Table
There are a number of temptations of important figures in the Bible that I believe we are intended to see as echoes of one another, and from which I think we can gain some insights.
I want to start with the temptation of Mordecai. This temptation appears to involve ease of access to political power and favor, while compromising faithfulness to God’s commands. Mordecai’s faithfulness appears to create trials for him and his people rather than relieving them. However, in the end Mordecai gains great favor with the emperor, while also preserving God’s people.
My attention was called to Mordecai’s temptation by comparison to Joseph’s temptation by Potiphar’s wife. Joseph also experiences trials in exchange for his faithfulness, but ends up gaining the favor of the emperor while also preserving God’s people.
Hebrews tells us that Moses “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.” Moses also experienced trials in response to his faithfulness. He won only reluctant favor from Pharaoh, but God used him to deliver his people. Unlike Ahasuerus and Joseph’s Pharaoh, Moses’ Pharaoh does not seem to experience dreams, although the Passover is a kind of waking nightmare.
Daniel “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.” I think this is not for dietary reasons but for table fellowship reasons; there is something about the fellowship at Nebuchadnezzar’s table that implied Daniel would be eating, in terms of 1 Corinthians 10, at the table of demons rather than at the Lord’s table. Daniel’s case differs slightly from the others we’ve considered so far; he is elevated to a position of power first and only later experiences trials. His labor for the deliverance of his people is also, as far as we know, primarily a labor of prayer rather than of action; although it is possible that he had something to do with Cyrus’s decree. (It is also possible that he had something to do with Nebuchadnezzar’s investiture of Jerusalem.) Daniel’s emperor experiences dreams.
Daniel’s case leads us to reflect on the place of table fellowship in this pattern. Haman and Potiphar’s wife don’t offer literal tables. But Esther and Joseph both go on to prepare tables from their positions of elevation. The same is true of Moses; the Bible does not call attention to Pharaoh’s table, but Moses does prepare God’s table in the wilderness.
If you were a prophet in the time of Elijah, you should have been eating at the table of Obadiah rather than the table of Jezebel.
Balaam is an anti-pattern, but an interesting one. God appears to him (in the night, though perhaps not in a dream), and he seems to be obedient. But, God opposes him at every step along the way. And, crucially, Balaam eats (several times) at Balak’s table rather than Yahweh’s table. Considered in this light, his fate recorded in Numbers 31 and elsewhere is unsurprising. Balaam seems to retain or regain the favor of the Midianites and Moabites, but this becomes his downfall rather than his (or their) salvation.
Seen in this light, Adam is also an anti-pattern; he has table fellowship with the serpent rather than with God, and this becomes his downfall. Importantly, part of Adam’s temptation is the pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil, which is Biblical terminology for wisdom associated with rule.
Jesus reverses Adam’s pattern exactly; he refuses table fellowship with the devil accompanied with the offer of power and authority. He appears to experience a downfall, but he is vindicated, elevated to power, and accomplishes the salvation of his people. There is even a dream involved: that of Pilate’s wife.
There are threads of this in the gospels; for example, our prayer for heavenly bread, our call to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees, and our consuming Jesus’s flesh and blood. In fact, you could say that there is now only one food law in the new covenant: do not despise God and his people in your table fellowship, either by corrupting God’s table (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 11, Galatians 2), or by forsaking his table altogether for the table of demons (1 Corinthians 10).
Genealogies
As we have seen, there are no genealogies recorded in the New Testament after Christ’s. This means that genealogies have no religious significance in the new world. As we have noted, Paul warns against “endless genealogies” (1 Tim. 1:4; Titus 3:9). Their purpose was fulfilled in the birth of Christ. (Jeffrey J. Meyers, What Did God Promise the Jews, 27)
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine
Marriage is a type:
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5)
This means that sexual intercourse is a type of communion. Knowing this helps us to instinctively answer certain questions rightly.
Q1: Are we in any danger of communion’s losing its special character?
A1: My beloved put his hand by the latch of the door, and my heart yearned for him.
