theo #5 - March-April 2022 by TheoMagazine

#5 | MARCH-APRIL 2022

THE INFLUENCE OF DEMONS Exposing the gods of this world

THE MURDER OF THE REAL How to spot a simulation

COSMOS AND COVENANT The rainbow and the serpent

3 7 12 20 26 32 35

SANITIZING SCRIPTURE Do theologians talk about the world like the Bible does?

THE INFLUENCE OF DEMONS Exposing the gods of this world

THE MURDER OF THE REAL How to spot a simulation

THE REAL DEAL Zeal for God is a ﬁre that can’t be put out

COSMOS AND COVENANT The rainbow and the serpent

THE QUEST Theology Accelerator

OMG Water in the desert

Big ideas without the big words.

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BIBLE TOOLS

SANITIZING SCRIPTURE The Old Testament is a gutsy, brutal book, but the more we modern Christians neglect it, the more our Gospel loses its teeth.

he Bible is very often violent and bloody, and modern Christians have a

problem with that. Atheists are right to accuse us of being embarrassed by our own scriptures.

Do theologians talk about the world like the Bible does?

Although desensitized by the media to violence and bloodshed in the abstract, in reality, modern Westerners are averse to the sight

MICHAEL BULL

of blood. Some Christians even shy from its mere mention.

After two world wars, this is perhaps understandable. War is no longer considered to be glorious. Yet we enjoy the

CONTRIBUTORS Michael Bull, Pierre-Sovann Chauny, Sylvester Pittman, Tim Nichols and Joe Anderson EDITORS Michael Bull, Jared Leonard, Max Graham | DESIGN Michael Bull ART 5 Joachim Beuckelaer, Kitchen scene with Christ and the Supper at Emmaus (C 1560) | 11 William Blake, The Temptation and Fall of Eve | 26 Antonio Santucci, Ptolemaic armillary sphere (1588-1593) | 32 Konstantin Gorbatov, Jericho (1935) | 35 Moses striking the rock, Cathedral of Brussels, Belgium CONTACT editorial@theo-magazine.com All material is copyright of its respective authors and cannot be reproduced in any form without written permission. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.

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freedoms that were won, for blood is not only a reminder of death; it is also the messenger, the mediator, of new life. Not only is the Bible a bloody book, it is “unscientific” and therefore an irrational vestige of an intolerant and prejudiced religion, as far as modern society is concerned. Without the Old Testament, however, it is impossible to interpret the world rightly. Science cuts things up and tells us what they are made of, but its scope is limited when it comes to telling us what they are actually for. 4

Modern theologians are not much better when it comes to the “world” of the Bible. The constraint of their scientistic mindset (an excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques) leaves them struggling. They are clueless when it comes to understanding what the Apostle Paul meant by “the flesh” because they consider the careful instructions for the head, skin, flesh, offal, fat, and legs of the sacrificial animals in Leviticus to be irrelevant to issues of the soul. The relevance of the fact that these fleshly animals were

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blameless substitutes for sinful, fleshly men entirely escapes them. Darwinism didn’t only rewrite history; it usurped the intended, holy purpose of the structural similarities between humans and animals. The emaciated theology that remains to us is divorced from the real world. Peter Leithart writes: If theology deals only with “timeless truths,” then all of the things we encounter in everyday life are outside the range of theology. In this way, theology keeps Christian teaching at the fringes and leaves the “experts” to deal with the material world.

In other words, theology ensures that Christians have nothing to say about nearly everything. Theology is bad enough, but modern theology is theology cultivated into idolatry. The sciences determine in advance what can be true of God and His ways. Before it even begins to listen to God’s word, modern theology has already decided what that word can and cannot say. This is not only suicide, it is disobedience. Theology itself is a specialized, professional language, often employing obscure terms that are never used by anyone but theologians, as if theologians live in and talk about a different world from the one that mortals inhabit. In contrast, the Bible talks about trees and stars, about donkeys and barren women, about kings and queens and carpenters. Theology is a “Victorian” enterprise, neoclassically bright and neat and clean, nothing out of place. Whereas the Bible talks about hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation and genital emissions. Ponder these questions: Do theologians talk about the world the same way the Bible does? Do theologians talk about the same world the Bible does?1

And yet, ironically, this divorce directly affects the real world. Faith (or lack of it) inevitably informs culture. Many Westerners anxiously strip the bloody flesh from their menus precisely because we Christians have stripped it from our religion.

Even the meatiest Christians, the respectable evangelicals, present a Christianity that is far cleaner and far leaner than the bloody history in the Book they claim to represent.

squeamish to be concerned with the “primitive” processes of God. We are too busy, or too lazy, to cut and chew, and we wonder why our Gospel seems to have lost its teeth.

They have developed a taste for cold, waxen theologies entirely distracted from the flesh-andblood world of the Bible. They spend their time squabbling over the nuances of their own abstract definitions of isolated crumbs.

Why is so much preaching so bad? Because only a blameless, bloodied, sacrificial lamb is worthy to open the scroll.

Only a sacriﬁcial lamb is worthy to open the scroll.

Just as urban school children take excursions to farms to discover the origins of the food in the supermarket, so modern Christians urgently need a raw experience of the Old Testament to truly understand the Gospel of Christ. The need of the hour is a fresh return to interpreting the world in the light of the Scriptures.

They traffic in thickening agents and food extenders and package their pasty, bloated tomes for sale as royal feasts for starving souls. Certainly, there is some meat to be thankful for, but modern congregations prefer their theology to be served precut, pre-marinated and even pre-digested where possible. It appears as if by magic in tidy cling-wrapped trays or microwaveable bags. Our hearts desire—and require— meat, but we moderns are too

Real theology deals with the physical, with milk and honey, flesh and blood, bread, oil, and wine. It is nourishment for children, wisdom for kings, and courage for prophets. Throughout history, the Word of God has been given to build the Church. As with our own fleshly bodies, we need not be ashamed of anything in the Bible. As with the Body of Christ, every part of it has a holy purpose. n

1 Adapted from Peter J. Leithart, Against Christianity, 45-47.

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PIERRE-SOVANN CHAUNY

SPIRITUAL WARFARE

THE INFLUENCE OF DEMONS EXPOSING THE GODS OF THIS WORLD

The Apostle Paul says that we are not ignorant of the devil’s strategies. That’s because the demonic tactic today is much the same as it was in the Garden of Eden.

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ife is complex. And life’s problems are complex. The choices we make and the actions we take are never simple —far from it, in fact! But even the most mundane of our moral decisions echoes in eternity because there is a spiritual dimension to every material situation. A careful reading of the Bible on the subject of spiritual warfare, especially on the activity of demons, is an eye-opener. It shows us that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes in the problems we face in our everyday lives than we might suspect. The influence of the spiritual realm on the visible world means that all of those how-to books— the ten keys to success, the seven habits of highly effective people, and even the five languages of love—are not enough. We need a deeper perspective. The Apostle Paul tells us to “Put on the whole armor of God...” Why? Because, at their core, the problems of human life are not a battle against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:11-12). Paul teaches us to seek a spiritual solution for the troubles and conflicts that affect us in the material world. Whether it be a personal issue such as depression, or a civic problem such as poverty or violence, Christians are called to 8

look beyond the materialistic— and ultimately ineffective— strategies that are resorted to by the modern world. We must not live as though it is possible to address our deepest problems with surface-level solutions.

spiritual element that is often overlooked. This element is inevitably the heart of the matter, because it is where evil spiritual influences are at work, forces whose only mission is to destroy us.

While it is important to take the necessary steps and deal wisely with the material world, it is exceedingly unwise to discount or neglect the unseen spiritual factors that animate it. The world that God created is not

Paul gives us a grim picture of our actual situation. Our fight is “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:10-13).

There is a spiritual dimension to every material situation. one-dimensional, which means real solutions must be multi-dimensional. Behind the problems we face is much more than a lack of education, a poor distribution of wealth, or a psychological imbalance. The roots of our troubles are deep and hidden, so the advertised cures—education, economics, and psychology—can only ever manage the symptoms of the human condition. All problems are complex, but that complexity includes a

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We must “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” This means the spiritual armor that God has provided for us is not an optional accessory. Without it, it is impossible for us to “stand firm” and resist the pressures exerted by the evil forces at work in the world. When we approach the question of demonology, however, there are two extremes to avoid. Some believers ascribe too much importance to demons. They believe that evil spirits have more power and influence than they actually do, and focus their attention on confronting these powers as the direct cause of every illness, problem, setback, or tragedy. The other extreme is attributing too little importance to demons, believing they are less powerful than they really are.

