This is the portrait of a loving Father, and it is something that we need to internalize – not only as Church leaders, but as congregational members.

If we ask the question: “How often is there something in my life that God could be correcting?” – the answer would have to be, “Always.” Even the strongest believers in this life are en route, are taking a journey in spiritual growth, and are immature in a host of areas.

The shepherds of the flock have a special calling to be aware of the needs of the sheep. And that awareness involves discerning where the flock needs correction and growth.

But while that is true, we must remember this: God does not correct everything at once. If He did, we would melt with fervent heat, and have no time to enjoy life with Him.

God is in our midst, and He delights in us; He makes quiet time for us; He even sings in celebration over us.

That doesn’t mean that He ignores our sins and weaknesses, or that they do not matter.

But it does mean that He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103.14).

If you are a loving and wise parent, you should be able to understand this. If you look at your child, you can see many things that need work. There are sins and immaturities that you have your eye on.

And yet, even though you give verbal correction and even the occasional spanking, you do not spend every waking hour on correcting those sins and immaturities. Because you know that life does not look like that, and love does not look like that.

Occasionally Christians look at other Christians and wonder why the church leadership doesn’t do something. “So-and-so is at fault here and here and here; why aren’t the elders dealing with it?”

Aside from the fact that elders are almost always dealing with things far more than the congregation is aware – pastoral care is an iceberg that is more submerged than visible – there is more to it than that.

Wise shepherds know that not every battle can be fought at once; and they also know that not every battle needs to be fought the same way.

There are some faults that you will never cajole out of your child, or spank out of him, for that matter. And the truth is that if your home is one filled with godly love, chances are you won’t need to. While there will indeed be overt corrections to the point of tears for some things, it is almost certain that you as a parent will not explicitly discipline your child in many areas where he needs growth.

Part of the reason for that is simply that you are not God, and no matter how wise you are, your child’s heart is also an iceberg – there is at least as much submerged as there is visible. There is some stuff that you need to leave to God.

But there is another dimension to this: Even if you were omniscient, you would not and should not be correcting your child every waking hour. Life does not look like that, and love does not look like that.

God says that He delights in His children, that He rejoices over them and sings over them. He enjoys them.

That is part of what love looks like – and an important one, at that. Kingdom life is intended to be joyful life – as Paul puts it, the kingdom of God is peace, righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14.17).

The truth is that God trains us and sanctifies us, and the whole of kingdom life accomplishes that task. It is not only by way of reproofs and “spankings,” but also by way of festivities and dancing, that God the Father transforms us to bear the image of His Son more faithfully.

There come times in the lives of elders when they must speak hard words into the lives of their flock. We are not to shrink from that, because “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27.6).

But we also must not allow ourselves to become obsessed with correction. One of the greatest things that the Father does for His children is rejoice with them, and as shepherds who echo His heart and seek to embody the kingdom among the flock, we must take up that happy task with gusto.

When we do, we demonstrate again that Christ came to give life, and that most abundantly (John 10.10).

James B. Jordan is remarkable. There are plenty of Bible preachers in America who know the Scriptures well. Lots of professors read books in philosophy, history, and literature and have all sorts of interesting things to say about culture. Pundits cultivate a sharp, pungent, and readable style. But Jim is perhaps unique. Who else writes detailed interpretations of the Book of Daniel and quotes Allen Tate’s poetry? Who else can give a lecture on echoes of Leviticus in the apocalyptic vision of Zechariah and then chat over cigars about Friedrich von Hayek and Richard Weaver? Moreover, who can cover such a range with vivid images, punchy tag lines, and memorable turns of phrase? Not many, which is why I’ve come to think of Jim Jordan as one of the most important Christian intellectuals of our day.

Jim knows a great deal, but I have no doubt that the electricity in his writing and conversation come from his biblical vision. He does something remarkable. He takes the cultic core of the Old Testament—Temple and Priesthood, altar and sacrifice—and reads it into the full sweep of the biblical witness. The result is not the usual sort of “theological” interpretation we’re all familiar with: Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament explained by way of warmed-over theologies of substitutionary atonement or observations that really amount to little more than restating New Testament passages. Instead, Jim takes texts such as Leviticus seriously on their own terms. He brings to life the intense concreteness of tabernacle and sanctuary, and he allows the prophets a retrospective restoration as well as a prospective anticipation. As Jim has helped me see, the Scriptures are forever reaching back and renewing even as they reach forward to fulfillment in Christ.

Read the rest of Reno’s forward at First Things.

by James B. Jordan

This is an excellent book, and every Bible student should read and master it. Cornelis van der Waal was a Dutch theologian who lived much of his life in South Africa. He lived from 1919 to 1980. This was his last book and he died before completing it.

Thinking on the covenant has continued since his death, and the few comments I have included here are intended to express places where some slight improvements in his book can be made. These minor criticisms do not take away from the great value of the book. I shall proceed section by section, since the English translation will not have the same pages as the original Dutch.

Introduction section 2. The statement in 2 Cor. 3:14 about the “old covenant” does not refer to all the books of the Old Testament, but as the next verse shows, to “Moses.” We should really think of the Ten Words, the heart of the Sinaitic Covenant. We can say that there are two covenants, but we can also say that there is one covenant in two phases. Both phases are revealed and discussed in all the books of the Bible, but of course the second phase, the “new covenant,” receives the most attention in the New Testament books. Van der Waal sometimes writes of one covenant, and sometimes of two, but he always means one covenant in two historical phases.

1.1. Van der Waal often uses the word “treaty” as he gets into the subject of covenant. This word does not do full justice to the fact that God’s intra-trinitarian life is covenantal. It is not just a treaty. When God comes to us and applies this covenant to us, it can be much like a treaty, so van der Waal is right to speak of a treaty-aspect of the covenant. But we must be careful not to think of the covenant as basically just a treaty. It is a personal and structural life-bond.

1.2. Since Abraham was an evangelist, I think his covenant with Aner, Mamre, and Eshcol was more than just a military covenant. These men looked to Abram as their spiritual leader also.

1.4. Notice how van der Waal points out the objective and legal meanings of such words as “quarrel” and “peace.” This is one of the most important strengths of his book.

3.2. In Genesis 15, God passes between the parts of the animals. I do not think this is a promise that Yahweh will die if He does not keep the covenant, although this is a very common interpretation today. Rather, the two halves of the animals represent Abram and the land, from which Abram is estranged. God is promising to unite Abram to the land in the future, by being the bond of the covenant. God will link Abram’s seed to the land. God’s Spirit passes between the two parts to bring them back to life united in a bond of covenant. We should think back to Genesis 1 and 2, where God repeatedly divides things into two pieces and reunites them in a new unity with Himself as the bond. God put Adam into “deep sleep,” a coma, just like He did Abram in Genesis 15:12. Then He divided Adam into two parts. Then He brought Adam and Eve together in a new unity.

It may be that God was also saying, “May I be destroyed if I fail to keep this covenant with Abram,” but there is nothing in the text to indicate this.

3.10. Salt represents something that endures, so a “covenant of salt” is an enduring covenant. But salt also represents fire, the fire of God’s presence. A “covenant of salt” is a covenant maintained by God Himself within the covenant as the God of Salt.

3.13. It is sad that Dr. van der Waal did not complete this section. He would have looked at the Davidic covenant, and then perhaps have continued to examine the new covenants made through Elijah and in Zechariah 1-6, and others as well.

4.1. The comments here are good, but incomplete. It is true that Adam was not “man in general” but a specific man. But he was also the first man. All human beings are images of God, by definition. They may be “negative images,” as rebels and apostates, but they are still His images. Van der Waal later spends much attention on the curses and vengeance of the covenant. He is right, and it means that all man are related to God by covenant one way or another, in blessing or curse.

