BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 84
April, 1996
Copyright 1996 Biblical Horizons
In his study of the use of the Greek word tupos in the New Testament, Richard M. Davidson argues that a tupos is essentially a hollow mold; a tupos is stamped with the image of the original and also impresses that form on a third thing (Typology in Scripture: A Study of Hermeneutical Tupos Structures [Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1981]). A jello mold has been hollowed out in some manner, and its shape follows the contours of whatever instrument or machine stamped the metal into the form of a jello mold, and it also forms jello into its shape. A tupos thus mediates between an original and a copy. Thus, for example, when Paul instructs his readers to imitate him as a tupos, the implication is that Paul’s pattern of conduct (his "walking") has been formed by Christ, and that same conduct should, in turn, mold and shape that of the believers under Paul’s charge (Philippians 3:17; 2 Thessalonians 3:9). The conduct of one group of believers, which involves an imitation of Christ, can also serve as a tupos for other churches (1 Thessalonians 1:7).
On Romans 6:17, Davidson suggests that the genitive in "form of teaching" ("of teaching" is in the genitive case) is best understood as appositional, that is, "the form, the teaching" (pp. 147-153). Thus, the teaching itself is a mold that, having been shaped by the God who revealed it, shapes those who become obedient to it. Davidson notes that the word translated as "committed" (paradidomi) does not have to do with the transmission of apostolic tradition, but "is common in secular Greek for describing the transfer of persons from one owner (or custodian) to another . . . . The Christians, then, are not masters of the teaching, but themselves are mastered and possessed by it" (p. 148). The emphasis is not on the believer’s acceptance of the teaching, but on the fact that by grace Christians are placed under the authority of that teaching. In context, Paul is asserting that this transferral to the tutelage of the "the tupos, the teaching" occurs in baptism. We are baptized into union with Christ and also by baptism delivered over to be molded by the teaching that takes place in the church.
It is possible that something a bit more is going on here, however. The word tupos, as Davidson points out, is used in only a few passages in the Greek Old Testament. Significantly, it translates the Hebrew, tabnit, the word used with reference to the "pattern" of the tabernacle and temple that God revealed to Moses and David (Exodus 25:9, 40; 1 Chronicles 28:19). Davidson discusses the possible senses of tabnit at some length, concluding that what Moses and David saw was either a model of the heavenly tabernacle or the heavenly tabernacle itself (pp. 367-388). In either case, by making the tabernacle and temple according to the tabnit, Bezalel and Solomon were constructing architectural replicas of heaven and of the glory of the Lord. The earthly tabernacle was a copy of the heavenly, and through being given a glimpse of the tabnit, Moses and David mediated the heavenly pattern to earth (see Hebrews 8:5; 9:23; James Jordan, Through New Eyes, chapter 4).
Two dimensions of the tabernacle and temple need to be kept in mind here. First, the sanctuaries not only served as houses for the Name of the Lord, but also as architectural representations of the people of God; in His dwelling in the tabernacle, Yahweh fulfills His promise to dwell among His people. Paul picks up on this imagery of people-house when he speaks of the various kinds of vessels that are found in a "large house" (2 Timothy 2:20-21). Paul’s exhortation does not have an individual focus, as if the vessels were various kinds of deeds and dispositions, good or bad, within the individual believer’s experience. Rather, the people are themselves the vessels, and by cleansing themselves of the poison of "wrangling about words" (v. 14), "worldly and empty chatter" (v. 15), "youthful lusts" (v. 22), and "foolish and ignorant speculations" (v. 23), the believers will become honorable and useful vessels for the Master of the house. In this imagery, Paul is drawing out what is already apparent in the Old Testament, that the tabernacle and temple, with their numerous and varied vessels, are images of God’s people gathered around for service to the King enthroned above the cherubim.
Second, the tabernacle and temple were also representations of the individual man. As Meredith Kline has shown, the priest’s garments as well as the tabernacle were formed after the pattern of the glory-cloud (Images of the Spirit, pp. 42-47); the priest was a human tabernacle. Jesus, the True Man, "tabernacled" among us (John 1:14) and said His body was a temple (John 2:19-22). Thus, Paul remains well within the scope of Old Testament models when he refers to the individual believer’s "body" as the "temple of the Spirit" that must be kept from defiling fornication (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
With this in mind, we can return to Romans 6:17. Jesus, the greater Moses and Son of David, not only sees the pattern of the glory on the mount, but is Himself the personal incarnation of the tabernacle and temple. The tupos has descended from the mount; Jesus is now the model, the tupos, to which the church and each individual believer is to be conformed. He does nothing but what He "sees" the Father doing, and His disciples are to become like their heavenly Father by following His example. Practically, Christ is reproduced in church and believer through the mediation of the tupos didaskales, the teaching that has been molded by the life and words of the Word and that in turn molds the lives of those who are given over to its care. As we who have been baptized into the custody of the teaching obey that teaching from the heart, we are molded into the image of the Glory and become living tabernacles after the pattern of the One who tabernacled among us.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 84
April, 1996
Copyright 1996 Biblical Horizons
Speaking of the Church, Romans 11:16-17 says, "And if the root be holy, the branches are also. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree . . . ." (also vv. 18-24).