This error is more common to those of us accustomed to the modern way of thinking about the world. We believe in the supernatural and profess that demons do exist, but in our practice we live as if the world were disenchanted. This leaves no concrete place for the consideration of demonic influence in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. In order to prevent these excesses, or at least to achieve course corrections where necessary, we should consider two aspects of the biblical teaching on this subject: the power of demons and the strategies of demons.

The power of demons In Ephesians 6, Paul gives us a list of spiritual powers operating in the world. Notice their titles: rulers, authorities, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces in the heavenly places. With ranks such as these, the cohort of spirits who followed Satan in his fall are not trifles to be brushed aside.

demons have a real grip on our world; they can influence all of it. They rule over all those who think they are living for themselves and exist in rebellion against God. Whether they know it or not—and in most cases they have not the slightest awareness of it—the “prince of the power of the air” guides their thinking and directs their lives. Demons are “cosmic powers.” This phrase translates a single Greek word, kosmocrator, which we could also translate as “cosmocrat.” Doesn’t that have a familiar political ring to it? Cosmocrats are the “gods” of this world. This means that the pagans—whether the primitive tribal variety or the religions of Greece and Rome—were not as wrong in their beliefs about spirits or “gods” being present everywhere as modern people arrogantly assume.

Paul declares that the devil is “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2).

The pagans were not far wrong when they perceived a being behind every tree, in every river, and on every mountain. They also imagined gods of fertility, of commerce, and of beauty. Demons manifested themselves as manifold counterfeit gods— localized deities who demanded attention in order to divert men and women from knowing, obeying, and worshiping the one true universal God.

The Bible leaves no doubt that

In modern societies, these “gods”

are more difficult to discern. Our worldview, having been fenced by a scientific secularism that refuses to believe in anything it cannot see, is profoundly materialistic. But we have been enchanted by this notion of a disenchanted world. And it renders us more vulnerable to what is unseen, not less. In order that we might more effectively discern and resist these “gods” who are now disguised by this veneer of materialism, there is a diagnostic question we can ask ourselves. What is it that functionally dominates and directs us? That is, what motivates us? What drives us? What shapes our inner desires and gives rise to our outward actions? Put simply, what do we love? What do we really love? It is a question of analyzing the sins we commit, and looking for the reason why we surrender to demanding needs, submit to our evil inclinations, and yield to temptations that seem too strong to deny. Why are we doing the grievous harm that, from a spiritual perspective, we would prefer to refrain from doing? The answer to the question is always this: in the moment, we love something that we shouldn’t love. We prostrate ourselves before something that is not God, something that takes His place as our cosmocrat.

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While the ancient statues might be gone, the same old gods are at work in our hearts. We readily volunteer to do what the devil wants in exchange for his shortlived “gifts.” The most obvious temptations are sex, money, and power that are gained or enjoyed in inappropriate ways. But less obvious are his offers of the bliss, security, peace, honor, and even the justice promised to us by God, to be obtained outside of obedience to Jesus Christ. These gods promise to answer the prayers of those who, like Adam, are impatient with God. Such gains are fleeting, and like drug addicts, we become entrapped by temporary relief, temporary pleasure, or temporary power and influence. We are accustomed, even as Christians, to referring to our recurring sins as merely addictions. Yet in doing so, we lose sight of their spiritual dimension; we reduce them to a material or psychological problem. Our acts of disobedience are portrayed as human foibles, but the idols of our heart are missing from the picture. In this way, the sinfulness of our sins—the real problem—is overlooked. This is why it is so difficult to break free from an obsessive interest that consumes all of our time, from the thrill of the abuse of power, from the hit of 10

dopamine gained by viewing pornography, from the temporary escape from reality delivered by drunkenness, or from the motivation that comes from being driven by an unhealthy concern about money. Indeed, these are addictions, but the addictions are not the actual sickness. If we deal only with what is visible, then our analysis of complex problems is incomplete. If we fight only against the “flesh and blood”

These gods promise to answer the prayers of the impatient. expressions of sin, as if a self-help strategy or a detox is the solution, we are caught up in a terrible falsehood. Even worse, our actions serve to catch others in the same snare. These cosmocrats work to put hooks in our noses and lead us about as our masters. They do this by buying lives and souls with the things of this world. But the question is, why do they need to buy us at all? The answer is that, despite the claims of those who ascribe too much power to

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demons, Satan has no agency in the physical world without divine or human permission. Without the minds, hearts, hands, and feet of men, he himself can do nothing. And that brings us to the second aspect—the way in which demons operate.

The strategies of demons In Ephesians 6:11, Paul refers to the schemes of the devil. The Greek word translated as “schemes” in this verse refers to the arts of deception. In other words, demons are cunning. However, Paul also tells us that we are not ignorant of the devil’s strategies (2 Corinthians 2:11). That is because the demonic tactic today is much the same as it was in the Garden of Eden. The fundamental ruse is, of course, deception. Jesus says the devil “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Since demons have little to no power in the physical world, their only means of obtaining power is to make up another reality, to distort God’s revealed truth or replace it with another story entirely. They start small, planting seeds of doubt, causing us to question the goodness of God and the truthfulness of His Word.

If we do not resist, they fill our hearts with lies to the point that we, in turn, also become liars. The first lie is self-deception, in order that we may live within the delusion sold to us by the devil. By this method, Satan usurps the Lord as the god of this world. He not only blinds the minds of men to their own sins, but also to the generosity of God in the salvation God offered to us in Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). Although believers have been healed of such blindness, we are not immune to deception. We, too, are prone to distorted perceptions of ourselves, of others, of the world, of the seriousness of sin, and of the gracious character of God. Unity brings strength, which is why the primary goal of Satan’s use of deception in the Church is to cause division. Paul tells Timothy that “the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.” Since we can’t easily discern other people’s thoughts and motivations, the devil is ever ready to fill in the gaps with lying slander, just as he did in the Garden of Eden regarding the character of God. So when the inevitable conflicts occur, we must remember that demonic forces desire to take advantage of

them. This is why Paul then writes, “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:22-26).

spoken in love, as the means by which the devil’s tactics are foiled, is our primary spiritual weapon. So, the battle begins with the proclamation of the Word of God in its entirety, including the parts we ignore, and without hatred or bitterness.

The antidote to the poison of deception is the truth that sets us free from demonic traps (John 8:32), a knowledge which only God can confer through His Word by His Spirit. The truth

Saturation with the Word frees us to obey our true Master, the one who desires our wellbeing and that of those in our care. n Adapted from L’influence des démons sur nos actes moraux.

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WORLDVIEW

THE MURDER OF THE REAL HOW TO SPOT A SIMULATION

The smartest way to take over the world is to replace it with a fake one. The smartest way to replace it with a fake one is little by little.

eception is the common factor in all of Satan’s schemes, but throughout history his lies have taken different forms. This is because each new lie makes us wiser. “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” And that is precisely why God allowed the serpent to enter the Garden. If Adam was to rule the world, he needed to be able to

discern the difference between good and evil, dividing and naming them in the way that his Father had divided day and night. The tricky part is that Satan presents himself as an angel of light, or, in other words, a messenger of enlightenment. He has come to help, and is offering his expert advice. Of course, it is a trap, and his real agenda continues to be the theft of the world from its rightful heirs.

MICHAEL BULL

The deception is the “bait and switch” concerning what is promised. He replaces a good thing that God has in store for us with an immediate substitute. This is why Joseph was tempted to seize the household of Potiphar. After all, his father had exalted him above his brothers as the potential heir. It is also why David was tempted to seize Saul’s throne by his own hand, and why Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. In each

God requires that we persevere in patient faith until we have proven ourselves. When we are ready to bear the weight of the glory that He has in store for us, we will receive it freely. He is like any parent or guardian who puts money in trust for their children to be kept until they come of age. Satan appeals to our impatience by offering an early inheritance. Like a corrupt accountant or trustee, or Judas Iscariot with the money bag, once he is put in charge of things, he intends to dispossess us of God’s promises. He offers a “conservatorship” as a legal guardian with the intent of seizing complete control of the finances.

