BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 65
September, 1994
Copyright 1994, Biblical Horizons
In the April 1994 issue I called Youth With A Mission (YWAM) a cult that worships "a false god who does not even know the future." I have received a long letter from a reader who works for YWAM, setting me straight.
My evaluation of YWAM was based largely on my encounters with YWAMers in Tyler, Texas, and the writings of one of their theologians, Winkie Pratney. My correspondent informs me that it is true that the Tyler YWAMers are (or were) much influenced by this heretical notion, and that it was taught in YWAM circles a couple of decades ago through the writings of Gordon Olson and Harry Conn. He writes that the current director of YWAM, Loren Cunningham, has expressly repudiated this doctrine and affirms the omniscience and total foreknowledge of God. He informs me that most YWAMers are Wesleyan Arminians, though more and more are Calvinists. This is good news.
I am still amazed and dismayed that such a blatantly pagan notion can exist side by side with Christianity in an organization. It is rather like putting Unitarians and Trinitarians under one umbrella. And I am sorry that firmer discipline has not been exercised against those who worship this false god. But on the other hand, this is only one more glaring example of a problem that exists all over Christendom today; and my correspondent tells me that things are constantly improving in the organization.
Accordingly, I am very happy to be corrected, and to correct what I wrote, and I apologize to anyone in Youth With A Mission who may have read what I wrote.
— James B. Jordan
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 65
September, 1994
Copyright 1994, Biblical Horizons
The kings from the east in Revelation 16:12 are generally assumed to be enemies of God, an army headed up by the frog-demons of 16:13 who oppose Almighty God. The burden of this essay is to argue that this interpretation is incorrect.
The political-preterist type of interpretation says that this refers to Roman legions brought from the area of the Euphrates, where they guarded the border with Parthia, to help destroy Jerusalem. The immediate problem with this interpretation is that clearly the kings from the east are on the other side of the Euphrates and cross it to invade the land, yet everyone knows that the Parthians had nothing to do with the destruction of Jerusalem We need to search for a better interpretation.
(I view my own approach as "Biblical-theological Preterism" as opposed to "Political Preterism." The political-preterist type of interpretation views Revelation as a series of codes for events found in Josephus and other writers. It is a kind of "ancient newspaper exegesis." Josephus is not the clue to Revelation. The clue to Revelation is the rest of the Bible. Though Revelation does indeed deal with the period between ad 30 & 70, it is primarily concerned with spiritual/ecclesiastical matters, often invisible to the eye, not with the Jewish-Roman War. The battles are spiritual, not military. Of courses all preterists must deal with both aspects, and all do. It is a matter of which approach has priority and emphasis.)
The clues are here. First, the river dries up so that this army can enter the land. This alludes to Abraham’s first entry into the land from Ur of the Chaldees, and also to the drying up of the Jordan when Israel entered Canaan. The Euphrates is the farthest boundary of Canaan and the holy land. Jerusalem has been called Sodom – center of Canaanite wickedness – already (11:8), so the notion of an army of saints attacking wicked Canaan-Israel can be entertained as a distinct possibility. In terms of such an interpretation, the frog-demon army of the Beasts and Babylon is the enemy of the Godly kings of the east.
Of course, it must be granted at once that God brought pagan armies across the Euphrates to punish wayward Israel in the Old Creation period, and so by itself the fact that this army crosses the Euphrates does not establish whether it is an army of the Godly or an army of the ungodly under providential control. Either way, however, a literal interpretation is impossible, for the Roman army did not cross the Euphrates to enter the holy land. But there are other considerations as well. To wit:
Second, the only other person who comes from the east, from the sunrising, is the angel of 7:2. This angel is generally granted to be Jesus Himself, who ascends "from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God." After all, "as lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be" (Mt. 24:27). Thus, the direction the congregation faces in worship is called "liturgical east," for we worship in expectation of His coming to meet with us. Accordingly, the "kings from the sunrising" would be the Lord’s own army, not the Roman army under His providential superintendence.
Is there any way to confirm this interpretation? I believe so. We can start with Revelation 7:1-2. There we see four angels standing at the four corners of the (holy) land, holding back the four winds of the land. Then the Sunrise Angel tells them to hold off in their destructive work until the saints are sealed. These angels reappear at the sixth trumpet (compare the sixth libation-bowl). In 9:13-14, when the sixth angel sounds his trumpet, a Voice from the golden altar – Christ – tells the sixth trumpet-angel to release the four angels, who have now moved to the Euphrates. This is the only other reference to the Euphrates in Revelation, and being in the sixth trumpet, is parallel in concept to Euphrates in the sixth libation-bowl. Then the four angels move out and kill a third of mankind.
This is a Godly (angelic) army, not a demonic one. The demonic army, which torments men, is pictured in the fifth trumpet (9:1-11). Their king is Satan. They come from the pit. Not so the "angel army" of the sixth trumpet. Their King is Jesus, the Sunrise Angel. They come from the Euphrates, invading the land as God’s holy people.
This "angel army," supervised by the four angels, consists of two myriads of myriads (2 x 10,000 x 10,000 = 200,000,000). The army is also spoken of as the four winds of the earth in 7:1. It consists of horses and riders, not of locust-scorpions that just look like horses (ct. 9:3-8).
Before examining this army in more detail, we need to look at the background in Zechariah. In Zechariah 1, the first night vision, at sunset, God’s holy army appears as a company of horses ready to ride forth with the gospel, but restrained because the atonement has not been made. After the atonement, at midnight (passover) in Zechariah 3, the Church is empowered (Zech. 4) and the horses are pictured again in the eighth (sunrise) vision of Zechariah 6 riding forth to conquer the world of the Restoration Covenant era. They are called "the four winds of heaven." But in Zechariah 2:6 it is the saints of the Restoration Covenant who are called the four winds of heaven. Thus, the horses of Zechariah 1 and the horses-and-chariots of Zechariah 6 picture the Old Creation Church, the earthly host of Yahweh of hosts. In Zechariah 14:20 these same horses, the saints, wear bells, like the High Priest, on which are inscribed "Holy to Yahweh," from the High Priest’s crown. This is the holy army, the Church.