Q2: How often shall we take communion?
A2: Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant fruits.
Q3: Is the primary reason for weekly covenant renewal the fact that our sin has put us out of fellowship with God?
A3: I said, “Have you seen the one I love?” Scarcely had I passed by them, when I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go.
Q4: Shall we use grape juice and crackers?
A4: Eat, O friends! Drink, yes, drink deeply, O beloved ones!
Q5: If we are not providentially hindered, is it permissible to show up late or to be absent entirely?
A5: “I will rise now,” I said, “And go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I will seek the one I love.”
Q6: How is Jesus present in the supper?
A6: He is present in, with, and under his bride, who is his own body.
Q7: How shall we examine ourselves?
A7: My beloved is mine, and I am his.
Party
Where was [Jesus] during this time? Suffering for us? No, he was in paradise. He says to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” We have a translation of the Apostles’ Creed that says he descended into hell. That’s not very good. The Moravians say he descended to the place of departed spirits, which I think is good. We could say he descended to Sheol.
Most accurately, we would say he went to paradise. And that’s having a party. Your Good Friday service, after the Good Friday service, have a party afterwards. Break out the champagne. Jesus is down in paradise having a great time with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Naaman the Syrian. They’re all down there partying hearty. I mean, I grew up, Good Friday service is over, and we sang—it’s a pretty hymn, but the words aren’t good in my opinion anymore:
O darkest woe!
Ye tears forth flow!
Hath earth so sad a wonder,
God the Father’s only Son
Now lies buried yonder.Well, if we’re seeing through the eyes of faith, and not the eyes of despair, what we want to participate in is much more festive on Friday night and Saturday. Actually, the Eastern Church treats Holy Saturday more festively. But it’s very much medieval for us to treat it, “Oh, it’s a mournful time. The service is over. Everyone should leave. We’re going to turn all the lights off and everybody should leave in silence. Don’t say anything as you leave.” I have come to question that.
Jesus’ second death, it was the death that Adam and Eve were supposed to have, the death that leads to glorification and resurrection. Jesus ascends out of the tomb and he now has knowledge of good and evil. Jesus did not have knowledge of good and evil before his resurrection. That’s to pass judgments.
What did Jesus say when they came? The guy says, “Tell my brother to divide his inheritance with me, my inheritance with me.” And Jesus says, “Who made me a judge? I’m not a judge.” Satan comes and tempts him, Jesus just answers back. He doesn’t say, “This is my world, I’m in charge of it.” He’s not in charge of this world. Satan says, “I’ve been traveling up and down the earth. It’s my world. All things have been given to me, and I’ll give it to you if you bow down and worship me.” Jesus doesn’t dispute that.
Now, the secret in that passage is that you might think, well, Jesus is going to get this world as a result of his resurrection. Actually, Jesus doesn’t want this world. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 says he made that world of nothing. You want this world, Satan? Here, you can have it. I’m going for a new, transfigured, resurrected world. So Satan looks around and he says, “Hey, it’s my world. Where is everybody? Where’s gravity?”
Nothing’s left of this world. It’s been made nothing. Now Jesus has this new world. We all move into it by baptism.