The fake only has to appear real until the trap is sprung. case, the tyranny suffered by the true heir was intended to prepare him for righteous rule. Each of these men patiently trusted God and ultimately received a better throne than the counterfeit offered to them by the devil. Falling for the lie is a terrible thing. The fake only has to appear real until the trap has been sprung, and then the devil’s victims become his legal captives. After all, they have actually defied God and are under the penalty of death.

The end of the world In the Garden, Satan himself could not kill the man and the woman in order to steal their inheritance, but he could certainly corrupt them so that God Himself would have to kill them. The serpent weaponized the good Law of God, turning something that was designed for Man’s protection into the means of Man’s destruction. This strategy is legalism, which explains why Jesus told the Pharisees that, in their hatred and lack of mercy, their spiritual father was not Abraham but the devil (John 8:44). They had unwittingly become “the seed of the serpent” and were now the Savior’s enemies (Genesis 3:15). Obviously, that first sin in the Garden was not the end of human history. God produced a “fake” of His own—an animal that died on Adam’s behalf. The divine proxy spared the reality. History continued, and Man continued to sin. Again and again, the serpent attempted to force God’s hand to execute the capital sentence required by His own law. But every time, God had mercy up His sleeve. Man continued to learn, albeit the hard way; as Man grew in stature and wisdom under the direction of God, so also the devil had to up his game.

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Evil learns Beginning with Cain and Lamech, men rejected atoning animal sacrifices and instead promoted vengeance. They abandoned the use of images of men and instead shed the blood of the images of God. In other words, they despised the virtual and murdered the real. This abandonment of worship was the underlying cause of the Great Flood. And the Great Flood was the destruction of the real—the entire physical world. However, the strategy changed after the Flood because God’s own strategy had changed. Noah was the first man who was given permission by God to bear the sword of justice against other men. He was given this office because he, unlike Adam, had proven faithful. In some sense, Noah inherited the sword of the cherubim in Eden, the Sanctuary which had been destroyed in the Flood. The sword was now in the hand of a human legal representative. So, in Noah, God established an order of tribal priest-kings. Each of these men offered sacrifices to God in heaven (priest), and also executed justice upon hateful, bloodthirsty men on earth (king). In that sense, they mediated between heaven and earth, like the angels that 14

ascended and descended upon the stairway in Jacob’s dream. This guild of armed noblemen prevented men, like the merciless vigilantes who had filled the world with violence before the Flood, from killing each other. And this new strategy was a wise one. Each of the 70 nations listed in Genesis 10 had its own patriarch, so this council of holy knights was decentralized. This meant it could not easily be corrupted, attacked, or abolished.

To keep His oath to Noah, God constructed a virtual world.

a claim of access to heaven. This explains why Nimrod built a man-made mountain, the first ziggurat. The Tower of Babel was a counterfeit stairway to heaven, one that promised unity—but not unity in spirit and truth. This false unity was destroyed by God, but many tongues resulted in many gods. And without the restraint of tribal violence by the ministry of the Noahic order, mankind would again deteriorate to the point where another global flood would be the only remedy. God had promised Noah that such a thing would never happen again, so He responded to Satan’s strategy in kind. In the call of Abraham, He commenced a project whose purpose most Christians still fail to undertand. God constructed a virtual world.

Cosmic language So, a new situation required a new deception. Man learns, but evil also learns. The diabolical project before the Flood was the abolition of religion. But the strategy after the Flood was the replacement of religion. The tower and city of Babel established false worship. In order to force God to destroy this holy order, its members would have to be united under a lie. To gather all of these leaders together on earth, the faith would first have to be counterfeited via

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To hold back the death of Adam, God killed a virtual Adam. To protect “seed” from the Great Flood, God called Noah to build a virtual world, a model of the primordial creation to house “Adam and Eve” representatives of all that breathed. Now, in order to keep His oath to Noah, God had to hold back another global cataclysm. To do this, He established a model of all dry land that would bear the curses on its behalf. The Promised Land represented the

dry land and the surrounding Gentiles represented the sea. As a “firstfruits” of all the physical dry land, this social Land was “lifted up” from the wild social Sea of the other nations. This shift from the physical to the social cleverly evaded the legal requirement to destroy mankind that was being weaponized by the devil. It also provided a safe place for the establishment of a new local priesthood. As a bootcamp that would instruct all nations, this virtual earth offered sacrifices in a new “Eden” until the promised Seed was born, the one who would crush the serpent’s head. God could temporarily overlook the sins of the nations (Acts 17:30) because Israel was covering for them. And the Hebrew word for “atonement” actually means “coverings.” This explains a feature of prophetic texts that confuses many Bible interpreters. The prophets used cosmic or global language to describe local events. “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord. “I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, and the rubble with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord. (Zephaniah 1:2-3)

The word “earth” here can also be translated “land,” and as the prophet continues, the context of these events is quite clearly local. The focus of the judgment was the social order rather than the physical order. The creational devastation is what would have happened if Israel was not a representative of all mankind. When Israel became corrupt, the wild Sea of the Gentiles would rush in like a “flood” (Daniel 9:26) to cleanse the Land of its abominations and bring rest. Remember, “Noah” means bringer of rest. The Land would then enjoy all of the sabbaths that were owed to it (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 2 Chronicles 36:21). Likewise, while all of the Canaanite nations that had tempted and oppressed Israel remained disempowered after the “floods” of Assyrian and Babylonian troops, the return of Israel to the Land after the captivity is described in terms of dry land rising once again from the deep (Isaiah 44:24-28). Israel’s sacrifices became obsolete when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead as the oncefor-all sacrifice for sin. In a wondrous twist, the realest of the real—the Creator Himself—was murdered as our proxy. The purpose of the “model” Land had now been fulfilled, and it would be “de-created.” Revelation

describes this deconstruction in various ways, but most strikingly as a burning mountain (Mount Sinai, representing the Law of Moses) being thrown into the Gentile Sea (Revelation 8:8). The point here is that God and the devil both use substitutes. But whereas God uses models in order to instruct and deliver us, the devil uses counterfeits in order to deceive and destroy us.

Dirt or gold Another difference between God’s “virtual” items and those of the devil is their actual worth. God hated the false measures and balances that merchants used in order to cheat their own Israelite brothers. You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measurement of weight, or capacity. (Leviticus 19:35) A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight. (Proverbs 11:1) A just balance and scales belong to the Lord; all the weights of the bag are His concern. (Proverbs 16:11)

Based on His obvious integrity, we can safely assume that every sacrificial substitute was equal in some way to that which it was reckoned for—even if in purely symbolic terms. Men are worth more than beasts, but animal sacrifices were “skin for skin,”

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a life for a life. The difference in actual value would explain why Israel’s sacrifices were continual rather than once-for-all. The Bible’s most famous example of rigged scales is the claim of Belshazzar to the throne of Babylon. He drank from the gold and silver vessels from Solomon’s Temple, and this invoked the God of Israel. The light of the golden lampstand revealed what was about to happen. The king had been weighed in God’s balances and found wanting. In other words, he was a lightweight. The Hebrew word for glory is related to the word for heavy, which is one reason why gold was considered to be the most glorious metal. Unlike gold, Belshazzar lacked gravitas. He was not a serious king. This highlights the imagery of God’s maturation of man from “Adamic” dirt to precious metal. The statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream worked from gold at the top, via silver and bronze, to iron and clay at the bottom. Basically, Belshazzar was another dirt bag pretending to be a “head of gold.” The first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a perfect illustration. Indiana Jones attempts to swap out the gold Chachapoyan fertility idol for a bag of sand. He has guessed its weight, and for a few seconds it seems to pass the test. But the device beneath the 16

idol detects that the substitute is not measure-for-measure, and the trap set for thieves is sprung. God promised fertility to Adam —fruitfulness in land and womb. Satan offered a shortcut by painting a false picture with words, a virtual future that evaded submission to heaven as the requirement for dominion on earth. The trap was sprung, and Adam had sold everything for a handful of dust and ashes.