4.3. God told Adam and Eve that every tree would be theirs to eat from in the future (Genesis 1:26). So, eventually Adam would eat of the tree of good and evil. Van der Waal is right that this phrase refers to kingly rule, but wrong to say that human beings were never to eat of it. First we must affirm God’s kingship by staying away from this tree, but then, when we are mature, we are given the tree as princes under God’s kingship.

Adam was to grow up to become mature so that he could become such a prince under God. Van der Waal is wrong to complain against the idea that the Garden was a “child’s garden” and that Adam was a child. It is precisely because Adam was a child that God was merciful to him. God is not merciful to those who rebel against him with full mature awareness, as van der Waal himself shows at length later in his book.

I also think van der Waal is wrong when he says that Adam was kept from the Tree of Life to keep him away from blessing. The older view is right: Adam was kept away after he sinned so that he would not be sealed in his sinfulness. God was being merciful to him and protecting him from disaster.

5.3. He is right that Luther almost always spoke harshly about the Law of Moses. This was part of Luther’s struggle against the legalism of his age. We respect Luther’s heroic struggles at that time, but we want to improve on his insights. Calvin, who respected Luther as an “apostle born out of time,” did not have quite the same struggles, and was able to make some improvements. We continue to make progress in our understanding of the whole Bible today, and will continue to do so forever.

6.4. A weakness in van der Waal is that he does not fully realize that the movement from the old to the new is from childhood to maturity. He sees it mainly as a movement from type to truth. It is both. Thus, some of what Paul wrote “against” the Law is directed against Jewish legalistic perversions of the Law — the Law taken out of its true covenantal context — but some of it is a way of saying that the Law was for childhood and now we are adults in Christ. We still remember what we were taught in childhood, but we no longer live as children, “under” the Law.

7.1. “Bar mitzvah” is a custom that arose much later than New Testament times. It is not in view in Luke 2.

9.3. He rejects the notion that the sun, moon, and stars represented the rulers and authorities of the Jewish commonwealth, but he is wrong here. This is symbolism clearly established in the Old Testament.

Chapters 10-11. I agree that the miraculous signs of the apostolic age were designed to get the Church started, and are not part of the ongoing work of the Church — except when sometimes miracles briefly appear in new mission fields. I do not think that any of the gifts have “ceased,” however. They still exist, but in a general form. Whenever the Bible is translated, the “gift of tongues” is in operation in a general form. Similarly, when the Church meets to discuss what to do, the gift of prophecy, of being led by the Spirit, is in operation. Noting has been withdrawn. All is still here, but in more mature form.

The Covenantal Gospel can be obtained from Biblical Horizons for $20.00, which includes shipping. Order from Biblical Horizons, Box 1096, Niceville, FL 32588; or use the Paypal Donation feature at www.biblicalhorizons.com.

Even so, Lord, quickly come. Bring thy final harvest home.

Gather thou thy people in, Free from sorrow, free from sin,

There, forever purified, In thy garner to abide.

Come, with all thine angels, come; Raise the glorious harvest home.

Now, as we’ve had occasion to say before, the Biblical expectation is that Jesus will successfully disciple all the nations of the earth, making all into theocracies under His rule, before any final apostasy and His return to judge the living and the dead. The “quick coming” in the book of Revelation has to do with the events of AD 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Oikumene. Asking Jesus to come quickly and end history is very wrong. It is asking Him to fail, asking Him not to evangelize the heathen. The fact is, though, that the first three stanzas of this hymn are excellent, for they only state that Jesus will someday return to judge. We should keep this hymn, but omit the last stanza.

2. Lo! He comes, with Clouds Descending. This is a second-coming hymn, and like many Arminian hymns, this by Charles Wesley, the assumption is that Jesus will return to the earth to reign. This is completely false. According to 1 Corinthians 15:24, when He returns, having destroyed all enemies, He gives the Kingdom to the Father. According to the catholic faith, Jesus is presently seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling as King of kings and Lord of lords. Thus, any hymn that teaches us that Jesus will return to reign is communicating false teaching.

The end of stanza 1, “God appears on earth reign,” can be changed to “Christ the Lord forever reigns.”

The final stanza is more of a mess: “Saviour, take the power and glory, Claim the kingdom for thine own. O come quickly, O come quickly, O come quickly! Alleluia! Come, Lord, come.” Well, no. That’s all very bad. Change to this:

Lord, Thou hast taken all the pow’r and glory,

Thine the Kingdom e’er shall be!

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou dost reign, and we with Thee!

By the way, the best tune for this is Helmsley by Arne.

As we have seen, there is a succession of covenants in the Bible, each more glorious than the previous, each absorbing and transfiguring the previous, until finally we come to the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. We now want to look at the shape of covenant documents. Generally speaking, the order of presentation in the covenant document is the same as the sequence of events in the covenant’s establishment. The Spirit shapes the history and the Son shapes the Word. God is One, living in the One Covenant, and thus the shape is the same. The shape of the various covenants is always fundamentally the same, because the same God is acting and speaking each time, and the same human consciousness is being addressed.

Because the Sinaitic Covenant is the covenant that is most fully presented in literary form, scholars look at its presentation in Exodus 20-24 and in the book of Deuteronomy to discern the basic covenant shape. After we have been instructed by this part of the Biblical revelation, we can discern the same shape in the other covenants.

This shape, this order of presentation, has been analyzed variously by different scholars. Some have seen three, some four, some five, some six, and some seven aspects of the covenant. We can say that in its fullest manifestations, God’s covenant with man, which we can illustrate from the Sinaitic Covenant, entails the following steps and aspects:

1. Announcement of God’s transcendence; His laying hold on the situation (Ex. 2:24-25; 20:3). Moses is announced as covenant-renewer in Deuteronomy 1:1-4.

2. Declaration of God’s new Name, appropriate for the new covenant being installed (Ex. 3:13-15; 6:2-8; 20:2a). There is no new name in Deuteronomy, because it is a renewal of the Sinaitic Covenant.

3. Statement of how God brought His people from the old covenant and world into the new one (Ex. 20:2b; Dt. 1:6-4:40).

4. Establishment of the new covenant order, especially the governmental hierarchies thereof (Ex. 18:13-27; 24:1; Dt. 1:9-18; 27:1, 9).

5. Appointment of new names for the new finished product (Gen. 1:4-5, 6-8, 9-10; at Sinai, “sons of Israel” is the new name, replacing “Hebrew”).

6. Grant or distribution of an area of dominion to the covenant steward or vassal (Ex. 3:8; 23:20-33; Dt. 1:19-12:31).

7. Stipulations concerning management of this grant (Ex. 20-23; Dt. 5:1-26:19).

8. Statement of the terms by which God will evaluate man’s performance: promised blessings and threatened curses (Ex. 23:25-33; Dt. 27, 28).

9. Placement of witnesses to report to God on man’s behavior (Ex. 23:20-23; Dt. 4:26; 30:19).

10. Arrangements for deposition of the covenant documents (Ex. 40:20; Dt. 31:9-13).

11. Arrangements for succession of covenant vice-regents (Dt. 31:7, 14, 23; Dt. 34).

12. Artistic poems that encapsulate the covenant, and that are to be taught to succeeding generations (Dt. 31:14-33:29).

We could probably come up with other aspects as well, depending on how much detail we wished to go into.

This covenant order can be helpfully and Biblically grouped in more than one way. It is possible and desirable to see the sequence as proceeding from God’s sovereign Control (1-3), to manifestations of God’s sovereign Authority (4-7), and culminating in revelations of God’s sovereign Presence with His people (8-12). This is based on John Frame’s work. It is also possible and desirable to see the sequence as having five aspects:

1. God’s transcendence and mankind’s impotence (1, 2).

2. Transition from old to new order (3-5).

3. Laws (6, 7).

4. Blessings and curses (8, 9).

5. Arrangements for the future (10-12).

Each of these patterns can be found in the Bible. Given the prominence of the number seven, and the seven-fold sabbatical sequences in the Bible, we can look for examples of seven-fold organizations of the covenant. An obvious example is the creation week itself, considered as the establishment of God’s first covenantal order in the world. When we get to Typology we shall explore this covenantal order more fully.