(James Jordan, The Centrality of Death in the Old Creation)
Bridal
In reality, and more consistent with early Patristic witness, God’s Word is and so has the highest authority. The reason this is so is that internally, metaphysically, the Scriptures are the Word of God, the Self-revelation of the uncreated mind and will of the Triune God who condescended to cause these to subsist in the form of recorded or inscripturated human language. They are His living Voice. They, the Scriptures, are therefore not merely inspired human speech, not merely spiritually influenced, but God’s own Word speaking through man. This is what gives Scripture its unique, ultimate authority, because God’s Speech has ultimate authority intrinsically. The Church, by contrast, is Bridal, is a creature, is receptive, existing on the side of created being (though, of course, indwelt by the Holy Spirit). But, as Bride, it is only through God’s creative and maintaining Word that the Church is made to be, to exist, God’s Word being the sole cause of the Church and the Scriptures, and so the sole ground of man’s knowledge. This is how there can be a Berean Principle, which exists to show that recourse to God’s Word is recourse to the more fundamental. EOP, however, makes the Church to be not only the arbiter but also the determiner of God’s truth such that recourse to the Berean principle is rendered moot and impossible. (Joshua Schooping, Disillusioned, 163)
Responsive
Eastern Orthodox Presuppositionalism (EOP) is an ecclesiological epistemology, i.e. anti-catholic. In other words, according to EOP, the epistemological ground or cause of knowledge is said to be rooted in Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology, for EOP holds that the EOC is a precondition of intelligibility and knowledge. In contrast, Reformed Presuppositionalism (RP) is rooted in the Verbum Dei, with its epistemological ground seen to be God’s Word, and its epistemological consequence being unto and causative of ecclesiology. Put more simply, the RP position is that we can know the Church because of the transcendentally fundamental nature of God’s Word, not vice versa. The EOP position is that we know God’s Word because of the Church, thus causing the Scriptures and epistemology to submit to the Church (i.e. to ecclesiology).
Now, if the Church becomes a precondition for knowledge, then the Church becomes a viciously circular precondition for its own self-knowledge, and hence self-attesting, self-justifying, and finally irreformable, which is just what we see in the EOC. In other words, EOP epistemology ceases to be Bridal, ceases to be receptively and responsively confirmatory of the Bridegroom’s Word but rather determinative. (Joshua Schooping, Disillusioned, 161, emphasis added)
Irrevocable
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)
A precise futurist reading of Romans 11 proves too much. Egypt and Assyria (recall their repentance in the time of Jonah) are also objects of God’s calling:
In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear by Yahweh of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction. In that day there will be an altar to Yahweh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Yahweh at its border. And it will be for a sign and for a witness to Yahweh of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to Yahweh because of the oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Mighty One, and He will deliver them.
Then Yahweh will be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know Yahweh in that day, and will make sacrifice and offering; yes, they will make a vow to Yahweh and perform it. And Yahweh will strike Egypt, He will strike and heal it; they will return to Yahweh, and He will be entreated by them and heal them. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, whom Yahweh of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19)
So too Ammon, Moab, and Elam:
“Yet I will bring back the captives of Moab in the latter days,” says Yahweh. . . .
“But afterward I will bring back the captives of the people of Ammon,” says Yahweh. . . .
“But it shall come to pass in the latter days: I will bring back the captives of Elam,” says Yahweh. (Jeremiah 48-49)
Of course, I do believe that all nations will be brought into the kingdom.
Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ (Isaiah 49)
Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there).
And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. (Revelation 21)
But it is ridiculous to claim that they will be brought into the kingdom in some ossified form that was frozen two to three millennia ago.
The kingdom and the power
I have a recollection that Jordan taught me to think of there being a fairly straight-line relationship between the church’s faithfulness in baptizing her babies, and the world’s being taught by that to practice abortion. But as I’ve done some digging, I think this is maybe an implication that Jordan never explicitly drew out.
Jordan’s four essays on dominion are a helpful prelude to this idea. (Peter Leithart treats these ideas at book length in his excellent book, The Kingdom and the Power.) In his essays, Jordan explores a number of ways in which the church disciples the world. He gives some very specific examples such as tithing and church discipline, but concerning abortion he comments only in general about how it is resisted by the church.
Jordan makes a similar statement in his reflections on reconstructionism:
I tend to think that if abortion stops in this country it will be less because of Operation Rescue—although I’m not totally opposed to rescues—it will be less because of that than because in a whole lot of little churches around this country that nobody ever saw, people were faithful and just doing their work as Christians, and we’re not ripping off their employers, and we’re pleasing God. And God was pleased, and one day he changed Pharaoh’s heart. And then it stopped.