Keeping up appearances As a reversal of the failure in Eden, Solomon’s initial faith resulted in fertility and wealth. What Adam attempted to steal, God gave to Solomon as a gift. But a decrease in quality also affected Solomon’s kingdom, where gold was so plentiful that silver was as common as stones. At the height of his wisdom and glory, he ordered that 500 gold shields be made for him (1 Kings 10:14-17). After his unwise son, Rehoboam, inherited the kingdom, the shields were plundered by the soldiers of Shishak (1 Kings 14:25-26). Rehoboam ordered bronze replacements that gave the appearance of the gold ones. But these were lightweights. Simulacra (symbols) and simulations are useful and instructive when their virtual

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nature maintains the virtue (or value) of the original. That value can be spiritual (teachings), intellectual (such as data, or a flight simulator, or even the reputation of a university), cultural (clothing and holidays), official (flags, uniforms, awards), and economic (paper or digital currency). In each case, one thing stands for another thing and signifies an actual value, measure-for-measure, in an agreed and understood way. But a gradual diminishing of the value of the original might not be reflected in its symbol. When this happens, the original itself becomes only a symbol of what it once was, or sometimes even the opposite of what it was. This degradation, if carried out deliberately, is another means of “murdering the real.” In his book Simulacra and Simulation, French philosopher Jean Baudrillard discusses the crisis of modern materialism as a process of replication where each item is a copy of the previous copy and the quality of the original is gradually lost. The problem is not with the actual materials but with the consistency of the information that is being handed down in the process. Without a standard system of values, the ability to mass produce something changes it, and inevitably cheapens it.

We can put up with cheap goods, but an unfaithful “replication” of knowledge misrepresents the actual world. This is especially true when it comes to history. We all know that “history is written by the victors.” While such misrepresentations are deliberate, Baudrillard illustrates how this can happen in a more subtle way. As time passes, the reporting of an event—such as a documentary on the Holocaust— even if it contains film footage and eye-witness accounts— eventually replaces the actual event in the public mind. Imperfections and omissions in the reporting change what is remembered, so the danger is that the reality might be lost or even destroyed in the process of “replication.” The symbol becomes the reality, and only the representation remains.

The only way to avoid a loss is to return to the “gold standard.”

modern “sexual ethic,” their facsimile of Jesus is like the bottom line in a lazy student’s handwriting practice copybook —He looks nothing like the original at the top. Each line simply replicates and adds to the errors of the one immediately above it. Step by step, they have created a man in their own image. And He is crooked.

This explains why churches that neglect a commitment to study and obey the Word of God end up replacing it with the words and traditions of men. The Jewish rabbis invented the Oral Law and burdened their people with oppressive rules. The Roman Catholic Church styled itself as an authority over the Bible and blatantly contradicts it on many important subjects.

Instead of bronze I will bring gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. (Isaiah 60:17)

Many Protestants have now fallen into the same old trap, but in a new way. Faced with the

The New Testament reprises this imagery. Paul says that God’s

God promised a return to glory for Israel after the Babylonian exile. Although this would be a spiritual glory, through a new faithfulness to His Word, He described it with the symbols of natural wealth.

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refining fire comes to reveal what our spiritual work is actually made of: gold, silver, and precious stones, or wood, hay, and straw (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). The only way to avoid a loss when Jesus gets out His scales is a constant return to the original “gold standard.” Otherwise our lives, and our churches, will have only the appearance of godliness without the actual power of God (2 Timothy 3:5).

Make it till you fake it When Man refuses to be God’s image, he becomes a sign that points only to itself. Without any direction, he has no future but personal and cultural oblivion. Despite its serious foibles, flaws, and excesses, the civilization founded upon the principles of the Bible has been the greatest, wealthiest, and longest-surviving in history. Its strength has often been abused, but the spiritual source of its glory is Jesus Christ. This heritage that has blessed the entire world is now being stolen and replaced with a counterfeit. The reason this was not noticed is because it was not done in a single grab, but little by little, and in secret, that is, from the inside. At first, the symbols represent reality, in the way that a map faithfully describes a territory. But then, the distinction between reality and symbol becomes 18

blurred. The symbols mask the reality, then mask the absence of the reality. Finally, they replace the reality altogether. Instead of interacting with reality, we live within a “hyperreality,” a copy that no longer has an original. Like Noah’s ark, this man-made realm is a simulation of what existed before, serving as a bridge to the new world order while the old is pillaged behind closed doors. Sloths and thieves are pandered to and rewarded, while those who are productive are demonized and robbed. Men who were created to claim God’s promises of the fruit of the land and the womb are cowed into a Disney World of video games and pornography. In order to hijack his destiny, Man’s origins are also rewritten. This began with the theory of evolution, a belief that is maintained despite abundant evidence to the contrary. But our cultural origins are also being rewritten. Statues are torn down, books are banned or burned, and the door to our actual history is closed. Milan Kundera wrote: The first step in liquidating a people … is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.

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The West still has the outward appearance of the old culture, but it has been hollowed out. Instead of signifying the actual values, strengths, and wealth of the culture, the flags, the institutions, and the calculated use of familiar language are merely a veneer of the old reality. And this “skin” serves as a cover for the worst kinds of sin. As George Orwell wrote: Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

However, even the veneer of the old morality has now worn thin. Our culture is so corrupt that sins which carried the death penalty under Moses are defended, legalized, and even promoted in sanctimonious “moral crusades.” And many so-called Christians are going along with this demonic charade. This process of deception is, of course, also a self-deception. Like Adam in Eden, we are being lied to, but we are being told what we want to believe. Goebbels’ famous law of propaganda—“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”—is not, in fact, true at all. The deception is willingly received because it frees people from the laws of God. This mutiny is culture-wide. If everyone is doing as he pleases, then nobody can be condemned.

Acceptance of the lie becomes the new social contract. However, this hyperreality is fragile because it can only be maintained by a total consensus. A single dissenting voice, like that of the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes, is a pin that can pop the bubble. Anyone who questions the golden calf that magically made itself risks ruining Utopia for everybody. In this cesspit of tolerance, truth is the one thing that cannot be tolerated, so dissenters are scapegoated and “canceled.” Since truth is now decided by a vote, if everyone says that evil is the new good, then it is so. Value signifying has, of necessity, been replaced with virtue signaling. This is the modern equivalent of a Pharisee praying on a street corner, an elite who despises the common people, yet whose moral superiority is a sham. Strangely, the educated are far more susceptible to falling for a hyperreality. In C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, a character called Miss Hardcastle explains: “Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they're all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows

and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.”

She describes how party politics is a mere distraction (being a simulation of the old democracy) for “thinking” people while the real power brokers, the unelected “experts,” get on with taking over the world for its own good.

our hollow kingdom, and its hollow rulers, in His balances. The elites hoodwink the educated, God hoodwinks the elites. Since these hollow men are so enamored with their own wisdom, He sends them a strong delusion so that they themselves believe a lie. He did this to King Saul to hasten his self-destruction, and He did it to the rulers of Jerusalem who believed that Abraham’s God was on their side against the Romans (2 Thessalonians 2:11). In both cases, the rulers tried to maintain their power by murdering the real heirs. But in both cases, God used their tyranny to train His people in discernment and wisdom until they were “heavy” enough to inherit the tyrants’ thrones.

God is weighing our hollow kingdom in His balances. In spiritual as well as economic terms, the gold standard has been replaced wih a fiat currency, something miraculously created out of nothing by decree. The phrase fiat lux is the Latin for “Let there be light.”

Reality bites Claiming to create abundance out of nothing, the leaders of our culture have fallen into the old Adamic sin of “being like God” without qualifying for the office. As a result, God is now weighing

After gaslighting us for decades, the narcissistic “expert” class is itself now patently delusional. This is a sign that their end is nigh, so we must be rehearsing our true past as preserved for us in God’s Word. And we must be training ourselves for the future with the “flight simulator” that God has given us—the traditional Christian liturgy that follows the pattern of the Creation and dominion of the world. In this way, week by week, little by little, one bite at a time, our Jacob comes like a thief to steal the inheritance back for the people of God. n

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CHRISTIAN LIFE

THE REAL DEAL ZEAL FOR GOD IS A FIRE THAT CAN’T BE PUT OUT

n the world of social media (which isn’t a real world, but that’s another story), most people know me as seal da zeal, the Christian guy who posts pictures and videos of his cooking on the grill. My real name is Sylvester Pittman Jr; I’m husband to my beautiful wife, Tiffany, and we have seven wonderful children. I serve as a ruling elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Brandon, Florida.