Given the fact that the covenant document is just that, a document, we are on solid ground in supposing that these sequences function as literary structuring devices in certain parts of the Bible, and perhaps also in the Bible as a whole, considered as the covenant document. We are, accordingly, invited to search for such structures.

I have come to believe that there are three fundamental covenant structures or sequences in the Bible. The first we can consider is three-fold. We can see this in the order of the sacrifices that are brought before God for ordinary covenant renewal. The sacrifices break down into three groups:

1. The Trespass and Purification (or Sin) Offerings, which bring the worshipper near to God, and which focus on blood.

2. The Ascension (or Burnt) and Tribute (or Grain) Offerings, which bring the worshipper into God’s presence with his gifts, and which focus on flesh and bread.

3. The Peace Offering, which is a fellowship meal with God, and which focuses on the food aspects of the offering.

It is the Spirit who brings us near to God, through the bond of life-blood. It is the Son who ushers us fully into the presence of the Father. It is with the Father that we enjoy full eschatological fellowship. Thus, we can make a rough correlation of these three sacrifices with the sequence of priest, king, and prophet.

This three-fold way of presenting the covenant focuses on persons, seen as the animals that come to God, carrying us with them. We can see this triadic way of presenting the covenant in closest connection with the Father, the fountain of personality.

Second, a five-fold way of presenting the covenant is found very often in the covenant as specifically set down in writing. We shall look at this in detail in this chapter. This way of setting out the covenant describes the five fundamental items of the covenant and how they fit in relationship with each other. Since this is how the covenant is written down, and since it has to do with the structure of the covenant, it is most closely connected with the Son, the Word of God and the fountain of structure in space. The five-fold presentation of the covenant employs what we may call “direct” language, with little imagery and symbolism.

Finally, a seven-fold way of presenting the covenant is found when the covenant is presented as a sequence of actions that make a new world, or is in some way related to the original creation week. Since this is how the covenant is presented in time, it is most closely related to the seven-fold Spirit of God, the mover and shaper of history. The seven-fold presentation of the covenant employs imagery and symbolism — as we shall see, the Tabernacle is described in seven speeches in Exodus 25-31.

To recapitulate: There is a sequence of items that is found in Biblical covenants. The overall shape or sequence is almost always the same. Most often, the covenant is presented in either a three-fold, a five-fold, or a seven-fold shape.

The Five-fold Shape

Given the fact that we have a sequence of at least twelve items to “fit” into five groups, a certain amount of flexibility is called for. Each of the five categories will of necessity have a particular locus of concern, but each will also have “fuzzy edges,” shading into the concerns of the categories on either side. Moreover, each of the five categories will embrace a number of elements, and it will not necessarily be possible to come up with a one-word or short-phrase encapsulation of each category that will do full justice to the zone of concerns in that category. We can, however, come up with a description of the concerns of each category if we look at the first five books of the Bible and at the Ten Word (or Commandments).

Before turning to this, however, I wish to make the point that because God exists in covenant, and because human beings are images of God and also exist in covenant, these “covenant shapes” are part of the deep consciousness of all humanity. It is no surprise, therefore, that many treaties and covenants in the ancient world have this same shape. It is also no surprise that the Church has always recognized this shape, even if not consciously. Thus, if we look back at the five-fold shape, we can see that Christian worship as it has developed, especially in the West, has the same shape:

1. Announcement of God – Call to Worship

2. Transition from old to new – Confession and Absolution

3. Laws – the Word

4. Blessings and curses – the Lord’s Supper

5. Arrangements for the future – Benediction and Dismissal

This shape arises from the heart of the covenant renewal itself. At the Last Supper:

1. Jesus took hold of bread.

2. He made it new by calling it a new name.

3. He gave the command to eat it.

4. The disciples ate it, receiving the blessing.

5. After doing the same with cup, they sang a hymn and went out.

Similarly, the Reformed churches have organized the doctrine of God’s sovereign rule in five points, the so-called “Five Points of Calvinism”:

1. Need for God to act – Total Depravity

2. The Father (primarily) chooses whom to save – Unconditional Election

3. The Son (primarily) fulfills the Law – Specific Redemption

4. The Spirit (primarily) applies salvation – Irresistible Grace

5. The future is guaranteed – Preservation of the Elect

Let us now look at the five-fold shape in a bit more detail. When a new covenant is made, God comes to initiate it. Sometimes He gives us a new name for Himself: Elohim at creation, Yahweh at Sinai, Adonai for the Kingdom, Yahweh of Armies for the Restoration, and Jesus for the New Covenant. Renewals of a given covenant are initiated by human leaders, like Moses (Deuteronomy) and Joshua (Joshua 24). In worship, it is because God has called us that we come to Him.

Then, second, God describes how He has brought us from an old world to a new, and sets up a new order or hierarchy for the new form of His kingdom. There is an exodus from the old fallen order into a new order. The new hierarchy is a blessing because it replaces our enthrallment to Satan. In worship this is our confession of sin, our renouncing the old world, and our receiving forgiveness and entrance into the kingdom again.

Third, God presents His covenant Word, which is always first and foremost promise, and then command based on promise. This third aspect has to do with God’s grant of the Kingdom, His gift and promise, and then our duties. God’s Word is always both promise and command, and promise comes first. In worship, this is the hearing of the Word and sermon.

Fourth, God promises blessings, but also threatens curses. The blessing is already given, while the curses will come if we disobey. God also sets up witnesses to report to Him on our behavior. In worship, this is the sacrament of the Supper, which is essentially a blessing, but can also be a curse (1 Corinthians 11:29-31).

Finally, God makes arrangements for the future. These include the persons who will be in charge of renewing the covenant, such as the Shemites after the Flood, the Hebrews in the Patriarchal era, the Levitical priests after Sinai, the kings during the kingdom, the prophets later on, and now pastors. Other future arrangements include songs to be sung generation after generation, and predictions of the future. In worship, this is the benediction and our dismissal into the world to carry forth God’s kingdom.

Let us now look at the first five books of the Bible, where we shall see these five themes set out in a large way.

Genesis is the book of beginnings. In it, we see God take hold of His world and announce His intentions. The intentions announced to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob do not come to pass in Genesis, however. The names of God revealed in the Noahic and Abrahamic covenants stress His transcendent sovereignty. Noahic: “God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth.” Abrahamic: “God Almighty.”

Exodus is the book of transitions. In it, we see God break down His people, move them out of an old cosmos and into a new, appoint new names for them, reveal a new name for Himself, and give them a new social order. God’s new name is Yahweh, which is explained in Exodus 6 as meaning “the God who keeps promises made to the fathers.” The new social order entails two hierarchies, those of church (priests and Levites) and state (elders and supreme judge). Also, in Exodus God builds Himself a house, symbolizing the new social order and hierarchy.

Leviticus is the book of law. In it, we see God lay out the essential terms of the grant He is giving His people. They are restored to a new garden of Eden, and thus much of the book concerns animal laws: sacrifices and uncleanness. The distribution of this covenant grant, this environment, brings with it rules that the stewards are to use in governing it. Thus, almost the entire book is legislation, both sacramental and social. It is important to note that the focus of the laws in Leviticus is not simply obedience to God, but rather the maintenance of the grant. The sacrifices, laws of cleansing, sabbath observances, and payments of vows are all designed to prevent God from taking offense and leaving. Thus these “ceremonies” reveal the truth about the “moral” laws found in Exodus and Deuteronomy: The Kingdom is distributed to us as a gift, but if we are to maintain the grant, we must be faithful. Leviticus focusses attention on the maintenance of the Kingdom by confession and cleansing, by continually renewing our appreciation of God’s gift.

