Out upon the rocky rampart
Unnoticed and alone
Sits the virgin watchman.
Her tears do not distort the view;
She waits and through them watches
Like Anna and old Simeon
Knowing day does come.
She waits and works and watches
Writing plain upon her tablet
Crying for the day
When sons shall run
And read
And conquer
And darkness flee away.
Habakkuk 2:1-3
From Revelation 12
In prayer recently I saw the Woman of Revelation chapter 12 as a corporate woman made up of women, generation after generation, bringing forth children who become another generation to bring forth children and so on until the generation arrives which shall bring forth the corporate Manchild. All along and in each generation the Dragon has stood before her to devour her children with oppression and slavery, yet in each generation some live to bring forth another generation of children born to carry the Covenant Promise to still another generation. This Woman and her seed have carried the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations of the world.
The Dragon’s Tail Casts One Third of the Stars of Heaven Down to Earth
In John’s vision the Woman has a garland of twelve stars on her head. This seems reminiscent of Joseph’s dream in which he saw the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bow down to his star. The interpretation given is that Jacob, his wife and all of Joseph’s eleven brothers would bow down to Joseph, which certainly came to pass. The twelve stars in the corporate Woman’s garland seem to represent the twelve tribes of Israel out of which she and her offspring come. One third of her offspring are cast out of heavenly authority by the tail, the back-side of the Dragon, one might think, in secret.
Those cast down out of heavenly authority by the Dragon’s tail historically have been those of her offspring who have enslaved, oppressed and robbed the Woman’s children in each generation. They have been church leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, who have enslaved and robbed by religion. They have been of the nobility and the wealthy classes who have oppressed and killed and have expanded their kingdoms by force. They are the heads of international corporations and banking systems who seek to devour all economic systems of the earth into one under their own control. Yet in every enslaved and oppressed generation, some live to perpetuate the Promise.
The Manchild shall be born as surely as the Messiah was born in Bethlehem. The generation which is to bring forth the Manchild who is “to rule all nations with a rod of iron” may be very close at hand. The Manchild is not a whole generation. The Woman, the generation which brings forth the Manchild, continues to live as the Manchild is “caught up to God and His throne.” She is protected in a wilderness place by two wings of a great eagle with which she flies in heavenly authority, and she is nourished “away from the face of the serpent.”
The Dragon cannot touch the Woman, but he goes to “make war with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Is this remnant of her seed not the children across the earth that she has spawned through the Gospel in every nation?
The Manchild born of the Woman of Revelation 12 shall be caught up to God and to His throne. At that time a voice in heaven shall say, “Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ.”
…the devil knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Revelation 12:12
Imagine that the number 12 represents you as a fully mature son of God, as in Ephesians 4:13.
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
In our analogy the number 12 represents you, fully formed into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
1 John 3:2-3 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
6+6=12 5+8-1=12
2+10=12 2 x 6=12
4+4+4=12 24/2=12
3+3+3+3=12 100-88=12 950.4/79.2=12
There are an infinite number of ways to get to 12, but they all equal 12.
Cattle Chute
What if the choices we make every day are creating the equation of our lives?
What if God is NOT guiding us down a cattle chute toward our 12?
Maybe, as our poor choices send our equation off the mark, God brings situations that offer opportunities to correct our equation.
My equation interacts with your equation and many other equations. We add to and subtract from one another’s equations.
All the time there is a Guiding Hand, not manipulating, but offering a path that leads to 12.
New Earth Comes Forth
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon,
he shall receive a reward.
1 Corinthians 3:10-14
What sort of materials will endure? Endure as what? Where will they endure?
Paul gives an imaginative picture of wise master builders and workmen building a physical structure. This passage reminds me of another imaginative story.