With this background, we are entitled to suggest that the army of Revelation 9:16-21, the army of the sixth trumpet, is a picture of the Church riding forth to kill God’s enemies with the gospel, which is a savor of life to some and a savor of death to others. It might be an angel-army, but I think we should first consider that it is the Church.
The commanders of this army are the four corner angels. The Old Testament term for the commander of the army is "corner" (Jud. 20:2; 1 Sam.14:38). There are four corners: the king and his three mighty men (1 Chron. 11:4-14). In the Gospels these are Jesus, Peter, James, and John. We are entitled to suggest that the Chief Corner(stone) of this army, the premier of the four angels, is Jesus Himself. The other three might be spirit-angels, or human angels, three captains of the Church on earth (symbolizing the company of the apostles).
The riders and horses are one entity. The riders have a breastplate of fire, hyacinth, and brimstone. This calls to mind the breastplate of the High Priest, which had fiery gold encasing precious stones, and "hyacinth" here means a stone of that smoky-blue color, probably jacinth. The ephod-robe of the High Priest, like the Tabernacle, was made essentially of the same smoky-blue/violet color, signifying God’s cloud. The brimstone is new, and points to the fact that the time of judgment has arrived.
The heads of the horses are like lions, thus kingly (compare the kings from the sunrising of 16:12). From their mouths proceed fire, hyacinth colored smoke, and brimstone, which kill a third of mankind.
The tails of the horses are like serpents, which also harm men. This does not mean that they are demonic, for this has already been identified as an angelically-supervised army. Rather, it means that those who reject the gospel are delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (1 Cor. 5:5).
Now, the sixth trumpet continues all the way to 11:14. In 11:3-10 we are shown the two witnesses, apostle and prophet, who are Moses and Elijah and also Haggai and Zechariah (the two prophetic olive trees of Zechariah 4). We are told that "if anyone desires to harm them, fire comes out of their mouth and devours their enemies" (11:5). Notice that these are clearly human agents, whose work is symbolized as fire coming from their mouths. Notice also that there are two of them, corresponding I suggest to the two myriad myriads of the army.
Thus, while there seems to be angelic superintendence of this army, it is best to see the army as a symbol of the Church. It is not, n.b., the Romans.
We are now in a position to expand and deepen our interpretation of the sixth trumpet. The voice that calls for the four angels in 9:13 comes from the four horns of the altar of incense, the golden altar. The four horns at the four corners represent four mountain-peaks on the altar-mountain, for all altars are miniature holy mountains. They also signify the four corners of the land, for the altar-plateau is the holy land. As mountain-peaks at the four corners of the plateau, the corners guard the altar. Thus, the four angels of the four corners of the land are the four commanders, guardians of the land. It is fitting that they are summoned by the four horns of the altar.
But more so, this is the incense altar. The army that is summoned is the color of fire and smoke, the colors of burning incense. Incense is the prayers of the saints (5:8, 8:3). Accordingly, the army is an army of living incense. What does this mean? It might mean that the army carries forth the answer to the prayers of the saints, prayers for vengeance. In the light of what we have seen, however, this does not fit as well as the alternative, which is that this is a prayer army.
If we go back to 8:3-5, we find a description of Pentecost. Jesus takes incense (prayer) and adds it to the prayer-incense of the saints already on the altar. Then He takes the fire, which burns incense, and throws it to the earth. The fire is the fiery tongues of Pentecost. Thus, the people are incense, lit by God’s fire. Burning incense represents people sending up prayers to God, spending themselves before Him.
Throughout the book of Acts we see that the deliverance of the righteous and the judgment of the wicked come in response to prayer. Thus, the weapon of Christian warfare is prayer. This is Liturgical Warfare. Heavenly incense is added to the earthly incense of the saints, which means that angels are added to the earthly Church to help her. This accounts for the size of the army of the sixth trumpet, for there were not two hundred million believers in the Firstfruits Church. We also see angels helping the Church in Acts.
I suggest, therefore, that the symbolism of the sixth trumpet is this: The army is an army of praying saints, an army of burning incense. The army proclaims with its mouth the new Kingdom of Prayer, a Kingdom made possible in a new way because heaven is now open and men now have full access to the Throne.
The specific prayers that arise from the blood of the saints are imprecatory prayers, prayers for vengeance (6:9-10). The first blood to cry for vengeance was that of Abel (Gen. 4:10). Cain was driven from the land and forced to wander, though he decided to build a false city anyway. This is what happened to Israel when she oppressed the poor and the prophets in the Old Testament: Assyria and Babylon sent her into wandering and captivity. In Zechariah 5, however, the wicked in Israel are pictured as building a new city of Cain, a new and evil Babel in the plains of Shinar, which houses a great harlot. This is the immediate background of the city of Babylon in Revelation. Zechariah sees this false Temple set up at the same time as the true Temple is restored (Zech. 4-5). Similarly, using Pauline language, the mystery of lawlessness arose as soon as the mystery of the Kingdom was proclaimed in the New Covenant. The false New Jerusalem of the Jews and Judaizers is Babylon the Great.
Abel was not immediately avenged, however. His blood was told to wait a while, and Cain was marked for temporary protection (cp. Rev. 6:11). When the full measure of wickedness was reached, God wiped out the city of Cain at the Flood. Similarly, the saints under the outer altar are told to wait until the full sum of wickedness and murder has been reached, at which time Babylon will be destroyed. We have previously seen that climax of oppression reached in Revelation 14, with the massacre of the Firstfruits Church.
