The New Creation: A Theology of Mercy

Tim's first is a repeat of his first at TV a few months back. His second is new stuff. Tim's Power Point slides with notes (script) are available from j.l.preterist@gmail.com

Enjoy

JL

Hey Guys,

First of all, thanks Tami for forgiving Mr. Wagner and Mr. Robbins for crashing your speaker dinner :-) I told them I was invited but they insisted on tagging along :-)

I also just want to say something publicly here about Mr. Burley. Ed you are an incredibly kind human being. I love you brother not because of anything you have ever written here or anywhere else but because I know God has done an incredible work in your life. You are a living testament as a father and a man after God's own heart.

All the speakers were inspiring and very honest and sincere. John and Rene, it was nice getting to meet you and your niece. Ward, Tim King, Sharon, thanks for the inspiration. You never know what crazy ideas you have inspired until you see me draw them:-)

Well I'm starting to hear that music where they want you off the stage so be blessed you guys and I look forward to seeing you all again someday soon.

Come on people!!!! A conference titled "A Theology of Mercy" has to be good.

but, where was the kegs, the gossip, the free love, hippie fellowship............ ;-)

Blessings,

Jim Kessler

btw...I would recommend downloading all the messages especially Tim Martin's presentations because (although you can't see it) he has some great artwork that goes along with them :-)(shameless plug)

I was there also and I had a great time. Thanks guys for putting this on in my side of town.
Thanks for the dinner also.

Tony Pomales

I thought that some might like to have a shortened taste of Tim’s and JL’s presentation concerning “The Prophetic Creation”
I have copied an excerpt of some of their presentation here to provide a glimpse of how a covenant and preterist understanding portrays the continuity throughout the scriptures. This also begins to illustrate how the Jews would have been viewing Genesis and the entiriety of scripture and not how moderns are inclined to read it.
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Tim and JL ... “What I will do with the rest of this session is walk you through key points in the first few chapters of Genesis as a demonstration that creation can be read covenantally, rather than literally and biologically. Again, I do believe there are physical events and people which underlie the creation texts, but if the text is prophetic in nature, then it was never intended to communicate chronological, scientific or biological detail.
The problem of a “literal” or scientific reading of creation is evident when we look at the structure of the creation week in Genesis 1. Notice that there are internal parallels within the creation week. Days 1-3 match Days 4-6. The light and darkness of day one corresponds to the Sun, moon and stars of Day 4. The creation of the sky and waters on Day 2 correspond to the creation of birds and fish of Day 5. The creation of land and vegetation on Day 3 corresponds to the creation of animals and man on Day 6. There is a curious repetition going on here which hints that the author is not presenting a chronological, scientific record of God’s creation of the physical universe. The strangeness of that approach is evident in that we have light created three days before the sun, and plants and vegetation created before there is such a thing as sun, moon or stars. Is that the point the writer of Genesis is getting at?
But what if the creation week is prophetic? In that case it would be using images of the physical world to teach about God’s covenant works.

The contemplative reader would learn important redemptive theme at the beginning of the Bible. The creation week is ordered this way to set the pattern of forming and filling. That which God creates, he recreates. That which God forms, he fills. We might say that the parallel is a symbolic model of covenant history to come: Old Covenant, New Covenant.
There is a sense that all covenant history is prophetically bound up in the creation week. Days 1-3 foreshadow the first creation or Old Covenant which came with glory. Days 4-6 foreshadow the New Creation which comes with surpassing glory. Light created in general on Day 1 becomes light in the full glory of the Sun, Moon and Stars on Day 4. The sky above and waters below created in general on Day 2 become the sky teeming with birds and the waters teeming with fish on Day 5. The land created in general on Day 3 becomes filled with creatures, ultimately man, as the crowning accomplishment of God’s handiwork on Day 6. Creation and recreation. Forming and filling. Old Covenant, new Covenant. Then comes Day 7: rest. And there is something very special about Day 7; it has no mention of an evening or morning, signifying God’s eternal rest which believers enter into through Jesus Christ. The Sabbath is prophetic of salvation. Isn’t that what Hebrews 4 tells us?

Even the order of evening and morning is prophetic in the creation week. Have you ever wondered why night comes first, then day in the creation account. It’s about covenant. First comes night, then comes the day. Sound familiar? David Chilton drew the prophetic parallel, without quite realizing the implications, when he wrote: “Relatively speaking, the whole history of the world from Adam’s Fall to Christ’s Ascension was Night; relatively speaking, the whole future of the world is bright Day. This follows the pattern laid down at the creation, in which the heavens and earth move eschatologically from evening to morning, the lesser light being succeeded by the greater light, going from glory to Glory.” Chilton has the night ending at the ascension which is a mistake.

Paul, writing after the ascension, draws a similar connection to the flow of covenant history with the same allusion to night and day first introduced on Day 1: “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. (Rom. 13:11-12 NKJV).”
All Covenant history is represented, prophetically, by the order and symbolism of the creation week in Genesis 1.