J.R.R. Tolkien‘s epic The Silmarillion begins with Ainulindale the story of the Ainur. The name means The Music of the Ainur. It is the creation story of Tolkien’s mythology of Middle Earth. Blind musical creatures called Ainur spring from the thought of Iluvatar the Creator. Iluvatar conducts as the Ainur create music which culminates in a great symphony. They sing and make harmonious music until one of them becomes purposely dissonant and draws others after himself. Yet the music continues. After all the music has come to completion, Iluvatar opens the musicians’ eyes to see for the first time. When given sight, the Ainur view the imaginative world their music created. Their music had initiated and developed the whole world of Middle Earth, including its characters and its histories.
What if our experiences in this world are building a new world? The Kingdom of God – New Earth and New Heaven!
We are laborers together with God:
… I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon.
But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon…
If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:
but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God
1 Corinthians 3:9-16
Anybody who builds with unworthy materials, Paul continues, “shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” Paul said that some of what we build will not endure. “The fire shall try every man’s work.” What we do matters. Paul is admonishing us to build our lives with lasting and beautiful materials that will be like gold, silver and precious stones. God will have His Temple.
Like Tolkien’s musical Ainur, one day we will see what we are building, and it will be glorious!
I confess; I love fairy tales. (Hey, I even love fairies.)
Mythologies and fairy tales are imaginative attempts to describe earthly truth.
Earthly depictions of truth are like a shadow cast by Heavenly reality. The writer of Hebrews says it this way:
They [Levitical priests] serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.
This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle,
“See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
Hebrews 8:5
We, like children and like Tolkien’s Ainur, see shadows and patterns until He opens our eyes.
I have taught a middle school history class that I titled The Development of Western Thought from Babylon to the European Explorers. I used Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2 as the theme and timeline.
Daniel spoke the dream’s interpretation to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and it has come to pass century after century exactly according to his interpretation. Long ago the Legs of Iron which depict the Roman Empire have faded into ancient history. What happened to those Feet of Iron Mixed with Clay?
Daniel 2:31-35 Behold, a great image! …its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
Mysteries…
Where is this kingdom of iron mixed with clay? The others seem so easy. Gold is Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon as Daniel told the king himself. Silver came next; that was Medo-Persia. Then the bronze belly of the statue represented Greek domination in the world. Iron legs, we know was the next kingdom which was the power of the Roman Empire. What happened after Rome? Another empire? Has the statue been struck by a stone and crushed to powder? What is the Clay?
What is this two part kingdom that has the Roman Empire’s strength mixed with something of clay, and the two can’t mix? Gold, silver, bronze, and iron are all metals. Clay is different; it is not a metal. Clay, hmm, that’s what God used to make Adam’s body. What else do we know?
Daniel 2:43-44 But they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
Rome crumbled in the 400’s AD. Where is the kingdom which will exhibit some things of Roman power yet in other ways will not mix with the pagan world order depicted in the rest of the statue? When will God set up a different kingdom which shall never be destroyed? Has it already happened, and we missed it? If so, how is it that we live in a time when pagan/antichrist culture looms, fiercely set against a Christian culture?
Daniel’s interpretation has been spot on accurate from Babylon through the Roman Empire, a span of nearly 900 years!
I’m looking for the Stone cut out of the mountain without hands to land upon the Feet of Iron Mixed with Clay and crush all oppressive governments to powder. Hey, Daniel, it’s time!
[The following is an excerpt from chapter nine of my book He Who Bleeds.
The chapter is titled Intercession Within the Veil.]
A Prayer Closet Becomes a Holy Place
Under the Old Covenant priests offered representational atonement. Under the New Covenant we are His priests, and as such, we may offer representational intercession. We may offer ourselves in the victim’s role in prayer. The prayer closet transforms spiritually into an entrance to the Holy of Holies. We may bring into that holy place the blood of many innocent victims representatively by our sacrificial prayer.
Intercessors can be counted as a life laid down for another. This is the call of our Lord Jesus to take up our cross daily and follow Him.
As the priests of old made atonement, we are making intercession with our Lord. The corporate cry for mercy rings in God’s ears.
We have shown that the victim may waive the Law’s sentence. The victim may release vengeance away from the prescription set in stone and into the hands of the Righteous Judge.