God sometimes speaks to us in unexpected ways and through unlikely people. But as His children, we know His voice when we hear it.

SYLVESTER PITTMAN

But not many people know how much God changed me almost two decades ago. Looking back on my journey, His part in my spiritual rescue is undeniable. Christ, in His mercy, carved out a path to bring me to His feet as a true worshiper—not just half-baked, but cooked right through—the real deal. God alone can save, and those whom He saves, He not only keeps but also lights inside them a fiery zeal that can’t be put out. I grew up in Tangelo Park, a part of Orlando that was notorious

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for drugs, car theft, and violence. But one street in this neighborhood was filled with reverends and church people. These local reverends’ names were Easter, Outings, Flowers, Hall, and Mobley, and my mother was this Pastor Mobley. Yes, you read that right. I grew up in a family of women pastors. Before my mother was the pastor, my grandmother was the pastor, so I never questioned the validity of women being pastors when I was growing up. But God used these women mightily in my life. I was raised in a Pentecostal church where we recited the traditional Christian creeds, but a lot of other biblical teachings had been abandoned. I didn’t realize this until I became a Christian in my early twenties. However, the Christian people in our street had a strong influence, and this curtailed the sorts of violence that went unchecked in other parts of the neighborhood. The agreed practice of “village parenting” was a big factor—all

the parents had permission to give everybody else’s kids a spanking whenever necessary. Also, my mother was seen as an authority figure on the street, so no matter how bad the kids were, they knew they’d better mind what they said and did in her presence. Sadly, to some degree, that also included me. I did have a fear of hell, thanks to my mother and grandmother, so I steered clear of the common sins and crimes of local kids—I didn’t smoke, sell drugs, thieve, or steal cars to take on joy rides.

WWJD bracelet. Yet, despite all of this, I was living a double life.

My college room-mate was an unlikely source of truth. I didn’t do anything that might get me locked up or killed. And I didn’t use profanity or drink alcohol. To me, all of this was enough to support my claim to be a Christian. I even wore a

My parents divorced when I was two years old, so I don’t remember the time when they were together. My father stayed in my life, and taught me a good work ethic. But he also exposed me to pornography at the age of 8 or 9. He would leave his tapes in the VCR, and I would watch them, sometimes with my friends. This began a struggle with lust that would plague my mind for decades, and also resulted in a life of promiscuity.

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My first room-mate at college in Tampa, an unbeliever, was an unlikely source of truth. One Sunday morning, I was heading out to church after a wild Saturday night, and a young lady was still in my room. He confronted me, telling me I was a fraud. This was the first time anyone had told me that I was not a Christian, and it came as a shock. But I responded in the wrong way. Instead of getting things right with God, I dropped the pretense and began sinning openly, indulging in cursing and drunkenness, things that I had previously avoided. That old fear of hell kept me from tobacco and hard drugs, but the mask was off. I lived a wicked life for the next few years. Then I met a girl named Tiffany at a club, and through her, God changed my life. We started dating, even though she had a boyfriend in another state. During a visit back home to ask my parents for money, Tiffany called and said that we needed to talk. I was worried that she might be pregnant, but to my surprise she told me she had been to a church, was now a Christian, and that this meant our relationship would have to change. That night I went out drinking and I told my friends the story. They all erupted in laughter, except for one. He was a 22

A ﬁre was lit inside of me, and I have never been the same. notorious bully, but now became another unlikely source of truth. He said this might be a sign from God for me to stop living this way. We all stopped laughing. I went to church with Tiffany that same week, and I heard the Gospel of Christ clear as day. I had prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer” many times before in my life, but that night I asked God if He was real, and to reveal Himself to me. I grabbed a Bible, flipped it open randomly and read a passage in Galatians. It was like I had new eyes. The meaning of the words was so clear. It was like I had never read it before, and I saw my own life in Paul’s words: Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

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Something had changed, and I realized I had never been a real Christian. There was a new desire for God’s Word, like a fire had been lit inside of me, and I have never been the same. However, my life also became complicated in a number of ways. Leaving my old lifestyle meant losing a lot of friends. Then Tiffany and I had a break up that lasted almost a year. On top of this, I was discovering things in the Bible that contradicted what I had been taught growing up, and this caused some conflict with my family. I fell in love with Church history, and I was appalled at the ignorance of my church leaders not only about what is in the Bible, but also about where it came from. I was also still struggling with lust, and the unbiblical “God wants you to be rich” sermons at church were no help at all in my fight to live in a way that pleases God. What did help me was the discovery of the power of the love of God. Once I understood the Father’s love for me, and learned to rest in His power to save and not my power to save myself, I received a strength and resolve I had never known before. The chain of lust that had bound me for most of my life lost its grip, and this showed me that all things are possible with God.

I went looking for a better church but didn’t know where to start. I was “churchless” for a few months, but God provided some help. While talking to some people at a Christian concert, I expressed my feelings about the false teachings that had caused me to leave my church. They took me under their wing and “showed me the ropes” of the Reformed faith. I was discipled by a Moroccan convert from Islam and a Christian rap DJ. They introduced me to the doctrines of grace, and a lot of good Christian theologians, philosphers, and even economists. I was slowly being deprogrammed, and, with a biblical worldview, I found myself understanding things and thinking in ways that I had never been able to before. I started attending a Presbyterian church, where I met the pastor and his wife and their seven children. This not only helped me to grow as a Christian, but also changed my thinking about marriage and family. The reason for the breakup with Tiffany was that it became clear to me she had not truly become a Christian. She lacked the fiery zeal that God puts in a believer’s heart. In God’s providence our paths crossed again, and He had now changed her heart just as He had changed mine.

I was thinking in ways that I had never been able to before.

I have also been greatly blessed with a stable occupation, and have had the same job for almost 16 years. Working as a health insurance sales agent has provided opportunities not only to develop my skills and increase my income to support our growing family, but also to share the Gospel through a Bible study group that meets twice a week.

Both of us came from families that are riddled with divorce, so we didn’t have many examples to follow. After some pastoral counseling that shared a lot of wisdom and experience, we were married six months later.

My family has been at the same Church (Westminster, PCA, Brandon FL) for over decade. We have been blessed richly by the faithfulness to Scripture and the godly leadership.

We’ll be celebrating 16 years of marriage this year. Tiffany has been a channel of God’s favor in my life, trusting in my leadership as her husband despite my flaws and weaknesses. She even comforts me when I fall short of her expectations. I would not be the man I am today without her.

Right after we joined the church, I was impressed by how they handled a matter of church discipline in a congregational meeting. Not only had I never seen this done before, it was carried out not with anger or bitterness towards the person, but with grace and love. It was a beautiful reflection of the attitude of Christ.

The fact that our new pastor’s children were so well behaved also made an impression on us. After hearing about how they were homeschooled, we decided to consider it when we had kids. Little did we know that we, too, would have seven of them! Without support from family, homeschooling has not been easy for Tiffany. But God provided us with a wonderful network of other homeschooling parents.

The church also came to our aid when one of our children was diagnosed with cancer, bringing meals and setting up childcare so we could spend time at the hospital. They even offered to pay our household and hospital bills. Although we didn’t need that help, we were astounded and overwhelmed by the loving embrace of these saints.

