lampstand flames, Jesus could already see Pentecost, when the disciples would become the ‘angelic glories’ sent to warn Herod’s Sodom (Rev. 11:8) and curse it with blindness. Old Jerusalem was sulphur in God’s nostrils, but the apostles became an incense altar of aromatic smoke.

The twelve spoke words that changed the whole world in a matter of decades. Jesus sees us with those same eyes. We deny Him. We betray Him. We desert Him. But we are His, and He sees our future. Breathe into us, breath of God.

“Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”  (1 Cor. 3:12-17)

Are the gold, silver and precious stones our heavenly bling? From the structure of this passage, I think what Paul is referring to is the church. If we are building disciples who remain despite trials and testing from God, we will be rewarded. The immediate context of this is the false doctrine of Judaisers, and their house of gold, silver and precious stones (Herod’s Temple and his puppet High Priest’s robes). While Paul was building a Temple out of people, Herod was busy polishing the brass on the Titanic that he knew Jesus had said would be submerged under a Gentile flood (Daniel 9:26). Herod’s precious stones didn’t make it through God’s judgment. The Day declared what it was in truth.

The question is, are our disciples a robe/house for Jesus, or are they kindling in His nostrils? When He comes to judge, what will our ministry be revealed as?

or The Feasts are the Key to the Revelation

All Christians recognise Christ’s fulfilment of Passover (crucifixion) and Firstfruits (ascension), followed by Pentecost. Futurists, who major on all things Jewish, recognise that Trumpets and Atonement follow, but they push them into the future.

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or A Marriage Made in…

The Bible is big on mediators. Adam’s role as faithful Showbread would link heaven and earth. He would be a god-man. Fulfilled by Christ, this is the liturgical role of a minister. He faces God as representative of the Bride, and faces the church as the representative of the Bridegroom. He is Solomon at the completion of the Temple dedication.

The ‘hell’ hybrids are the Land-beasts of the Bible. This is what Adam became, conspiring with Satan. It was an unholy alliance between God’s mediator and the Creation, in which the Creation called the agenda. The resulting peoples are hunters like Nimrod and Esau, wolves instead of shepherds, bloodthirsty children of the daughters of men.

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The Third Trumpet

De-Ascension – the Temple judged

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, 

After the ascension of Christ, Satan was expelled from his “ministry” before God as the Accuser of man. Like the evil twin of the blazing torch that measured Abram’s sacrifices, he was then used by God to bring an end to the Covenant.

and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

These first three trumpets concerned the Land (Judah), the Sea (the world empire) and the springs of water (the Temple). This same order began the song of ascension, Psalm 24:
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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.