See, causation in history is not what we think it is. The causes of change in history are invisible, and that’s why we have to believe them by faith. We look at history in our history books, and we see political movements change in history. I think when we get to heaven, we’ll find out what actually caused changes in history were a whole bunch of people that we’ve never heard of who pleased God or who angered God and made God do things. You see what I’m saying and what that means practically speaking is we can do that in worship. In church, in the life of the church, the whole body life of the church, focused on Sunday, gives us power, and I think that that the Christian reconstructionist position—the way it’s usually set out—tends to be a little bit blind to that because too much focus is put on things outside the institutional church.
I’m not sure what year that was. In a 1994 tape series he talks about world transformation. He specifically says that “I’m not going to talk about infant baptism in here, but I am going to talk about a church question a little bit more broadly than that and try to get you to see what I think the Bible says about the centrality of the church in the transformation of the world.” That transformation includes the baptism of the nations:
Jesus said in the Great Commission, “Go, therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them.” Baptizing what? Nations. How do you baptize a nation? Well, Israel was baptized in the Red Sea and in the Jordan River, and now what Jesus is saying is all the nations are to be baptized. Israel was made into a theocracy. Okay, please don’t get up and run out of the room because I use that word. They were ruled by God. Some people really freak out at this idea of theocracy. A theocracy is a Christian republic under godly laws, okay? Israel was the first. Jesus now says every nation is to be discipled. Every nation is to be baptized and is to go from being a pagan nation to being a Christian nation. What happens when a nation goes from being a pagan nation to a Christian nation? It changes its laws.
Jordan then comments specifically on abortion:
If we try to reform society directly, we will fall into political activism. And there’s a definite place for political activism. I’ve been involved in it one way or the other for 25 years. I’m not opposed to it, but long term it doesn’t work. And now God is forcing us to see this, and I’ve picketed on abortion for a long time. I don’t say this to boast, I just want you to understand where I’m coming from. I’m not anti-political. The first article I ever had published against abortion was in 1970. That’s three years before Roe v. Wade. Abortion was legal in New York State, and I was already writing against it as a Christian activist. So I know what that is and I believe in it, but my experience tells me and the Bible tells me that’s not good enough. Some of this I’ve learned the hard way. And now the RICO bill is going to be used to arrest anybody who does that kind of thing. So we’re going to be forced back on what will we do.
And I’m going to suggest to you that we could get rid of abortion in this country in 10 years very easily. We could get rid of it in a month. I would say in three days. It would take three days to get rid of abortion in this country. But it wouldn’t come through political action, education, family psychiatry, personal renewal, personal discipleship. . . . Well, this kind of direct action does some good, but it doesn’t bring long-term relief. The truth is, the church has to be reformed before anything else can be. The church must be reformed not perfectly, but adequately.
Now, let me give you some biblical perspectives on this. Some of this you’ve heard many times. I’m just going to try to make it practical because here we are talking about church and society and it’s easy for us to begin to think if we write enough letters, if we vote Republican enough times, if we take over Republican Party precincts, if we do all this stuff, that’ll bring change. No, it’ll just bring short-term relief. It won’t bring change.
Jesus says in Matthew 28, “all power has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” Do you believe that? How many don’t believe that all power has been given to Jesus in heaven and on earth? I think most of you do. What Jesus said.
Are you in union with Christ? Yes. Therefore, all power has been given, in a sense, to you. What power? The power to disciple the nations, baptizing the nations, and teaching the nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
Now, we want the United States to shape up. We want the United States to be a basically Christian nation, tolerant of others, but with clean streets, like it used to be. Jesus says all power has been given to him to disciple the nations, and we’re in union with him, and we have access to that power. And we’re the only people who do have access to that power.
So if America’s in bad shape, guess whose fault it is? It’s not the devil’s fault. It’s not Teddy Kennedy’s fault. It’s not Hillary Clinton’s fault. It’s not any pagan’s fault. It’s your fault. It’s my fault. If we have been given the power, and we have, and the country’s in bad shape, it’s our fault.
