Sermon Tone Analysis

Supernatural Intent

Penetrating into Canaan and establishing itself as an independent state didn’t solve the problem of cosmic geography for Israel.

If anything, it sharpened the conflict.

Not only was Israel surrounded by hostile nations and their gods, but there were also pockets of divine resistance from within.

In the last chapter, we saw how the Old Testament presents the messiah by hiding him in plain sight.

The key to God’s plan to restore Eden and redeem humanity was for the messiah, Jesus, to die on the cross and then rise from the dead.

The period of the judges and the monarchy form a tale of military and spiritual struggle.

On the ground, the Israelites were still hamstrung by the presence of the vestiges of the Rephaim/Nephilim who had escaped annihilation in the conquest and by incursions from enemies on the peripheries.

Toward the end of the last chapter I briefly noted , which informed us that the eradication of the Anakim had not been total.

The writer of Joshua noted in that passage that some Anakim were known to live in cities that would later become cities of the Philistines—Israel’s chief enemy during the united monarchy.

Spiritually, these conflicts had high stakes, as they signaled the infiltration of other gods siphoning off Israelite worshipers into their own cults.

Since believing loyalty to Yahweh was foundational to Yahweh’s protection and remaining in the land, the spiritual battle was just as much a threat as the physical one.

Only by becoming a man could God ensure that a human king from the line of David would rule over his people without falling into sin and straying spiritually.

Only if that king died in the place of his people and rose from the dead could God rightly judge sin and provide salvation all at the same time.

Only by the messiah’s death and resurrection would fallen people still have a place in God’s family council, ruling in that renewed Edenic kingdom, as originally planned.

The books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings clearly describe the military conflict.

That’s the one that’s easy to see through modern eyes and with a modern worldview.

But beneath the surface there’s a war of a different nature raging.

We’ll cover a few examples in this chapter.

But think about all that required: Jesus had to somehow make sure the supernatural powers of darkness manipulated men to kill him—without understanding what they were really doing.

As Paul had said to the Corinthians (), if they really knew what the results were going to be, they never would have crucified the Lord.

HOLY GROUND

The life and ministry of Jesus may make more sense when viewed against that backdrop.

It’s easy for readers of the New Testament, for instance, to get the impression that Jesus’ ministry leading up to the cross was somewhat random.

After all, the Gospels don’t always present the same episodes—for example, the birth of Jesus is found in only two of them (Matthew and Luke), and only one mentions the wise men ().

Sometimes scenes appear in a slightly different order in different gospels.

But those acts of Jesus recorded in the Gospels leading up to the crucifixion—healing the sick, preaching about the kingdom of God, forgiving sinners, confronting hypocrisy‌—were more than the random acts of a traveling wise man who occasionally did miraculous things.

There’s more going on in the gospel stories than meets the eye.

There’s an important subtext to what Jesus was doing.

When Moses was told to construct the tabernacle and its equipment, the Bible tells us that God revealed a pattern for doing so (“And you will erect the tabernacle according to its plan, which you have been shown on the mountain”—).

Earlier, in chapter 22, we discussed how the tabernacle description aligned with divine abodes of other gods, namely from Ugarit.

We need to revisit the tabernacle here, since its history prepares us for the more permanent temple—the place where the Name would dwell.

Outwitting Evil

The implication of God having Moses follow a divine pattern is that the tabernacle tent structure on earth was to be a copy of the heavenly tent—as in heaven, so on earth.

The heavenly tent prototype was the heavens themselves, as tells us (“He is the one who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; the one who stretches out the heavens like a veil and spreads them out like a tent to live in”).

In other words, the heavens and earth were conceived of as Yahweh’s true tabernacle or temple.

The earthly dwelling place erected by the Israelites mimicked the grand habitation of the cosmos.

The event that marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry was his baptism.

It was there that God publicly identified Jesus as his Son (), and there that John the Baptist identified him as the one who “takes away the sin of the world” ().

When we read those words from John, we think immediately about the crucifixion.

But John’s disciples weren’t thinking about that.

Frankly, no one was.

When, close to the end of his ministry—over three years after his baptism—Jesus began to speak of his death, his own disciples rejected the idea (; ).

The last thing they expected to hear from their Lord was that he was going to die soon.

That was crazy talk.

