Copyright © 2011 Michael Bull

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good New Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-0263-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0264-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0262-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010928775

Cover illustration: The Temptation in Eden by Michael O’Brien www.studiobrien.com

Tabernacle images used by permission from www.the-tabernacle-place.com

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/27/2011

Contents

FOREWORD

1

2

3

4

5

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7

8

9

10

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13

14

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Endnotes:

Mike BuLL is a graphic designer who lives and works in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia.

His passion is understanding and teaching the Bible.

For James B. Jordan

who gave us new eyes

FOREWORD

PETER J. LEITHART

BEGINNINGS ARE SEEDS. Plants grow up from seeds. So do animals, and humans too. Seeds are beginnings, but seeds also initiate a process of growth that will be fulfilled in the middle and end. so beginnings contain endings. Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow, but mighty hippos do not. For that, you need some hippo seed and preferably a female incubator to nourish it along. it is certainly one-sided, but T. s. Eliot had something right when he said, in East Coker, “In my beginning is my end.” As seed, we already are from the beginning what we will become.

Texts are not organisms, but for writers who are in control of their tools and materials, textual beginnings are also seeds that determine what sort of text will spring up. No book illustrates this more clearly than the Bible, which begins in a well-watered garden full of fruit trees and peaceable animals and ends with a vision of a garden restored, complete with crystalline river and prolific trees.

For Christians, the inner link of protology and eschatology, the organic movement from beginnings to ends, is rooted in the fundamentals of our faith. Christians confess that God is Triune, which is as much as to say that in God there is not only a “beginning,” the Father, but also an “ending,” a product, the son, begotten by the spirit. The son is irreducibly different from the Father, as different from the Father as ends are from beginnings. Yet the Son is also the exact image of the Father, so that in seeing the Son one can see the Father. Between this Beginning and the End, nothing leaks out or is wasted. All that the Father is, the Son is, except that the Father is Beginning and the Son End.

At a different register, Christians confess that the Son is Himself Beginning and End. He is the “firstborn” of the Father, the Father’s first and unique Word, who was with the Father from the beginning. Yet He is also the final Word, the Judge appointed by the Father who will, at the very last, tell us what it was all about and reveal once and for all who wore the white hats, and who the black hats, and who the black hats painted white. Christ is the first letter and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, in the alphabet that is human history.

That is not quite right. Creation does not circle back to square one. The story of the Bible is not a circle, but a history of creation in development, creation becoming. it is the history of a garden growing up to be a garden city that is also a bride. Along with the trees and river of Revelation 21-22, there are walls and streets and nations hauling in their treasures. The biblical story is not merely creation and return, not merely beginning, loss, and recovery of beginning. Scripture tells a story of creation’s glorification.

And that too, unthinkably, is rooted in Triune life. The Father is wholly God, but He is also, mysteriously,

“more” by begetting a Son than He would be otherwise. He has, of course, always had that Son; the Son is, as Athanasius says, “proper” to the Father’s essence, and the begetting of the Son is an eternal begetting. The Father has eternally been “more.” We might put it this way: The Triune God is not so much a timeless God as a God who has always already realized His future. He is the Alpha that has always already been, equally and simultaneously, Omega. He is the infinitely productive seed that is always already eternally tree and fruit.

Press our two main observations together, and we get to the premise of Mike Bull’s remarkable Bible Matrix. On the one hand, the Bible’s beginnings are the seeds from which the rest of the Bible grows; on the other hand, the Bible’s story is one of glorification. If both are true, then we should expect to find, within the Bible’s beginnings, hints of the story of glorification that reaches its end in the New Jerusalem. in the Alpha words of Genesis 1, we should be able to discern some clues to the Omega words of the Apocalypse.

And so we do. Each day of creation week is an advance over the last. That there is anything—even a dark, formless emptiness, or empty formlessness—that is other than God is a remarkable enough fact by itself (Genesis 1:2). But on Day 1, Yahweh determines that the world needs light, and over the subsequent days, He speaks the world into shape and fills it with all manner of delightful clutter. Yahweh will move the world along and make it better along the way. We know that because that is how the story starts. From the seed of the beginning, we form a nascent sense of what the full plant will look like.

This insight is the heart of Bible Matrix. Mike Bull does more than show us the big story of the Bible, the movement from glorious beginning to the greater glory of the end. That is a story so obvious that even academic Bible scholars can see it. But Bull sees what few have seen, namely, that this big story is present seminally in the opening chapter of the Bible, and more than that, that the glorification of the world is not only the big story of Scripture but also the shape of nearly every little story of the Bible as well. Seed, tree, and every leaf and branch of the tree, is imprinted with the same Triune pattern.

Bible Matrix connects pieces of the Bible that might have looked like scattered fragments. it shows coherence and recurring sequences where you might have seen only randomness and confusion. it gives the world in a grain of sand, as Bull explains how each passage and portion of the Bible is a lens through which the whole is uniquely refracted. Bull roots around in the genetics of Scripture and everywhere discovers not a circle of identical return but the chiastically coiled DNA that moves creation from glory to glory.

My hope is that Bible Matrix will itself be a seed, and that its creative and arresting insights will burrow down into the souls of readers until they germinate and begin, by the power of the Spirit, to produce the fruit of a transformed, biblical imagination.

1

BIG BIBLE HANDLE

THE BIBLE IS A VERY STRANGE BOOK TO MODERN MINDS. Even the passages we know very well contain a great number of oddities and we allow them to grow familiar without gaining an understanding of why they are there.

Those brave enough to regularly read the Old Testament often find themselves wondering what on earth is going on. “Just keep reading your Bible” our pastors tell us. Do you ever get the feeling they don’t have a big grip on it either? “Just stick to the basics. The rest doesn’t matter.”

A few years ago, I discovered the not-very-well-known theologian James B. Jordan. I didn’t understand everything he said, but i did realize that this was partly because he spoke just like the Bible: matter-of-fact, flesh-and-blood, and every now and then, outright bizarre.

He got me thinking, and i found that even the most curious things he spoke of became continuous threads. Jordan identifies what he calls the “universals”—themes that are repeated, not unlike a musical motif. After listening to many of his lectures, i began to recognize these themes myself, much as you would recognize the signature music when a hero or villain appears once again in a movie. Except the Bible does it a lot better.

The most amazing discovery, to me, was Jordan’s understanding of the Creation Week as a common literary structure in the Bible. There is no better way to research something than to write a book about it, so i started one. I intended to show how this 7-point pattern structured the major events of the Bible. I got to Abraham and found that the pattern was operating not only at a grand, over-arching level but also at levels within the larger cycles. And all in perfect harmony.

This incredible structuring means that the Bible is a “fractal,” a rough geometrical shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a smaller version of the whole.

Although the Bible’s literature often appears disorganized to us, it has in fact been extremely carefully crafted. Yet for the last hundred years or so, many scholars have treated the Scriptures as a shoddy, primitive jumble.

Analysis of the Bible’s literary structures has proven these scholars wrong. It has shown that this Book is smarter than we are. We have been harsh critics of something we didn’t understand—like drinkers of cheap beer ridiculing the wine fair.

Now, before you class me with the people who spend their time searching for hidden codes in the Bible (often while they calmly ignore its very clear and intended messages), this renewed interest in literary structure has some very solid benefits for Christians. This is not about hunting for mysterious patterns; it is about learning how to read the Bible in the way it was meant to be read.

THE BIG HANDLE

Ever wish someone could give you a big handle on the whole Bible without years of study? You pick up that Christian book and think, “Ah, I’ve finally found the answer!” only to be bombarded with an endless stream of data to assimilate. All you discovered was that the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.

Well, this book not only promises to give you that big handle—it will deliver on the promise. Yes, you will realize how much you don’t know, but you will have such a handle on God’s way of communicating, and on the big picture of Bible history, that you will be able to approach and study any passage with confidence.

You should be asking, how is this possible? The Bible is one story told over and over again, with many variations on the same theme. The variations are based on Genesis chapter 1 (expanded upon in chapters 2-3), so they all follow a similar structure. This underlying framework is the skeleton key that opens all the doors.

I believe that much of the misinterpretation that causes Christian scholars to disagree can be avoided if we identify the use of this elementary pattern—the Bible’s DNA. This field is not something to be reserved for the mystic fringe (although such people are more used to thinking in this way). God’s work is both marvelously engineered and ravishingly artistic. He is not the author of confusion.

When we learn to recognize the shape of God’s sovereign work in the past, it enables us to understand how He is working in the present and how He will work in the future. God is bringing His people to maturity on every level. It becomes clear that our personal temptations and sufferings are significant because they bear the same signature as the histories of families, churches, nations and empires.