Numbers is the book of implementation. In it, we see God apply the sanctions of blessing and curse laid out at the end of Leviticus. God’s people are organized as His army to execute judgment on the Canaanites. When they refuse to do so, God executes judgment on them. After forty years, Israel is once again called to execute judgment, and this time she does so. Judgment entails witness-bearing, and we find both true and false witness in Numbers — the incident of the staffs in chapter 17 is an example, as is the peculiarly extended treatment of Balaam and his witness.

Deuteronomy is the book of succession. Having built His house, God turns it over to stewards. Thus, in Deuteronomy it is not God who speaks, but Moses. Moses reiterates the law, but with changes appropriate to future conditions in the land. He creates a song and a poem for future generations to memorize, to remind them of the covenant. He passes his mantle to Joshua.

This overview gives us a feel for the content of the covenant when organized in a five-fold sequence. Let us now look at the ten commandments — more accurately, the Ten Words — considered as two groups of five, the first five having to do with loving God, and the second with loving one’s neighbor.

The first Word says that God and God alone is to be worshipped. God, the Lord, is alone to be affirmed as transcendent. This affirms the integrity of God, His holiness. Men are to be holy as God is holy. This means that we are to have integrity in ourselves, and respect the integrity of other human beings. Thus we are forbidden to commit murder in the sixth Word, which correlates with the first.

The second Word says that worship may only be conducted in God’s way. In context, this refers to the house God constructed in Exodus for this purpose. No other location or environment would be permitted. The particular thing forbidden was bowing one’s body toward any object made by human hands, and by extension any created thing. Thus, while we find men bowing to other men in the Bible, there is never any ritual of bowing during worship. By refusing to bow, we affirm that God is seated in heaven, while we are physically on the earth. We are present with God in the Spirit, and thus we bow spiritually; that is, we offer the sacrifice of our lips, and it is not wrong to make appropriate bodily motions during prayer. Silent bowing before an object, however, is prohibited. We are Spiritually but not locally present with God in this life.

Thus the second Word requires a liturgical affirmation of God’s transcendence. Liturgy has to do with transition from the old world to the new. It also has to do with our relationship with God. The first Word requires us to affirm God’s transcendence in all of life, and prohibits covenantal idolatry. The second Word requires us to affirm our hierarchical relationship with God, and prohibits liturgical idolatry. Just as the second Word focuses on the God-man relationship, so the seventh Word, prohibiting adultery, focuses on the most important of all human relationships, the first human covenantal relationship established in the Bible (Gen. 2:18-24).

The third Word says that God’s name is to be lifted up in worship and in life with power, not in vanity. Ultimately, the kingdom God had granted to Israel was not the land of Canaan, but incorporation into His body, the church: into His name. They were clothed in His name, and thus were to obey His laws. Not wearing God’s name in vanity is equivalent to not trying to maintain the grant of the Kingdom in a state of sin. God will not hold a man guiltless who wears His name emptily. In other words, the sacrifices that remove guilt, and that thereby sustain the Kingdom, will prove ineffective for those who do not keep the moral law. They will not sustain their judicially guiltless position before God. Thus, obedience in the full sense (i.e., trust-full, faith-full) is necessary to maintain the grant of the Kingdom. The third Word prohibits practical idolatry. Accordingly, the third Word is most relevant to the theme of Leviticus.

The fourth Word enjoins sabbath keeping. The sabbath as the day of the Lord is a time of the implementation of sanctions. It is a day of judgment. Man ceases labor in order to bring his works and his person to God for evaluation. More than this, the sabbath means moving into God’s new kingdom. To refuse to do this, to cling to the past, is what we can call sabbatical idolatry. When the people rejected the promised land, God brought them under sabbath judgments in Numbers.

The fifth Word says that God has turned His kingdom over to subordinate stewards, and that they are to be respected. We have seen that this is highlighted in Deuteronomy. Seeking the kingdom in any way other than through God’s arrangements is a kind of future idolatry.

Thus, the first five Words generally follow the concerns of the covenant in sequence. The same is true of the last five Words.

The first five Words generally follow the concerns of the covenant in sequence. The same is true of the last five Words.

The sixth Word forbids manslaughter. The taking of human life is a prerogative reserved to God and His appointed servant-authorities alone. For man to murder is to seize at God’s transcendence and to abuse the integrity of other men. It is perhaps significant that the prohibition of murder is the only one of the ten Words expressly found in Genesis, as part of the Noahic covenant (Gen. 9:5-6).

The seventh Word forbids adultery. This is because marital order and relationship is the fundamental form of order in the Bible. The order in the Garden was for the husband to teach, feed, and guard his wife. This order was reversed in sin, but is restored as Christ teaches, feeds, and protects His bride. Thus, the overall concept in prohibiting adultery has to do with respect for God and care for the poor. God’s deliverance of His bride from Egyptian “rape” is the theme of Exodus. (Compare the previous exoduses of Abraham from Egypt and Philistia, and of Isaac from Philistia: In each case, the bride was under attack; Gen. 12, 20, 26.) Notice also that it is in Exodus 33 that God tells us that He is jealous when his bride commits adultery.

The relationship between the seventh and second Words is significant and interesting. The Bible very often states that the relationship between God and His people is one of marriage, but this is never ritualized in any kind of sexual fashion. All the pagan religions had ritual sex to show that they were married to their gods. These religions also bowed down to idols, showing that their gods were within their reach. The second Word requires us to affirm the absolute physical transcendence of God and that our relation with Him is wholly in the Spirit and covenantal. The same thing is affirmed in the absence of sex from Biblical liturgy. The requirement of physical monogamy in the seventh Word correlates to the requirement of Spiritual fidelity in the second.

The eighth Word forbids theft. Respect for the property of others clearly connects largely with the third zone of the five-fold covenant structure, because the third area is that of the distributed grant. We have to respect what God has granted to others. Also, disobedience to any part of God’s law is regarded as a trespass or more literally a “debt,” as we see in the Lord’s Prayer. Thus, any lawbreaking is a form of theft, creating indebtedness, which must be covered by a Trespass Offering. Theft has to do with boundaries, which is why it is equivalent to trespass. Leviticus is the book of boundaries, of who is allowed to go where, and of how to become cleansed once you have trespassed.

The ninth Word forbids false witness bearing. As we mentioned above, witness bearing has to do with the application of sanctions, and thus is associated with the fourth zone of the covenant. The fourth Word, concerning the sabbath and thus worship, concerns bearing true witness about God. This is highlighted in Numbers. Ten of the spies brought back false witness of the land. Balaam was commissioned by Balak to curse Israel with false witness. The people repeatedly bore false witness about God, and were judged for it.

The tenth Word forbids coveting. The man who is covetous will tend to act to disinherit his neighbor, and prevent his succession from continuance. In a wide sense, this is a major theme of Deuteronomy. Moses stresses over and over that God had given Israel a good land, plenty good enough for all of them. They would be the envy of other nations. They were not to covet other nations, but be content with what God had given them. At the national level, covetousness leads to war, and Deuteronomy greatly restricts war. (Judges 18 records an instance of this, when the Danites rejected what God had given them, coveted another land, and conquered it.) Moses stresses that if they come to covet the things that the gods of the other nations have given their people, they will forsake the Lord and worship those gods, hoping to get the same “blessings.” If they do this, the Lord will cast them out of the land. Thus, covetousness is strongly associated with the idea of succession and inheritance, and with the concerns of Deuteronomy.