They didn’t understand Jesus’ death on the cross had been the plan from the beginning.

Why didn’t they?

Because, as we discussed in the previous chapter, the plan wasn’t presented in the Old Testament with open clarity.

The tabernacle was not only the abode of Yahweh; it was also his throne room.

Yahweh sits above the circle of the earth, in his heavenly tent, on his throne above the waters that are above “the firmament,” and rests his feet on the earth (“Thus says the Lord: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool’ ”— esv).3

The ark of the covenant was there, the sacred object associated with Yahweh’s presence—his Name.

After Jesus’ baptism, he was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to confront Satan (; ; ).

That the Devil came to tempt Jesus tells us Satan knew who Jesus was—he was the messiah on a mission to re-install God’s “home rule” on earth.

After all, the “anointed one” (messiah) would be a king in the line of David.

Satan, the “ruler of this world” (), understood Jesus would set his sights on Satan’s dominion‌—the nations God had cast aside at the Tower of Babel before creating Israel (; ).

The tabernacle traveled with Israel during the entire journey to the promised land.

Once Israel penetrated the land, the ark of the covenant (and therefore the tabernacle structure) was situated at Bethel (), a name that means “house of God.”

You know Bethel by now.

It was the place where Jacob had his encounter with Yahweh and the angels of his council atop the “ladder” (i.e., a ziggurat; ).

It was the place where the “angels of God” appeared to him again when he was fleeing from Esau, his brother (32:1–5).

It was the place where Jacob built an altar and a pillar to commemorate the appearance of the visible Yahweh (31:13; cf.

35:1–7).

Most of us recall the scene between Jesus and Satan.

Satan tempted Jesus three times ().

Satan’s third strategy for getting Jesus to violate his relationship with God was to offer the Son of God the nations of the world (), the very thing he presumed Jesus had come to reclaim:

Sometime later the tabernacle moved from Bethel to Shiloh.

Once that move occurred, it was said that the “house of God” was Shiloh (; ; ).

The Old Testament indicates that Shiloh became the place of sacrifice (; ).

At Shiloh we see the boy Samuel encounter the physicalized Yahweh, the Word ().

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ()

Eli the priest later foolishly sent the ark of the covenant out to battle, and it fell into the hands of the Philistines, who took it to Ashdod and installed it in the temple of their god, Dagon.

In a fascinating (and funny) incident of cosmic geography, Yahweh’s presence destroyed the statue of Dagon.

describes the reaction of the Philistine priests: “Therefore the priests of Dagon and all who come into the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod until this very day.”

This threshold was now Yahweh’s geography—they dared not walk on it.

Satan’s proposal was a clever altering of God’s plan.

It would produce the result God desired—retrieval of the nations he had disinherited from being his people.

Mission accomplished.

All Jesus had to do was worship Satan instead of God.

Eventually the ark was brought to Jerusalem.

At first, David placed it in a temporary tent he had made for it (; ), under the assumption that he was going to build a temple for it.

Satan’s offer reveals that he hadn’t yet realized God’s plan required Jesus’ death.

Jesus didn’t tip him off, either.

He didn’t explain his refusal.

He simply told Satan to get lost.

God would take back what was his when and how he wanted.

The mission of Jesus wasn’t just about ruling all the nations.

It was about rebuilding a family.

Including in that family people from all nations, not just Israel, meant that sin must be atoned for.

As he’d originally planned, God’s rule would involve his children.

The cross was essential to redeeming humanity and therefore to putting God’s plan into place.

Jesus wasn’t going to be tricked—but the Devil would be, in due time.

Like the tabernacle, the temple contains striking imagery associated with Eden.

Eden was a lush garden and a holy mountain.

The tabernacle’s tent enclosure contained furnishings and decorations that evoked Edenic imagery.9

All of these motifs—tent, mountain, garden—come together in the temple, the fixed place where Yahweh was considered to dwell and order the earth and the heavens with his council.

A Taste of Eden

THE TEMPLE AS COSMIC TENT DWELLING

Immediately after the temptation in the desert, Jesus did two things: called his first disciples (Peter, Andrew, James, and John) and healed a demon-possessed man (; ).

Both the calling of disciples and healing continued, forming the beginning of a pattern.

As he called more disciples, he gave them power to cast out demons and heal people of every disease, handicap, and condition ().