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

A young Christian friend recently said to me, “You know, I just don’t get the Old Testament.” If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t either. A process called biblical theology will help us. It is the “big picture” process.

There are two basic theological methods. Systematic theology disassembles the Bible like Lego bricks and puts all the same colored bricks together in little plastic boxes (like many of those Christian books you have read).

It is a necessary process, but if that is all we do, we underestimate the powerful, carefully-crafted literature these “bricks” were removed from. Like coals abstracted from a mesmerizing fire, they soon become lifeless objects devoid of personality.

Biblical theology, however, is very different. It is like watching all the coals in the fire. It is like listening to a symphony and noticing the repeated themes (both how they are similar and how they have been altered). It enables you to analyze both the obvious and the more subtle ways in which the composer is communicating his message. It interprets the living Scriptures organically.

All those separate Lego bricks are part of a composition that links them together. The Bible uses a repertoire of repeated symbols, and the symbols describe the relationship of one “brick” to another.

For instance, when Satan is referred to as a serpent, he is using the weapon of deceit. When he is a dragon, he is persecuting and devouring. In Revelation 12, he is a serpent to the Woman but a dragon to her children—all in the same passage.

Very often, a Bible brick has greater meaning when observed in relationship to other bricks. Indeed, sometimes this is the only way it has meaning. Symbols are relationships.

In context, as part of a story instead of an item on a boring list, these elements are also easier to remember.

The Bible is like the Bayeux Tapestry, a long-running account of God’s people in history. Sadly, many modern conservative scholars prefer to spend their time squabbling over the mass of threads on the back of the cloth, all the while ignoring the exhilarating big picture on the front. They are technicians who see and record dots. To be fully understood, the Bible also requires artists who are able to “join the dots.”

While the academies, when it all boils down, have their students getting to know everything about the Bible but the Bible itself, is it any wonder many teachers are inept when it comes to communicating its big picture to their churches? Is it any wonder that most

Christians are biblically illiterate and have to spend money on books—sometimes very suspect books—to tell them what the Bible says?

Biblical theology should be taught to everyone in church for three good reasons:

1   We don’t know how to read the Bible. We need to interpret it properly before we can apply it. We forget we are reading someone else’s mail, and take it out of context. We apply texts directly to ourselves or to current newspaper headlines with disastrous results. When we meet together, we search our feelings or latch onto any old idea we find rattling around in our subconscious, pool our ignorance and claim we are taking the Bible at “face value.” We wouldn’t treat any other literature this way. Who was it written to? What events were on their horizon? What previous events could the author be referring to? Where does the passage fit in history? What previous history does the text have in Scripture? Without checking for “previous,” we have no frame of reference for our interpretation of a passage before we make an application of its truth.

2   We ignore or isolate the Old Testament. We stay in safe, familiar territory, which leaves most of the Bible unexplored and foreign to us. And when we do deal with the Old Testament, it is presented as disconnected morality tales rather than as waves in an increasing conquest. This leaves Christians without a clue about how God works in history. We also fail to see Christ predicted throughout all the

Old Covenant Scriptures. This is bigger than a “Where’s Waldo” hunt for Jesus. There are recurring event-patterns and symbols that must be observed if we are to understand the structure of Jesus’ ministry, the goal of the Great Commission and the history of the first-century church.

3 We misinterpret much of the New Testament, including some of its key passages, because we are ignorant of how God’s plan unfolded in the Old Testament. To interpret the last chapter of a book, you must understand everything that has gone before. For instance, understanding that the “Restoration” period laid the foundation for the events of the first century is the only way to interpret the “apocalyptic” passages of the New Testament successfully.1

All this brings us to the most important point of this introduction: the Bible’s use of symbols—typology.

SYMBOLISM

The Bible’s symbolism is based on the fact that everything made by God has a message. All matter is like wax stamped with God’s seal, and all the elements of Creation say something about the nature of their Creator.

Like anything made today—especially clothing—Creation has a logo stamped on it. God’s logo is Man. Man is the primary symbol that points to God. That pointing has been corrupted by sin, and Christ came to be a perfect logo and then restore the logo in us. He is the Word, and by His Creative Spirit, He makes us Words.

The Greek word for a stamp or pattern is typos, which is where we get typeface and typewriter from. So the study of symbols and patterns in the Bible is called Typology.

Typology is a large part of biblical theology—I think the most exciting. Due to past abuses, it is currently unpopular. However, the Bible cannot be fully understood without allowing this upper layer of predictive symbolism to have its place in our thinking.

For sure, anything we want to see can be read into literature, and the fear of the “minimalists” is that if this door is opened, the Scriptures will be misused and our minds will be filled with crazy ideas.

But with this door shut, even the scholars are often unable to make much sense of numerous passages. They have banned driving because some people went off-road.

Is typology really that dangerous? Are there any built-in restraints on its abuse? James Jordan writes:

“Some [Old Testament] events are clearly and pointedly symbolic and typological, while some are only vaguely and generally so. We have to explain this in order to distance ourselves from the ‘interpretive minimalism’ that has come to characterize evangelical commentaries on Scripture in recent years. We do not need some specific New Testament verse to ‘prove’ that a given Old Testament story has symbolic dimensions. Rather, such symbolic dimensions are presupposed in the very fact that man is the image of God. Thus, we ought not be afraid to hazard a guess at the wider prophetic meanings of Scripture narratives, as we consider how they image the ways of God.

Such a ‘maximalist’ approach as this puts us more in line with the kind of interpretation used by the Church Fathers. It seems dangerous, because it is not readily evident what kinds of checks and balances are to be employed in such an approach. Do the five loaves and two fishes represent the five books of Moses and the Old and New Testaments? Almost certainly not. What, however, is our check on such an interpretation? We have to say that the check and balance on interpretation is the whole rest of Scripture and of theology. As time goes along, and we learn more and more, our interpretations will become refined. If we do not plunge in and try now, however, that day of refinement will never come.”2

There are two main “checks and balances” that restrain us from misusing the Bible’s symbols. The first is the Bible’s consistent use of the same symbols. There is a verse in John Newton’s hymn Amazing Grace which makes me cringe, because it describes God’s mercy as a flood and the end of the world as being like dissolving snow. I love that hymn, but I know the Bible only uses a flood symbol to describe the destruction of unfaithful Covenant people, and snow is always, somehow, related to righteousness.

Secondly, the symbols are most often contained in the repeated event-patterns which structure the Bible. In other words, the symbols know their place. To goad those too timid to venture beyond Lego brick systematic theology, I like to call this systematic typology. It is symbols contained in a repeated structure, like seven powerlines running right through the Bible, with each occurrence of the pattern as the power pole that holds them in place and in order. The repeated structure is what allows us to make and verify the typological connections between the events described.

Of course, each occurrence is not identical. The common pattern is refracted in a myriad of different ways. To illustrate this, imagine a dinner set where every patterned dinner plate has a piece missing. If we stack all of the plates, carefully lining up the corresponding bits of the pattern we do have, it is very likely we will be able to see the complete pattern using all the incomplete plates. This is exactly how the Bible is constructed. Although the first “plate,” Genesis 1-3, is extremely brief, it contains the seeds of the rest of the Bible in breathtaking potency. This primeval word takes on “flesh” as the pattern is replayed throughout Bible history.

The most basic event-structure is the Creation narrative in Genesis 1, and it is the chord from which the entire Bible “symphony” flows. When you see a passage that recapitulates the Creation Week, there are some very valid things you can draw from the text that aren’t actually written in it. This is a subtle element of Scripture that many bright scholars refuse to see.

Genesis 1 is the Bible Matrix. As it matures throughout the Scriptures, the identification of this pattern unlocks the books of Moses, Israel’s history, the structure of Jesus’ ministry and the book of Revelation. If the Bible is truly God’s Word, should we expect anything less? It also has staggering implications concerning the identity, purpose and future of Christianity—and these implications are thoroughly, joyously liberating.

THINKING GOD’S THOUGHTS

One reason we have a hard time understanding the Bible is because we keep imposing our modern world views onto it. The Bible speaks its own language. It comes in like a sword and violates our thinking until we think the way God does. God does not speak in theological jargon or ideology divorced from reality. He speaks in the energizing, intoxicating flesh-and-blood symbols of the Creation, and so should we.

This book draws a great deal upon the genius of theologians James B. Jordan and Peter J. Leithart.3 These bold, godly, good-humored men have answered questions I have had for many years. I can honestly say that, due to their influence, I look at the Bible in a totally different way. I can open it to any book now and feel completely at home, even if I haven’t studied that book in detail. This is because I now recognize the furniture.