Conclusion

We can pull together what our study has provided and summarize the five-fold shape of the covenant as follows:

1. Initiation, announcement, transcendence, life and death, covenantal idolatry.

2. Restructuring, order, hierarchy, protection of the bride, liturgical idolatry.

3. Distribution of a grant, incorporation, property, law in general as maintenance of the grant, practical idolatry.

4. Implementation, blessings and curses, witnesses, worship time, sabbath judgments, sabbatical idolatry.

5. Succession, artistic enhancements, respect for stewards, covetousness, future idolatry.

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Thus far we have spoken of only three phases in the history of the one covenant. We must now divide the third phase into two parts. We can begin by looking at human life. Human beings do not die and become fully mature in glory while they are in their prime as adults. Rather, at some point human beings begin to lose their strength; they begin to die in preparation for their final death and transformation into glory. Sometimes this death begins with some kind of mid-life crisis. With women it is associated with menopause. When men it is associated with the loss of power and the realization that they will not accomplish everything they had hoped to accomplish when they were young.

This is when human beings start to become elders. Their kingly wisdom matures into prophecy, the ability to speak life-changing words. Their hair turns white, and white hair is glory (Revelation 1:14). Thus, at the very time human beings begin to lose their kingly power and ability to act, they increase in their God-like glory and power to speak.

We can see this in Israel’s history. When we look at the Kingdom period, we see that it started in kingly glory. Then it split, and then each kingdom became weaker and weaker as well as more and more sinful. It is as the kingly power of Israel diminishes that the prophets emerge in the Remnant period. There is still a kingly aspect, but the more mature prophetic phase of the covenant is becoming more and more important. The kingdom of God is maturing into eldership. Then comes the death of Israel, in the exile. After this, the Jews are no longer kings. They no longer have a nation of their own. They can no longer act. They are spread out into the nations as prophets. The Oikumenical age is an age exclusively of prophecy.

This small history of Israel is a type, a small pattern, of the history of humanity. We have moved from the priestly Old Creation to the kingly New Creation, but our kingship consists of words. It is a prophetic kind of kingship, and as history moves along the Church will become more and more mature as a prophetic host. Finally, after the day of judgment, the Church will be fully mature. There will not just be a new Israel, but a wholly transformed creation.

This is the pattern not only of human life and of Biblical history, but also the pattern of the history of the New Creation. We are only 2000 years into the New Creation, but already we can see the pattern in the history of the Western Church. The Church began with a priestly emphasis: worship and doctrine were paramount in the early church. With Constantine, we begin to enter a kingly phase. In the late Roman empire and early middle ages, not only were their Christian kings, but the Church also had power in society; the Church ruled in a kingly way. In the later middle ages and in the Renaissance, both the Christian kings and the Church began to weaken and become corrupt. Prophetic movements arose, like the teaching friars and the Hussites, culminating in the Protestant Reformation. With the Reformation, the unified Church in the West died and was resurrected. For a brief time, the Reformation and the Counter-reformation continued to exercise some degree of kingly power and there were Christian rulers. But since that time, the Church in the West has been exclusively prophetic. Power was lost, but proclamation remained. As the prophetic time in Israel degenerated into Pharisaism and Sadducceeism, so has the Church today. A new cycle is beginning, one the embraces far more of humanity that the earlier Western cycle did.

Let us draw together what we have learned. There is one covenant in three large phases. These phases of maturation in history reflect in time the eternal maturation of the Son by the work of the Spirit. These three phases can be characterized as:

1. Priestly, childhood

2. Kingly, adulthood

3a. Historical prophetic, eldership

3b. Full prophetic, resurrection in glory

These 3-4 phases of the one covenant cover all of human history, and they also cover the full course of the normal human life (that is, for people who do not die prematurely). These 3-4 phases also cover smaller periods of history at various levels, as God’s Spirit causes humanity to mature through expanding cycles.

We can now begin to become a bit more familiar with some of these smaller cycles, as they are presented to us in the Bible. Let us begin with the last four covenants of the Old Creation. The first is the Sinaitic Covenant, which set up the priesthood and gave the Law, and which extended to the time of Saul and David. The second is the Kingdom Covenant, which extended to the destruction of the kingdom of Judah under Nebuchadnezzar. The third is the Prophetic Covenant, which was inaugurated by Elijah and Elisha. This was a prophetic time toward the end of the kingdom time, before the death and resurrection of Israel. The prophets proclaimed the coming end of the old world, and provided visions of the world to come after the judgment on Judah and Israel. Then came the fourth, the Oikumenical Covenant, which is described in Ezekiel 40-48 symbolically, and which was fully inaugurated through the prophet Zechariah in Zechariah 1-6. This is the fourth phase, after the death and resurrection of the people.

We can also see these four phases in earlier history, though not associated so closely with particular covenantal eras. Adam was created to be a priest in the Garden. He was exiled into the Land, though he and his true sons remained essentially priests, offering worship to God. Cain went out and built a city, and thereby became the first king, though a false one. Toward the end of this period, the prophet Enoch began to prophesy judgment in the larger World as the sons of Seth began to marry the daughters of Cain. (Jude 14-15). Then after the death and resurrection of the world, Noah came as a prophet to set up the new world (Genesis 9:25-27).

We have looked at two progressions, and in each of them we have seen this sequence of important locations:

1. Garden-sanctuary | Pre-fall Adam | Sinaitic

2. Land | Post-fall Adam; Cain | Kingdom

3. Old World | Sethites | Prophetic

4. New World | Noah | Oikumenical

The age of the patriarchs also moves through these four phases. Abraham is essentially a priest, building altars and leading those around him in the worship of God. With Abraham we are in the sanctuary. Isaac failed in his task, so Jacob became the king, the man of action, who ruled flocks and sons, and who suffered for them. With Jacob we are in the land. Joseph, of course, is the prophet, and with Joseph we move into the wider old world. But it is Moses who, after the judgment and resurrection of the Hebrews, becomes the fully mature prophet and brings us into a new world after the destruction of the old.

We could look at the biographies of each of these men and see how he moved from priestly servant to kingly man of action to prophet in his old age. This is most obvious with Jacob, who served, ruled, and finally prophesied. In death, each man moved into a new world.

In a larger way, the whole Adamic period is priestly, down to Noah. God gives the right to exercise capital punishment to mankind through Noah, and thus we enter a larger kingly period. With the age of the Patriarchs, we come to a larger prophetic period, during which old worlds are condemned (starting with Babel, for Abraham is called in the context of the scattering of Babel) and a new world is awaited. This whole period is located in the priestly Garden-sanctuary in an important sense: There is no holy land, let alone a holy world. There are only holy sanctuaries. (Note Genesis 4:26; 8:20; 9:20ff.; and the tower [sanctuary] of Babel. Abraham and the patriarchs live in the land, but it was not yet theirs.)

With Moses, the new world arrives as a new creation, with Israel as a nation at its heart. Israel as a nation, and as a land for that nation, comes into being after the destruction of the old world of Egypt, and which starts a new cycle within the nation of Israel: priestly (Sinaitic), kingly (Kingdom), prophetic (Prophetic), and full prophetic (Oikumenical). This whole cycle takes place with a holy land at its center, but there is as yet no holy world.

In the first cycle (Adam, Noah, Patriarchs), there was one third or prophetic era. In this new cycle in the land, there are two: the Prophetic era in the latter part of the Kingdom era, and the Oikumenical prophetic era. We can see this division anticipated in the first cycle when, after the rebellion of Ham, Noah sets up the tents of Shem, so that the Shemites were like kingdom prophets before the call of Abraham.

Now notice that just as the patriarchs were sent from Babel-Ur to live in the land during their prophetic era without possessing it, so now in the second cycle Israel is sent from fallen Jerusalem into the empire, into the world, though without yet possessing it. The patriarchs had sanctuaries within the land they did not yet possess, and in the Oikumenical era Israel has a land within the world that they did not yet possess. The patriarchs ministered in the land as Israel was sent to minister in the world of the empires. God’s people finally possess the world as its true rulers with the coming of the New Creation.

The period from Adam to the end of the Oikumenical era covers the whole of Biblical history, with the New Creation beginning some 40 years before the end of the Old Creation in ad 70. This Old Creation history is marked by the seven covenantal periods we have been describing: Adamic, Noahic, Patriarchal, Sinaitic, Kingdom, Prophetic, and Oikumenical. These are explicit covenantal periods, not mere “covenantal phases of maturation.” They are marked out by events that start the new era.