The Olive Tree is taken as a symbol of Israel, but it is quite a bit more specific than that. The Olive Tree is a symbol of the Temple of God, created by the Holy Spirit, and it is especially a symbol of the Holy of Holies. Let us consider the Olive in its revelation in the Bible.
First, on the third day we find fruit trees and grain plants created, and only these plants. The other plants had not been made before Adam was created (Genesis 2:5). Thus, the olive was one of the semi-sacramental plants, like wine (fruit) and bread (grain) made on the third day. Accordingly, the Israelite is always said to have a vineyard, a field, and an oliveyard (Ex. 23:11, Dt. 6:11; Josh. 24:13; etc.). These are to lie fallow in the sabbath year (Ex. 23:11). Gleaning laws are phrased in terms of these three (Dt. 23:19-22). The curse is phrased in terms of these three (Dt. 28:38-40).
Second, bread is associated with priesthood and the Word (the Son), wine with kingship and rule (the Father), and olive oil with anointing and presence (the Spirit). It is with the last that we are concerned. All the articles of the Tabernacle and Courtyard, as well as the priests, were anointed with olive oil (Ex. 30:22-33), signifying the impregnation of these items with the Spirit of God. Symbolically, the Tabernacle was an olive grove.
Third, the Holy of Holies in the Temple was guarded by the olive. Two large cherubim of olive wood stood next to the Ark in the Temple, and the doors leading into the Holy of Holies were of olive wood. The doorposts of both the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place were of olive wood (1 Kings 6:23-34). Thus, the olive has a particular association with guarding God’s holiness, and with the Holy of Holies. Along these lines, notice Psalm 52:8, "But as for me, I am a green olive tree in the house of God."
Fourth, the olive was the first tree to grow after the Flood, signifying obviously the re-creation of the Kingdom of God as the first order of events after the Flood (Genesis 8:11). Note that it was a dove, signifying the Spirit, who delivered the olive branch to Noah.
Fifth, very significant is the vision in Zechariah 4, where the prophet sees the two olive cherubim as two olive trees, feeding the oil of the Spirit into the lampstand of Israel’s witness. See also Revelation 11:4 for a further exposition of this imagery.
With this background, we can see that when Jesus moves to the Mount of Olives at the end of His ministry, He is moving into the garden-form of the Holy of Holies to complete His work. Let us now turn to the passages that mention this.
In Matthew 21, Jesus is specifically said to move in His triumphal entry from the Mount of Olives to the Temple, where He judges the Temple. Part of what is being "fulfilled" here is God’s fiery judgment of Nadab and Abihu from His throne in the Holy of Holies (Lev. 10:1-2).
Luke 21:37 says that Jesus spent each night on the Mount of Olives. See also John 8:1. He went to the Temple each day from the Holy of Holies, and returned to it each night.
In Matthew 23-24, Jesus departs from the Temple for the last time and moves to the Mount of Olives to pronounce judgment upon the Temple and Jerusalem. Again the Holy of Holies judges the Temple.
In Matthew 26:30, we find that after celebrating the Passover and instituting the Lord’s Supper, Jesus and His disciples went to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus went to Gethsemane, which means Olive Press, to pray to God. Here we see the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. Here in the Mount of Olives, in the very Holy of Holies, Jesus was captured and arrested.
Now, this is not all. A careful reading of the text will reveal that Jesus was crucified on the Mount of Olives. Matthew 27:33 says that Jesus was crucified at "a place called Golgotha, which means Place of a Skull." While some have tried to find a hill around Jerusalem that looks like a skull, this is clearly wrong. Golgotha is just a contraction of Goliath of Gath (Hebrew: Goliath-Gath). 1 Samuel 17:54 says that David took the head of Goliath to Jerusalem, but since Jerusalem was to be a holy city, this dead corpse would not have been set up inside the city, but someplace outside. The Mount of Olives was right in front of the city (1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:13), and a place of ready access. Jesus was crucified at the place where Goliath’s head had been exhibited. Even as His foot was bruised, He was crushing the giant’s head! This was at a place right outside Jerusalem, and likely on the Mount of Olives. But there is more certain evidence.
Now, while Jesus was being crucified, the veil of the Temple was ripped in half from the top to the bottom. For this event to have been seen, or its effects perceived, those perceiving it would have to be due east of Jerusalem, on a line with the Temple’s doorways. Luke 23:44-47 indicates that the centurion did perceive this event. It cannot have been the darkening of the sun that shocked the centurion, for that had been going on for three hours. And it could not have been Jesus’ death, because that was an expected event, hardly unusual in the case of crucifixion. Thus, the centurion must have been standing up the slope of Olivet and been able to see westward into the Temple area. This puts the crucifixion on the Mount of Olives.