Bible Matrix is an introduction to the interpretive method used in my Bible commentary, Totus Christus: A Biblical Theology of the Whole Christ, which also summarizes a great deal of Jordan and Leithart’s groundbreaking work.

Once you get a handle on this method, I recommend taking the next step with that commentary and seeing these structures—and their exciting implica-tions—in much greater detail.

But I have no doubt that this introduction is more than enough to get you understanding the Bible in a much deeper way, all on your own. And I can assure you, it is mind-blowing. You will never look at the Bible—or the world—in quite the same way again.

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland,, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…

Remember, all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

—Morpheus, to Neo, in The Matrix

2

FLYING INFORMATION

THE NEXT FEW CHAPTERS ARE LIKE FLYING LESSONS. You are going to learn to think in new ways, to see the Bible—and the world—with an extra dimension usually reserved for poets, madmen and the authors of the Scriptures.

If you find you are not getting it, don’t worry. You may be someone visual, like me, who learns better by seeing things in action, and there will be plenty of action shortly. If you are non-visual, I advise you to repress the urge to demand a full engineering report on this bumblebee before you see it do the physically impossible and fly. And I can tell you from experience, this thing flies with the mighty wings of a four-faced cherubim.

LEARNING BIBLE PATTERNS

There are three fundamental seven-step patterns in Scripture, which are often three strands of the same cord.

The first is the seven day Creation pattern, which appears sometimes as con-struction and sometimes as de-struction.

The second, and most important, is the Dominion pattern, which is repeated many times in the old Testament and is also the deep structure of the New. It marks out and claims the territory promised to us by God as a new creation.

The third is the pattern of the seven Festivals given to the nation of Israel. These feasts show us that the process of gathering God’s people is written into Creation as the harvest year.

You christians who know the Bible will begin to recognize these patterns in passages that are very familiar. They have already become part of your subconscious, and this is the purpose for which they were designed. The Bible recasts the shape of the way we think in order to forge the shape of the way we live. Meditating on these patterns and their implications has given me a bigger handle on the Scriptures. It has also given the Scriptures a bigger handle on me.

Understanding the Bible requires a biblical theology that is not only literary and historical but also typological. This extra dimension is not optional but crucial. This is how Christ has revealed Himself.

There’s no need for any obscure Scriptures to remain as isolated parts of a mystery antique. In fact, when understood in both their historical context and literary structure, these can be the most rewarding. Not a word is idle. The Bible is absolute perfection, an unfath-omably integrated living organism, and the literary architecture of a growing house, head and body—the Whole Christ.

PERFECT SYMMETRY

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED why there is repetition in many passages of Scripture? The Bible often uses a literary structure much like a flock of geese flying in formation. The geese on each end are corresponding events, and each goose corresponds to its counterpart until we reach the central point, which is often the main message of the passage—the thesis. A seven-fold (heptamerous) formation would look like this:

A and A^1 are related ideas, if not identical. A^1 is often an expansion of A, and B^1 of B, etc. The pattern is known as a chiasm (ky-azm). Chiasms are common throughout Scripture.

The Bible is neither an archaic shambles nor a linear torrent of data to be absorbed and merely “systematized.” As we shall see, it is literary architecture. To be interpreted it must be read in three dimensions.

A CHIASM:

THE BATHSHEBA NARRATIVE

A Joab is on the field besieging Rabbah, but David has stayed behind in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 11:1)

B David sleeps with Bathsheba, and she becomes pregnant (11:2-5)

C David arranges for Uriah’s death (11:6-25)

D Bathsheba mourns for Uriah (11:26-27)

E Nathan confronts David’s sin (12:1-15a)

D^1David mourns for his infant son (12:15b-17)

C^1 David’s son dies

(12:18-23)

B^1 David sleeps with Bathsheba, and she becomes pregnant (12:24-25)

A^1 David goes to Rabbah and finishes the siege, then returns to Jerusalem (12:26-31)1

METHOD IN THE MADNESS

Chiastic structures were a means of ordering information so it could be remembered easily. Since literacy was limited, literature was designed to be read aloud and heard.. In the preface to his book, The Literary Structure Of The Old Testament, David Dorsey writes:

“My fascination with [Hebrew literary structure] was kindled when I began teaching Old Testament courses in seminary. At that time I was struck by the apparent lack of order within many of the biblical books. Jeremiah seemed hopelessly confused in its organization; so did Isaiah and Hosea and most of the prophets. Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes appeared to be in almost complete disarray, and even the more orderly historical books, such as Joshua and Kings, showed signs of strangely careless organization.

Why did the biblical authors write like this? I would never write a book, an article, or even a private letter with such carelessness of arrangement. I was intrigued by the possibility that the Hebrew authors might have organized their compositions according to literary conventions that were different from ours.

I began to discover, over a period of years, that several structuring patterns rarely used by us were remarkably common in the books of the Hebrew Bible, particularly chiasmus (symmetry), parallelism, and sevenfold patterns. I was increasingly struck by how often these patterns had been utilized to arrange biblical books…

It was my mother who gave me a love for literature. She read to my brother Stephen and me regularly, from as early as I can remember. I still have many fond memories of those wondrous bedtime stories, whose structures—like the Bible—were designed for the ear, not the eye.”

Besides symmetries and parallelisms, there are those three basic patterns in the Bible: Creation, Festivals and Dominion. These may take a little time to get a grip on, but like learning to ride a bicycle, this is the hardest part of the process. Once you get a handle on it, you can go anywhere.

3

DOMINION

THE MOST IMPORTANT HISTORICAL STRUCTURE is the Dominion pattern. Although it is chiastic, it also progresses from Creation to Glorification, from childhood to maturity. As a chiasm, it leaves the house and returns home, but like the lost son in Luke 15, its culmination is the reward of a hard-won wisdom. Here is the seven-point pattern at its basic level:

1   CREATION

2   Division

3   Ascension

4   Testing

5   Maturity

6   Conquest

7   GLORIFICATION

Later, we will see how this process is also symmetrical (chiastic) through the common elements in Creation and Glorification, in Division and Conquest, and in Ascension and Maturity.

This structure is written into our lives at many levels. Creation is the “word” or event that initiates a situation. At Division, the “word” begins to alter the world somehow. Ascension brings the situation to a head—some sort of conflict that must be resolved. Testing is where the implications of the conflict are fully understood, and people are forced to take the side of good or of evil. At Maturity, the underdogs muster themselves in preparation for the final battle. After their Conquest, they receive the prize at Glorification. Because this structure is the DNA of the Bible—the book that founded our culture—you will see that it underlies many, even most, novels and movies.

This structure also reflects God’s pattern for a Christian life. We are born, come to faith, learn about God, are tested and matured, gain wisdom, are resurrected and finally glorified to rule with God. Even if mankind had not fallen into sin, there still would have been this process of planting, watering, growth, pruning, harvest, gathering and feasting with God for every man.

The purpose of identifying this pattern in the Scriptures is not to ignore their obvious message in favor of a hidden one. It is a foundation for interpreting them correctly so we can better understand the temptation and suffering we experience, and better obey God’s glorious purposes for us in Christ.

DOMINION PATTERN IN GENESIS TO JUDGES

The first seven books of the Bible follow this pattern, with a growth into maturity from children to wise Judges, who are by definition “mature… hav(ing) their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). This was God’s plan for Adam and is the climax of God’s plan for mankind. He seeks “godly offspring” (Malachi 2:15).

4

FESTIVALS

GUESS WHAT? The nation of Israel had seven feasts, and they follow the same pattern. They are outlined in Leviticus 23.

These festivals portray Dominion as a harvest. They show us that the process of freeing, purifying and gathering God’s people is written into Creation as the harvest year.

So we see the same progression from Creation to Glorification in Israel’s annual calendar.

5

CREATION

WE HAVE COVERED Dominion and Festivals. Now it’s time to see how those are based on the Creation Week in Genesis 1.

- The heavens of Day 1 were filled on Day 4.

- The sky and sea of Day 2 were filled on Day 5.

- The Land of Day 3 was filled on Day 6.

Notice that both Day 1 and Day 4 concern light. Day 1 is singular, and Day 4 is plural. The first is the “head” (king), and the fourth is the “body” (government of elders).

Notice also the preliminary filling at the end of Day 3, with the grain and fruit plants filling the Land as a promise of the Sabbath table of Day 7 (bread and wine). Day 3 corresponds to Firstfruits, and Day 7 to the big feast at Booths.

Day 5 concerns swarms. It is about bands of brothers, armies and plagues. The clouds of incense picture multitudes of men as God’s government, mature elders prepared as a robe for the Lord.

Adam’s creation corresponds to the High Priest on the Day of Atonement.