The prescriptions of the Law are weak[1]. They cannot purge sin from the conscience of the sinner[2]. Only the Merciful Almighty can find the prescription that will purge each sinner. Only He can bring the sinner to full repentance. His vengeance will not stop short of a purged conscience.
The ministry of reconciliation is committed unto us.
Reconciliation of the world can only be accomplished
through holy vengeance released by intercessors
into the hands of Him who said, I will repay.
[1] Romans 8:3 “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:”
[2] Hebrews 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
The cross was a Roman invention for cruel torture and slow execution of state criminals and foreign rebels. It was intensely feared in all regions of Roman domination.
There is no provision in the criminal law codes of Israel for execution by hanging on a cross. The Law of Moses prescribes stoning for criminals in Israel. Murderers, as well as all for whom capital punishment is required, were to die by stoning at the hands of the community. In especially heinous crimes, the executed criminal would afterwards be hanged on a tree, but the body must be taken down by sunset. They did not hang criminals “by the neck until dead” as in the American West. A foreign enemy could be slain with a sword and sometimes also then hanged on a tree to be displayed until sunset. No other form of execution is mentioned.
Let’s deal first with a more basic question. Why did Jesus have to die? There are many facets to the answer to this question. For now we’ll aim at understanding the Laws of Sacrifice for Sin. We find that Leviticus 4 delineates sin offerings according to the social position of the sinner. For example, a common person was to bring a female kid of the goats. A ruler of the people must bring a male kid of the goats. A priest who sins must bring a young bullock. If the whole congregation sins, they must offer a young bullock, in the same way as a priest who sins.
In each sin offering, except one, the sinner must lay hands on the head of the victim, i.e. kid or bullock, and then the sinner slays the animal whose blood is offered on the altar. The exception is for the situation in which the whole congregation has sinned. In this case, Leviticus 4 designates no one to slay the victim. We are left to find a precedent to discover who must slay this victim for the whole congregation.
In Leviticus 8, Moses is performing the consecration of Aaron and his sons as priests. For a sin offering Moses brings a bullock. The priests lay hands on the head of the bullock, and Moses slays the bullock continuing according to the previous prescription for the sin offering in Leviticus 4.
Moses was not a priest. He was the civil leader and the spiritual leader of Israel. The precedent seems to be that when a group sins, as opposed to an individual, the highest authority must slay the victim.
The order is clear according to Leviticus 4:15.
“And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD:
and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.”
He died as the victim in the case when the whole congregation sins. Jesus himself in the Gospels, as well as the Apostles in Acts, give ample witness to his being the offering for the whole congregation.
This is how Jesus could prophesy that “the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed,” Mark 8:31. In fact, the elders did lay their hands on Jesus, and they took him to Pilate. “When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.” Matthew 27:1-2
Jesus knew that they had to reject him because they had to turn him over to the governing authorities to be slain. They had to “lay hands upon” him. Their laying hands upon him imparted their sins and, representatively, the sins of all the people upon Jesus as their victim. As the Victim, Jesus could forgive the sin. Jesus fulfilled both the role of the victim and of the priest who forgives.
God’s Law could not execute the Holy Son of God; Roman law did that.
It was a Roman cross because God’s Law has no such provision for execution.
It was a Roman cross because Rome was the highest civil government over Israel at the time, and the highest authority must slay the victim of the sin offering when the whole congregation sins.
There are many references to the necessity for the elders to reject the Messiah. They had to be responsible for his death in order for his forgiveness to apply to them and to all the world as the “whole congregation”.
Matthew 16:21; 17:22; Mark 8:31; 10:33; Luke 9:22; 18:31; 24:7; 24:20
Acts 2:3; 3:17; 4:10; 5:30;7:52; 10:39; 13:27
2+2=4 in every language, in every culture. Even among people with no written language, a girl having two sheep who gets two more sheep always ends up having four sheep. There is no room for ambiguity or nuance. The numbers don’t lie; they don’t hide the truth.
Language, however, cannot claim to be so straightforward. There are always two participants in language, the speaker/writer and the hearer/reader. Language always has nuance.