In each case there is a transition through death into resurrection, a passage from darkness to greater light, an evening before a new day. This is how God’s Spirit acted in Genesis 1, and it is the same way He acts in Bible history.

Adam, the created son of God, fell into sin and was restored, but sin increased until judgment came in the Flood. Then God established the more glorious Noahic Covenant.

Noah’s son fell into sin, but there was restoration through the Shemites. All the same, sin increased until judgment came at Babel. Then God set up the more glorious Patriarchal Covenant, with greater promises.

Isaac, son of Abram, sinned and was restored. But sin increased until the people became idolaters in Egypt (Joshua 24:14) and full judgment came in the exodus and wilderness. Then God set up the more glorious Sinaitic Covenant.

The sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu sinned, but the priesthood was restored. Sin increased through the period of the judges until God tore up the Tabernacle and destroyed the house of Eli (1 Samuel 1-4). Then God set up the more glorious Kingdom Covenant.

David and then his sons sinned, but David and his house were restored. Sin increased during the Kingdom period until a great judgment came on northern Israel in the days of Ahab. At that time God established the Prophetic Covenant through Elijah and Elisha, with greater promises.

Sin continued to increase in a double way. The kings of Judah became worse and worse, and also the prophets began to become false prophets. Judgment came fully at the exile. Then God set up the more glorious Oikumenical Covenant.

The Oikumenical Covenant, of witness to the nations, failed early on when Mordecai disobeyed the king God had put over him and counseled Esther to conceal her Jewishness. But God restored the Jews. Still sin continued to increase until full judgment came with Jesus and the Apostolic Church, culminating in ad 70. This was the last event in the establishment of the New Creation, the fullness of the New Covenant.

We can begin with the phrase “prophet, priest, and king.” This is the order normally heard from preachers and theologians. But it is not really the Biblical order. The age of priests ran from Moses to Saul, the age of kings from Saul to the end of the Kingdom, and the age of prophets from Elijah to Jesus. If we believe in any kind of development and maturation of the kingdom of God in history, we shall have to admit that king is more than priest, and prophet more than king. Since, however, the prophetic function is associated with predicting the future, it has often been abstracted from its historical context and placed at the beginning. At the same time, as we shall see below, the prophet does come at the beginning as well as at the end, to close one period and begin a new one, so that usual ordering of these terms is not so much erroneous as incomplete.

The Larger Catechism produced by the Westminster Assembly in England in the 1640s, and used by Presbyterian churches and some others, follows the order “prophet, priest, king.” Let us look at what it says about them.

Q. 43: How does Christ execute the office of a prophet? Christ executes the office of a prophet, in his revealing to the church, in all ages, by his Spirit and word, in diverse ways of administration, the whole will of God, in all things concerning their edification and salvation.

Now, as a matter of fact, these things are not unique to prophecy at all. According to Malachi 2:7, “The lips of a priest should preserve knowledge; And they should seek the teaching from his mouth; For he is the messenger of Yahweh of armies.”

This statement seems pretty definitive: What a priest is includes, by definition, bringing messages from God. As we shall see, that is not all that a priest does, but what is clear is that the catechism definition of “prophet” does not go far enough. Moreover, the wisdom literature associated with King Solomon is also revelation of the Word of God. Jesus reveals the Word of God, thus, as priest, king, and prophet. Hence, the catechism fails to tell us what is distinctive about Jesus’ work as a prophet. As we shall see, what is distinctive about the prophet is that he is a member of God’s privy council, and it is as such that he brings the decisions of the council to the people.

Q. 44: How does Christ execute the office of a priest? Christ executes the office of a priest, in his once offering himself a sacrifice without spot to God, to be a reconciliation for the sins of his people; and in making continual intercession for them.

There are two problems here. First of all, the answer seems to equate being a priest with being a sacrifice, but a more careful reading clarifies that it is as a priest that Christ offers Himself. In Leviticus, there are three parties in every offering: the worshiper (“son of Israel”), the priest (“son of Aaron”), and the animal “(son of the herd”). According to Hebrews 9:11-14, Jesus work as great high priest includes His self-offering for our sins, but being a priest is more than that, as we shall see.

It is correct to say that part of the calling of the priest is to die for others, to be a sacrifice. Israel as a nation of priests was under the laws of uncleanness (symbolic death), and thus was living under death so that the nations might live; and this calling is pointed in the Aaronic priesthood and ultimately focussed in Jesus Christ, the great high priest. But it is also true that the king is called to die. Jesus died for us as priest and as king, so that we might become priests and kings. As the book of Hebrews makes clear, He dies as Melchizedekal priest-king, not as Aaronic priest only.

Second, intercession is not the peculiar duty of priests either, though it is one of his duties. In fact, Genesis 20:7, which is the first time in the Bible that the word prophet is used, defines a prophet as the intercessor: Abraham “is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live.” Certainly it is true that the men who are priests do offer prayers of intercession, but it seems that this function is more that of the prophet than of the priest. The prophet is not merely a servant, but a member of the Divine Council, and so bringing petitions before the Council is much more a prophetic than a priestly task. The catechism answer seems to transfer one of the special properties of the prophet to the priest. Indeed, in 1 Kings 8 we see King Solomon offer a long intercessory prayer on behalf of the nation, as the nation’s representative. Thus, intercession is not the unique quality of priesthood.

The priest is a servant, specifically a palace servant. This is how he differs from king and prophet. We shall take this up more fully below.

The catechism’s discussion of kingship is also problematic:

Q. 45: How does Christ execute the office of a king? Christ executes the office of a king, in calling out of the world a people to himself, and giving them officers, laws, and censures, by which he visibly governs them; in bestowing saving grace upon his elect, rewarding their obedience, and correcting them for their sins, preserving and supporting them under all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel.

Since ruling or governing is a distinctive quality of kingship, the catechism’s answer seems adequate. But there is an important aspect of kingship that is completely missing from this long list, and that is that the king must die. Jesus was acclaimed king when He arrived in Jerusalem. He was put on trial as a king. He was crowned king, with thorns, and given a royal robe. Then He was executed with a sign over His head that said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.” Jesus did not die only as priest, but also as king, for as the greater Melchizedek He was and is both priest and king. His first throne was the cross.

The fact that the king is called upon to give up his glory and “die” for others is overlooked in this set of answers, because of the notion that sacrificial death is associated only with priesthood. This is a significant error, which we must see if we are to begin to understand the Biblical teachings regarding life and history.

While we think usually of priest and king as two aspects of our lives or as working side-by-side in God’s kingdom as officers of church and state, it is also true that priest comes before king in the Bible. At Mt. Sinai, Aaron was made High Priest, but we do not get a king (a “High Judge”) until we get to Saul. Thereafter, we have priest and king together over the Kingdom: ox and lion, Jachin and Boaz.

What is a priest? Peter Leithart in his book The Priesthood of the Plebs has shown that a priest is a royal or palace servant. Notice how Hebrews 3:1-5 associates the Mosaic priesthood with being a servant of God’s palace:

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things that were to be spoken later.　.　. .

Leithart shows that to define “priest” as president of sacrificial worship, or as mediator, or as sanctuary guard, does not do full justice to the usage of the Hebrew word kohen (priest) in the Bible. Only the notion of housekeeping, of serving a king in his palace, is both broad enough and specific enough to account for the duties and characteristics of a priest. And, since the tabernacle and Temple, as palaces of Yahweh, were symbols of the people-house of God’s worshippers, the priest is a servant of God within that religious community. In fact, the Biblical office of priest is virtually identical to that of pastor or minister in the New Covenant church: He teaches God’s Word, supervises religious meals, and organizes/disciplines the people for worship.