The odd one out seems to be Day 4. Adam is tested under God’s Law. The sun, moon and five visible planets correspond to the seven “governing” lights of the Lampstand. The Tabernacle follows the same pattern because God’s house is a new Creation. We will discuss this later on.

Corresponding the Creation Days with the Dominion and Festivals patterns might seem to be too much of a mental stretch at this early stage, so I will reassure you once again: when you see this glorious triple-braided process in action, it will all begin to fall into place.

6

NEW CREATION MATRIX

WHAT YOU WILL SEE NEXT is the complete structure God uses in all His dealings with His Creation. In this final chart, all three patterns correspond—Creation, Feasts and Dominion.1

Every time a pattern is repeated, some extra aspects are highlighted. In any given cycle, one pattern may be dominant, but all three are still present and shed light on each other.

This structure is the heartbeat of the Creation. It is the cycle of a human day and a human life. It is the pattern of the Tabernacle. It is the process of agriculture. It undergirds the speeches and Laws of God. It orders the rise and fall of nations and empires. As we will see, it is also the structure of our worship. It is the rhythm of Christ.

TOOL KIT

I know this is a deluge of information. It is a lot to digest and internalize, so here I summarize what motifs and symbols to look out for as an aid to identifying and verifying this structure. Remember, all three patterns are tied together, and in any occurrence, one in particular will usually shine more than the others.

It is also a great help to remember that this pattern is a process initiated by a Word from the Lord (or His prophet) that brings about a creative (or destructive) change to move history forward. It moves His people (as children) to greater maturity and greater authority.

Again, for those readers willing to suspend their judgment and keep reading, don’t stress too much about remembering these details for now. As mentioned earlier, observing these elements as parts of a structure is far more memorable than systematizing them. seeing them in action makes their rhythm familiar.

Creation

This step always concerns the initiating “Word” from God to man. It is the light on Day 1 of Creation, the Tablets hidden in the Ark. Sometimes it is a stagnated Sabbath rest (like slavery in Egypt) that the Lord comes to disturb with a new cycle so a better rest may be given. Cycles often begin with someone speaking.

Division

At this step you will find the firmament, a robe, or something torn in two. It is the dark heavens as a garment—the Tabernacle veil. Sometimes there is sackcloth as a symbol of mourning for sin or the tearing of a robe as a symbol of grief. All this is the death in the darkness of the Passover. It is a people torn in two by the sword of the Creative Word. Here, you will also find a journey, an exodus of those called at the Creation step to divide from those who are not called.

Ascension

Ascension concerns the Covenant “head.” It is fundamentally “singular.” This is the firstfruits of the harvest. It is Moses ascending Sinai to receive the Law. As Day 3, the Bronze Altar is the mountain rising out of the sea, and Moses is the new Adam submitting to God as grain and fruit plants, a promise of future bread and wine, the Table of Showbread (“bread of the face”). The new Covenant made at Ascension is a “betrothal” promise to be consummated, fulfilled at Glorification.

Part of this “nearbringing of Adam” (as High Priest) at Ascension was the institution of a centralized priesthood and the construction of the Tabernacle according to the pattern given to Moses on the mountain. The motifs related to this at Ascension are housebuilding, gold and silver temple vessels, and enthronement.

Testing

Here you will find references to the sun, moon and stars as heavenly or earthly rulers. It is also the place of corrupted rulers who are snakes, beasts and dragons. In the Garden, Satan as corrupted ruler tested Adam and usurped the authority Adam would have received if he had been faithful.

The seven lights of the Lampstand are also the

“governing” eyes of the Lord, so there is often a reference to eyes, to sight, or ironically to blindness. As a “garden of Satan,” this central point concerns testing in the wilderness.

Maturity

This 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.

This step fills the firmament formed on Day 2, so the concept behind all of these symbols is an abundance of plunder filling the Tabernacle.

It is also the forming of an “Eve” body for the Adam “head.” Adam is singular, but Eve, the mother of all living, is plural. Maturity is a cloud ascending to God, a shining entity that acts as one, a “collective noun” unified by the Spirit under the Covenant head and reflecting His glory.

Here there are also references to Moses repeating the Law to the next generation, which matches Ascension in the chiasm: the Bronze Altar matches the Incense Altar. The Bronze Altar warrior-priests are purified by Testing and transformed into Incense Altar elder-priests. Both have aromas that please God. The Bronze Altar aroma comes from death—roasting meat (Adam) and the Incense Altar is the fragrant, plural, resurrection of Eve.

Conquest

Besides the obvious symbols of conquest, here there are references to Adam’s High Priesthood: he carries the Covenant people from Maturity into Glorification as precious gems on his bosom, via the opened veil through which the High Priest would pass once a year.

Perhaps the most interesting factor is the frequent play on the two identical goats on the Day of Atonement. The concept of this final “body” Division is extremely serious, obvious in Jesus’ separation of the sheep and goats.

This brings us to the most important symbol of Conquest: the Laver. Mirroring the Red Sea at Division, water is a recurring motif here, in everything from the Jordan River to New Covenant baptism. It is the ascension of the saints to stand on the crystal sea before God’s throne and govern as a corporate mediator.

Glorification

This final step not only brings the cycle to an end but sets up the next one. It enthrones the completed church, head and body (captain and army), as a corporate mediator for the nations.

As Tabernacles, here you will find vines and fig trees, wine and oil. It is an “ingathering” and a great feast. This new marriage of heaven and earth produces godly offspring. They are commissioned and sent out to dominate the world as new Creation-words. They are pictured as children, letters, rivers, or even swift horses.

Glorification is both a rest for the faithful parents/ conquerors/overcomers of the old cycle, and a new Light that initiates a greater Creation week.

We’ll give this a practice run with Exodus 17 and Daniel 1, and then begin with Adam’s Testing in the Garden.

7

ADAM

YOU’VE DONE WELL TO GET THIS FAR, and I’ve got good news: we’ve now covered the basics and can get right into seeing how the Bible uses them. The first two major cycles, Adam and the flood, are important foundations for the rest of the Bible. You might want to keep a Bible handy from now on.

A crucial element to grasp here is that of “head and body.” Adam goes through the pattern as the head of the human race. Then the race itself goes through the pattern. Adam builds the house and Eve fills it. Adam is structure; Eve is glory.

We will see this again in Moses and the Hebrews, in Jesus and the first century church, and in Israel and the nations. As with a human birth, God’s design is always headfirst.

“For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

(MATTHEW 25:29-30)

Eve was to be Adam’s glory. Cain’s city was his glory This correspondence between the bride and the cit can be traced right through the Bible. Peter Leithar writes:

“Even before Cain, there is a hint—only a hint, but a hint—of a better city to come. It is not good for man to be alone, Yahweh says of Adam, and then takes a rib from Adam’s side and makes that rib into a woman.

Eve is not a city. But Eve is the prototype of a different sort of city, a bridal city. The hint is in the strange verb that Genesis 2:22 uses. Yahweh doesn’t make or form Eve from the rib of Adam, but ‘builds’ the woman. Eve is the first thing built in the Bible, and the second thing to be built is Cain’s city—that’s the next use of that verb.

But it’s not just the verb that links the two. Cain builds his city after killing his brother, shedding Abel’s blood on the ground. Adam goes into deep sleep, not death, and his flesh is opened up. The first time flesh is opened is not with Abel but with Adam. There is no reference to blood, but there must have been.

There are key differences that highlight the differences of two cities. Cain kills his brother and founds his city on the blood of his brother; Adam’s bride is built from his own body, from a kind of self-sacrifice. Further, Cain built his city; but Adam’s bride is built by God. Eve is not a city, but she is the prototype of the city that Abraham looked forward to, the city whose builder and maker is God.

The clearest evidence for this civic interpretation of the creation of Eve comes from the end of the Bible, where the city-bride is revealed in a thoroughly Edenic passage. The city-bride is a new Eve, adorned for her Husband, the Lamb, and this means that the original creation of Eve anticipated the consummation.”1

8

TWO DOORS

IN THE DOMINION PATTERN THERE ARE TWO DOORS. The first is Passover (Division), when the Lord covers His people and draws them from the world to Himself in the wilderness to be tested. The second door is Atonement (Conquest), when the Lord assembles His trained people as a holy army to conquer a new world. Both doors involve water and blood. We see this pattern again at the exodus. Passover preceded the Red Sea, and bloody Jericho followed the Jordan.

The floating basket that Jochebed used to save her baby, Moses, was a self-contained doorway. It was waterproofed with a covering (pitch), the same word used of the covering on Noah’s ark. Like Noah, Moses was God’s mediator, or door, in a box sealed, or covered, for protection.

