Another thought on the contrast between Israel’s history of bloodshed and the church’s history of being shed blood: it revolves around death and resurrection. Israel was the four cornered Bronze Altar, and that saw lots of bodies on it. It was near the gate guarded by priests with swords. That Israel was slain and restored but without an earthly king or army. Continue reading
The Lord “called” Adam as Day 1, giving him one law (light). He divided him as Day 2 and built Eve as a Holy Place, a firmament to be filled with stars (godly offspring). As Day 3 He made a new covenant and married them, the first nearbringing. Adam as the Bronze Altar (dust elevated from the Land) then became the first High Priest, the Table. In his obedience, together they prefigured totus Christus.
Day 4 follows. As Adam represented singular light, Eve was plural light. She was the holy fire on the altar, the glory of Adam. [1] Day 4 is the Lampstand. Day 4 is also the wilderness. If Eve was seduced, it was because Adam’s priesthood was corrupt. There was strange fire on the altar, the biblical theme of harlotry. In the garden, the strange fire was the false lightbearer who filled the “firmament” with darkness.
With that background, look at how this plays out in Daniel 7. It also supports James Jordan’s assertion that the fact that the beast’s body is “feminine” carries some importance. [2] The false church is the body of totus diabolus, the locust swarm gathered as a tabernacle by the fallen head. Daniel seven is the history of the first century church as the Woman in the wilderness. But the faithfulness of the new Adam brought an end to the priesthood of the sons of Aaron.
“Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1
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Two days ago, we saw the Lord take Jeremiah through the Creation/Tabernacle pattern as He anointed him. Here’s some more thoughts on the Babylonian “seething pot” using the Tabernacle pattern as a guide.
Usually, the Lampstand is at the centre of the passage (Pentecost). But the almond tree/Lampstand here is at Firstfruits. The Land of Day 3 is the Bronze Altar, but the grain and fruit (the Table) is replaced here by the almond).
Jeremiah, as a sign to Israel, is made the incarnation of Yahweh. The seven-eyed “watching tree” is actually Jeremiah, and the Lord continually asks him to “see.” As the prophetic Lampstand watched over Israel (the Table), so Jeremiah would watch over her destruction.[1] The Table seems to be covered by Nebuchadnezzar!
One of the best things you get from James Jordan is a big handle on the Tabernacle.[1] It was a miniature of the creation. It was also a further development of the Garden of Eden, being more glorious than the Garden itself (the trees were now worked timber, and the wood was covered in precious metal).
Jordan’s theory that Satan was to be a tutor to Adam and Eve, but fell in the moment he deceived them, finds support in the Tabernacle layout. (Angels tutor God’s people throughout the Old Testament.) Satan was the secondary lightbearer, the Lampstand, facing north.
Adam was to be broken bread and poured out wine, the Face of the Man, facing south, the Table of Showbread (the facebread).
Between them, Eve, the mother of all living, was the Altar of Incense. As element 5, Day 5, she is a “multitude” in one body. She is awesome as an army with banners. Women possess all their ova from birth.[2] Continue reading
“According to I Chronicles chapter 15, 16:4-6, 37-43, David rearranged the Levitical priesthood into 24 courses (orders); he assigned 16 courses to Eleazer, and 8 courses to Ithamar. This rearrangement was chartered because of a population explosion in David’s reign.” [1]
More evidence for a human government installed in heaven in AD70 (the firstfruits church). If the rebuilt Tabernacle (the Tabernacle of David [2]) prefigured both the restoration of the Jews after the captivity (which is what Amos is actually referring to) and the Jew-Gentile church, what could David’s rearranged priesthood mean typologically?
THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN: THEOLOGY YOU CAN EAT AND DRINK
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An added thought based on this from a post last week:
Living things have brains, guts and outsides. This is Word, Sacrament and Government. Word is intangible, but our emotions are communicated symbolically through our bodies. Facial expressions and body language are the response of the “Holy Place” to the “Most Holy” of our inner soul. Eyes are organs of judgment. Eyes are also the windows to the soul. The crystal sea is a window to heaven. The “outer court” interacts with the world and needs cleaning. Only clean stuff is allowed inside the “Holy Place.”
So, basically, as a Tabernacle, if my mind is a symbol of the command from the Most Holy (Word), and my body carries out my thoughts and intents in the world (Government), what is in between? The Holy Place, the place of flesh offered to God.
I saw in my dream, that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand again, and led him into a very dark room, where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now the man seemed very sad. He sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, and his hands folded together, and he sighed as if his heart would break.
Then said Christian, “Who is this?”
“Talk with him and see,” said the Interpreter.
“What used you to be?” asked Christian.
“I was once a flourishing professor, both in my own eyes, and also in the eyes of others,” answered the man. “I was on my way, as I thought, to the Celestial City and I was confident that I would get there.”
“But what did you do to bring yourself to this condition?” Christian asked.
“I failed to keep watch,” the man replied. “I followed the pleasures of this world, which promised me all manner of delights. But they proved to be an empty bubble. And now I am shut up in this iron cage—a man of despair who can’t get out.”
No further explanations were given. No one said who put him there. But the Interpreter whispered to Christian:
“Bear well in mind what you have seen.” [1]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Another thought related to the ideas in Behind Closed Doors.
The whole aim of the construction process, whether in sex, foetal development, education, business, art, music, family or state government, is the ultimate revelation of a mature glory. We are given the opportunity to create, and that involves certain God-given freedoms. If the freedoms are abused, what we construct for ourselves is a cage. Lust is a cage. A dysfunctional family or state is a cage. Enforced egalitarian socio-economics is a cage. Undisciplined children are a cage.
Jesus laid down His life for this world, and the freedoms of western culture have been a direct outcome. In its final stages, we have rebelliously inverted each of these freedoms (including the economic ones) and turned both our Christian protection (including our God-given wealth) and Christian mandate into a cage. Ancient Israel did the same. Why does this inversion process seem such a logical path for fallen human nature?
“Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.” 1 Cor. 13:8-10
I remember hearing a Southern Baptist pastor many years ago teaching that “that which is perfect” was the completed New Testament. He was forced to find some point in first century history that would justify his belief in the cessation of miraculous gifts like tongues. Well, to a point, I think he was right.
The battle between the Son and the serpent rages throughout the Old Testament. Every time the Lord renews the Covenant, Satan is ready with a counterfeit. God uses the phonies to test and purify His people, wipes the failures off the slate, then starts again.
Aaron and Jeroboam set up patently false worship in their golden calves. But false worship in the guise of true was much more difficult to discern, especially when it usurped the exact location of the true. When the Lord took Ezekiel to the Temple as a legal witness, it was a whitewashed tomb. He dug through the wall and discovered that it was a house of hypocrisy, the synagogue of Satan. All that remained of Israel’s witness to the nations was a thin veneer.
Trees are elementary Bible symbols. James Jordan writes:
We have noted that God’s people are spoken of as trees. Genesis 2 sets up the connection by saying that both men and trees come out of the ground (Genesis 2:7, 9). We have mentioned already such passages as Psalm 1 and Judges 9, where trees symbolize men. An interesting sidelight on this symbolism is provided in Mark 8:24, where the blind man healed by our Lord initially saw men as trees walking.
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