One could say, “He went to the store.” -Seems simple and straightforward, but the understanding is affected by the emphasis of the speaker. HE went to the store. He WENT to the store. He went TO the store. He went to the STORE. These all have different nuance of meaning.
More than speaking, writing adds another level of complexity. While the hearer has audio emphasis as well as possible facial expression and body gestures to aid understanding, the reader must gather by context which emphasis the writer means.
Language is always a conversation. Even a soliloquy must have a hearer. The hearer must always intuit the speakers meaning to some degree.
The translator studies the context, and deciphers as mathematically as possible, but he can never translate without the bias of his own understanding, his own intuition.
I am not a language expert, but in my limited experience it seems that some languages are more mathematical than others. For instance, Latin is very mathematical in form and order while English leaves much freedom of order and even of form to the speaker/writer. Still, Latin is not as clearly unambiguous as mathematics.
A few years ago a series of tornadoes blew destruction across the southeastern US. Some of my neighbors discovered windblown mail from other states dropped by the swirling clouds into their backyards. Some letters were actually returned. Had I discovered a letter out of the blue and had read it, no doubt I would have found nuances that I could not intuit because I do not know the writer.
Here is my point. In order to fully understand a speaker, a hearer must know the speaker. Also, understanding is more apt to be accurate when the hearer is actually in the presence of the speaker, face to face, so to speak. Again, this is a problem for translators.
I can fully affirm my belief that the Bible is the “only infallible rule of faith and of practice.” Yet, I do not find a translation that I can fully trust to be infallible due to nuances intuited or not intuited by the translators. I study the text using several translations, paraphrases and lexicons, but none of them will ever yield a mathematically accurate understanding. I have resigned myself that I must know the speaker.
My father was a gentle, empathetic and kind man. If someone brought me a letter written in my father’s handwriting that could be interpreted as harsh, vindictive or unkind, I would reject that interpretation. Those characteristics were not in his nature. I would look into the context and the history to find clues about his meaning.
We have such clues to be used in Bible interpretation. The greatest clue as to the character of God is Jesus himself. In his own words, “If you have seen me, you have seen my Father also.” God is a spirit. It is hard for us to see Him. Jesus was “the image of the invisible God”. The best interpretation of any passage will be found by seeing God through the character of Jesus Christ. It reminds me of the old saying, “What would Jesus do?”
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
John 1:18
Known unto God…
The future is formed out of constantly developing, waving probabilities[i]. It is not a place on the 4-D Universe graph you can get to in a machine. It doesn’t exist; it isn’t there; it hasn’t happened yet.
Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world. Acts 15:18
From the beginning of the world, God has a plan. He knows what He will do. Daily He works toward His goal[ii]. Jesus was working toward that goal too. Jesus said that he did what he saw the Father doing[iii]. Humans may also work against God and His plan, but that doesn’t stop God from working toward His goal.
The road toward the goal is paved
with a set of constantly developing, waving probabilities.
Probability is the key word. The daily works of God “collapse the wavefunctions[v]” of probabilities onto each probability that progresses His plan. Whatever things human choices may throw into the way to divert God’s plan, God will daily move toward His goal. As we live and pray daily, “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done,” we are paving the road toward God’s goal out of the material of today’s probabilities.
The six day creation story illustrates God building the mechanism of the Universe. At the end of the sixth day all the parts are in place. On the seventh day, God, like a clockmaker winding his clock for the first time, releases the mechanism of His creation. He rests while he enjoys watching every sub-atomic movement producing larger and larger movements as the clockwork of the Universe begins unwinding.
Unlike the predictability of clockwork mechanisms, the Universe incorporates free will. Human choices affect outcomes. Maybe animal choices affect outcomes. Maybe spirit beings affect outcomes. All of these effects produce the constantly developing wavefunction of probabilities that God uses as materials to pave the road toward His goal.
Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world. The Universal Creator daily finds a way toward His goal among the constantly developing probabilities. He invites us to join Him in that work as Jesus did[iv].