Another rather clear indication comes from John 19:20, which reads (literally), "Therefore this inscription many of the Jews read, for near was the Place of the city, where Jesus was crucified." What is the Place of the city? Routinely, the Place is the Temple (John 11:48; Acts 6:14; 21:28). Thus, the statement seems to mean that Jesus was crucified near to the Temple, in some relation to it, and not in some random spot around Jerusalem somewhere.
Indeed, several passages in the Bible indicate that Jesus was crucified to a living tree, which in this case would be an olive tree (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24). The stauros or pole that Jesus carried would refer to the crosspiece, which was affixed to the tree. After all, why would the Roman soldiers want to go to the trouble of digging a hole and planting a stake when there were lots of trees around that would do just as well? We surely cannot be as certain of this suggestion as we are that Jesus died on the Mount of Olives, but it makes a great deal of sense.
Thus, the site of Goliath’s head and the site of the crucifixion were on the Mount of Olives. Here, in the garden-form of the Holy of Holies, Jesus presented His blood to the Father (see Leviticus 16 for a full exposition).
This means that the garden-tomb was located on the Mount of Olives (John 19:41). And when Mary Magdalene thought Jesus was the gardener of this olive orchard, she was certainly right, for He is the New Adam of the New Garden, the Bride (John 20:15). More to the point, even, is that when Mary looked into the tomb, she saw the slab where Jesus had lain with an angel at either end of it (John 20:12), clearly an image of the Ark of the Covenant, the meeting place of God and humanity in the Holy of Holies.
Naturally, Jesus also ascended into the heavenly Temple from the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:12).
Jesus’ crucifixion on the Mount of Olives, and the rending of the veil in the Temple of Olives, can now be seen as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Zechariah 14:4, "And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west . . . ." The Mount of Olives before Jerusalem corresponds symbolically to the olive-wood doors before the Temple and the Holy of Holies. Their opening to the sides is an opening to east and west, releasing God’s energy into the world. Similarly, the Olive-veil before the City would be split, so to speak, so that God’s energy could flow out into the whole world.
In conclusion, the reference to the Church as an Olive Tree, rather than as some other kind of tree, tells us that the Church is positioned in the Temple of God, in the Holy of Holies, and is impregnated with the oil of the Spirit. Like the olive cherubim, we now guard God’s throne and praise Him day and night. This is made possible because Jesus shed His blood before the Father in the Holy of Holies of the Mount of Olives.
Biblical Chronology
Vol. 8, No. 4
April, 1996
Copyright © James B. Jordan 1996
by James B. Jordan
C. The Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38-39)
(continued for previous issue)
A final corroboration of this interpretive hypothesis comes from what we might call the "Amalek Pattern" in the Bible. Note in Genesis 12-15 that Abram moves into the land after escaping Pharaoh (ch. 12), settles down and experiences peace and prosperity (ch. 13), and then faces an invasion of a worldwide alliance of nations (ch. 14). This alliance captures Lot, but Abram rescues him, after which a Gentile priest blesses Abram (ch. 14). Finally, after this, God appears to Abram in a vision and makes covenant with him (ch. 15), guaranteeing him a "house."
Now look at Moses: After escaping Pharaoh (Ex. 1-14), the people are given food and water in the wilderness (Ex. 16). Then Amalek attacks and kills many Lot-like stragglers (Ex. 17; Dt. 25:17-19). Moses defeats Amalek, after which a Gentile priest (Jethro) blesses the people, and then God appears in the Cloud and makes covenant with them (Ex. 18-24), including the building of a "house" (the Tabernacle).
The same themes show up in the history of David: After escaping Pharaoh Saul (1 Sam. 18-26), David finds a place of rest in the "wilderness" at Ziklag (ch. 27). Then Amalek attacks and steals David’s wives (ch. 30), but David defeats them. Following this, a Gentile priest-king (Hiram of Tyre, who as a Gentile king was also a priest) blesses David (2 Sam. 5:11-12), and then God appears to David in a vision, promising him a "house" (2 Sam. 7).
In this pattern, the attack of Gentile world powers (Gen. 14) is associated with the attack of Amalek (Ex. 17; 1 Sam. 27). As can plainly be seen, the same pattern recurs in the Restoration. After departing from Babylon, the people settle in the land and experience a degree of peace. Then comes the attack of Amalek and Gog & Magog. After this, Gentile priest-kings sponsor the return of Nehemiah to restore the land and the "house."
While it would be fascinating to follow up this theme in the Gospels, Acts, and possibly Revelation, enough has been said to indicate that it is a recurring pattern, and one that lends some support to the hypothesis that the attack of Gog and Magog is fulfilled in the book of Esther.