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Changing to a Reformed church after growing up in a charismatic church was quite a shock. I have come to better appreciate the principles laid out in the Bible as well as the Church’s historic confessions. Our God is the God of order, and when we gather to worship Him it must be not only in spirit but also in truth. Being a church elder has tested me in areas that I didn’t know existed and has continually driven me to my knees to pray for guidance. At times I feel ill-equipped but where my abilities and gifts fall short I am learning to rely on Christ for grace and wisdom. The congregation has also been a big encouragement to me. The seriousness of the role is intimidating because it enlarges the scope of your responsibility from your own life and that of your family to other souls who belong to the Lord. My particular duty on our session is evangelism, so I am charged with overseeing the task of reaching the lost in our community, as well as equipping and enabling people in our congregation to share their faith. I’ve taught several classes on sharing and defending the faith to our church and also held some outreach events. The pandemic restrictions and the arrival of baby number seven 24

He asked me a question that would change my future. have set back the plan somewhat, but we hope that this year will be a time of revival and renewed evangelism in our community. Equipping the saints with a solid understanding of Scripture and the history of the Church is a crucial ministry. This became clear to me during an encounter after I first became a Christian. When I was still in a charismatic church, I was leading a young adult group. A man was sitting by himself in the cafeteria and I decided to go and witness to him. He stopped me before I sat down with him and he asked me if I was going to share the Gospel with him. I told him I was. He then asked me a question that would change my future: “Where did the Bible come from?” I was puzzled at first, but then I understood his point. If I didn’t have a clue about the origin of the Scriptures, how could I be certain of the message that I was so keen on sharing?

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I told him that I would find out and let him know the next time I saw him. I asked my leadership team, some of whom were pastors, but none of them knew the answer. I then asked some of the higher up ministers in the church and not one of them could tell me where the Bible came from. Yet here they were, leading a church with thousands of members. This was around the time when the internet was becoming really useful, so I started doing my own research on the topic and fell in love with Church history. The desire of so many Christians throughout the centuries for sound teaching, and what so many of them sacrificed for it, sparked in me a new love for the Bible and a zeal to study it. I never saw the man from the cafeteria again, but I’m glad he asked the question. He was one more unlikely, but God-given, source of truth that challenged me and changed my life. Christians deserve better spiritual food than the stale clichés, butchered Bible verses, and outright falsehoods served up by many leaders today. If we are not serious about the Word of God, we are not the real deal, and we can’t expect people to believe the message of hope we have to share. n

“MANY OF US IN OUR PRAYING ARE LIKE NASTY LITTLE BOYS WHO RING FRONT DOOR BELLS AND RUN AWAY BEFORE ANYONE ANSWERS. PRAY UNTIL YOU PRAY.” — D. A. CARSON

BIBLE TOOLS

Oceans of ink have been spilled over the centuries in the quest to make sense of the similarities and differences between the covenants in the Bible. But this puzzle could have been easily solved in seven days.

COSMOS & COVENANT THE RAINBOW AND THE SERPENT

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” (Genesis 9:12-13)

lanted in 1833 in their private garden by Alfred and Sarah Fox, the Glendurgan maze in Cornwall is not your garden-variety hedge labyrinth. Instead of orderly paths and angled corners, its twists and turns were designed to confound and amuse the Foxes’ twelve

garden that overlooks the maze and features many trees and shrubs associated with the Bible. For those trying to escape the serpent’s domain, its convoluted appearance makes even a hilltop viewpoint less helpful than it is in the navigation of other mazes. Studying the speculations about how the covenants of the Bible relate to each other is a lot like watching a gaggle of tweed-clad

None of these godly boffins can explain how it actually works. theologians wandering like lost geese through such a maze. They honk their worthy insights at each other over the hedges but none of them can find the exit. children and their many cousins. From entrance to exit, the path of this cherry laurel hedge maze stretches for three quarters of a mile, spiraling around itself in tight, manicured curves. Its form is said to represent a coiled up serpent, which may have been intended to offset “Holy Corner,” the themed

These hapless academics squabble about “continuity and discontinuity” as they try to figure out which bits of which covenants became obsolete (discontinued) and which bits remain for us in the era of the Christian Church (continued). Some claim that the original covenant with Adam was all

MICHAEL BULL about good works, but that, due to Adam’s sin, all covenants since then are only about grace. Some say that the New Covenant is a modified version of the graceful promises made to Abraham, but that the Mosaic Law—which is apparently only about works—is obsolete. Yet it is Abrahamic circumcision that is obsolete, while the apostles connect New Covenant baptism to Noah and Moses. If you are confused, you are not alone. As one considers the historic debates, it becomes clear that these godly boffins all have theories about this covenant construct, but none of them can actually explain why it is the way it is, or how it actually works.

Growth rings The Bible seems disorderly upon first read; yet as it becomes more familiar, we start to notice doorways, corners, changes in direction, and repetitions in the narrative. All of this indicates that there is some kind of plan at work in the stories and their literary arrangements. While these elements are features of the Bible’s architecture, this divine “house of many rooms” is organic in its design. It is, quite

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literally, a body of literature. But rather than a snake—or a nest of snakes like Glendurgen maze—this body resembles a great tree. The pattern of the entire tree is not only reflected in the arrangement of the branches, it is also stamped upon every leaf. This goes a long way towards mapping the maze, but the actual covenant map, although hidden at a deeper level, is even simpler. When it comes to the covenants of the Bible, we must look inside the tree. If we do a horizontal cross section, we find a different sort of pattern, one that gives us the entire history of the tree at a single glance—its growth rings. The reason theologians got so bewildered is that they viewed the covenants only as a linear history—a series of timelines all shunted together like carriages in a very long freight train. That method provided no clue as to how they related to each other or what they comprised as a whole. However, seeing the covenants as growth rings in the “family tree” of Man’s history is the first step towards understanding the unique features of each “ring.” Then, we must move to an even better comparison to continue our quest—one with rings that are bigger, and rings that move. The covenants of sacred history were a lot like the orbits of the 28

planets around the sun. They were not a chain of historical segments but spheres; not lines in series but an arrangement of concentric layers. While a journey from the boundary of our solar system to the heart of our sun is indeed linear, the solar system itself is not. This introduces a key aspect that helps us to understand the relationship of each covenant to all of the others. It means that each successive “new covenant”

Each new covenant was a circle within the previous circle.

ascents of the sun, moon, stars, and planets, as they are described and measured in the workings of a Ptolemaic armillary sphere. This instrument consists of a globe that represents the earth, with a framework of rings that represent the lines of objects as they move across the sky. In a Copernican armillary sphere, the globe represents the sun instead of the earth, so the actual orbits are described in contrast to the paths we see from earth. Bible history was a step-by-step, ring-by-ring journey through a model cosmos. While each object had its unique path, all of the “layers” operated simultaneously.

Flood gates

superseded the previous one without actually replacing it. Each new era was instead an addition to what existed before.

As we “travel” through the Bible, we see that each new covenant increased the required level of purity and moral responsibility. It also promised increased access to God and a greater degree of glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Passing from the orbit of Mars to the orbit of the earth does not render the orbit of Mars either obsolete or non-existent. Mars is still revolving around the sun even though we have turned our attention to a new world.

But as a gateway to a new order, each new covenant also had to close the door, or mitigate, the curses for failure upon its predecessor, like a wall holding back the sea. But each of these was only a temporary measure.

Or, if we put the earth at the center (since Genesis 1 describes the world from the human vantage point), the covenants are like the

An example of this in miniature is the new set of tablets provided by God after Israel’s sin with the golden calf (Exodus 34:1). These

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bought time for the disobedient Israelites, but God would visit this idolatrous generation again in judgment (Exodus 32:34). The very first instance of such a “holding back” was the act of atonement in Eden that delayed the deaths of Adam and Eve. Keeping them out of the Garden was not an exclusion from fellowship but a protection from immediate judgment. Worship continued in Genesis 4, but the annual offerings of the firstfruits of the womb (from Abel) and the firstfruits of the land (from Cain) were to hold back the curses of barrenness pronounced in Genesis 3. When these offerings were abandoned, the world was destroyed. God established a new covenant, and new sacrifices, in Noah. This new order was necessary for the protection of the nations because the Adamic legacy was still in operation. People still sinned. People still died. And God still required blood sacrifices to hold back the curse that threatened the world. So the Noahic Covenant was not established instead of the Adamic order but within it, like a circle within a circle, or a sphere within a sphere. Like the tunics and sacrifices in Genesis 3 and 4, this new order was never intended to be a perfect or permanent solution, but it did buy time.