That takes faith. That is faith.
[i] Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness; Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2011, p. 79, p. 135
[ii] Isaiah 46:9-10 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
[iii] John 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
[iv] John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
[v] Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness; Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2011, p. 85
With a huff and a groan, on a prosthetic leg,
He jerked painfully down the aisle to his seat.
He stopped,
Holding his COVID mask to his mouth
In a grimace.
The pack on his back
thudded heavily down.
“You okay, brother?”
Called a man from the rear.
Quick strides brought the speaker
To the seat with the pack.
“Hey, brother, it’s hard.”
– A cough and a groan –
“Is he drunk?” asked the flight attendant.
“No, worse. It’s withdrawals.”
“Brother, it’s hard. I’m not gonna lie.
It’s bad, and it’s gonna get worse.
Where’d you serve, brother?”
“Four tours in Afghanistan,”
He sputtered through tears.
“Brother, I’ve been there.
It’s bad, and it’s gonna get worse,” he kept saying.
“It’s bad, really bad.
You don’t have to stay here;
You can get out before we take off.
If you stay,
You’ll get help when you get there.
I’m not gonna lie.
It’s gonna get bad; it’s gonna get worse.”
A whisper and groan,
“I can’t, really can’t.”
He lifted his head from his hand on the seatback,
Then scanning the cabin, he looked up at me.
Our eyes met
In the red-rimmed gray ocean
Of his clearing and glowing blue eyes.
I wanted to strengthen him,
To shout,” You can do it!”,
But all I could do was just stand there.
“I’ll pray for you, brother,”
The helper was saying.
Another man, too, had offered to pray.
“Do you want to get off?
If you want, you can do that.”
“I’m going to stay on,” he said firmly,
And all of the passengers cheered.
The plane ride was rough.
Several babies were wailing.
Three rows behind me
The soldier was heaving.
The helper stayed with him,
His hand on his back,
And holding the bag he coughed into.
All finally quieted as we came in for landing.
Quickly the helper walked to the attendant,
And came back and told him,
“They said you’ll be last. It’s okay.”
Then off whisked the helper to catch his next plane.
We waited to see him
When he walked through the gate.
He was last, and they brought him a wheelchair.
With muscular arms
He hoisted his pack.
Standing up straight and tall he said,
“I’d rather walk.”
That’s all we knew
about the man with the pack,
But that man gives me hope
in my country.
He knew it was bad
And that it’d get worse.
He had said that he couldn’t,
But what he meant was “give up”.
He couldn’t give up.
With one leg or no legs
He’d stand up and walk.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats,
and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean,
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 9:13-14And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
2 This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel,
that they bring thee a red heifer without spot,
wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke:
… 5 and one shall burn the heifer in his sight;
her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:
… 17 And for an unclean person [or thing] they shall take
of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin,
and running [Hebrew- living] water shall be put thereto in a vessel.
Numbers 19:1-17
The Law’s remedy for uncleanness is living water poured through the ashes left from the burnt offering of a female calf, a red heifer. The special water is then called the water of separation. In studying the word separation, I discovered through Strong’s Concordance and Gesenius’ Lexicon that we may understand further the idea of waving away, as in shooing a fly. The priest uses the water to shoo away the uncleanness.
Why is this a female burnt offering?
The heifer is necessarily red according to the scripture. The Hebrew word red is a derivative of the word for blood. Everything that is described as red in Hebrew is compared to blood. (Similarly, everything that is white in Hebrew is compared to milk.) The heifer may have been red in fur color, or she may have been blood red, possibly fertile and ready for breeding.
If she is offered to God in the height of her fertility, and then her ashes are mixed with living water, doesn’t that speak of resurrection?
What if this Red Heifer represents a bloody bride? -A bride who has laid down her life in offering to the Bridegroom. A bride who has given up marriage to this world for a heavenly union.
What if it is a resurrected Bride who sprinkles Living Water upon the unclean land?
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
John 7:38Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it.
Numbers 21:17
The Word in Vision 