Servant is the key word here. The priest as such has very simple jobs: He inspects the animal brought for sacrifice; he helps the layman offer it; he inspects for leprosy; he does certain rituals in the palace of God; etc. All of these are simple tasks and involve nothing but sheer obedience. The priest judges between right and wrong, between lawful and unlawful, between clean and unclean, between holy and common. Is the sheep blemished or not? This a simple matter to detrmine. At the time the priesthood was set up, at Sinai, the Law was given, and again, when we think of law, we think of obedience, of right and wrong. It is simple: You either obey or your don’t.

What a priest teaches is what God has told him. The priestly literature in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers consists of pure dictation from God.

Jesus is not only priest but king. He is Melchizedekal priest-king. Thus, He is not merely a servant in the house, but the Son-king over the house. He does not rule the house as priest, but as king. And He does not die as a priestly servant but as a house-ruling king.

A king has a different and far more mature task. When we get to the Kingdom era, we get wisdom literature. Wisdom concerns not simple questions of right and wrong, but questions of what is wise and what is unwise in any given situation, new situations not specifically covered by the Law. More than this, the king must usually decide not between right and wrong, but between two evils. He must choose the lesser of two evils. Think of a commander in the field. He may have to send one platoon of men to its death in order to draw fire from the enemy, so that another platoon can circle around and destroy the enemy. That is not an easy decision to make. It is kingly, not priestly. An example of such kingly wisdom is seen when Solomon must decide between the claims of the two harlots in 1 Kings 3.

The king is not going to have such wisdom unless he learns the Law first. Wisdom builds on law, and king builds on priest. There must be a “priestly phase” of our lives, during which we learn wisdom through obedience and struggle, before we enter a “kingly phase” and have wisdom to give to others. As should be obvious, this is very similar to the relationship between childhood and maturity. As children, we obey. As adults, we have to make hard decisions. Bread is for priests and for children, while wine is for kings and adults. Leviticus 10 forbids the priests to drink while they carry out their tasks, and priests never sit during their tasks, but kings are repeatedly shown drinking wine while they rest enthroned.

If a priest is an obedient servant, and a king is a wise ruler, then a prophet is something beyond this. In the Bible, a prophet is one of God’s chief counselors, whom God consults before He acts (Amos 3:7; 7:1-6; Genesis 20:7; 18:16-33). The prophet is the mature image of God, now woven into God’s fellowship as a junior partner in His Council.

Becoming prophets is a third phase of our lives, our eldership, when we have not only acquired wisdom, but have tested our wisdom through years of being “kings” and now have acquired the ability to pass on both law and wisdom to others, those coming after us. This is because we are mature enough to know how to pray, how to advise God; and thus, we are mature enough to advise others also.

Moreover, when we look at the prophetic literature, we see that a prophet is someone who by his words alone tears down an old world and creates a new one. His words cause people to think in new ways. He does not merely repeat what has been said before, or apply the old ways into new situations. He provides a new vision, a vision encompassing death and resurrection. Once a true prophet has spoken, no one can continue to think in the old comfortable way any longer. His words cause turmoil, but they also provide a vision of something better, and the righteous begin to think and act in new ways as a result.

Thus, the distinctive quality of a priest is obedient service. The distinctive quality of a king is wise rule. And the distinctive quality of a prophet is mediation and transformation, carrying prayer-petitions to the Council and reporting back the decisions of the Council.

Each is associated with passing judgment. The priest passes judgment according to the rules of the law: supervising the killing of animals and distinguishing clean and unclean. The king passes judgment according to wisdom, in the wider sphere of national life. But judgment is preeminently associated with the prophet, who brings judgment upon the whole culture, thereby ending one period of history and initiating the next.

The prophet as judge and advisor explains why the prophet is not only the culmination of one phase of life and history, but also the initiator of the next. Moses comes as great prophet to tear down old Egypt and to set up the history of Israel, when then runs through priestly, kingly, and prophetic phases. Jesus comes as the climax of the prophetic phase, tearing down the old Adamic world and instituting the next (and final) cycle of history. The first prophet was God Himself, who set up first three phases: Adam (priestly), Cain (kingly), Sons of God (prophetic). The culmination of the third phase was Noah, who prophesied before the Flood, and then initiated the next phase of history: Abraham (priestly), Jacob (kingly), Joseph (prophetic). Moses was the culmination of the third phase, prophesying against Egypt and initiating the next phase of history.

Because the prophet is both a member of the Divine Council and also a world-maker, we can see that the prophet is the most mature, the most Father-like, of the three phases of human life.

We can see the same kind of pattern if we distinguish the youthful prophet from the aged prophet. We see this in the book of Daniel. In Daniel 2, Daniel is able to advise the king, and to prophesy the future, because God explicitly reveals the future to him during a night of prayer. Daniel is a very young man at this time. In Daniel 5, however, the aged Daniel is able to prophesy out of his own lifetime of experiences, without any special explanatory revelation from God. Indeed, the following sequence can easily be observed in Daniel 2-5:

Daniel 2 – Daniel as youthful prophet

Daniel 3 – Daniel’s friends as true priests, who reject false worship

Daniel 4 – Nebuchadnezzar as king

Daniel 5 – Daniel as aged prophet, revealing the end of the old Babylonian age and the beginning of the new Persian age.

The flow from childhood (being under an older prophetic initiator), to priestly service, to kingly rule, to prophetic “divinity” as a member of God’s council, is not only the course of human history as a whole, but also is found in smaller time sequences within history. We could look at each of the Biblical covenantal periods and see in them a general movement from a time of priestly service to a time of kingly action and then to a time of prophetic judgment and reordering.

The same is true in our lives. Not only do we grow from childhood to eldership over the course of our lives, but we pass through this sequence many times in shorter ways. Let us take an example.

1. Initial prophethood. The home computer is invented. This is a new thing, superseding the old: The older typewriter is now dead. You purchase such a computer. You have now entered into this new phase of your own life and activity. The producer of the computer provides you a law-book that tells you how to use this new machine. This is the prophecy uttered by the prophet at the beginning of this new phase of your life. Compare it to the books of Moses.

2. Priesthood. You must obey the book. You must learn how to use the computer. Probably others will help instruct you, and you will be asking them for advice. During this period of time, you are under such tutors and governors, as a “servant” learning how to use the computer.

3. Kingship. Gradually you become able to use the computer yourself. You begin to learn more, by trial and error rather than by consulting authorities. Of course, if you actually disobey the law found in the book, you will not be successful with your computer. Still, because you have internalized the law, you don’t have to consult the book as often, nor do you have to ask advice as often. Also, you gradually become sensitive to what the computer can and cannot do. This is wisdom, the sensitivity to the situation that comes from experience.

4. Prophethood. After much time of using the computer, you become able to instruct others. You become one of the advisors, consulted by other people who have just bought their first computer. Moreover, you can also advise the “god” who made the computer. You can send the company email messages with advice on how to make the computer better. If they are wise, they will take your experience and advice into consideration.

Notice that you don’t cease to be a priest when you become a king. The rule book is still there, and occasionally you have to go back and consult it. The rules still govern how you use the computer, and you’d better not depart from them. Similarly, you don’t cease to be a priest and king when you become a prophet. You still use your own computer, even though you are also advising others how to use theirs, and advising the maker how to make things better in the future.

We can go through the same sequence looking at the activity of baking a cake. The first time you make a bundt cake, you need to open the book and follow the rules very carefully. After a while, you become more kingly in how you make the cake: You begin to experiment a little, trying a bit more of this and a bit less of that, adding a certain spice, etc. Through trial and error, you acquire wisdom about making a bundt cake. Then, when people praise your cake as especially good, you can write down the recipe for them and instruct them in how to make one. You can even write to the publisher of the cookbook with your new ideas.