With this background in mind, we can understand the nature of the prayer army of the sixth trumpet. They are the same as Enoch before the Flood, whose prophecy of doom is recorded in Jude 14-15 in language picked up specifically in Revelation 9:16, "Behold, the Lord came with His holy myriads, to execute judgment upon all, to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that the ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." Then Jude 16 identifies the ungodly in terms familiar from the book of Acts and the Pauline epistles: the Judaizing apostates.
Thus, the "killing" done by the incense army of the sixth trumpet is two-edged. The ungodly may be convicted, and repent, or they may be driven to the extent of wickedness, and eventually be destroyed with Babylon the Great.
In sum, the imprecatory prayers of the slain saints raises up a prayer-army of Enochs and Elijahs, who pray and preach against the ungodly. Their lion-mouths kill in the positive sense of converting the ungodly, while their serpent-tails drive the rest into greater and greater ungodliness.
With this as background we are on firm ground in identifying "the army of the kings from the sunrising" as the Church. This army is gathered against the army of the frog-demons for a great battle at Mount Megiddo (16:16).
What is this battle and how does it take place? I suggest that we have already studied it in our previous essay on Revelation 14:14-20. At the sixth trumpet, the army rides from the Euphrates to bring the gospel of judgment, transformation, and blessing to the land. After a period of victory, the two witnesses are killed in Jerusalem. These events constitute the partial, warning judgments of the trumpet sequence. Now we come to the full judgments of the libation-bowl sequence. God’s conquering army crosses the Euphrates into the promised land, doing war with the Beast and Sodom-Jerusalem at Mount Megiddo. The result is that God’s army is slain, but this is revealed to be the harvest of the saints. Like Enoch and Elijah they are called to heaven. Like Methuselah, they die just before the Flood comes. The apparent victory of the Jews over the Church is what seals their doom, and the seventh libation-bowl effects their destruction, leading to the fuller description of Babylon’s destruction in Revelation 17.
While it is certainly true that the physical destruction of Jerusalem was effected by the Romans (Rev. 17:16), the armies of the sixth trumpet and sixth libation-bowl are the Church, not Rome.
The proclamation of the gospel by the Church is here revealed as having, as part of its effect, the destruction of the old world, so as to make way for the new.
Biblical Chronology
Vol. 6, No. 9
September, 1994
Copyright © James B. Jordan 1994
by James B. Jordan
During my brief sojourn as a pastor during the 1980s, I had several occasions to be involved in settling disputes between men in the congregation I served. A typical dispute went like this: Two men formed a company to do business. After a few years, the business went sour, and then both men wanted out. They came to loggerheads over how to divide things up. The conflict eventually came before the elders of the church, since the Bible says to bring things to the elders rather than to the secular magistrate for resolution.
When we would begin to investigate the problem, we would ask to see the original documents, the contracts, that were drawn up when the business started. That way, we could see who contributed what, what the conditions were, etc., and on that basis we could begin to settle the conflict. Invariably, we found that there were no such contracts. The men, considering each other "honest Christian brothers," had not bothered to write anything down, and now we only had their words to go on. And, since memory is fallible and often unreliable, the two men, of course, remembered things differently.
God is not like this. God has given us a written document, His covenant Word, that is the basis of our relationship with Him. As creatures made in His image, we should do the same whenever we enter into arrangements with other people. Thus we have marriage covenants. We have political contracts, like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And thus we should have business contracts.
(While "contract" and "covenant" are used in a generally synonymous manner, they have a different nuance. A contract is a trade in which each party seeks to benefit: I sell you my corn [which you want], and you give me your money [which I want]. A covenant is the reverse: I give things up for you, and you give things up for me. A contract is for reciprocal profit; a covenant is for reciprocal sacrifice. Thus, in marriage the wife sacrifices her independence, vowing to obey, and the husband gives up his estate, vowing to "worship" [serve] her with his "body" [his possessions]. ["With my body I thee worship" is the ancient vow of the husband.])
Such written contracts and covenants are invariably dated. Every wife knows the date of her marriage, even if the "typical American husband" tends to forget the date. No American forgets the 4th of July. Sadly, the Church no longer maintains dated covenants for baptisms, though she should.
The Bible as Covenant
The Bible is a covenant document. This is an offense to the modern rationalistic mind. It is offensive to believe in a God who speaks. It is far easier to say that God is "beyond mere speech," and thus that our words about God are only mere pointers to some "ineffable beyond." But the Bible says that God speaks, and that man, as God’s image, is created with the ability to hear and understand God’s speech. In fact, man cannot help understanding God’s speech. Man’s mind was made to fit God’s words as a glove fits a hand.
God not only speaks, He also writes. God wrote the Ten Words on stone, not once but twice, and also wrote on Belshazzar’s wall (Daniel 5). Writing differs from speech in that writing is permanent. Our memories are very fallible. The phenomenon of artificial memory is much in the news these days, as psychiatrists stimulate people to "remember" being sexually abused as children, being forced to worship Satan, etc. Others "remember" previous lives. The game of Gossip is based on the fact that information changes as it is transmitted orally: The first player whispers a sentence into the ear of the person sitting next to him or her, who then whispers it into his or her neighbor, and so on around the ring until it gets back to the original whisperer, generally garbled and distorted.
Writing, thus, creates a memorial. God created man to speak and to write. We must do both. The notion that writing was invented only after a few centuries or thousands of years of "oral tradition" is nonsense. Adam not only spoke but also wrote. He created some kind of written marks to preserve an accurate account of what he knew. It has always been so.
The God who writes is a God who dictates. Virtually the whole book of Leviticus, for instance, was dictated by God to Moses, who wrote it down. This is true of most of Exodus 21-40, large parts of Numbers, and much of the prophets. When Isaiah writes, "Thus says Yahweh" ("Thus saith the Lord"), he is recording God’s dictated words.
God writes. God dictates. And God causes things to be written by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit. The rest of the Bible was written in this way. Thus, the entire Bible is the written Word of God.
This written Word of God is not, however, a book of timeless philosophy, nor is it merely a book of historical events. It is a covenant document composed of a series of covenants. And covenants initiate history.
