Bully's Blog

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.

or How Modern Conservative Theologians Unwittingly Use Literary Genres to Mask Their Unbelief 

One of the big problems with modern theology is its habit of categorising parts of the Bible into literary genres. For sure, the Bible contains historical prose, visions, poetry and songs. But many passages won’t actually fit into these neat little pigeon holes without hamstringing their intended purpose. And as it turns out, these “genre-lisations” are excuses to compromise with humanistic pop-philosophy and pop-history.

The three main gripes I have are misuses of the genres poetry, polemic and apocalyptic.

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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 Tabernacle was not only a “portable Sinai”, the mountain of God laid out across the ground, it was the cruciform Man. We see Jesus, with the Throne of God on His shoulders (the Ark – government), bread and wine in His left hand (the Table - servanthood), the ‘seven stars’ of the Lampstand in His right (dominion), and His feet on the crystal sea (the Laver – resurrection). And He is lifted up “in the air” between heaven and earth (the Altar-Land) as the Mediator Who unites God and man.

As the Ark (Moses), with arms outstretched (Bread – Aaron, and Ruling Lights – Hur), He is the prophet, priest and king Who defeated Greater Amalek at Sinai.

When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a green [Greek: chloros] horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the [Land], to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the [Land].

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are the Gospel. They are released as the seals on the New Covenant scroll are broken by Christ after His ascension. The white horse brings the Word, the red horse brings division (as Jesus promised), the black horse starves the old order (or Covenant) but does no harm to the new, and finally, the green horse (a Levite with a sword1), ends the old order.

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“There were hangings of fine white and violet linen held by cords of fine purple linen on silver rings and marble columns, and couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl and precious stones.” Esther 1:6 [NASB]

In his Esther lectures, James Jordan observes that Ahasuerus is pictured as being enthroned over his very own crystal sea.

Nero was the first ruler in history to be buried in porphyry. For this ‘bad Ahasuerus’ who exercised false judgment, the crystal sea became a laver of fire. We know from Revelation 14:10 that the lake was before the heavenly throne.

“Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.” Revelation 19:20

Herod’s Temple was covered in marble. Revelation shows it replaced with a crystal city. The church is now the Laver. Baptism symbolises the gospel as walls to the wicked and gates to the righteous: fire and ice. Jesus’ kingdom is the fifth empire and His judgment is righteous and uncompromising.

“So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth” Revelation 3:16

It might look like I’m colouring outside the lines, but it’s in line with a very consistent Biblical symbolism.

The Rest of the Dead

I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received [his] mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Revelation 20:4-5

James Jordan writes:

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Living in the beautiful Blue Mountains, for exercise, I walk a lot. Keeping a diary last year, I just calculated that I walked over 900 kms.

Walking is when I do my best listening and thinking. Thank God for an iPod, an mp3 Bible and James Jordan lectures. His series on Revelation took me a year in 2007.

900kms (or 204 lectures) might seem a lot to get through, but you know what they say about eating an elephant.

All Jordan’s lectures are available in one package here. I must say, they also have a very attractive cover.

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

If, as preterists maintain, Jesus came in AD70, why do you celebrate the Lord’s Supper?

To answer as an orthodox preterist (I’m sorry, but ‘partial’ doesn’t work for me), I would mention that the communion is a covenant memorial that reminds God of the covenant. The covenant is the key.

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