D. The Book of Esther in Covenant History
1. In General.
From what we have just seen, it is clear that the events in Esther are an integral part of the history of the formation of the Restoration Covenant Era. Amalek attacks. Amalek is spoiled. The spoils are used to build the Temple, in the sense that the crude Temple of Zerubbabel can now be glorified with these spoils.
This is not understood by the commentators for two reasons. One, the period of the Restoration is not generally considered as such. Bible histories view the time "after the exile" as some kind of coda or appendix to Old Testament history. In reality, it was the formation of a new covenant, the first phase of the "last days." It was the first phase of the New Covenant. This new covenant had new arrangements, set in place in the God-given books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezekiel. Yet, surveys of the history of the covenant usually discuss the Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, overlooking the Remnant Covenant set up by Elijah and Elisha, and the Restoration Covenant. If this new covenant had been understood as a distinct new era, the place of Esther in covenant history would have become clear before now. As it stands, we must rectify this mistake.
The Sinaitic Covenant was made with Moses, and then implemented by Joshua. The Kingdom Covenant was made with David, and then implemented by Solomon. The Restoration Covenant was made with Cyrus, insofar as its imperial aspect is concerned, and implemented by Darius. Cyrus is the new international David, and Darius is the new international Solomon. Cyrus, like David, conquers the world and sets the stage for the building of the Temple. Darius orders that the Temple be built, and sees to it.
Additionally, and this is important: Solomon’s marriage to the daughter of Egypt is celebrated in the Song of Solomon, where the girl is called "Shulamith," which simply means Mrs. Sholomo, Solomon’s name in Hebrew. The book of Esther is the Restoration equivalent to the Song of Solomon. It is the "Song of Darius."
The imagery in the Song of Solomon is taken from the Temple of Solomon. The two interpret one another. The Temple is the Bride, as the New Jerusalem later on is the Bride. Similarly, Esther is all about the Restoration Temple. The palace of Darius-Ahasuerus is described in terms that closely correspond to the Temple itself. Ahasuerus marries Esther right after the Temple is rebuilt. The attack on the Jews, which is also an attack on the Bride Esther, corresponds to the attempts by the wicked to prevent Nehemiah from rebuilding Jerusalem. And of course, in Esther the spoils of the holy war are given to the Temple.
2. Esther as New Exodus.
In Through New Eyes, I discussed the "Exodus Pattern" on 182-187. Esther follows this pattern. When we see that there is a new exodus happening in Esther, we see again how intimately Esther is tied to the whole course of redemptive history. Esther is not a specimen of "wisdom literature" that is to the side of covenant history. Rather, the events of Esther are absolutely essential to the development of the kingdom of God from Adam to Christ. Esther is as important as Exodus.
As I pointed out in the book just mentioned, every detail of the Exodus Pattern is not present in every instance of it, and there are twists in the way the pattern is presented; yet the pattern is always obvious and clear. Here is the sequence, as applied to Esther:
1. Some threat, some aspect of sin or of the curse, drives God’s people from their home. The sins of Israel drove the Jews into exile in Babylon, which became Persia.
2. During the sojourn in captivity, Eve is assaulted by the Serpent, who wishes to use her to raise up his own wicked seed. While nothing is said about Ahasuerus’ desiring children from Esther, he does take her into his harem because she is beautiful, the same reason Pharaoh took Sarai from Abram in Genesis 12 (one of the earliest exoduses). In the Esther events, though, there is a twist: the "attack" on Eve is not really an attack at all, but is something Mordecai and Esther cooperate with. Thus, in a wider sense the attack on Eve in this story if Haman’s attack on the bride of Yahweh, of which Esther is the focal point and representative.
3. The righteous use "holy deception" to trick the serpent and protect Eve. Esther tricks Haman into thinking he is going to be honored, and in a way tricks Ahasuerus into a situation where he is confronted with Haman’s perfidy.
4. Very often, God’s people are enslaved during the sojourn outside the land. That is not the case in this instance.
5. God brings blessings upon His people during the captivity, but plagues the tyrant, either progressively or as part of the deliverance. Haman notes that the Jews have the blessing of keeping their own laws in the empire of Persia. It is also implied that the Jews are wealthy, because Haman has his eye on plundering them, and intends to give a huge amount of this plunder to Ahasuerus (Esther 3). The destruction of Haman and Magog are the plagues on the tyrant in this instance.
6. God miraculously intervenes, often with visions to the pagan lord, in order to save His people. The book of Esther calls on us to recognize God’s hand behind the scenes. The dream given to the pagan lord during the night is, in this case, Ahasuerus’ sleepless night during which he is read the chronicles of his reign, and determines to bless Mordecai.
7. Very often the serpent tries to shift blame and accuses the righteous man of being the cause of the difficulty. No such scene is found in Esther, though in Esther 3 Haman insinuates to Ahasuerus that the Jews are troubling his empire.