Covenant-Initiated History
Before you were married (assuming for the moment that you are), you had a certain history before you. The day you were marriage, you entered into a covenant that changed that future history. That marriage covenant dictated certain conditions, which would make your life different from then on. That marriage covenant, thus, changed history by redirecting it. The same is true of the contract(s) that created the United States of America. The same is true of each amendment to the Constitution. The same is true of a business partnership contract.
The really big movements in history are created by documents, by words, that set in motion historical change. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei (Concerning the City of God) created the so-called Middle Ages. Mohammed’s Quran created the Islamic world. Thomas Aquinas’s writings created the Roman Catholic Church. John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion created the modern Protestant world. Karl Marx’s writings created the communist movements. None of these are formally dated covenant/contract documents, but they are history-initiating words nonetheless.
Covenant words are more official, and thus are more precisely dated. We find in the Bible that God creates history by authoring covenants that set in motion a different future. For instance, God’s covenants with Abram (Abraham) generated a different future for him and his descendants.
Given that God is a God who writes covenants, and moves history forward along His plan by means of such covenants, we should be very surprised if these covenants were not dated. In fact, of course, they are dated, often very precisely.
And this brings us to the third offense against the modern mind. It is bad enough that Christians believe in a God who speaks; it is worse that Christians believe in a God who does not leave things to oral tradition but actually writes things down. But it seems to be supremely offensive to believe in a God who actually dates His writings. That is, nonetheless, exactly what God has done.
Let us consider the actual dates of the various covenants. When we do this, we find that the covenants are dated in three ways. First of all, some covenants are dated with extreme precision, with year, month, and day. Second, other covenants are dated only by year. Third, others covenants can only be dated by inference, or only approximately.
The Structure of History
It seems reasonable to suppose that the most important history-initiating covenants are those dated with the most precision. These are:
0. The Creation Covenant, year 0, day 6.
1. The Noahic Covenant, dated in the 601st year of Noah’s life, the second month, the 27th day (Gen. 8:13-14, 20ff.).
2. The Sinaitic Covenant, dated 430 years after Abraham’s entrance into Canaan, month 3, several days into the month, and renewed 40 years later in the eleventh month, day 1 (Ex. 12:40-41; 19:1-16; 24:1ff.; Dt. 1:3).
3. The Restoration Covenant, dated in the second year of Darius, the eleventh month, the 24th day (Zech. 1:7).
Following the covenants that come after creation (which I have numbered 1, 2, & 3), we find in each case a second covenant that is not quite so precisely dated:
1. The Noahic Covenant.
1a. The Patriarchal Covenant, made in Genesis 15 & 17. Genesis 15 can probably be dated three years after Abram entered the land, which puts it in his 78th year, but the text does not explicitly say this. Genesis 17, however, is expressly dated in Abram’s 99th year (Gen. 17:1). Neither month nor date are provided (though from Gen. 18:14 we know that it was in the spring).
2. The Sinaitic Covenant.
2a. The Kingdom Covenant. The key date here is the founding of the Temple, 480 years after the exodus, in the 4th year of Solomon, the second month (1 Ki. 6:1). No date is given.
2b. The Remnant Covenant. The key date here is the accession year of Jehoram of Israel (2 Ki. 1:17; 3:1), for right at that time Elijah ascended into heaven and a pentecostal endowment of the Spirit came upon Elisha (2 Ki. 2).
3. The Restoration Covenant.
3a. The New Covenant. The key date here is the Passover of the year Christ was crucified. The fact that this is Passover establishes the month and date (first month, fifteenth day), but the year is not stated.
Surrounding these covenants are other covenants that are dated more approximately still. These are discussed below.
The structure I have just provided seems strange. We are accustomed to making more of the Abrahamic (Patriarchal) Covenant, and surely more of the New Covenant. There is, however, a logic to the Biblical scheme–a trinitarian logic.
Briefly, the period from creation to Sinai is the Age of the Father, and thus overall the Patriarchal Age. The time from creation to Noah is a time when God’s people served without ruling, for the right to exercise capital punishment had not been given; thus, they were priests but not kings. With Noah comes the right to exercise kingly rule. With the Tower of Babel, that kingly rule is shattered, and out of that judgment comes Abraham and a time of witnessing. Thus, the three phases are priestly, kingly, and prophetic.
In terms of this general history, the Noahic Covenant is central. At this point, the world starts anew. Though the covenant is initiated with Noah, it does not really come into full force until Abram. Abram’s life shows what fatherhood means, both human and divine. Thus, in the Patriarchal Covenant, the Age of the Father comes to full bloom.
The Patriarchal Covenant, being a prophetic era, is also an anticipatory or preliminary phase of the Age of the Son, or the Age of the Law. Abraham is said to have "kept My charge, My commandments, My statues, and My laws" (Gen. 26:5). In Genesis 15 the number of sacrificial animals is reduced from "every clean animal and bird" in Noah’s day, to the five animals that are used later in the Sinaitic sacrificial system. The Patriarchal Covenant emphasizes not just fatherhood, but also sonship, and thus anticipates the Age of the Son.
The first part of the Age of the Son, which actually initiates it, is the Sinaitic Covenant, when Yahweh becomes King of Israel. Because this covenant formally initiates the law, it is precisely dated, and all else flows out from it. The second part of the Age of the Son is the Kingdom Covenant, which is the climax of the era, and is less precisely dated. These are the priestly and kingly phases, respectively. The third, or prophetic phase, begins with the Remnant Covenant brought about by Elijah and Elisha. It, too, is more generally dated. This event begins the third great phase of Bible writing: the prophets.
The Remnant Covenant, being a prophetic era, is also an anticipatory or preliminary phase of the Age of the Spirit. The coming of a double portion of Elijah’s spirit upon Elisha signal this fact. It is also signalled by the fact that the prophets address not only the kings of Israel and Judah, but also the nations around. The coming universal kingship of the Son, through the Spirit, is thus anticipated.