The doors of the Hebrew homes in Goshen were also “covered” (with blood) for protection from the Avenging Angel.

God later commanded Moses to have the Ark constructed to carry His Ten Words, the commandments. once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Coverings), the High priest could safely pass through the veil, standing at the doorway to heaven as the representative of the Land. He sprinkled blood before the Ark seven times for the sins of the people, as a covering for Adam’s corrupted week.

Finally, in Christ, we have the Word in human flesh, an open doorway who protected the faithful once and for all with the “covering” of His blood.

The Dominion pattern can be distilled to a basic “progressive” chiasm. It will make more sense later on, but for now, notice the two doors. The first concerns the covering of the head (Adam), and the second concerns the covering of the body (Eve).

9

NOAH

NOAH MEANS “REST.” As the Sabbath-king of Adam’s “body” pattern, Noah was given a glorious robe, and power as a judge to sentence murderers to death. Noah was like the first King Solomon. Solomon, like shalom, means “Peace.”

Noah’s “head” pattern leads to more success than Adam’s did. After the flood, God commanded Noah’s line to have children and fill the World. He gave Noah the authority to execute murderers, like Cain, in the Land. And Noah planted a Garden—a vineyard.

However, Noah’s Land cycle still ended with a “city of Cain.” Nimrod (Gilgamesh) was not a wise judge. He was not a shepherd but a wild beast, a hunter. He considered himself “the mighty vanquisher of God,”1 and his city-temple-tower was built on a crooked foundation. It was a false Tabernacle. Nimrod means “Rebel.”

Instead of expanding the kingdom and achieving glory for God, the people wanted a name (glory) for themselves.

The Joktanites were children of Shem. Instead of remaining separate from the rebel kingdom, they compromised with the offspring of the serpent.

The tower to heaven was a shortcut to glory, a self-serving Glorification. It fell so short that the Lord had to “come down” to “measure” the temple of this wild beast.

1 See Who was Nimrod? by Bible archaeologist

Dr. David P. Livingston, www.biblearchaeology.org

Adam disobeyed God in the Garden and was cast out. Cain killed his brother in the Land and was cast out. The sons of God married unbelievers in the World and were cast out. In these three domains, man sinned against Father, Son and Spirit. James Jordan writes:

“Man’s first fall, in the Sanctuary, prevented his going into Eden and resulted in his being put in a Homeland that was not a Throneland. The second fall, of Cain, expelled him from a Homeland into a world of wandering. The third fall, of the Sethites, removed the sinners from the world through the great flood.

…these rebellions constituted stealing the gift of the Father (sacrilege), murder of the brotherhood of the Son (fratricide), and resisting the marital gifts of the Spirit (intermarriage or compro-mise).”2

Like Adam, Ham seized the robe of authority in the Garden. Nimrod built a “city of Cain” in the Land. But there is no World cycle. James Jordan writes:

“We don’t directly see the sin of Fratricide here, but the other parallels link it to Cain’s fall in the land. Cain was cursed to wander, though he did build a city. The story of the Tower and City of Babel shows judgment of scattering, analogous to the judgment of Cain… we don’t have a third rebellion in the world-setting, because God does not intend to destroy the world again. Instead, we have three positive pictures presented in the next spiral.”3

Joseph, Abraham’s faithful great-grandson, ruled the world.

Adam-Garden

Noah-Garden, Land

Abraham-Garden, Land, World

10

ABRAHAM

ADAM’S FAILURE BROUGHT physical De-Creation. Cain founded a corrupt civilization whose evil influence triumphed. Just like Cain, Ham was cursed, and his son Canaan’s influence led to social De-Creation.

As God raised new land out of the waters after the flood, God would now perform a similar Re-Creation miracle. In calling Abram, God was socially dividing the waters of the nations into the Land and the Sea.

O Creation-A world united as one blood (Sabbath) Division-A world divided by blood (Passover)

In this way, human history moved from Creation to Division. The era of the patriarchs, ruling fathers, began. God called Abram and tore “Adam” in two. It was the initiation by God of the Jew-Gentile divide. Peter Leithart writes:

“In Genesis 9:11, Yahweh promises not to “cut off flesh” by water. That is the covenant with Noah. A few chapters later, Yahweh tells Abram that he must cut off the flesh of all male children of Israel, not by water but by a knife.”1

As a new, more faithful Adam, the Lord would test Abram in Garden, Land and World.

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little;

I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

(MATTHEW 25:21)

11

JACOB

ANCIENT MAN WANTED TO BUILD HIS WAY BACK UP TO GOD. There are still pyramids and ziggurats to remind us of his preoccupation with a garden on a mountain, and access to heaven requiring blood sacrifice. Eden is not one of the legends; it is their historical source.

Eden, with its Garden, was situated on a mountain or plateau. we know this because four rivers flowed out of it, and rivers only flow downstream. Imagine a mountain with four sides, its top shrouded in cloud. God’s throne in heaven is higher than the firmament, so the actual mountaintop is higher than the Garden, where man rules under God. God comes down in a fiery cloud to bring man His word and assess his works. The cloud is His chariot. without the fall, men would have followed the rivers to the ends of the earth, carrying God’s Spirit within them as miniature temples. Like the stars moving across the sky, this holy army in glorious robes would fill the world.

After Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the Garden, man was still to come before God with sacrifices at the end of harvest. Not only was there holy fire at the door of the Garden to keep man out, the beast was still before the door, acting as an accuser before the throne of the Judge. when God warned Cain that sin was lying at the door, seeking to devour him, it was more than just a metaphor. Judgment begins at the house of God, but so does temptation. The serpent was still in the Garden of God, standing between man and glory as both tempter and counsel for the prosecution.

Cain and Abel understood that the death of the beast opened the door to fellowship with God. Abel’s sins were covered by his offering of a sheep. But Cain’s vegetables, the work of his hands, were like the leaves Adam and Eve used to cover their own nakedness. Only blood can atone for—cover—sin.

After Cain murdered his brother, the Land vomited him out. No garden, no vegetables. Cain’s impatient reach for a robe of glory was to build a city (Enoch) to cover himself. He manufactured a mountain of God, founded on the blood of his brother.

The children of Joktan (Shemites) compromised to build their own mountain in the east (the direction of exile), the city and tower of Babel. This was their impatient grab at glory. But God started from scratch with a new garden in Abraham. Because His people do not resort to robbery and exploitation, God’s cities take time to build.

The promise of Canaan to Abraham’s children would put the Shemites back at the centre of the world. The Hebrews would be surrounded by Canaanites. Like the serpent, the Lord would use the Canaanites to test His people.

After Noah’s new Garden, Babel was the tower in the “Land.” In Abraham’s new Garden, Isaac’s failure to judge rightly (symbolized by his blindness) meant that Jacob replaced him. It was to Jacob that the Lord showed His blueprint for a true Babel in the Land, a tower to heaven, a new “mountain of God.”

With his head on a rough stone, Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on a stairway to heaven, a spiritual ziggurat between God and man. Symbolically, Jacob was on the Bronze Altar, looking up through the heavenly Tabernacle towards the Most Holy place.

God wouldn’t build this tower out of bricks and mortar, however; as with Eve, He would build it out of flesh and blood—Jacob’s offspring—a living Temple, made of precious stones mined from the Land.

12

JOSEPH

UNLIKE ADAM, ABRAHAM WAS A FAITHFUL PRIEST in the Garden, obediently offering Isaac. Unlike Cain, Jacob made peace with his brother and his uncle in the Land. Joseph would be tested like his fathers. Unlike the sons of God, he would resist the “daughters of men” (potiphar’s wife) and dominate the Canaanite World.

Abraham-Garden

Jacob-Land

Joseph-world

The narrative of Joseph’s life itself follows the Garden, Land, world pattern.

13

MOSES

THE LORD’S PROMISE TO ABRAHAM included the revelation that his offspring would be slaves for four centuries. Joseph’s dominion did result in great multiplication, and his people lived in Goshen, a very fertile part of Egypt. God heard His people’s prayers for deliverance, but waited until the right time to send a saviour.

What made the time of Moses right? Firstly, the Hebrews had grown to the size of a nation and, in a sense, had been punished for selling Joseph into slavery.

Secondly, in Genesis 10, 70 nations are listed before the tower of Babel. In Jacob’s family, God had planted the seed of 70 people in Egypt, and a new nation that would bless all nations was ready to flourish. At the Feast of Booths, Israel was to sacrifice seventy bulls for the Gentile nations, mediating for them as priests before God.

Thirdly, God had told Abraham that the people currently living in the promised Land still had time to repent. They had only become worse, and now their time was up. Joshua’s Israel—the next generation—would bring holy, judicial violence as destroying “angels” against the Canaanites and their next genera-tion—their children. Their “cycle” was cut off.