8. God humiliates the false gods of the enemy. In the case of Esther, this also takes place behind the scenes. Haman-Gog clearly has his own gods; in fact, when he boasts of his glory and praises his own accomplishments, Haman seems to be his own god (Esther 5:11).
There is a twist on this aspect of the Exodus Pattern in Esther. Mordecai, while outwardly a Jew, tells Esther to conceal her people. He also rebels against the righteous decree of King Ahasuerus. He is a perfect example of the kind of sins that took the Jews into exile: rebelling against the gentile powers God Himself had installed, while failing to conduct evangelism and witness by owning up to who they really are. This is the wickedness that God humiliates in Esther, when Esther is forced to declare herself, and Mordecai becomes a servant of the king.
9. God’s people depart with spoils. Since God wanted the Jews to be "spread out as the four winds" within the empire, no geographical departure was needed. We have already commented on the spoils.
10. On the way, God’s people are attacked by Amalek. In Exodus 17 and 1 Samuel 15 we see this pattern. Here it is again. Cyrus has let the people return, which is the initial exodus. Now Amalek attacks in the person of Haman the Agagite, descendant of the king of Amalek. This time, however, the attack of Amalek is expanded into a recapitulation of the whole exodus pattern.
11. Finally, God’s people are installed in the Holy Land. Such installment means building God’s house out of some of the spoils. We have seen that this is clearly implied by the fact that the Jews did not personally take the spoils, but set them aside for God. Ezekiel’s Temple, described after the battle of Gog and Magog, serves to make this point.
3. What Esther Accomplishes in Covenant History.
The events of Esther, and the way they are recorded, are essential for an understanding of the Restoration Covenant Era, and bring about a necessary shift in the understanding of God’s people. First, though Jeremiah and Daniel had told the Jews that they would be ruled by God-given emperors until the coming of the Messiah, clearly many Jews did not accept this divine edict fully. Mordecai’s refusal to honor the king’s demand that Haman be honored is what precipitated the near annihilation of the Jews. The hand of God must be seen in this. If the Jews continued in this kind of rebellion, God would liquidate them.
Second, Israel was a nation of priests, and the book of Jonah was a sharp criticism of Israel’s refusal to act as evangelists to the nations. Under Mordecai’s sinful advice, Esther concealed her identify. God providentially brought it to pass that she either had to witness or perish. Witness-bearing was to be even more important in the Restoration Era than ever before, because God had spread His people out as the four winds in the midst of the world. The international witness of the Jews laid the foundation for the synagogues, filled with God-fearing gentiles, that we find in the book of Acts.
Third, God had given the Jews a large history full of descriptions of His patterns of action. They were now expected to be mature enough to understand those patterns and identify God’s hand at work on their own. Thus, God is not mentioned in Esther, and no miracles take place. Rather, the "miracles" are providential. The devout reader can see God at work in Esther, but unlike the books of Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, he is not explicitly told exactly what God is doing, and he is not shown miracles. There are miracles in Daniel, but no miracles in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, a generation later. The book of Esther teaches the Jews that the kind of miraculous works God has done in the past will not happen again, until the Messiah comes. It is not that they are on their own; God forbid! Rather, they are to live righteously and see God’s invisible hand operating through non-miraculous means.
Fourth, the association of Amalek with gentile empire is new. Previously, Amalek attacked after the people left the gentile empire. In Exodus 17, Amalek attacked after the Israelites left Egypt. In 1 Samuel 15, Amalek and Agag attack after Saul and Jonathan have defeated the Philistines. Now, however, the Edomite Amalekite is the agent of the empire. The king does not really know how bad his Amalekite servant is. This sets us up for the relationship between Herod and Rome. Herod was Rome’s face in Palestine. While the Romans are portrayed in the Bible as seeking to protect God’s people, as in the book of Acts, and in the fact that Pilate sought to spare Jesus, the Herods are murderous. The Herods were Edomites, or in the New Testament spelling, Idumeans. They are, thus, the equivalent of the Amalekites. The book of Esther provides a foretaste of the situation under the Herods, and provides a theological context for understanding Herod the Great’s attempt to kill Jesus, Herod’s murder of John the Forerunner, and Herod Agrippa I’s murder of James and attempted murder of Peter.
Fifth, Esther stands as part of the revelation of the character of the third age. The sins of man in Genesis 3-6 are, first, against the Father in the sanctuary; second, against the Brother in the land; and third, against the matchmaking Spirit in the world (Gen. 6). This last is the sin of intermarriage, the sin pointed to in Ezra-Nehemiah, and the sin of Mordecai when he puts Esther into the beauty contest and tells her to conceal her identity. Moreover, in the first age, that of Moses, the sin was against the first commandment, as we see in Judges. In the second age, the Kingdom age, the sin was against the second commandment, as we see in the "high place" worship in the book of Kings. In the third age, the sin was against the third commandment. The people took God’s name upon themselves in vain. Mordecai commits this sin when he rebels against the reasonable demand of the God-appointed ruler, which rebellion is the sin of witchcraft (1 Sam. 15:23), and then claims that he does so because he is a Jew. Rebellious witchcraft leads to destruction, as it did Saul (1 Sam. 28). These two sins are the great temptations before the Jews in the Restoration. They are the context of the gospels. Jesus did not war against false gods or images, but against hypocrisy. When the Jews continued in their witchcraft-rebellion, they were destroyed in ad 70.