Circular cuttings Likewise, the Abrahamic Covenant did not nullify the Noahic Covenant. And this is important for our understanding of the New Testament. The Jews were “God’s covenant people” in a special sense, but this was because they legally represented the Gentiles. The utter destruction due to all nations after the corruption of the Adamic and Noahic orders was now being held back by the offerings—and sufferings—of the nation of Israel on their behalf. The Gentiles were outside of Abraham, but they were not outside of either Noah or Adam. They were still in covenant with God, but, like Adam, it was via mediation and at a distance. This merciful arrangement would remain until the promised Seed arrived (Ephesians 2:13). Gentiles were not under the Law of Moses; they were only under the basic Noahic ethics concerning sex (beginnings) and blood (endings) that were later included in the Mosaic Law. This explains James’ judgment in Acts 15 concerning whether Gentiles should be circumcised. When the Law of Moses was established, it was likewise cut within the Abrahamic order. It drew another circle, placing weightier responsibilities upon the men and women of Israel.

This particular circle had other circles within it, giving a special role to the tribe of Levi, and Sanctuary access to Levite priests during their periods of service. In English translations, God and men make covenants. However, in the Hebrew, they are not made but cut. Legal arrangements concern matters of life and death. The life of all flesh is in the blood, so blood was given in exchange for a life (Leviticus 17:11). And each new covenant was cut in order to preserve life. Since each covenant that was cut was a new “circle,” it was a cutting around. And the word that means “to cut around” is “circumcise.” This dispels the confusion over the relationship between promise and law. We know that the Law did not annul the promises made to Abraham (Galatians 3:15-19). But neither did it contradict them. In fact, it preserved them. Just as circumcision of flesh was a symbolic castration that protected the male offspring of Abraham from God’s wrath, circumcision of hearts under the Law protected the spiritual fruit of the true heirs. In both cases, the act of cutting was a pruning that would not only preserve life but also promote growth. This explains the “Edenic” food law concerning the cutting off of the fruit of newly-planted trees in the Promised Land.

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When you come into the land, and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised. Three years it shall be as uncircumcised to you. It shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord. And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase. (Leviticus 19:23-25 NKJV)

Like Israel and the Levites, the “priestly” firstfruits were God’s property until the branches were “kingly”—strong and mature. The imagery of sacramental fruit bearers on the land comes from Day 3 of the Creation Week, and this clue reveals to us the divine plan behind this wondrous living construct of covenantal rings.

Orientation days It is said that God’s ways are mysterious, but they are far less mysterious if we are paying attention. His work has a wonderful consistency to it. Just as the days of Creation were a process of construction, so also the history recorded in the Bible is a process of reconstruction. God used, and still uses, the corruption of the world to achieve an even greater glory for Himself and those who are His. The primeval history began with the “white light” of God and ended with Him hanging His 30

colorful warbow in the cloud. This new covenant was more glorious than the brilliant purity of God’s first recorded words, in the same way that the Woman was more glorious than the Man. In Leviticus 23, the annual calendar of seven feasts begins with the Sabbath. So the weekly re-Creation established the pattern for the entire year. Likewise, the “day” of the first era was refracted into seven bands of color through which history

The covenants of the Bible recap the Creation Week. passed until it reached its center. This journey was marked with towering milestones—the seven major holy mountains. Each new mountain was a gateway from the old age to the new, simultaneously serving as a bookend for two eras—an end and a beginning. To illustrate, the “kingly” period of the pattern is the time from the covenant made at Sinai to the one made on Zion. Moses and David were thus the human bookends of this era.

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Day 1: EDEN The light of God dwells on a Garden mountain in the first Sanctuary, but the world is filled with darkness.

Day 2: ARARAT The mountains are covered until God separates the waters once again.

Day 3: MORIAH Abraham offers Isaac in the Promised Land, in faith, and God honors His promise of a “firstfruits” nation to possess it.

Day 4: SINAI At a burning mountain, Israel is set apart for service, given the law, a new Sanctuary, wise judges, and inherits a glorious kingdom. David buys Moriah and renames it Zion.

Day 5: ZION The Temple is built, and Israel prospers until God sends prophets, plagues, and “hosts” of Gentile armies. His glory departs for Olivet and Solomon’s Temple is destroyed.

Day 6: OLIVET Olive branches from the “mount of anointing” establish an era of ministry to the surrounding “beast” nations until Christ comes from Olivet as the true king. This “Adam” preaches, dies, is buried, and rises again on this cemetery hill—where He is mistaken for the gardener.

Day 7: WORLD Jesus ascends to heaven, dwells in the saints, destroys the Temple and the animal sacrifices, and establishes a spiritual mountain that will grow to fill the globe. The Old Testament saints enter into God’s promised rest.

Just as Jericho was “cut around” as the firstfruits victory of the Land, so also Jerusalem was “circumcised” with a Roman trench and then cut off as the firstfruits victory of the World. A sevenfold beginning led to a sevenfold ending. As with Noah’s ark, and Israel’s Tabernacles and Temples, God built the new house before He destroyed the old. The final “day” of this “week” plundered its first six days and gathered their riches into the New Covenant before tearing the old ones down. How so? Jesus was born without a human father (Adam to Noah). His baptism brought the witness of the dove (Noah to Abram). His prophetic ministry and death ended the circumcision and fulfilled the Law (Abraham to Moses). His ascension and the sending of the Spirit established the kingdom of God on earth (Moses to David). In the persecution of the Church, He was Israel scattered among the nations (David to Ezra). In the testimony of the apostles, He founded “synagogues” (churches) across the “beast” empire as a spiritual conquest (Ezra to Jesus). In the

destruction of the Temple, He wiped out all of the old walls— the “floodgates” that had held back the judgment of God (Jesus to AD70). Since this event, there are no longer any Jews or Gentiles in the eyes of God, only believers or unbelievers. This final momentous “day” was

the system, but entirely reforged it. His reign, as a single realm, is a seven-ringed “armillary sphere,” wheels within wheels, a global apparatus of measurement and judgment which incorporates and employs in perfect harmony the authority of each of His covenantal predecessors. No one is outside of this New Covenant. The final “day” of the old era ended with the binding of the devil from his time-tested “Babelic” strategy. The serpent is bound, held back, by Jesus from deceiving and gathering all the nations as one against the Church (which would mean its destruction) until Jesus is finished gathering the saints from all nations into His spiritual city—the New Jerusalem.

pictured for us in the strange method of conquest commanded in Joshua 6:3-5. Every day for six days the men of war marched around the city. On day seven, they marched around the city seven times. The walls fell, and “all flesh” in the city was cut off. Our High Priest not only entered the fiery furnace at the heart of

This will continue until “all flesh” is cut off from Satan, and his fruitless agency is entirely “circumcised.” How ironic. Genesis began with a young man, a serpent, and a rainbow. It ended with a young man robed in a rainbow and crowned with a serpent (an Egyptian uraeus). The “maze” of biblical covenants is thus an aerial view of our “Joseph”—as wise as a serpent yet as harmless as a dove. n

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THEOLOGY ACCELERATOR

THE QUEST

ast time, we put the events of Genesis 2 side-by-side with the history of the world from Adam to Noah. This showed how the gathering of the animals to each of these men by God was a promise of world dominion. But where Adam failed, Noah succeeded. However, it is the events of Genesis 2 and 3 together that provide a key to the rest of the 32

Bible. Both chapters follow the same pattern, but they also cleverly follow the pattern when combined as one sequence. So the Ethics step in Genesis 2 was God placing Adam in the Garden with the two trees as the potential ruler of the world. But the Ethics step in the Genesis 2-3 combo was the temptation of Eve by the serpent. The words and rites in the Garden were all a preparation for

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The key to the story of Israel’s conquest of the Land is the pattern of Adam’s preparation in the Garden.

MICHAEL BULL moving out of the Garden into the Land. Once agriculture and family had been established (the basics of life that are necessary to have a future), this single family would multiply, moving out from the Land across the World. The “priestly” basics of agriculture and family would mature into the “kingly” glories of culture and nations.