The most obvious appearance of the Dominion pattern is the exodus from Egypt and conquest of Canaan. But the pattern is also stamped into Moses’ life. In his personal pattern, Moses leaves the Hebrews and passes through the Nile to the wilderness of Egypt. It ends with the Lord’s glorious appearance at the Garden door, in the burning bush on a mountain.

14

WORLD-IN-A-BOX

THE CALL OF ABRAM moved human history from Creation to Division. The call of Moses moved it from Division (a separate people) to a centralized priesthood—Ascension.

Before this time, there were many godly priests, such as Melchizedek and Jethro. But now Israel, as mediator for the world, was the head of the nations. This prefigured the ascension of Christ as firstfruits, representing mankind before the Father with shed blood. Israel sacrificed animals that were ceremonially clean. Jesus, being sinless, presented His own blood.

When the Lord makes a new Covenant in the Bible, it is spoken of as a New Creation. The instructions for the Tabernacle (Exodus 25-31) are seven speeches which follow the pattern of the Creation Week. The Tabernacle was a miniature “clean” world, a micro-cosmos. It was the DNA for a new Creation.

DAY 1

LIGHT-THE ARK

The Ark of the Covenant was the Lord’s footstool below His invisible throne. Ancient kings were carried in litters by their slaves, and God’s throne was carried (under a cover) by His people. The Ark was never to be carried on an animal or a cart. As with kings, being carried by men was a reminder of God’s rulership over them.

Gold is solid light. As God created light on the first day, the Ark was covered in gold. The lid on the Ark was actually solid gold. There was no natural light in the Most Holy Place. The Ark was the light.

DAY 2

FIRMAMENT-THE VEILS

As God stretched out the heavens like a garment or a tent, the Tabernacle had curtains or veils embroidered with silver and gold. As the firmament is an opaque barrier between heaven and man, so a veil obscured the Most Holy Place from the priests, and another veil obscured the Holy Place from the courtyard.

As the firmament is where the sun, moon, planets and stars rule the sky, the Holy Place was where man ruled the world under God. God’s “living room” was also a Garden below the glory-cloud, and here the priesthood served Him as Adam did.

DAY 3

LAND AND SEA

THE BRONZE ALTAR

As God raised the land out of the waters, the Altar was the holy Land, perfectly square with four mountain peaks. God’s consuming fire descended on the mountain and communed with man in the Garden, halfway down, inside the Altar. The peaks were also four horns, which were daubed with the blood of the sacrifice to purify the Land before God could visit. Horns symbolize the power to execute judgment. Blood-covered horns showed justice was satisfied.

GRAIN AND FRUIT

THE TABLE OF SHOWBREAD

On the Table in the Holy Place were twelve loaves of bread and jugs of beer, and later, when they entered the Promised Land, wine. Like the manna and the grapes of Eshcol (Ascension), they were a promise of rest and rule with God. They were types of a future permanent Sabbath as priests and kings (Glorification).

Just as the marriage covenant of Adam and Eve at Firstfruits was really the betrothal of their united marriage to God at Booths, so this Day 3 Table of Israel was a promise of future glory to the whole world on Day 7. Human marriage is a picture of future glory.

DAY 4

SUN, MOON AND PLANETS

THE GOLD LAMPSTAND

The seven lights are the sun, moon and five bright planets that rule the firmament. The Lampstand overlooked the Table of Showbread as the burning eyes of God watching over man and giving him light (Law) to judge between good and evil (Testing). Made of solid gold and constructed to look like an almond tree, it was a burning bush. As gold is solid light, the pure beaten olive oil is liquid light. The Lampstand is God’s people as wise rulers filled with Light (Pentecost).

DAY 5

BIRDS AND FISH

THE INCENSE ALTAR

“Swarms” of birds and fish filled what God divided on Day 2. The Incense Altar filled the Holy Place with clouds of perfumed smoke.

The birds symbolized the armies of heaven and the fish the armies of the nations.

DAY 6

MEDIATOR

THE LAVER

Both the priests and the animals were washed in the Laver. The Tabernacle instructions position the Laver at Day 6—instead of with the “waters” of the Firmament—because Adam required resurrection to approach the Lord. This still matches Day 2 chiasti-cally, as the Red Sea matches the Jordan.

ANIMALS AND MAN-

THE SACRIFICES AND THE PRIESTS

Clean animals were substituted as sacrifices to cover unclean men. Just as the priests were forbidden to wear shoes in God’s house, so the clean animals included the ones careful about where they put their feet.

DAY 7

REST-PILLAR OF FIRE

The Tabernacle was a symbolically sanitation-sealed mini-palace for the Lord, a replica of His heavenly throne, through which He could speak to mankind through His priests—mediators.

On the seventh day, God’s glory-cloud appeared and rested in His new house, with His people, the stars of heaven, arranged in perfect constellations around His new Creation.

Day 7 is the Day of the Lord. This means rest for the righteous and judgment for the wicked.

THE GATE OF GOD

The construction materials of the Tabernacle increase in glory (and weight) to indicate increasing holiness. The outer materials are skin, cloth and wood. The metals are bronze, then silver. The furniture in the Holy Place is covered in gold. Finally, in the Most Holy Place, everything is covered in more highly refined gold, and the lid of the Ark (the footstool of God’s throne) is solid gold.

The poles and pillars indicate a symbolic multi-story building. The outer silver and gold pillars had bronze bases, and the inner gold pillars had silver bases. Covered in skins and surrounded by a “glory-cloud” robe of tents as His city, the Tabernacle was a portable tower, the heavenly blueprint measured out story by story on the Land.

It was the true Babel, the “gate of God,” an image of the heavenly temple.

A METAL MAN

As the church is God’s house and also the body of Christ, the Tabernacle is also a man, a glorious metal man.

But He is a cruciform man. In His left hand is the broken bread and poured out wine of Servanthood. In His right hand are the seven stars of Dominion (Revelation 1:16). The Ark is His head of gold (see Songs 5:11). The incense smoke is His elder-prayer in response to God. The Altar is His stomach, where He dines with mankind. The Laver is the living water of the Spirit pouring from His belly that washes us, the crystal sea that brings resurrection to Adam at the gate.

When Solomon’s Temple replaced the Tabernacle, everything was more glorious. Among the enhancements and additions were two great bronze pillars at the entrance. The glorified Christ is seen in visions with legs of molten bronze, or a fiery, angelic stream that reaches down to the Altar of the Land. The Tabernacle was a “flying” chariot of God. When it finally rested upon the mountain of God as the Temple, these two pillars were its “landing gear.”

The outer curtains of the Tabernacle were a garment for God to protect Him from the corrupt world—and a firmament to protect the corrupt world from Him. The violet and white curtain presented a two-tiered army of cherubim looking inside and outside the Tabernacle. In this glorious body, enrobed and guarded by His priests, Christ led His people through the wilderness.

15

JOSHUA

THE FESTIVALS PATTERN puts the destruction ofJericho at Atonement. The Lord had told Abraham that the people inhabiting the Promised Land would be given more time, but now their time was up.

There was also a change in the government, from an administration of angels to a proto-administration of men. This time, it would not be angels taking life as the hosts of God, the destroyers at Passover. It would be the “resurrected” people of God. At Passover, the Hebrews passed under the sword, asleep like Adam. At Atonement, unlike Adam, they themselves were qualified to wield the “flaming sword” of the Lord as they entered the Land.

Joshua symbolically became the Captain of the Lord’s Armies—the High Priest—and Rahab the prostitute symbolically became the first goat of Atonement that ascended to God as a pleasing aroma.

16

JUDGES

THE FIRST SEVEN BOOKS OF THE BIBLE follow the general themes of the seven days of Creation.

Joshua ends with the death of Eleazar, the son of Aaron. At the death of the High Priest, it was safe for all those protected in cities of refuge to return home (Booths). After committing to obey the Lord, every man returned to his inheritance. Everyone was in their own Garden of God, like Adam.

In the time of Judges, Israel was now Glorified.. The people were living in God’s Land, but after Joshua died, the priests failed to serve at the throne and feed the people. Both worship and morality deteriorated, so the Lord allowed the nations to discipline those who had forsaken the true Baal (“lord”) for Canaanite fakes.

our culture reflects our worship, and Israel would learn firsthand about the nature of the cultures that resulted from their new gods.

Although there are twelve judges mentioned in the book, there were seven elected judges: Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Abimelech, Jephthah, and Samson.

These books are often strange to our modern ears, but they contain themes that echo throughout the rest of the Bible.