From these two examples, which could be multiplied billions of times, we can see that the passage from priest to king to prophet is not something distinctively “religious,” but is in fact the essence of human life and growth. We are moving through these phases all the time, not only in small ways, but also in the larger course of our entire lifespan.

This is part of what it means to be an image of God. The image of God passes through these three stages, and the three phases have much to do with the Trinity, as we have seen.

Because of sin, human beings apart from grace are bad priests, bad kings, and bad prophets. As bad priests, they are disobedient and rebellious. As bad priests, they don’t follow the rule book. They buy a computer, plug it in, and then start messing with it. They may learn a few things, but they resent having to obey the book. Also, as bad priests, they are not willing to be learners for a time. They move right away into the trial-and-error phase that should come later, and often blab away their opinions to others, trying to be prophets to them when they have little useful to impart.

As bad kings, they rule poorly. Because they refused to serve, they don’t know how to rule well. Our computer analogy does not help us much here, but the reader need only think of the multitudes of bad kings, owners, and managers that have afflicted human history.

As bad prophets they give bad advice and set in motion evil trends that move history in the wrong direction. We need only think of the many older people who are not elders, but only bitter and self-centered old people.

The meaning of Jesus’ perfect human life is not only that He came to die for our sins, but also that He gives to us His perfect life. He gives it to us not so much as a model, for we do not in fact do the same things Jesus did, but as a type. A type is a deep-pattern impressed into us by the Holy Spirit. We are placed in union with Jesus, and the deep-pattern of His life is given to us. Ultimately, the pattern of Jesus life from childhood to full maturity, from priest to king to prophet, arises from the fact that as Son He is eternally immature, eternally adult, and eternally fully mature. By eating His body and drinking His blood, we are restored and renewed so that we can move properly through these three phases of life.

We can now improve the questions found in the Westminster Catechism.

Q. How does the Spirit work as a priest? The Spirit works as a priest by bringing the Son to us and by bring us to Jesus, in full and joyful submission and obedience to the Father.

Q. How does Jesus do the work of a priest? Jesus does the work of a priest by being fully submissive and obedient to His Father by means of the Spirit, by guarding His Father’s house, and by bringing us through the Spirit to Himself.

Q. How does Jesus work as a king? Jesus works as a king by coming into the world to die for the redemption of His people, and by ruling them in all ways.

Q. How does the Spirit work with the Son in His kingship? The Spirit works with the Son in His kingship as paraclete to keep us close to the Son as co-rulers with Him, and by bringing us with the Son to the Father.

Q. How is the Spirit “the Spirit of prophecy”? The Spirit is the Spirit of prophecy in that He is the glorifier of God, of humanity, and of the world.

Q. How does the Father work as a prophet? The Father works as a prophet by creating and re-creating humanity and the world and by sending His Spirit and His Son into humanity and thereby into the world to glorify them.

Q. How does Jesus work as a prophet? Jesus works as a prophet by joining with His Father in the work of creation and re-creation, and by sending His Spirit into humanity and thereby into the world to complete their glorification.

(Note: The information in this brief essay is expanded in great detail in my book From Bread to Wine, available from Biblical Horizons.)

Good words, but too often cheesy goofy music by John Bacchus Dykes. You may know the tune:

Spooky, spooky, spooky; spooky, spooky, spoooooook.

Spooky, spooky, spoooookeeeey; spooky, spooky, spoooook.

Happyhappyjoyjoy, happyhappyjoy!

Happyhappyjooooyjooooy, happyhappyjoy!

Yep, that’s it. From Haunted House to Merry-go-Round. Yukk.

We can chalk it up as a rule: Any hymn that switches from minor to major in the middle is a BAAAAD piece of music. Dykes does the same cheesy slop with his tune for “I heard the voice of Jesus say” Spooky, spooky….Joyjoyjoyjoyjoy….

You can do this if your name is Anton Bruckner. You can begin your 3rd Symphony with a dramatic minor melody and then end the fourth movement with the same melody in a triumphant major. That’s IF you are Anton Bruckner. Otherwise, don’t try this at home. Dykes, sorry dude, but you’re not Bruckner.

What we want for “Christian, dost thou see them” is the tune Gute Baeume Bringen. It is an excellent, fast, rough tune that fits the words perfectly.

The perfect tune for Bonar’s wonderful “I heard the voice of Jesus say” is Thomas Tallis’s Third Mode Melody. It’s important, though, to take the tune NOT from the Cantus Christi hymnal or from the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal (which changes the words) but from the Episcopal Hymnal 1940 or the Lutheran Service Book & Hymnal 1958. The reason is that the rhythm is irregular and mostly 5/4 time, and that gentle rocking greatly enhances the text.

A note: Tallis wrote Third Mode Melody to be sung fast and “roughly barked” to a common metre version of Psalm 2. Try it out on this:

 1  Why did the Gentiles tumults raise?
         What rage was in their brain?
      Why do the people still contrive
         a thing that is but vain?
 2  The kings and rulers of the earth
         conspire and are all bent
      Against the Lord, and Christ his Son,
         whom he among us sent.
 3  Shall we be bound to them? Say they,
         let all their bonds be broke;
      And of their doctrine and their law
         let us reject the yoke.
 4  But he that in the heav’n doth dwell,
         their doings will deride;
      And make them all as mocking-stocks
         throughout the world do wide.

The song would be much improved if the spacy refrain were omitted. I don’t know if Horatio Spafford actually wrote this refrain in his original poem or if it were added by Philip Bliss in his gooey music, but I do know that if I smoked marijuana I’d love it. It drifts along in a haze that is so far unlike anything God enjoys, as seen in the book of psalms, that is might as well be Hindu.

Happily, two of Spafford’s stanzas are usually omitted:

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord!
Blessèd hope, blessèd rest of my soul!

“No pang shall be mine”? How utterly unlike David in the psalms, who certainly feels pangs and cries out to God.  “The sky, not the grave, is our goal”? This sound like “earth is not my home, I’m bound for heaven” nonsense. No, we are bound for resurrection, as Luther’s great hymns constantly remind us.

Still, the hymn might be salvaged, if it is worth salvaging given how many great hymns are unknown, if the refrain were omitted and the last stanza dropped. “And Lord, haste the day….” What? We want Jesus to FAIL? We want Him to come back soon, having failed to disciple all nations as He said He intended to do? Surely no Christian wants Jesus to fail and be humiliated having been defeated by sin and the devil. We don’t want Him to come back soon. We want Him to conquer the world and disciple all nations!

Now, it is normal and proper for Christians to hope and pray for a reversal of the curse. What the Bible teaches, however, is not that we should hope for history to end but for the kingdom of Jesus to become accepted and evermore manifest in history. It used to be that 1/2 of all children born died in their early years. That is no longer so. Our grief should not make us pray for Jesus to return soon, but to pray for men to repent and the blessings of His kingdom overcome the curses brought by Adam and sinful men. The sentiments in Joy Patterson’s hymn below are what we should pray.

My opinion? Follow the lead of those churches serious about worship hymnody and DROP THIS SONG! And substitute this fine alternative, which can be sung to Sursum Corda:

1. When aimless violence takes those we love,
   When random death strikes childhood’s promise down,
   When wrenching loss becomes our daily bread,
   We know, O God, You leave us not alone.
2. When passing years rob sight and strength and mind
   Yet fail to still a strongly beating heart,
   And grief becomes the fabric of our days,
   Dear Lord, You do not stand from us apart.
3. Our faith may flicker low, and hope grow dim,
   Yet You, O God, are with us in our pain;
   You grieve with us and for us day by day,
   And with us, sharing sorrow, will remain.
4. Because Your Son knew agony and loss,
   Felt desolation, grief and scorn and shame,
   We know You will be with us, come what may,
   Your loving presence near, always the same.
5. Through long, grief-darkened days help us, dear Lord,
   To trust Your grace for courage to endure,
   To rest our souls in Your supporting love,
   And find our hope within Your mercy sure.