There is another sense in which the days of Gen. 1 play a significant role in covenant history. John opens his gospel with an echo of Gen. 1, “In the beginning…” He then speaks about the light of the world and the darkness that was in the world. As Tim King has presented before, John goes on to record a creation week of six days in the ministry of Christ, finally arriving at the marriage at Cana on the seventh day. The implications of John’s creation week in the ministry of Christ are huge. It gives a subtle yet powerful demonstration that God himself, who created the heavens and earth in 6 days, had now come in the flesh. Jesus began his creation of the new heavens and new earth from the beginning of his ministry.
This parallel between the creation week of Genesis 1 and the new creation week of John 1 shows that the days are symbolic. John references literal, 24-hour days, but this creation week is symbolic of the entire work of Christ. No one suggests that Jesus’ work (and the New Heaven and Earth) were completed in one literal week of 24 hour days. The New Covenant was not fully manifested until many years later, in A.D. 70. The creation week in the ministry of Christ is symbolic of a much longer period of time, specifically the 40 years between the ministry and coming of Christ.
So we have good reason to understand that the days in Gen. 1, whatever reference they make to physical creation, are symbolic of a longer period of time, just like creation week in the ministry of Jesus is symbolic of his entire work of redemption.
There may be more ways in which the creation week is prophetic. Have you ever wondered why the sun was not made until Day 4? Well what do the prophets use the sun to reference in prophecy? Remember, think “the prophetic creation.”
Consider Malachi’s prophetic use of the sun: “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall (Mal. 4:2).” The sun is symbolic of the Messiah. That’s why the New Testament opens with an explicit example of the sun as symbolic of the coming of the Messiah, the birth of Jesus Christ: “The rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death.”
Given this association in the prophets we can see, looking backward at creation, why the sun is not created until day 4. The sun is created at the center of the creation week. This is prophetic of the Messiah, who is at the center of all covenant history.
The sun dominates the heavens. When he comes, riding as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, his glory drowns out all the other heavenly bodies. This example shows how the physical world “out there” reflects the covenant world “in here.”
Have you ever gone out on a clear night and looked at the stars above in amazement? Have you ever thought that one night, long ago, God took Abraham out to see those same stars and promised him, “Look up to the heavens and count the stars – if indeed you can count them… So shall your offspring be (Genesis. 15:5). Do you see what Genesis does? It associates the posterity of Abraham with the stars in the heavens. Then we find out that Joseph had a dream where, “the sun and moon and eleven stars” bow down to Joseph. The sun and moon symbolizes his mother and father. The eleven stars refer to the other sons of Israel. Again, the association is the children of Israel, the children of Abraham, to stars. Then we find a promise in Daniel where “those who are wise will shine… like the stars.” This takes use to Paul who says the early Christians, “shine like stars in the universe.” Can you see the Abrahamic Covenant in that? Can you see the prophetic creation?
The sun dominates the heavens with its brightness. The stars, as majestic as they are in the night sky, cannot compete with the glory of the Messiah, ruler of the day, Lord of the Covenant. Yet we are with him in the heavens, reigning and ruling over all God has made. The gospel is reflected in the creation around you every minute of every day of your life. It is God’s prophetic creation.”
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After reading and listening to Tim and JL’s lesson it brought to mind the scriptures in Jeremiah 33 concerning the breaking of the covenant of Day and Night.

19 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 20 "This is what the LORD says: 'If you can break my COVENANT WITH THE DAY AND MY COVENANT WITH THE NIGHT, SO THAT DAY AND NIGHT NO LONGER COME AT THEIR APPOINTED TIME, 21 then my covenant with David my servant—and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me—can be broken and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne.”

It also reinforces the realization that in Revelation we have so many spiritual metaphors taken from Genesis such as the Tree of Life, the Curse, and the replacement of the Heavens and Earth with a new one.

What we may have overlooked in Rev 21 is that not only did the first heavens and earth passed away but also we see that there is no longer any “Sea”. We understand from Rev that John has interpreted the OT scriptures to indicate the “Sea” with a Gentile implication.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and THERE WAS NO LONGER ANY SEA.”

We have seen earlier in Rev the contextual understanding by John of Sea in many different scriptures.

7:2 … He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the LAND AND THE SEA:
10: 5 Then the angel I had seen STANDING ON THE SEA AND ON THE LAND raised his right hand to heaven. 6 And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, WHO CREATED THE HEAVENS AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM, THE EARTH AND ALL THAT IS IN IT, AND THE SEA AND ALL THAT IS IN IT,

20: 13 The SEA GAVE UP THE DEAD that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them

Now we know from Rev 21:1 that the Sea was no longer and thus realize that it’s a covenantal and spiritual designation which ended with the Old Heavens and Earth. We also know from scriptures that usually Heavens and Earth are mentioned together to indicate Israel but there are times when the Sea is also added in. We should realize from Paul that the Gentiles were not part of the covenants of the promise until the mystery was revealed Eph 2 & 3 thus becoming one entity and not a separate one. So the end of the “Sea” appears to have a covenantal application as well and when we see it inserted with the Heavens and Earth we need to look for the spiritual/covenantal meaning that may bring.

Exodus 20: … nor the ALIEN WITHIN YOUR GATES. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM,”

This is just a small exercise to illustrate the ramification of Tim and JL’s prophetic application in recognizing the need to understand how the Jews would have read the scriptures from the beginning to the end.

Blessings

Norm