17

RUTH

BECAUSE OF THE FAILURE OF THE PRIESTHOOD, and Israel’s resulting sin, the Lord sent a famine. The nation itself became a barren womb.

The Lord used a Gentile bride—a bride from outside—to bring a king from the barren womb of Israel. Ruth—Day 8—is the beginning of a new cycle for the nation. Ruth is about the raising of a new prophet, a servant-king.

18

SAMUEL

THE OLD HOUSE OF MOSES, a temporary tent of cloth and skins, was decaying and ready to pass away, and the new house of David, a permanent house of stone, was promised.

Eli the High Priest failed to raise godly offspring, and his two sons, like the sons of Aaron, were unfaithful priests. The abuse in the house of God was the source of the nation’s oppression, so Eli’s house would be cut off. According to the Law, the Land would spit out the Covenant-breakers.

But the Lord Himself, their rejected King, carried the curse in their place: Israel had become Egypt so the Ark itself headed for the wilderness, taken captive by the Philistines.

The Lord will always let His own reputation suffer rather than allow His unrepentant people to manipulate Him. The Ark would return (and with Gentile singers)—only once a new Tabernacle had been established in the “city of peace”—Jerusalem.

19

SAUL

SAUL SINNED IN THE Garden, failing to wait seven days for samuel to make the sacrifice. He sinned in the Land, making a rash vow that kept food from his men and threatened the life of his son Jonathan. And his sin in the World, styling himself as a Gentile king and friend to Amalek (the Lord’s sworn enemy), forced the Lord to reject him. His kingdom would be taken away.

20

DAVID

SAUL AND DAVID WERE ANOINTED BY SAMUEL, and he was like a father to both of them. Like Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Judah and Joseph, Elimelech and Boaz, the Lord once again used a faithful younger brother to replace a disqualified elder brother. The rivalry would intensify after Samuel’s death. Saul, like Herod, would attempt to murder the legitimate king.

David could have become like Saul, but the Lord used Saul’s persecution to bring David’s faith to maturity. oppressed saints who retaliate often become even more inclined to throw spears than their oppressors. In Judges and 1 Samuel, the weapons used to defeat the enemy reflected the ordinary people who used them: a tent peg, an ox goad, a millstone, an ass’s jawbone, a slingshot. It was Saul who started throwing spears like a Gentile, like Goliath.

David, however, humbled himself like Joseph and was exalted in due time. The eighth son of Jesse was a new Creation.

David’s greatest sin could have made him like Saul—he started seizing things. His twin sins of adultery and murder violated both his role as servant-king before the throne of God, and his role as a priest to the Gentiles. Reflecting this more advanced stage in Israel’s growth towards maturity, judgment was not an immediate “spanking” as it had been in the wilderness, but the experience and suffering of the long term consequences of sin.

David’s first error was a refusal to enter into Testing, but the chiasm shows that although the first three steps were negative, David’s repentance turned things around. The Word of the Lord to David through Nathan the prophet is the hero of the story. It was a light to his path in the wilderness, a lamp(stand) to his feet (Psalm 119:105).

21

SOLOMON

BECAUSE OF DAVID’S SIN, there had been enemies on every side and no rest for the king. Peace would only come with the prince of peace. Solomon’s reign brought Israel into the Sabbath of Tabernacles under the wisest judge who ever lived.

The beginning of Solomon’s reign is not only a new Creation, but symbolically a reconquest of the Land.

As the Tabernacle instructions follow the Creation Week pattern, so does the description of the forming and filling of the Temple—a new cosmos, a new Creation (1 Kings 6-8).

As a glorified Adam, Solomon ate from the Tree of Wisdom, formed and filled a new Creation (Ecclesiastes 2), “named” the animals (1 Kings 4:33), and extended his dominion from the Garden/Temple, across Israel (Land) to the ends of his prototype World (Havilah).

The rich are subject to temptations that the poor will never know, which explains the Lord’s three special commands for kings (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Solomon broke all three of these laws. He collected 666 talents of gold every year, built an army of chariots and horses (some from Egypt) and fell for the “daughters of men,” pagan wives who would entice him to sacrifice to their false gods on the mountain “east of Jerusalem”—the Mount of Olives. Sex, money and power, or girls, gold and guns. As with David’s sin, the consequences of the king’s sin were long term.

Here is the Creation and De-Creation of Solomon’s kingdom, with Solomon as the sun-ruler at the centre.

Jeremiah was branded a false prophet for bringing the word from the Lord to obey the king of Babylon. The last king of Judah, Zedekiah, ignored Jeremiah’s warnings, and his fate says it all. In Babylon, his sons were slain before his eyes, which were then put out, and like Samson, he became a slave. Israel’s “Sabbath-kings” had behaved like the brutal, idolatrous Gentile kings, so the Lord raised Nebuchadnezzar as His glorified servant-king (Jeremiah 25:9).

Ironically, it was Nebuchadnezzar, a real Gentile king who brought rest to the Land—70 years of Sabbaths that were overdue. The Gentile “70” also makes this a mockery of the Feast of Booths: Israel herself was the food on the table as the unclean scavengers came to glut themselves.

With the lion of Judah dethroned, God would use the winged lion-cherub of Babylon to purify and guard the “woman,” the mother of the true Sabbath king—the promised Saviour.

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NEBUCHADNEZZAR

IN THE NORTHERN KINGDOM, only one dynasty lasted longer than four generations (Jehu), and their last king only ruled for six months. All the northern kings were bad. In Judah, however, the house of David ruled continuously with only the one interruption—the false reign of Athaliah. God kept His promise.

Hezekiah’s son Manasseh reconstructed the icons his father had destroyed. He built altars for all the armies of heaven (the stars) in the two courts of the house of the Lord. He burned his sons as sacrifices and consulted witches. Israel followed his leadership and became worse than the Canaanites. Like Jeroboam in the north, Manasseh’s name became a proverb for the source of idolatry in the south. However, the Lord had other plans for this king. He would personally prefigure both the captivity and Restoration of Israel.

The Lord uses the Garden, Land, World pattern consistently. Judgment begins at the house of God. The Word comes from the sanctuary, bringing about events among the people of God. Eventually the shockwaves reach the entire world.

The account of Judah’s idolatrous King Manasseh gives us a personal picture of the shape of Israel’s national experience later on. As in Leviticus 1, the head of the sacrifice is offered first, then the body. In this case, it was both a warning and a promise, a curse and a blessing. The King of Israel was the Covenant.

The Babylonian empire was a “flood” that not only swallowed up idolatrous Israel, but also the Canaanite nations surrounding it. only the Jews resurfaced—a resurrected priestly altar. If they were faithful witnesses, they would “ascend” to rule alongside the Gentile emperors. The empires were not a burden for Israel as many think, but a promotion. The Lord had scattered Israel for disobedience, but would now give her greater dominion as a nation of priests—mediators. Synagogues were established right across the empire, and we see the results of this ministry in the many Gentile believers encountered by the Apostles in the book of Acts. Without a Davidic king, the new role of Israel was prophetic. It required even greater wisdom.

With the Persian empire under the rule of Mordecai and Esther, the prophecy of Noah was fulfilled. The sons of Ham were forever disempowered, and the sons of Shem now ruled a greater territory. This is the meaning of Ezekiel’s Temple. The empires were an ark that would carry Israel into the New Covenant world.

But again, this structure would not last. As in the book of Judges, the people of God would fail to dominate this empire-Land. When the Gentile “Pharaoh” forgot the Shemite “Josephs” (Daniel and Mordecai), the Jews again ended up in slavery for 400 years. This is the time between the end of the old Testament and the New. The entire process of death and resurrection would be repeated one final time for the sake of the sons of Japheth. The Garden (Israel) passed through death and resurrection, then the empire-Land. All that remained was the World.

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ISRAEL

JAMES JORDAN CLAIMS THAT THE GENTILE EMPIRES were an ark that would carry Israel across the waters of the flood into a New Covenant world. This is supported by the structure of Israel’s history, which places these events at old Covenant Israel’s Day 6.

on Day 6, the Lord created Land animals and Man. Daniel 7 uses Land animals walking on water as symbols of the four Gentile empires: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. They are like the four-faced cherubim surrounding God’s throne above the crystal sea, beasts supporting the enthroned Man, who appears later in the chapter.

once Christ came as the perfect Adam, the true Mediator, He ascended to rule over the “animal” kingdoms, naming them in a New Creation. Then the Father gave Him a Bride. The Christian church was Israel’s Day 7.

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JESUS

WITH THE ARRIVAL OF THE PROMISED SAVIOUR, human history moved into the next phase. As Man, God stepped in to face the tempter in Adam’s place.