While we could probably come up with other aspects of Esther that are important to covenant history, these are enough to make the point that Esther cannot be considered either a work of pious fiction (as liberals do) or as a kind of morality tale (as conservatives do). Esther stands in the middle of the central historical line, the core of history, the history of the priestly people. God is developing that history toward the goal of the Messiah’s intervention, and beyond into the history of the Church. If we set Esther to one side, we miss an essential link in that historical chain.
E. The Feast of Purim
One last aspect of Esther should be mentioned, and that is the new feast of Purim. Commentators on the Bible routinely speak of this as a minor feast, but it is not to be regarded as such. Originally, God set up a triad of feasts in the spring (Passover-Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Pentecost), and a triad of "feasts" in the fall (Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles). There were no feasts in the winter.
As I have shown in my paper Behind the Scenes: Orientation in the Book of Revelation (available for $12.00 from Biblical Horizons , Box 1096, Niceville, FL 32588), the spring feasts are the feasts of the Bull (priest), and the fall feasts are the feasts of the Lion (king). These are two of the faces of the cherubim, and the only two that applied in the "former days." In the latter days, we add the faces Eagle and Man. The winter feast of Purim is the feast of the Eagle, added in the Restoration Era. The feast of the summer, which comes with the New Covenant, is the feast of the Man. It is the Lord’s Supper, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Commentators routinely set aside the God-given feast of Purim for the man-created Feast of Hanukkah as the winter feast, but the latter feast is a counterfeit. It celebrates the supposed restoration of the Temple by the Maccabees, which restoration was counterfeit. Thus, the true winter feast is Purim. In Revelation, the section of the Bowls is associated with the Eagle, and with the feast of Purim.
For more on this matter, see the extended study paper mentioned above. I have brought up the matter here only
to show that once again, there is a great deal of importance in the book of Esther that is generally overlooked. Passover and Tabernacles were the two original great feasts, and now God adds a third, Purim. Just as the Lord’s Supper fulfills Passover and Tabernacles for us, it also fulfills Purim. Failure to take Esther seriously has resulted in a failure to deal fully and properly with Purim.
The giving of the spoils to the Lord (Esther 9) should remind us of the exodus from Egypt. The Jews’ destruction of their enemies came on the 14th and 15th days of the 12th month, exactly one month before Passover. During this month, at the time of the original exodus, God was sending plagues on Pharaoh, and the Egyptians were giving gifts (spoils) to the Israelites, which spoils were later made into the Tabernacle. Just as the plagues on Pharaoh made possible the exodus, so the destruction of Haman and the other enemies of the Jews makes possible a new exodus of gold and silver to adorn God’s house. Purim celebrates this event.
Since Purim comes in the 12th month, it is quintessentially eschatological. All of God’s enemies are destroyed, and because of this the New Year can begin, with Passover in the first month, one month after Purim. As we have seen, Purim celebrates the defeat of the A-Gog-ite and his friends (Ma-Gog). Similarly, the final Purim defeat of Gog and Magog ushers in the final condition of the universe, when God will be all in all (Revelation 20). Before this, as we have just noted, the destruction of Jerusalem and of the two Beasts in ad 70 is the 12th-month Purim that ushers in the New Age of the marriage supper of the Lamb.
(to be continued)
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No. 26 Copyright (c) 1996 Biblical Horizons April, 1996
Note
Financial difficulties caused us to cease publishing Open Book for a year. No. 25 was dated January, 1995. We are taking a risk by starting it back up again. Donations would be appreciated.
Correction
In the article “Sex and Power” by James B. Jordan in issue 25, the second sentence in the fourth full paragraph on page 4 should read: “There is the thrill of titillation in possessing one woman after another, and often there is a very real addiction [not addition] involved, but indulging in such activities is seldon possible apart from power (including the power wealth brings).”
Homosexuality and the
Love of Death
by Richard Bledsoe
Some years ago (September, 1980) Midge Decter published in Commentary one of the most illuminating pieces that I have ever seen on homosexuality. It was a very autobiographical piece dealing with her own summer vacation experiences on Fire Island o_ of New Jersey. When she was a girl, it was one of the more fashionable vacation haunts for upper middle class New York City professionals, and parts of the isIland were always vacation digs for the homosexual community. Her family vacationed there from the time she was a small girl until her own children were well along in adolescence. Through all of that time, the homosexual element of the island grew. By the late ’60s it had become a notorious homosexual trysting place. In the early years the interaction between the straights and the gays was always cordial. There were common enjoyments – to a point; and at a certain unspoken edge it was known that the commonality was over, and the two communities were quite separate.