The Restoration Covenant, which follows, is actually the beginning of the New Covenant. It is the initial fulfillment of the promise that the Spirit will be poured out (Zech. 4), that the law will be written on the hearts, that the Word will go out to all nations, etc. Thus, it begins the Age of the Spirit, and this is why it is precisely dated. Because the Restoration era is so little studied, its Spiritual character has eluded most Bible students in recent times (though it did not elude, for instance, John Calvin). The climax of the coming of the new age, however, arrives with the work of Christ and the full outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. Accordingly, in keeping with the pattern, it is not as precisely dated.
Now, I need to mention that the Age of the Spirit is also a second Age of the Son. The first Age of the Son concerned His rule over Israel, preliminarily in the patriarchs, through the priesthood after Sinai, through both kings and priests during the Kingdom era, and then through the prophets bringing judgment. The second Age of the Son concerns His rule over the whole world, first as His witnesses are sent out in priestly service during the Restoration era, and then as He Himself is made King at the Father’s right hand at the Ascension. This being the last age of history (before the end of this world), there is no need for a coming prophetic phase to bring about a new cycle.
For the sake of completeness, let me add that the just as the Son is not superseded but glorified with the coming of the Age of the Spirit, so the Father is not superseded but glorified and reglorified in the two ages that follow the patriarchal eras.
Covenantal Chronology
Let us now consider these dated covenants in order, returning to our original point, which is that God has dated His covenants with humanity.
The first covenant was made with Adam on the sixth day of the world.
The covenant with Noah was made exactly 1657 years after the creation, in the second month, on the 27th day of the month, according to Genesis 8:14, 20ff.
The covenant with Abraham was made progressively on several occasions. God spoke to Abram in Ur and sent him forth to Canaan, though Abram sojourned in Haran (the wilderness) until his father (the older generation) died. This word from God (Gen. 12:1-3; Acts 7:4) is undated.
God actually made covenant with Abram in Genesis 15, tieing him to the land. The animals ordered to be sacrificed were three years old. Their separation into two parts signified Abram’s separation from the land. They were symbolically resurrected and reunited by the Spirit of God, who passed between the parts of the animals, signifying that God was tieing Abram to the land. The fact that these animals were 3 years old indicates that Abram had been estranged from the land for 3 years. Abram entered the land in 2083, and thus this covenant was made in 2086.
The second part of God’s covenant with Abram, guaranteeing him a seed, was made in the year 2107, when Abram was 99 years old, according to Genesis 17.
God renewed the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 22, with Isaac in Genesis 26, and with Jacob in Genesis 28 and 35, but these events are undated. They are not the covenant-initiating events.
The Sinaitic covenant was made in the year 2513, in the third month, on the 8th and 9th days of the month. The covenant was renewed a couple of months later (Genesis 32). Moses renewed the covenant again 40 (lunar) years later, in the (solar) year 2554, the eleventh month, the first day (Deuteronomy). In a sense, this event is the climax of the whole covenant-making enterprise, and thus is dated.
The Sinaitic covenant is renewed by Joshua in Joshua 24, an undated event, being only a renewal.
We now come to the covenant of the Kingdom. This covenant is phased in gradually, with a couple of indirectly dated covenant-making events. The first is recorded in 1 Samuel 11:14-12:25, when Saul was made king. This was at the beginning of Saul’s 40-year reign, which is followed by David’s 40-year reign, which is followed by four years of Solomon’s reign, which takes us to 480 years after the exodus (1 Kings 6:1), the year 2993. This being Solomon’s fourth year, his first year was 2990, and Saul’s first year was 2910, thus the year of the Gilgal Covenant.
God appeared to David and made a covenant with him, recorded in 2 Samuel 7. This happened after David had already reigned 7 years (2 Sam. 5:4-5), thus the year 2957 or thereafter. From these verses and those that follow, it seems that David immediately captured Jerusalem, rapidly built a house there, fought the Philistines very soon thereafter, and then brought God’s throne to the city, proclaiming Yahweh as True High King. It was at this point that Nathan proclaimed the Kingdom Covenant to him. Thus, we are provided an approximate date, around 2957/8, for this covenant.
As mentioned above, much more precise dates are provided for the building of the Temple, which is the climax of any covenant-making event. It began in the year 2993, in the second month, and the building itself was completed in the year 3000, the eighth month (1 Ki. 6:1, 38). The furniture of the Temple, which included Solomon’s palace, took 13 more years to complete (1 Ki. 7:1). God entered the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles in the seventh month of the year 3013 (1 Ki. 8). The feast came after the dedication of the Temple, which accordingly took place on the fifteenth day of the month. We are able to calculate this date, but we note that the text does not give formal expression to it.
The Remnant Covenant, which comes next, is generally overlooked. As I wrote in Through New Eyes (p. 312): "Elijah is a clear Moses figure, challenging the Pharaonic kings of Northern Israel, and finally being taken to heaven in the very place Moses died (2 Ki. 2:1-11, 16-18). After this, Elisha, a new Joshua, crosses the Jordan and reconquers Jericho (2 Ki. 2:13-22). A series of miracle stories follows this, in which Elisha sets up the kingdom in a new form: the Remnant Church (2 Ki. 4-6). Note the Exodus themes of borrowing, and of deliverance from slavery, in 2 Ki. 4:1-7, the restoration of a firstborn son in 2 Ki. 4:8-37, healing of food in 2 Ki. 4:38-41, manna in 2 Ki. 4:42-44, and especially the building of a new house for God’s new people in 2 Ki. 6:1-7. This new period of history, following Elijah and Elisha, is the period of the Writing Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, Joel, etc.)." There is, thus, very much a new covenant introduced at this point. Even though the word "covenant" is not used, all the earmarks of covenant-making are present, and very definitely a new order of life is brought into being: a prophetic church not tied to priests, Levites, or kings. A new testament begins to be written, after a couple of centuries of literary silence.