With His success, the white fields could begin to be harvested. Jesus became the Sun of Righteousness on Day 4 at the centre of history.

Solomon ruled the Land, and Nebuchadnezzar ruled the World. But the Lord moved His dominion strategy to the next level. Nebuchadnezzar’s proto-”World” became simply a greater Land to be conquered.

With the final death-and-resurrection of Israel in the first century, the mediator at the right hand of the power would not be on earth but in heaven, ruling over the actual World.

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THE CHURCH

WITH THE ASCENSION OF THE PROMISED SAVIOUR, human history moved into the next phase. There was now a Man at the right hand of the true Emperor, and He had been given all authority. The history of the Apostolic church was the fulfillment of old Covenant Israel. From AD30 to AD70, a new army was mustered. As Day 5, this army was a summoning of faithful Jews (heavenly birds) and faithful Gentiles (fish plundered from the Sea).

The mark of the Old Covenant centralized priesthood was blood (death), because it was governed on earth. The blood pictured the Covenant head,. The mark of the New Covenant centralized priesthood is water (resurrection), because it is governed from heaven. The water covers the whole Covenant body.

We are now at the point where we can understand the pattern of the church’s foundation in the first century. AD30 to AD70 was a 40 year wilderness period for Israel in which the old body would be torn apart and a new body “incorporated.”

The writer of Hebrews warns the Christian Jews not to look back to Herod’s Egypt, or they would die in the wilderness like their ancestors.

The matrix means that the establishment and massacre of the early church recapitulates not only Israel’s journey from slavery to Sabbath, but also the temptation in Eden. Those primeval “heads” had taken on bodies for one last-ditch rebellion. Adam,, Eve and the serpent had grown to become institutions symbolized in the Revelation as a false prophet, a prostitute and a beast. Their bloody “Bronze Altar” kingdom was De-Created and replaced with a fragrant “Incense Altar” kingdom that would grow to fill the earth.

Revelation employs the Bible Matrix at many levels, but here is its basic structure. Like Ezekiel, Revelation is about the death of old Israel and the reconquest of the Land by a resurrected Israel. In Ezekiel, the northern and southern tribes were “resurrected” as united “Jews.” In the first century, it was Jews and Gentiles that were reunited in a new body.

When reading Revelation, it is best to substitute the word translated “earth” for Land. Up to chapter 19, the book is about the De-Creation of Herod’s false worship in Israel. Chapters 20-21 concern the gospel age, during which Satan is bound from deceiving the nations any longer. This corresponds with the Lord giving the Canaanites into Joshua’s hand. He was to take their Land as Israel’s inheritance. The nations are Jesus’ inheritance. If the world has not been conquered, it is because the church has not been entirely faithful. But history is far from over. The yeast will do its job.

2 5 | THE CHURCH

The weekly, corporate, New Covenant worship of the church is based upon Israel’s old Covenant worship. In our worship, we recapitulate the Creation Week. our obedience in the Garden transforms the Land and the World.

A PATTERN FOR WORSHIP

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BLUEPRINT

FOR VICTORY

A CHRISTIAN FUTURE

A CLOSE FRIEND SAID I WAS LIKE THE MAIN CHARACTER in the movie A Beautiful Mind,, desperately looking for patterns of conspiracy in the newspaper clippings pinned all over the walls of his shed. Well, the Bible’s patterns appear far too frequently to be imaginary or coincidental. And, once they are identified, even the obscure chapters and weird visions suddenly carry great relevance for today.

These undeniable patterns enable us to interpret the Bible correctly, and this approach leads inexorably to the conclusion that Christ reigns now, and that there will be a gradual, visible victory for His church.

Jesus Christ rules the world, but most Christians act like His kingdom is yet to come. They are expecting this gospel age to end in defeat. However, as you have hopefully observed, the Bible’s own historical and literary patterns lead us to expect victory in this age, in history, before Christ returns.

Even though Christians agree on the fundamentals, there are conflicting approaches to interpreting “the big picture.” So who is right and does it matter? Shouldn’t we forget about trying to work it out and get on with the job?

The problem is, getting the big picture wrong makes it harder to get on with the job. If we expect historical defeat, we’ll get it. It also robs us of the things God has given us to spur us on. It subtly abandons the very earthy, physical commission of Christ and settles for a faith that is fundamentally disconnected from reality. The Lord’s mandate to both Adam and the Apostles was domination of the physical world.

Western culture is dying not because the end of the world is near, but because the western church has swapped her physical inheritance for a Christianity that is, well, somewhere else. For many, Christianity is in the head, in the heart, or in heaven—anywhere but here on earth. Misunderstanding the fearless, strategic takeover-by-sacrifice that Christ commanded leaves many Christians without the vision, tools or confidence to build and maintain a long term cultural legacy. Yet these are our heritage.

Rediscovering our identity is the solution for our lack of confidence. Israel’s history is most assuredly our history, as much as a narrow trunk suddenly fills the sky with branches. This theme of trunk and branches, Adam and Eve, head and body, Old Testament and New, Christ and the church—the Whole Christ—is also found in the deep structure (based on Genesis 1) that undergirds the entire Bible, and the New Testament is but the final, majestic sweep. To regain her identity, the church must develop not only an intimate knowledge of the Old Testament, but one that is totally integrated with the New. Peter Leithart writes:

“Recovering the old Testament as a text in which Christians live and move and have their being is one of the most urgent tasks before the church. Reading the Reformers is good and right. Christian political activism has its place. Even at their best, however, these can only bruise the heel of a world that has abandoned God. But the Bible—the Bible is a sword to divide joints from marrow, a weapon to crush the head.”1

The modern church ignores most of the Bible, with the result that the teachings and culture of the world flood in to fill the void. only as Christians think, eat, live and breathe the Scriptures will we again see a godly culture begin to form around the church.

I hope this little book helps to give modern Christians a big handle on the Bible, and the faith to construct a world based upon the heavenly pattern seen by John on the mountain. By the power of the Spirit, the Great Commission will succeed.

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RECOMMENDED READING

AND LISTENING

James B. Jordan

Through New Eyes: Developing A Biblical View Of The World

Creation In Six Days: A Defense Of The Traditional Reading Of Genesis One

Primeval Saints: Studies In The Patriarchs of Genesis

Judges: A Practical And Theological Commentary

The Handwriting On The Wall: A Commentary On The Book Of Daniel

The Vindication of Jesus Christ: A BriefReader’s Guide To Revelation

Biblical Horizons lectures at www.wordmp3.com

Peter J. Leithart

A House For My Name: A Survey Of The Old Testament

Blessed Are The Hungry: Meditations On The Lord’s Supper

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

1 & 2 Kings: Brazos Theological Commentary On The Bible

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

The Kingdom And The Power: Rediscovering The Centrality Of The Church

Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating The Book Of Revelation He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology

Gary DeMar

Last Days Madness: Obsession Of The Modern Church David Chilton

Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology Of Dominion

The Days Of Vengeance: An Exposition Of The Book Of Revelation

David A. Dorsey

The Literary Structure Of The Old Testament Michael Bull

Totus Christus: A Biblical Theology of the Whole Christ

Endnotes:

1 The “Restoration era” began with Israel’s release from captivity under Babylonian rule and ended in the first century.

2 James B. Jordan, Judges: God’s War Against Humanism, pp. xii-xiii.

3 See Recommended Reading and Listening on page 223.

1 From Peter J. Leithart, A House For My Name, p. 150.

1 Deuteronomy means “Second Law.”

1 More advanced readers of theology might appreciate that these three patterns constitute Word, Sacrament and Government.

1 Peter J. Leithart, Bridal City, www.leithart.com

2 James B. Jordan, The Production of the New Testament Canon: A Revisionist Suggestion, BIBLICAL HORIZONS No. 56, www.biblicalhorizons.com

3 James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes, Volume II, BIBLICAL HORIZONS No. 57, www.biblicalhorizons.com

1 Peter J. Leithart, Cutting Off Flesh, www.leithart.com

2 On the Day of Atonement (Coverings), the High Priest approached the Most Holy Place twice: once for the priesthood and once for the people. We see this reflected here. Isaac is the covered priesthood; Sarah is the covered people.

1 This chiasm is from Peter J. Leithart, Death and Resurrection of the Tabernacle, BIBLICAL HORIZONS No. 114, www.biblicalhorizons.com

1 Peter J. Leithart, The Kingdom and the Power, p. 93.

Table of Contents

BIBLE MATRIX

Copyright © 2011 Michael Bull

Contents

FOREWORD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

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Endnotes:

Table of Contents

BIBLE MATRIX

Copyright © 2011 Michael Bull

Contents

FOREWORD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

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Endnotes: