Limp
James Jordan has a complex of very helpful things to say about wisdom, patience, faith, maturity, and a long time sense. These play into the repetitive progression he identifies of priest, king, and prophet. I want to extract out of this one particular insight he has on Jacob’s limp, which he associates primarily with the kingly phase of life.
From Studies in Genesis # 29, on Genesis 32,
Now, why is this done to Jacob? Well, it’s a point that we’ve made before, and that is that in union with Christ, all of God’s people limp. In union with Christ, all of God’s people limp. The crushing of the heel is passed to all of us. The Church always limps, and yet is victorious for the simple reason that the other side has its head crushed. But the bruising of the thigh signifies a wound delivered to the seed and it’s a picture then that the seed will suffer.
From The Life of Jacob # 40,
The sign that you’re going to function in the land as a king and that you have the brother’s blessing, that’s going to be this thigh wound, the limp. Now, where is this headed? I mean, this is kind of off the top of my head, except that after 25 years of studying biblical theology, I think that we can do this without any difficulty. If God’s ultimate goal is for us to be full witnesses in the world and have the Spirit, and we start with circumcision, which is painful for a couple of days, then we get this thigh wound that means that we can’t even walk very well and really cripples us. What is going to happen here that is the ultimate form of this to make us ready for witnesses in the world and make the Spirit come? Yeah, death. The cross is a good way of putting it, see? We’re moving here. . . .
Jacob is mighty enough to wrestle with God. So the sun coming up is a sign of Jacob’s strength, but, you see, paradoxically, his strength consists of his limp. Our strength consists of humility. This image associates the godlike power of the sun with the seeming weakness of the limping man. And not just the power of the sun, but what in Genesis 1, what does it say the sun, moon, and stars were set up to do? What do they represent? They are rulers and governors. The greater light for ruling the day, the smaller light for ruling the night. He set them in the firmament to rule the day and night. So, the shining forth of light and ruling are parallel. And Jacob is now like the sun. He comes in as a ruler. Not anymore a servant priest, but now a ruler. But, one who limps, one who’s weak. The limp is a sign of true power, and true power lies in humility and sacrifice.
From The Life of Jacob # 42,
So to be a king means to limp. It doesn’t mean you never do anything. It just means you have this quality of life. And changing Jacob’s name to Israel, which then becomes the name usually used for the nation, means the entire nation has that name, God-wrestlers. The entire nation bears the meaning of God-wrestlers whose seed is consecrated and sacrificed. So Israel becomes God-wrestlers. Israel becomes the circumcised priestly nation that also limps and has humility.
From The Life of Jacob # 43,
We had made the point last time that Esau, the Edomites, are also circumcised, but they don’t get the foot wound, they don’t get the thigh wound; that the limp has to do with humility. Circumcision has to do with being made a priest. If you are limping, you’re going to have to be careful. You can’t go up and fight like you used to. The whole bunch of guys are coming at you, and you can’t hardly stand without a staff. You’re in trouble, and you need some subtlety and wisdom. Direct action that you had maybe when you were younger isn’t going to work.
The Edomites and Esau in the Bible have this meaning of being a counterfeit priestly nation. A nation that’s priestly, or claims to be, and has circumcision, but that does not have humility. And so who hold their priesthood in pride and arrogance. And we were talking about how the book of Obadiah pictures them as dwelling in the rocks, in the cleft of the rock, like Moses and Elijah were in the cleft of the rock, and having a counterfeit kind of wisdom and claiming to be God’s people.
Well, the true church doesn’t look all that powerful. This frustrates people because our enemies don’t limp, but their head is crushed. So they can’t endure. If you want to compare it, go back to Genesis 3. One side gets a foot wound, which is very troublesome. Your foot hurts every day. You never know when you’re going to slip and hurt it again. It means you can’t walk very fast. You go through the wilderness. You make three steps forward and two steps back. And the adversary are all standing out there on two feet, and they look like they’re just real strong, shoulder to shoulder, marching at you. And we look like we’re all over the place in different denominations, fighting over this, that, and the other. But their head is crushed. Despite appearances, they don’t have any overall organization; whereas, despite appearances, we do have complete organization because our head is alive. Jesus is alive.
And by the Holy Spirit, all of this chaos that we see in the church is actually perfectly organized and synchronized development towards something in the future. It’s just that we can’t see it. It’s like if you made a mosaic, and we’re going to take this entire floor here and put a mosaic on it using little tiles an eighth of an inch square, all different colors. And I had a map up here, and I go over here, and I put a little red one-eighth of an inch by one-eighth by an inch square tile here, and a little blue one over here, and a green one over here, and another red one next to it. And you would have no idea what the pattern is. I would, because I’ve got a diagram that tells me I’m painting by numbers or I’m making a mosaic by numbers. I’m putting a little bit here and a little bit there. But I’m not starting in one corner and developing. I’m doing a little bit over here in China, a little bit over here in the Presbyterian Church, a little bit over here in the Catholic Church, a little bit over here in this Pentecostal group, and a little bit over here raising up some Mormons in order to challenge us to think new about other things we hadn’t thought about before, and over here raising up communism to force us to think about things that we wouldn’t normally think about. I’m doing this and I’m doing that.
And those of us who are near to it in this world, we don’t see the pattern. But there is a pattern. But from our perspective, it looks like chaos. That’s the part of the limpingness of the church. And it means that we don’t appear powerful. But we have a head for whom all this is organized. It’s being done in exactly the right order. Meanwhile they look like they’re powerful but their head has been crushed and they’re not actually organized; and you see this in that anytime you get wicked people together they wind up fighting each other. That never happens in the church; well it happens to us because we still have the flesh, but it happens to them preeminently. It’s always the Tower of Babel over and over again. It’s Deja Babel all over again every time they try to do anything.
That’s why the conspiracy view of history isn’t really true. Because it really is true that the Russian communists and the Chinese communists couldn’t get along because Mao Zedong had ambitions and so did Stalin. They might close ranks occasionally against us, but they’re not going to get along. And Ho Chi Minh had ambitions and that’s why he wouldn’t get along with Mao Zedong. The wicked don’t get along with each other except very briefly because each one has his own ambitions to play God.
So while it can look as if Esau is coming out with 400 men all in a rank and you’ve got this little group of women and kids and servants who are used to being farmers and you’re limping along, the fact is Esau is not well organized and they won’t endure. And we are organized and we will endure. We limp, but our head is resurrected, and our limp is a large dance from the viewpoint of eternity.
New creation
Some of [Paul’s] hearers believe the gospel that he preached, which means that they trusted in the resurrection, left the old creation and entered the new creation. To press that just a little further. Paul’s message to them is that the resurrection is indeed the gateway of history. Before the resurrection, the world was different. It was a time of ignorance that God overlooked, meaning before the resurrection, God had exercised great patience with the nations and did not give them what they deserved. We don’t have time this morning, but Paul talks about this very same thing in Acts 14 and Romans 3, and you can look it up there. Paul often refers to the former times, but now after the resurrection, something is significantly different. Now Jesus has come and shed his blood for sins. Jesus is with God, ready to forgive sins, but commands all men everywhere to repent. All men of all nations must confess their sins, trust in Jesus, as Lord and stop living in ignorance and sin. The resurrection marks that hinge in history. Everything that comes before it belongs to the old world. And everything that comes after the empty tomb is a new heavens and a new earth. When Jesus died, the first creation, the old creation, died with him. And his resurrection was the birth of a new reality for the cosmos. The resurrection wasn’t a one-off strange miracle in the old world. The resurrection was the first day of the new world. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. There is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. When you’re united to Jesus by faith, you join the new creation.
We’re used to speaking about the new heavens and the new earth as something that hasn’t happened yet. We think of new heavens and new earth as something that’s way, way, way in the future. We’re looking forward to it. But the reality is with the resurrection, the new order of the cosmos has already begun. How is heaven new? How is heaven new and different from what it was before the resurrection? Well, there’s something very significant about heaven now, and that is today a man rules in heaven. The man, Jesus, is enthroned in heaven, and he rules over everything, and he is the man before which we will all stand as judge. Not only that, but today heaven is populated with the souls of men. If you remember Jesus’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man, those righteous souls are not in heaven. They’re not before the throne of God, right? He says they’re in Abraham’s bosom. They’re waiting for the sacrifice to be made so that men’s souls can enter the presence of God. Back when we studied Revelation, remember one of the narratives we followed through Revelation is that account of angelic elders getting up from their thrones and then human elders taking their place. Heaven is new. Heaven is changed with the enthronement of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus and his enthronement over all the cosmos.
And the earth is under new administration as well. Because Jesus has been vindicated, because he’s been enthroned, the power of Satan to deceive the nations has been broken. Satan is on a chain. He no longer has any kind of dominion over the earth. His functions are severely limited. Satan is not all-powerful. He’s not omniscient. And instead of Satan’s dominion, now the Spirit of God has been poured out in strength upon the world, upon the church, empowering the church to take dominion and rule in history, in time, over creation.
In the old world, before the resurrection, corruption spread, impurity spread. How much of the law is taken up with how to counter all manner of ceremonial uncleanness? There’s uncleanness that can get in the walls of the house and in your clothes and in your cups and dishes, uncleanness everywhere. That’s not the way it is anymore. In the new creation, life spreads. Corruption doesn’t spread. Understanding and wisdom spreads. Purity spreads. In the old creation, it’s as if the people of God are always about to go extinct. They’re always surrounded by their enemies. They dig wells and the Canaanites come behind them and fill up the wells. The women are always barren. The land does not cooperate with them. It’s as if the land wars against them. There’s famine and pestilence and problems all the time. The creation doesn’t cooperate with them in the old covenant. In the new creation, the land cooperates. Blessings abound. The church spreads throughout all the world. Unabated life just gets sweeter and sweeter and more pleasant all the time.
Think about the way that now God blesses our smallest efforts. Just a little faithfulness explodes into a great bounty of fruitfulness by God’s mighty Spirit. This is a new creation. Romans chapter 8 spoke of this. We studied this a few weeks ago, that the creation was subject to futility, awaiting what? Awaiting the revealing of the sons of God. As the sons of God are revealed, as the gospel is preached and men are delivered, so is creation. Everything has been turned around by the resurrection. Death no longer has esteem. The grave no longer has the last word. Death had no victory over Jesus and therefore cannot have victory over those who are in Jesus.
This is what it means to be a Christian, to accept without reservation, without cynicism, without skepticism, to accept the reality of the resurrection, to understand that it is the most important event in human history. And that because of the resurrection of Jesus, we live in a different world. Because of the resurrection, the world is not the same as it used to be. This is the world where Jesus reigns. This is the world where his kingdom spreads. This is the world where death does not get the last word. Life gets the last word. This is the world where the triune God has made himself known. This powerful preaching of the resurrection, this powerful truth emboldened the early Christians to go through the ancient world spreading the message of Jesus. The explosive growth of the church is inexplicable apart from the earth-shattering message of the cross and the empty tomb. And wherever they take this message to confront Caesars and governors and philosophers and pagan priests and merchants and slaves, wherever they go, the truth prevails. Lives are transformed. Men and women are restored as they enter the new creation with Jesus as king.
(Duane Garner, The Resurrection Changes Everything)
Witness
Pipe Creek Farm is not simply a few hundred acres of dirt, some clusters of old barns and outbuildings, power machines, a herd of cattle, a few beeves and hogs or a flock of sheep.
Our farm is our home. It is our altar. To it each day we bring our faith, our love for one another as a family, our working hands, our prayers. In its soil and the care of its creatures, we bury each day a part of our lives in the form of labor. The yield of our daily dying, from which each night in part restores us, springs around us in the seasons of harvest, in the produce of animals, in incalculable content.
A farmer is not everyone who farms. A farmer is the man who, in a ploughed field, stoops without thinking to let its soil run through his fingers, to try its tilth. A farmer is always half buried in his soil. The farmer who is not is not a farmer; he is a businessman who farms. But the farmer who is completes the arc between the soil and God and joins their mighty impulses. We believe that laborare est orare—to labor is to pray.
In that sense, the farm is our witness. It is a witness against the world. By deliberately choosing this life of hardship and immense satisfaction, we say in effect: The modern world has nothing better than this to give us. Its vision of comfort without effort, pleasure without the pain of creation, life sterilized against even the thought of death, rationalized so that every intrusion of mystery is felt as a betrayal of the mind, life mechanized and standardized—that is not for us. We do not believe that it makes for happiness from day to day. We fear that it means catastrophe in the end. We fear it if only because standardization leads to regimentation, and because the regimentation that men distrust in their politics is a reflection of the regimentation that they welcome unwittingly in their daily living.
We make use of as much mechanization as we cannot escape, as suits our daily needs, but does not rule our lives. We are not going back to the grain cradle, the candle or the ox cart. We seek that life that will give us the greatest simplicity, freedom, fruitful work, closest to the earth and peaceful, slow-moving animals. We know that, at this hour of history, we cannot do this completely. We realize that we have undertaken this life late in our lives and under heavy handicaps of fixed habit and ignorance. But we were willing to offer our lives for the venture because it is a way of groping toward God and because we knew nothing better in life to give our children.
We bought this farm in my second year at Time. We knew something of the hardships we must expect. Soon we knew more of them. But we had decided that our children must grow up close to the soil, familiar with labor, embedded in the nation by attending its public schools and taking spontaneous part in its routine work and play. Above all, we wanted to place them beyond the smog of the great cities, seeing few newspapers, seldom hearing the radio, seldom seeing motion pictures, untouched by the excitements by which the modern world daily stimulates its nervous crisis. We wished them never to hear the word Communism until they had developed against it, and the modern mind from which it springs, the immunity of a full and good life.
(Whittaker Chambers, Witness, 517–518)
Static on the line
We’re going to talk about how to talk in church, how to sing in church, and how to read in church. . . . The reason I read [Revelation 15]—and we could have read several passages out of Revelation or other places—is to notice this vast number of people singing together this hymn, which we’ll sing in a minute. . . . But they all sing together.
Now I can tell you something about these people. There was nobody singing a whole lot louder than everybody else. Nobody’s voice was sticking out because they were singing chorally and together. And that’s really the reason that I read this passage. So why don’t we do that?
But first of all, let’s talk about how to talk in church and how to sing in church. . . . I was recently at a conference and we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together and there was one person who said,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
[rushed] Thy will be done on earth.And of course it stood right out because he was doing it his way. So then I asked later on, he said, well, it seems to me that’s what it means. I said, well, maybe. I don’t think so. I think it means:
Hallowed be thy name on earth as it is in heaven.
Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.And that’s why we take a pause.
But more importantly, you need to pray with everybody else. At home, you can pray it your way. In church, you pray with everybody else. You subordinate yourself and become part of the group. You can’t be an American. You’ve got to be in with the group. We are one-anothering one another. And you’re not one-anothering one another if you’re doing your own thing in the prayer. I remember years ago, there was a man in a church at which I was an associate pastor, and he would pray the Lord’s Prayer his own way every week.
[exaggerated sing-song] Our Father who art in Heaven.
And you could hear it. You know, everybody else is praying chorally. And he was way out there. He eventually wound up being excommunicated. [laughter] [joking] We took it seriously. But you know, his I-do-my-own-thing eventually led to his counterfeiting money and then telling us that we could just, you know, if we didn’t think he ought to be doing that, we didn’t have any authority over him. So he wound up being excommunicated.
But you see, this is not the time for you to shine. When we pray, when we read together, we read together. That means we read in a kind of a chant fashion. . . . In these prayers we read together, we fall into a rhythm. Our voices go up and down just a little bit. Our voices get loud and soft just a little bit. And there is a rhythm. You know, as a musician, I could write that rhythm out.
Our Father
Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth . . .You know, there’s a slightly shorter pause there. . . . There’s a rhythmical difference. But we all do it. And you’ve always done it.
Of course, you have to be alert when you’re in a church. Are they saying trespasses or debts? If they say trespasses, they’re going to say forever and ever. If they say debts, they’re just going to say forever. And if they say sins, all bets are off. And if you’re in a Catholic church, they’re just going to say, deliver us from evil, amen. They’re not going to say the doxology, so, it’s really confusing.
It’s like saying the Apostles’ Creed, or saying the Nicene Creed, or singing it. We do it together.
Now, the same thing is true of singing. You need to sing at the same level as everybody else. . . . I’ve been in churches where somebody behind me decided that it was opera time. . . . You think, come on, man, you know, we don’t want to hear you as opposed to everybody else. You’re not really thinking of being part of the community—without intending to, perhaps. You’re doing your thing. You’re shining. Beware of that. I know most of you don’t have this.
It’s even worse if you’re a tenor. Some people decide they want to harmonize, and that’s fine. But if you’re harmonizing louder than everybody else, everybody can hear you, especially if you’re a tenor because tenor notes are one-third higher than the melody notes normally. . . . So we sing together. We subordinate our personality a little bit to be part of everything else.
Now you notice that I stepped back from the microphone when I sang. You don’t need me singing into the mic, or singing super loud so that you hear the pastor trying to lead. In liturgical worship, you don’t have a song leader. Who is the leader who leads in the singing in traditional worship? It’s not a guy doing this. It’s not a pastor singing into a mic. Who is it? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads the singing. He creates this environment and you all fit into it and you all become part of it. . . .
How many of you served in the military? . . . Remember doing close order drill? You learn to march together. And it gets to be kind of fun. Right flank march. Left flank march. There’s a certain amount of pleasure that comes from that. But if everybody’s walking at his own pace, you don’t get that (unless you’re crossing a bridge, then you have to break step so as not to shatter the bridge). There are all these rules.
Alright, so in our singing, if you’re a pastor, step back a little bit from the mic. And I step back when I sing to hear—if we’re singing a hymn. Why? Because I want to sing with you, not at you. If there was lots of liturgical space back here, as there might be in a traditional church, it’d be much easier for me even to turn around and sing with you without feeling weird. But if I did that, I’m singing at the wall. So that kind of thing isn’t really possible in a space like this. But again, the idea is to sing with. I want to sing with you in the hymns. I only stand here if I’m singing in dialogue with you.
Giving you rules. These things are written down in books. But you probably don’t have those books. So, I do.
Now I get to the controversial part. Which is, every book I have on my shelf will tell you, when you read the scripture in church, you read it as if you were reading it with other people. You read it in union with Christ. You read it in union with the angels. Which means, you don’t read it dramatically.
Now, this is a real temptation in our circles, and I have friends who do it, and I have friends who would say, “Jim, I just don’t agree.” And I have to say, “man, I’m the guy with the stole on here.” I’m telling you. This is what you hear, and people, some of the finest saints I know, will read like this, but I wish they wouldn’t.
And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, [loud] Lazarus, come forth! [normal] And he who was . . .
Wait a minute. It was Jesus who cried out with a loud voice. I’m just telling you about it. Now I could tell you about the lunch that we had today.
Mr. Myers and I were having lunch and I said, [loud] Jeff Meyers said this!
And I could be very dramatic about it. . . . But that’s not the way we report things, is it? And when you read the Bible, it should be read simply. Even dramatic parts.
[wailing] Jesus wept.
No, don’t do that. Because even though you’re not aware of it and even though you have the best of intentions, people are focusing on you. They’re not hearing the Word of God. They’re hearing your dramatic power, which may not be all that great. It might be good. It might not be.
So, they don’t do this in our seminaries. But there was a time when you had been trained to modulate your voice. Go up a little bit. Go down a little bit. Get a little bit louder, a little bit softer. But don’t throw out huge amounts of enthusiasm. And the other thing is, almost all the Bible is written in lines. If you heard me read, I read in phrases and lines. . . .
Again, the Word of Yahweh came to me saying,
Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre
And say to him, Thus says the Lord God,
You had the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God.
Every precious stone was your cover.I’m chanting that text. I’m everything but singing it on pitch. Originally, that would have been chanting. When it says the scroll was given to Jesus in the synagogue and He read from Isaiah, He was reading it on pitch. It would sound weird to you if I did it. You’d say, one more weird thing. . . . You know how many traditional service books have got notes, reciting tones? It’s strange. We don’t do this, but we should—even reading—read like it’s coming from heaven. And you’re just one of several people reading. So if you have an opportunity to read the Bible in public, I enjoin you to read it. And those of you that are pastors, you can take me out and beat me up later on, but seriously, I think there is less static on the line if you read this way.
(James Jordan, Biblical Horizons 2012 Conference: Back to Basics)
Irreconcilable
Faced with the opportunity of espionage, a Communist, though he may sometimes hesitate momentarily, will always, exactly to the degree that he is a Communist, engage in espionage. The act will not appear to him in terms of betrayal at all. It will, on the contrary, appear to him as a moral act, the more deserving the more it involves him in personal risk, committed in the name of a faith (Communism) on which, he believes, hinges the hope and future of mankind, and against a system (capitalism) which he believes to be historically bankrupt. At that point, conscience to the Communist, and conscience to the non-Communist, mean two things as opposed as the two sides of a battlefield. The failure to understand that fact is part of the total failure of the West to grasp the nature of its enemy, what he wants, what he means to do and how he will go about doing it. It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of man’s fate and future are involved, and, hence, their conflict is irrepressible. (Whittaker Chambers, Witness, 420)
See also: Truth
Wilderness
God sometimes treats the unrighteous or the rebellious in a way that matches their mistaken conception of him.
But his lord answered and said to him, “You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.” (Matthew 25)
This is true of the rebellious generation in the wilderness.
Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt?” (Exodus 14)
All these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it. (Numbers 14)
The fact that Jesus died, was resurrected, and ascended in AD 30 is significant, because this establishes the time period between Jesus’s own exodus and the destruction of the temple in AD 70 as a 40-year period. This makes AD 70, which is the destruction of the old creation, the full entry into the new creation. This is the time of the release of the saints under the altar (Revelation 6); the time after which those are blessed “who die in the Lord from now on.” (Revelation 14)
Thus, the 40 years between AD 30 and AD 70 are a kind of wilderness wandering for the church. This is a time when the Gentiles, a kind of “mixed multitude,” are incorporated into the church.
And, crucially, this is the time when an unfaithful generation is left to die, while their children are brought into the new creation. Importantly, the fact that an entire generation dies under a covenantal curse does not imply that their children failed to enter into the promises.
Thus, apart from any historical data, from the Biblical record and typology alone it is quite reasonable to conclude that the prophecy of Romans 11 was fulfilled by the entry into the new creation, by AD 70.
And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” (Romans 11)
And yet in fact there is historical evidence for this.
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)
I gotta have my orange juice. 