The central event in this covenant-making enterprise is the death of Elijah and the coming of the Spirit upon Elisha, which as I mentioned above took place in the first year of Jehoram of Israel. In our previous studies we have found this to be the year 3108.
We come now to the Restoration Covenant. A new covenant had been prophesied by Joel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. While the fullness of this new covenant comes with Jesus and the sending of the Spirit in ad 30, the first fulfillment of these prophecies takes place in the restoration from the exile. The covenant-making event is described in Zechariah 1-6: the sins of the people are taken away, vast reserves of Spiritual power are released, and the people are spread out over the world as witnesses. These visions run from sundown to sunup, with the crucial events taking place at midnight. The date is precisely given: Darius year 2, month 11, day 24.
The Bible gives us all the information we need to calculate this date. We need only follow the chronology of the kings of Judah and Israel, take into account the various periods of 70 years predicted by Jeremiah and recorded in 2 Chronicles and Zechariah, and we can figure out the year. Of course, given the various difficulties in the period of the kings, this is hard to do. Our previous studies have led us to the year 3490 as the second year of Darius.
Finally, as concerns the New Covenant, we have seen that the Bible gives us a calendar date for its beginning, but does not formally provide a year. We can, however, figure out the year, and thus date this covenant also. It took place 487 years after the accession of Cyrus, the beginning of Daniel’s 70 weeks, as we have previously seen (Dan. 9). The political year is solar, and thus starts in the fall. After 69 weeks of years (483 years), we have one-half of a week to go, or 3½ years, which would be mid-way through year 487, or in the spring of that year. This is likely the year 3960, or ad 30.
Conclusion
Offensive though it is to the modern mind, the Bible does indeed provide a chronology. It is not a bare chronology, but is intimately tied to God’s own covenant-making events. Those covenants structure history, and like all covenants, are signed, sealed, dated, and delivered: Signed as God’s written word, sealed by the blood of the covenant, dated in terms of the chronology of the Bible, and delivered to us. Remove the dates, and you start to unravel the entire fabric of the covenantal Scriptures.
OPEN BOOK
Views & Reviews
No. 23 Copyright (c) 1994 Biblical Horizons September, 1994
Should Christians Go to Movies?
by John M. Frame
Some Christians may wonder how a fellow believer can give any support to the _lm industry, notorious as it is for anti-Christian bias and moral relativism. I would note that there is also a view on the opposite extreme: some Christian critics of culture insist that all Christians have a responsibility to become culturally aware, to become knowledgeable about cultural trends in art, music, literature, _lm, drama and so on.
I reject both of these extremes. A more balanced position, I think, is to recognize that Scripture tells us to be "in" the world, but not "of" the world. That means that we not only may, but should, be willing to live amid secular (=anti-Christian) in_uence without ourselves compromising the faith. In this respect, it doesn’t matter whether that secular in_uence comes from _lm, or from involvement in business, labor, neighborhood, politics, or whatever. Nor, within the general realm of media entertainment, does it matter whether we are talking about Beethoven or modern rock, Jane Austen or William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway or Jackie Collins, news or business magazines, TV or _lm, Disney _lms or _lms by Martin Scorsese. To avoid non-Christian in_uence altogether, we would have to live as hermits (assuming that we could even _nd some place in the world beyond the reach of modern communications and government). In all modern experience there is a heavy component of anti-Biblical teaching and in_uence. But complete isolation is not a live option for biblical Christians. Even the Christian hermits of the ancient and medieval periods justi_ed their existence as a life of prayer, and thus a life which was, after all, in and for the world. How can we pray for a world we know nothing about? We must not seek to isolate ourselves from the world, but rather to be "salt" and "light" in our fallen culture, to carry out our Lord’s Great Commission.
That balance, of being "in" but not "of" the world, is sometimes di_cult to maintain. One’s choices in this area should be based in part upon his or her own moral and spiritual maturity. Some peo-ple, especially children, or those young in the faith, or those with special problems like alcohol addiction or unusual susceptibility to sexual temptation, should limit their exposure to secular culture in appropriate ways. But at the same time they should be trained in Christian maturity, so that eventually they can enter more fully the secular arena, not fearing that they will be compromised by the culture, but expecting to in_uence the culture positively for Christ.
I do not believe, with the Christian "culturalists," that every Christian, or even every mature Christian, has an obligation to attend art exhibits, concerts, _lms, etc. Christians should seek to in_uence the world for Christ in some way: that is the Great Com-mission. But the precise way in which they reach out to the world may di_er greatly from one believer to another. My brother-in-law is pastor of a church in the inner city of Philadelphia. He does not normally go to _lms, dramas, or art exhibits. But he is de_nitely "in" the world, the real world, and he ministers to it with all the strength God provides him. A knowledge of entertainment media would be of little use to him in his ministry, and I would be the last person to urge him to become "culturally aware."
Yet there are others (such as myself, I believe) who are called of God to devote some of their energy to Christian culture-criticism. Many pastors, as well as youth workers, scholars, teachers, writers, parents and others are in this category. For them it is not wrong, I believe, within sensible limits, to expose themselves to modern _lm or other media. The apostle Paul said that he was not ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11). For that purpose, if for no other, we may be called to learn what _lmmakers have to say to us.
Some arguments used by Christians opposed to moderate attendance at _lms are as follows:
(1) "Graphic acts of violence debase those who watch them, making the viewers more prone to violence." On this proposition there is mixed statistical evidence. Some people, especially children, do seem to resort more quickly to violence, or imitation-violent play, as the result of viewing simulated vio-lence on TV or _lm. I do advocate that parents limit and monitor the use of these media by their children. But I _nd it hard to believe that everyone should for this reason drastically curtail their _lm attendance. I have never myself (even in childhood, as best I can recall) felt the least bit inclined toward violence as the result of watching it on _lm. For the most part, viewing such violence increases my resolve toward _nding non-violent solutions to problems. I think that many other people are similar to me in this respect.