I haven’t been able to find any place where Jordan directly links infant baptism and abortion, so I think this must be an application that I made over time. I believe it’s a valid application.
Solar time
God loves numbers and patterns. You are probably familiar with how the numbers 12 and 70 are significant in Scripture.
But God also delights in dissonance and lopsidedness. The numbers 12 and 70 are quite distant; their least common multiple is 420. A lunar month (29.5 days) does not evenly fit into a year (365 or 365.25 days). A week (7 days) does not evenly fit into either a lunar month or a lunar year. The earth is not perfectly round, nor are orbits perfectly circular.
There is a kind of beauty in this that we should not resist or despise. We are meant to be disciplined by both these patterns and dissonances. I commend to you Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy’s reflections on time and the conjunctions and successions of times. Of course, this quote barely scratches the surface of what Rosenstock-Huessy has to say about time.
Inspired by Rosenstock-Huessy, I created a clock that reflects local and liturgical time. Here are some important points:
- Solar noon and midnight are pinned to the top and bottom of the clock.
- The face of the clock reflects a sweeping 24 hours. The white band indicates what you might call the “date line”—the divide between today and tomorrow. This divide trails the current time so that the clock primarily reflects a view of future hours.
- Daylight, nighttime, and the three twilights (civil, nautical, astronomical) are mapped on the clock.
- At extreme latitudes, day or night may not be present. The clock attempts to account for this but I have not fully tested it at every extreme. Please let me know if you run into problems.
- The major marks on the clock indicate a common understanding of the liturgical hours. The minor marks on the clock indicate a division of individual non-liturgical hours.
Cut short
I wrote previously about James Jordan’s reflection on God’s covenant name and the merciful cutting off of wickedness. Jordan says,
The statement “visiting iniquity of fathers to the children of the third and fourth generation” means that if you become involved in image worship and your children and grandchildren don’t repent of it, you just move out of history and you move out of the covenant people. You wind up being like the Serbians. Your children are going to suffer from it. They were misapplying that to say, “Well, we suffer nowadays because our fathers sinned.” And the prophets came along and said, “no, if you repent, God will alleviate.”
That’s not what’s going on [in Exodus 34]. Now, the Sinaitic covenant was made with Israel. That covenant’s broken. There isn’t any covenant with Israel anymore. Now what are we going to do?
But I also discovered that I learned this from Gary North as well. North says,
And then Murray says the third thing you’ve got to have is a doctrine of final sanctification, that is, a final judgment in which God looks at what you’ve done and once again, at the end of the process, declares “not guilty.” And that there’s the final resolution and the final evaluation. There’s final judgment. And he said, you’ve got to have a concept of sanctification which includes definitive, progressive, and final.
Now, how do I use that? How should you use that? Because what we’re taught covenantally is that’s not just limited to people. That’s societies, too. That there is not just personal, definitive, progressive, and final sanctification, but there is also corporate and covenantal. And you have that with the bride of Christ. The bride of Christ, the church of Jesus Christ, is perfect in the eyes of God. It’s received all the perfections of Christ, but she’s not dressed in holy robes yet. That takes time. That’s what progressive sanctification is for the church. And at some final point, the church will receive her perfect robes and the marriage supper of the Lamb will take place. And that’s a corporate element of sanctification. It’s not just individual.
Now, what I’m arguing is that if it’s true of the individual and it’s true of the church of Jesus Christ, then I think I can make an application in terms of the development of societies. That certain societies become rebellious and are cut down because judgment takes place also in the midst of time, and you go to the fourth commandment. Visiting the iniquities under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing loving kindness unto thousands of those that love me and keep my commandments. There you’ve got the model of history. That’s what that’s about. Because the thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments, in the Deuteronomic passage: it’s thousands of generations.
So you have the short-term development of evil, and then it ends. It’s cut short in the midst of history, and that inheritance is transferred. And we know that because the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just. The compounding process takes place over long periods of time for the church of Jesus Christ and the elect.
I gotta have my orange juice. 