Well, the point of all that is that she had considerable social interaction for years with that community. So her observations (and Midge Decter is peerless in her observations concerning matters of the family and erotic convention) have a long term mooring. Now, I can move very quickly. If you want the _ll in and the coloring, and the topic interests you, go look up the article. (“The Boys On the Beach,” Commentary, September, 1980)
The point that she makes, with great power and great color, is that in her observation, the more the “gay” community came out of the closet, the less gay it became. The more acceptable homosexuality became to upper middle class east coast liberals, the more miserable and death-obsessed the homosexual community became.
She describes the homosexuals that she knew as a young woman on Fire Island. There was a clear and distinct “us/them,” but there was also the possibility of real interaction and even friendship. Let me quote. “There is such a thing, for example, as a unique and entirely characteristic homosexual form of wit. It is di_cult to describe and analyze – as is any form of wit – but unmistakable. Its central characteristic is malice, but that does not describe it either, for the malice is of a special kind, brilliantly playful and startling in equal measure. …Su_ce it to say that, provided such malice is not trained upon oneself, intelligent homosexuals can be the most naughtily amusing company in the world.” She describes the fantastic and palatial parties that the homosexuals used to host every year, and the extraordinary camp creativity that went into making their fantasy vacation world.
But as the years went by, all of that disappeared. The community became lugubrious, serious, self-obsessed in a way that was under the surface before. Then they began to hear about suicide, and the slide goes on from there. You get the picture. She ends her piece by looking at the S&M parlors in San Francisco (where in the ’80s, one could pay to get beat up). What happened?
Her implicit thesis (which she states very subtly) is that homosexuality is at heart masochistic and self-hating. A conservative society is good for homosexuals because it restrains that which, if released, will destroy them. The “boys on the beach” were out of the closet for perhaps 6 weeks out of the year. On Fire Island, they “expressed” their true nature. For the rest of the year, they were in the closet, and knew full well that if they were known or discovered as practicing homosexuals, that society would punish them. When society stopped punishing them, they had to begin to punish themselves openly, and the end result is suicide and San Francisco S&M houses.
Set it up this way. There are two theories about homosexual unhappiness. 1) Homosexuals are persecuted and not accepted by society, and hence they are forced to “repress” their true natures. 2) Homosexuality is per/se masochistic, and the expression of homosexuality is the expression of a deadly pathology. Liberals clearly stand on one side, and the Bible on the other. “Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32). This is in line too, with (the now out of favor) Edmund Bergler. Bergler describes all neurosis as “masochism”, but homosexuality is “masochism plus”. (It was from Bergler that Rushdoony originally picked up the masochism theme that he works out so brilliantly in The Politics of Guilt and Pity.)
Midge Decter seems to be saying that in a conservative society (which will never eliminate homosexuality) it takes very little to ful_ll the need for masochistic thrills on the part of that community. The possibility of losing a job or of going to jail ful_lls that need. But the more liberal a society becomes, the greater is the level needed to ful_ll. Hence, drug addiction, _irtation with venereal disease, and suicide become ever more needful. I can only say from the bits of homosexual propaganda that I see, that that community would not know what to do with itself were it not for its completely self-intoxicated and self-absorbed love a_air with AIDS martyrdom. They want to die, and then on the death bed, _ing it in the face of the straight community, “You see what you have done to me. Its all your fault.” (Never mind that that is quite incoherent.)
What is perfectly predictable is that as we cave in and give the homosexual community everything that it asks, the decibels of injustice-collecting will become ever more shrill. This is one argument against legalizing homosexual marriage (aside from the fact that long-term relationships between male homosexuals is a complete myth). It is the _nal barrier to complete acceptability. And when such acceptability is achieved (to quote Gary North quoting Cornelius Van Til) the crack of doom will have come for that community. It will be the end of all “common grace”.
One _nal note. The reason that Jesus refers to “dogs” and “swine” in Matthew 7:6 is because dogs and pigs are pack animals. By themselves, dogs are very nice, and I understand pigs are too. But ask any rancher what a pack of dogs is like. Now Matthew 7:6 is all Rene Girard stu_. (I mean, it all has to do with the rivalry, envy, and scapegoating that holds a pack together.) I think it no mistake that one of the Biblical designations for homosexual prostitutes is “dogs”. Yes, a homosexual here or there more or less to himself can be very charming, witty, and talented. But a group of thoroughly religiously acceptable homosexual prostitutes would indeed be the very epitome of all of the phenomena that Rene Girard writes about. They would not just be rivalrous, but as close as is humanly possible, the essence of rivalry, envy, and scapegoating. I think the homosexual community in this country is very close to having reached this level.