Further, if we maintain a proper critical distance from the _lms we watch (a distance which is necessary for many other reasons), we can see that _lm violence is essentially choreography. No one really gets hurt. And for the most part in _lms, even today, unjustly violent people are not rewarded or glori_ed.
It is important to maintain perspective: lack of perspective is one of the most prevalent defects in Christian thought today, in my view. And the larger perspective is that violence is all around us, unavoidable. To avoid it entirely is to depart from the world. Indeed, Scripture itself contains descriptions of terrifying, even gory violence; just read the Book of Judges. Since Scripture includes such descriptions, we must assume that there are good reasons for it – reasons conducive to edi_cation (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). It is not hard to imagine what those reasons might be. The violence of the wicked shows us what the Fall has done to us; and the violence of divine judgment summons us to repentance. On this basis we cannot deny that some exposure to depictions of violence can be edifying.
(2) "Sexual scenes in movies excite impure lusts." Again, I think this is true of some viewers, but not others. If sex scenes in _lms have that e_ect on you, then don’t go to _lms until God gives you a greater mastery over temptation. But I don’t think this is a problem for every Christian.
But some might go further and insist that, even for those who are not tempted toward sin by screen sex, it is wrong to view actors in the process of doing things which are sinful in themselves. (The same point has been made with regard to the use of unwholesome or blasphemous language in movie scripts.) I grant that some love scenes in the movies cross over that line of being "sinful in themselves." True, screen sex is usually, for the actors and actresses involved, not very "sexy." The _lming of such scenes is done bit by bit, with all sorts of technical intrusions, and usually without actual genital contact. Still, if I were married to an actress who chose to engage publicly in deep kissing and simulated intercourse with a third party, I would consider myself to have been violated. In my view that is a scriptural view of the matter.
So some movie sex is certainly sinful in itself. And one cannot, certainly, justify watching sin for its own sake. I would not go to a _lm for the purpose of watching an actor and actress in a nude sex scene (thus I avoid "XXX" _icks), any more than I would take a walk in the park to spy on kids making love behind the bushes. On the other hand, I would not stay away from the park out of fear that I might happen to observe some illicit sex. Similarly, if _lm actors wish to commit sin before the camera, that is their responsibility. I don’t believe I commit sin when I, in the normal course of my cultural pursuits, observe what they, without consulting me, have chosen to do in public.
(3) "Modern _lms promote, very e_ectively, a non-Christian philosophy of life." This is true, and it is the most profound of all arguments against Christian attendance at _lms. Sex, foul language, and violence are incidental elements in _lm, but the non-Christian world-and life-view is often at its core. That world-view does more damage in society than any cinematic portrayals of sex, violence, and ungodly speech. Indeed, that world-view is what makes the sex, violence, and language in movies unwholesome, in contrast with biblical depictions of such things.
But again, perspective is in order. Non-Christian philosophy has dominated the arts and general culture for the last three centuries. To avoid exposure to non-Christian world-views and values, we would have to avoid exposure to Mozart and Beethoven, Emerson and Thoreau, Hume and Kant, Paine and Je_erson, D. W. Gri_th and Charlie Chaplin, and so on, not to mention Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euri-pides, Cicero, and other ancients. We tend to discount older exponents of non-Christian values, view-ing them with the halo that comes with long cultural acceptance. For that reason, these older thinkers are often more dangerous than those which are more contemporary and more obviously anti-Christian. Indeed, for similar reasons, we must beware of G-rated _lms as much as of R- and X-rated _lms. Yes, let us limit our exposure to all of these in_uences; but not to the extent of leaving the world, or to the extent of becoming ignorant of Satan’s devices.
(4) "We should not give our money to an industry that encourages immorality and unbelief." Scripture does not require believers to support only industries and institutions that are morally and religiously pure. Jesus taught his disciples to pay taxes to Caesar, taxes which supported the emperor cult, among other things. Paul taught the Corinthians to buy food in the market place without asking whether or not it had been o_ered to idols. Scripture is realistic enough to know that if we had to inquire about the religion or morals of every merchant before doing business with him, we could not buy at all.
I do not think it is wrong for Christians to boycott industries which they believe are doing social and/or religious harm in the world. They are certainly free to withhold their economic support from those industries. On the other hand, I do not believe that Scripture requires us to boycott such organizations. We really could not do that in every case without completely isolating ourselves from the world.
I conclude, therefore, that a moderate amount of movie-going is legitimate for most Christians. I don’t think we should be ashamed of that or even ashamed of enjoying it. Moderation, of course, requires careful thought about priorities. Even activities that are good in themselves can become wrong if they crowd out of our lives things which are more important. Each of us needs to do some self-examination in this area. Choices about exposure to entertainment and culture are not religiously neutral. But those who are conscientious about pleasing God and keeping his commandments need not feel guilty about moderate movie attendance.
Film and Culture
by John M. Frame
Harvie Conn has described _lm as a "cultural mirror," a valuable re_ection of contemporary attitudes, philosophies, values, lifestyles. Others, such as Michael Medved, have placed more emphasis on the idea of _lm as a former of culture.
As I see it, both emphases are true. The relation between _lm and culture is a chicken-and-egg relationship. Film is of course a product of culture, for the makers of _lms are people of their own time. On the other hand, within their own culture, _lmmakers are often atypical. They tend to be more liberal politically, less inclined to practice religion, more open to radical social attitudes and movements, than the general population. Thus their _lms tend more often than not to support radicalism and to subvert traditional, especially Christian, values. When those _lmmakers answer criticisms of the content of their _lms by saying "we are only re_ecting the broader culture," they are either being naive or dishonest. In the broader culture, there is far more interest in religion, far more family integrity, far more clean language and honest work than one would ever guess from _lms.
In any case, it is important when we go to the movies to take with us some understanding of what is happening in the general culture: both what is considered "traditional" and what is considered "avant-garde."