The fruits of both of these landand-womb pairs (in Land and World) were “rationed” by the curses upon the Man and the Woman in the Garden. Although the pattern of preparation was corrupted, it is intact enough to be instructive. In fact, all events of subsequent human history follow the same pattern—sometimes with failure, sometimes with success. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. (Joshua 1:7)

That brings us to how the personal ordeal in Eden was “replayed” at a national level in the preparation of Israel for the conquest of the Promised Land. As in Eden, the time of testing in the wilderness (which included serpents—both animal and human!) was all about trust in the character of God. If they got that part right, nothing could stop them. But it turned out to be easier to take the Israelites out of Egypt than it was to take the Egypt out of the Israelites.

The day of the Lord Israel’s “slavery to Sabbath” journey from Egypt to Canaan is perhaps the clearest example of

Each day is the cycle of an entire human life in miniature. God’s consistent method of transforming good things into great things. This Conquest pattern is worth learning not only because it helps us to understand all of the Bible, but also because it is the shape of every sphere of human life. The best way to get a solid grip on it is to begin with something that we are already familiar with, and that is the pattern of every human working day. The reason we find the pattern here is because every day of our lives is part of our mission for God. Just as seconds make up minutes, and minutes make up hours, so the cycle of each day is the cycle of an entire human life in miniature. Every workday begins and ends with a journey, and has orders, service, and rewards at the center. Every day is an act of “taking dominion” of the earth for God, the task of making the world a better place one day at a time. Every day has good results or bad, or sometimes both, and

every day ends in rest. Every day has consequences that spill over into, and shape, the next day. Since Joshua completed the task begun by Moses, we can align the seven basic steps of a “there-andback-again” workday with the major themes of the first seven books of the Bible. Genesis: You wake from sleep with a mission, like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph Exodus: You go to work, like Israel journeying to Mount Sinai Leviticus: You receive instructions, like those given to the priests Numbers: You work and your faculties are tested Deuteronomy: Your skill, wisdom, maturity, and prosperity increase Joshua: After your work is completed and assessed, you return home Judges: You eat and rest in gratitude to God The icons will be fully explained in the next Theology Accelerator. But notice that the first section ends with “Adamic” bread (what we need, like the Tree of Life) and the entire cycle ends with “Noahic” wine (what we desire, like the Tree of Knowledge).

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Every day has a time of submission (priestly work) and a time of exaltation (kingly rule). A man’s house really is his castle. This correspondence between the seven books and the workday explains why God initiated new projects using “deep sleeps” or “night visions.” He was saying “Let there be light!” at the beginning of a new day. Likewise, Mary was “overshadowed” by the power of the Spirit at Jesus’ conception (Genesis 1:2-3; Luke 1:35) because her firstborn was the light of the world (John 1:1-9; 8:12). And her husband Joseph received four dreams that took the family to Egypt and back, of all places, to protect them.

Instead of bearing the sword, Adam was still under the sword. Genesis: Like the world, Adam is formed and filled. Exodus: He is placed in the Sanctuary, given an office and a law. Leviticus: He is cut as a sacrifice (endings) and God gives him a bride (beginnings).

The Bible refers to saints “falling asleep” because death was the end of their “day.” With their God-given life’s mission faithfully completed, they could rest and wake up in glory.

Numbers: Adam’s role is tested by the serpent. They steal from God and their eyes are opened. The penalty is death.

Conquest and covenant

Deuteronomy: He and his wife are summoned by God, who assesses and instructs them.

Of course, Israel not only failed God so badly that the old generation died in the wilderness (just as Abram’s father Terah died on the way to Canaan), but Israel’s restless “rule” under the judges was a series of failures remedied only by victories under chosen “champions.” If we retrofit this sequence onto Genesis 2 and 3, we can see that Adam was a failed Joshua. 34

Joshua: Adam’s testimony as the “captain” is false (Oath). God pronounces curses and provides a covering (Sanctions). Judges: Adam is disqualified from kingdom, having failed to enter God’s rest.

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Instead of becoming a sword bearer like Joshua as he entered the Land, Adam, his wife, and his offspring remained under the angelic sword. He committed the same sins that Israel later did. Despite God’s promises, they distrusted His goodness, fell into idolatry, and trusted a false prophet instead of God’s Word. On the “sixth day“ of Israel’s Conquest pattern, Achan of Judah committed the Adamic sin of stealing from God and lying about it (Joshua 5:10-26). He and his entire family were cut off. Now, correspond the Conquest patterns of Adam, Israel, and a workday with the Covenant pattern we learned last time.

TRANSCENDENCE HIERARCHY ETHICS: PRIEST ETHICS: KING ETHICS: PROPHET OATH/SANCTIONS SUCCESSION This pattern is the key to the whole Bible. Memorize it and and look for it as you read. n

OMG REDEEMING THE CULTURE

If we were going to be blessing people every day, we needed ammunition. people that were willing to receive blessing—a very different search strategy.

EVANGELISM

Because we weren’t actively searching for those people, we had been unwittingly seeking out people of conflict rather than people of peace.

WATER IN THE DESERT In our culture, Christians operate from a stance of moral disapproval… and everybody kinda knows it.

“Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you.” (Luke 10:5-6)

What would happen, we wondered, if we started operating from a stance of blessing instead?

hose words hit us right between the eyes. We had been raised and trained to seek out people that needed correcting and correct them. Jesus was telling us to seek out

TIM NICHOLS AND JOE ANDERSON

As we delved further into the passage and how to apply it, another thing rose to the surface: He taught them to start with spoken blessing. Not a sales pitch, not a persuasion technique, not “you gotta get ’em lost before you get ’em saved,” just a blessing. When you come into someone’s house, literally speak a blessing over it: “Peace to this house.” We began to wonder what would happen if we did exactly that. To be honest, we really didn’t know how. It’s not like we knew anybody who was setting a good example.

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In our culture, Christians operate from a stance of moral disapproval… and everybody kinda knows it. What would happen, we wondered, if we started operating from a stance of blessing instead? So we started. We experimented a little, and then took the plunge: we made ourselves accountable for verbally blessing at least three people a week. It could be a grocery store clerk, or a neighbor, or even a family member (sometimes—we wanted it to be strangers most of the time). We decided that “God bless you” was off-limits because it’s just a verbal tic for some people, but it could be very simple (“May God bless you today”) or it could be more tailored to the specific person’s needs (“May God bring you 30 customers this afternoon.”) It was uncomfortable. But we did it, just because God said to. We figured He knew what He was talking about. Here’s what we found: nobody was offended. Everybody was surprised. When they recovered from their shock, almost all of them were grateful. It was like we were giving away water in the desert—because that’s exactly what we were doing.

culture. We curse people all the time, but speaking blessing over people is just not something that we do. We also found that our need to obey spurred further Bible study. If we were going to be blessing people every day, we needed ammunition. So we dug into the biblical examples, and we learned a ton. We grew skilled over time by obeying. This practice helps us to obey another biblical command, just because God said to: the command to proclaim Jesus’ good news in the public square. We’d like to encourage you on two particular points. First, adopt a stance of blessing. It will transform your soul (and your reputation) in ways that matter for public proclamation. Proclamation lands differently when it’s coming from someone who habitually operates from a stance of blessing. Second, as we’ve done with both of these commands, we want to encourage you to mere obedience. Once you are persuaded of the command from Scripture, start obeying it. Of course you won’t really

know what you’re doing at the start. God has made the world in such a way that we’re bad at things before we’re good at them; why should this be any different? Accept from the outset that your initial attempts will be unskilled, halting, generally poor—and do it anyway! Trust that God will honor your obedience and teach you the skill as you go. Believe us, He will! n An adapted excerpt from Proclaim, an essay published at Theopolis Institute.

contributors this issue Michael Bull is a graphic designer and author who lives in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia. His passion is understanding and teaching the Bible. Pierre-Sovann Chauny is professor of reformed dogmatics at Faculté Jean Calvin in Aix-en-Provence, France. Aside from theology, he is particularly interested in good wines, and is a happy husband and father. Sylvester Pittman is an insurance sales agent and church elder, and lives in Plant City, Florida, USA, with his wife and seven children. Joe Anderson is a coffee roaster and city council member. Tim Nichols is a bodyworker and martial arts instructor. Both are ministers serving with Headwaters Christian Resources in Englewood, Colorado, USA.

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We live in a blessing-starved

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