This is something I have had to think about a lot over the years, because I have dealt with a fairly large number of homo-erotically troubled men pastorally. I think sexual orientation is one of the most mysterious things in the universe, and I don’t think these things are just patently obvious. But, homosexuality is just as much (maybe more) a spiritual a_iction as it is a “sin of the _esh”. It is a terrible symbolic confusion. It is especially involved with the “doppleganger” (or double).
Everybody is at least two. “Commune with your own hearts on your beds, and be silent,” Psalm 4:4b. We have self-transcendence. This was Augustine’s observation that each soul is analogous to the Trinity – we can commune with ourselves. This doubleness is especially disturbed in homosexuals. Each self hates the other, and feels little complementariness. Hence, the homosexual self seeks to cannibalize on other selves to suck or absorb some hoped for beauty or perfection. Homosexuals do not seek to complement the incomplete self through erotic attachment to the opposite sex, or friendship with either the same or opposite sex. Rather they seek to reproduce or duplicate a hoped for ideal self using and cannibalizing the other. It is a terrible self absorption that is a vortex.
The explanation of suicide is the inner feeling that the true self is already dead, and hence the public self must die in order to bring inner harmony. When relationships have burned themselves out, there is no reality or beauty left in the undead self, so suicide (fast or slow) becomes imperative.
I think that the terrible sinful conclusion of complete moral anarchy represented in Romans 1:28-32 is a description of the homosexual coterie. These are the homosexual “dogs” in the pack. Rivalry, envy and contempt are everything. This is the _nal burning out.
We are engaged in an interesting and terrible social experiment as to what the outworkings will be of not suppressing homosexuality. I’m sure it will not be pretty, and we will once again _nd that God knew what he was talking about.
The Puritans: Strengths
and Weaknesses
by Richard Bledoe
There is an oddity about the modern Reformed use of the Puritans. Perhaps it is simply the law of the Fall, a kind of Murphy’s Law,or Gresham’s Law applied to theology. The oddity is the tendency (with many notable exceptions) to reproduce what is the very worst about their theology, and to be not very a_ected by the best in them.
The worst is their annihilation of the church calendar and its replacement with an oppressive Sabbatarianism; their de-emphasis of the Lord’s Supper; their annihilation of the liturgical, and depressing application of the regulative principle; their silliness about “mental images” and pictures. Now all of this does in fact point (as Reventlow’s work points out) to modern literalistic spatial orientation, and an idolatrous scientism (which is spatially oriented). Most of the ongoing (and irritating) debate in Reformed circles involve casuistry about exactly these issues. The result is the Ice Box Irrelevant Presbyterian Church of America.
On the other hand, the Puritans’ remarkable sense of human inwardness, of spiritual reality, of capacity to deal trenchantly and e_ectively with the darkest and worst in human nature is by in large entirely absent. J.I. Packer (one who lives in what is best in the Puritans) told me at Westminster once that he knew a Doctor in London (I suspect Dr. Lloyd Jones) to whom many homosexuals had gone and had found cure “because of his deep knowledge of the Puritans.” Now homosexuality is one of the great test cases, because to give real help to someone enmired in homoerotic di_culties is one of the most di_cult things to do. That was a supreme compliment to the Puritans. But this sort of sympathetic spiritual cleansing power is precisely what is, by in large, missing in too many modern hyper-neo-Puritan circles. Rather it is all bound up with arguments over watching football on Sundays, etc.
Almost the center of Rosenstock-Huessy’s work (I hesitate to dogmatize too much about a center) is the necessity for the recovery of Biblical time. This is what the Puritans, in some ways, did away with by over-reacting to the church calendar. One schematization of history that he uses (and I think there is something to it) is that the last 500 years (Luther’s and Columbus’s era) was the era of the conquest of space. The Protestant era was concurrently the era of exploration, and it transformed the several worlds in the world or into a planet. In his last book, Planetary Service, he took as his theme how since 1900 one postage stamp of uniform price united most of the globe. The power of almost all technical innovation has been the continued annihilation of space (both in travel, trade, and now with E-Mail). (Notice how our political reactionaries refuse to come to grips with world-wide free trade.) Time is for the scienti_c mind merely an addendum to space (the 4th dimension). Now we must recover Biblical time, which is one reason that studying afresh the doctrine of the Sabbath is essential. It is also the reason that Biblical Theology in itself, as well as fresh study of eschatology is so essential. We have lost our rhythms; we have lost our “times.”
Also, in terms of liturgy and symbol: C.G Jung is certainly a gnostic, but his principal insight that modern man is sick because he has lost his symbols is absolutely the case. His contention is that symbol is what mediates our conscious mind to its subconscious levels and “reconnects” us.
What is worst about the Puritans is what has come to dominate so much of us. If Reformed circles insist on constant attempts to reproduce and maintain these elements of Reformed theology, and have our churches made over in this image, we will be as irrelevant as the Roman Church was to France before the Revolution. Far from ministering to our times, we exacerbate all that is worst.