One cannot adequately summarize the current cultural situation in a brief essay, but I will o_er a summary here simply to show the reader where I am coming from in my reviews. As I see it, western culture has moved in the last three hundred years from a time of Christian dominance to a time of anti-Christian secular dominance. Even today, however, there is in western culture quite a bit of "borrowed Christian capital," and, every now and then, Christian teaching is heard with respect.
It is possible to overestimate the role of secular liberalism in contemporary society. From the portrayals of the 1960s in popular media, especially _lm, one would get the impression that everybody in the United States was "dropping out," taking drugs, protesting the war, supporting radical leftist causes. Perhaps that is what most _lmmakers and their friends were doing. But most Americans were fed up with all the protests, drugs, and pompous young moralizers. They elected Richard Nixon president in 1968, and they overwhelmingly re-elected him in 1972, against George McGovern, who was the voice of the radical left. Arguably, the populace continued to move rightward through the 1970s, resulting in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. During the last thirty years, the only Democrats elected president were men who persuaded the electorate of their moderation. Overt liberals, McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis were soundly defeated.
Liberal ideas, therefore, are not nearly as pervasive within the general culture as they are in the press, educational, and entertainment media. Still, they do leave their mark in important ways, largely because these media – together with the in_uence of government – have so much power.
Today the focus of the liberal movement can be summarized by the term equality. That movement especially emphasizes, in a quasi-Marxist way, equality between men and women, between races, cultures, religions, between rich and poor.
Christianity also endorses equality of all persons before divine and human law. God is no respecter of persons, and human law must not give preference to people based on wealth, gender, or race. But the liberal consensus endorses unbiblical forms of equality: identical roles for men and women, abolishment of any "gaps" between rich and poor, elimination of any moral sanction against homosexuality. Ultimately, liberal equality amounts to moral relativism. But it is a moral relativism that becomes very dogmatic, very non-relativist, in asserting its own egalitarianism. Anyone who disagrees, who is not "politically correct," must be smeared and ostracized from polite society.
The God of the Bible treats people equally in some respects, but, in other ways, he is the great di-vider. He separates the righteous from the wicked in his terrible judgments. He sets the non-relative moral boundaries for creatures by revealing forth his law. He has no interest in abolishing economic di_erences between people in this world. He establishes institutions of family, state, and church, and gives di_erent people di_erent roles within these institutions: husband/wife/child, magistrate/citizen, elder/member.
The biblical God is able to make choices among people because he is a person. One distinctive of personhood is rational choice. The problem with secular liberalism is that it has abandoned belief in the personal God of the Bible. In the secular view, the most ultimate features of the universe are impersonal, not personal. But an impersonal force cannot make choices. It must act on all other realities equally. An electrical current will shock anyone or anything that comes up against it. But a person can choose how he will respond to other persons and objects in its environment.
Rejection of the personal God of scripture inevitably brings universalism: either all are saved or all are lost. And it brings egalitarianism.
The moral relativist side of secular liberalism stems from the fact that, as Dostoyevsky noted, if God doesn’t exist, anything is permitted. But such universal permissiveness is a recipe for chaos, one which even secularists cannot easily accept. Thus they seek to replace God with another supposed absolute. (Scripture calls this process "idolatry.") That absolute is, in most cases, their own autonomous moral judgment. Hence the "dogmatic" side of secularism. But when that dogmatism fails, when the secularists’ own judgment proves untrustworthy, then they revert to relativism: "Oh, well; nobody really knows." Relativism and dogmatism: these are the Scylla and Charybdis of secular liberalism. Strictly these are inconsistent with one another. But they supplement and need one another. The secularist bounces back and forth from one to the other as on a pendulum.
Cornelius Van Til calls relativism and dogmatism by the terms "irrationalism" and "rationalism" respectively, thereby relating these themes to the traditional concerns of philosophical epistemology, theory of knowledge. Os Guinness in The Dust of Death describes them as "pessimism" and "optimism," thus relating these motifs to practical attitudes. It is important, especially in the context of _lm, that we do not see these themes only as elements of a theoretical world-view or ethical system, but that we see them as attitudes which a_ect all areas of human life. For if someone has adopted a relativist ethic, that person will likely be in despair, "pessimism," when it comes to making choices in any area of life. He has rejected God, the source of all meaning. What ground can he possibly have for optimism? On the other hand, he can become a dogmatic secularist instead of a relativist, even though these are two sides of the same coin. Then he may well be optimistic; but it will be a false hope.
In _lms, then, we must reckon with the presence both of moral relativism and of secular dogmatism. But we may also _nd in _lms traces, sometimes more than traces, of Christian ideas which, in spite of the present resistance both of the general culture and of the _lm industry, have managed to assert themselves. One will _nd large elements of Christian teaching and values in older stories set to modern _lms: Shakespeare plays, medieval legends, etc. And one will also _nd _lms of recent conception where Christian values are prominent. "Chariots of Fire," "Tender Mercies," and "A Trip to Bountiful" are recent _lms which, if not distinctively Christian in every way, nevertheless present distinctively Christian ideas in a favorable light. Sometimes, one _nds Christian themes and symbolism in _lms, even _lms which are not in themselves supportive of Christian values. Christians should be ready to be surprised when they attend _lms, and not only negatively.
Sometimes it is easy to explain these authentically Christian elements of _lms, by the Christian convictions of a writer, director, or other member(s) of the _lmmaking team. Other times it is not easy to explain. Sometimes it just seems as though the non-Christian _lmmakers were unable to overcome the dramatic, intellectual, and moral force of the Christian revelation, and so, for once, they let it have its way.
In my reviews, as I try to bring out the "messages" of the _lmmakers, I will be focusing on the themes of equality, relativism, and dogmatic idolatry. And I shall also bring out those elements in which I think God’s word has overcome cultural resistance to speak its cinematic piece.
