MOUNTAIN OF METAPHORS

  Each episode in scripture is packed with either the gospel or rebellion, the reason for the gospel. Adam found grace when God put a coat of skin on him, Noah found grace that was perhaps that same coat of skin that ancient writers identified as the “grace” he found.

  Soon after, Abraham found grace and it was imparted to him with the Covenant with God. He found grace because He found the true God amongst a pantheon of Gods in Ur.

  Moses too found grace, but not only him but Joshua. Wherever Moses was Joshua was there but was operating quietly behind the scenes. Just as Genesis chapters one through three are chocked full of grace as in the gospels, so is Genesis chapters 8-12 and Exodus chapter thirty-three. Today, the focus is on the latter.

  Moses pitched a tent a distance away from the camp of “stiff-necked” people (Exod 33:5). No, it was not their necks that were stiff, but they were literally “hard” people (Strong’s Dictionary). They were as hard — as hard wood! Of course, that means that they were stubborn and unmalleable, but God had a plan to unharden and remold them.

  As such, Moses erected a tabernacle some distance from the hard heads… heads in that their minds needed remolding. The mind and the cranium are of extreme importance in scripture.

  God originally breathed life unto the nostrils of Adam; He literally breathed hard unto Adam (ibid), and nostrils are assumed. Either directly into the cranium or via the nostrils is not so important, but recognition that God breathed unto Adam’s mind. Calvary (calvariae in the Latin) is cranium in the English. It was there that Jesus breathed life unto Adam’s kind — “the Place of the Skull” — by giving up His Holy Ghost.

  Imagine the middle of the Garden. I believe the middle of that Garden is the present site of Jerusalem, as many ancient Jewish writers revealed. In the middle of that Garden was one Tree on a hill, and perhaps another special tree in the valley below. Either that represents the Jesus Tree (grace and the Cross) and the Judas Tree (works and the broken cross as the limb failed him) or is the very place that “Good Friday” occurred in the beginning.

  There were two trees were in the midst of the Garden (Gen 2:9). They were surrounded by other trees. Those trees may have shadowed the living souls that would soon come from multiplication. Trees have what? Canopies. In other words, the Garden was also metaphoric — a Garden of Living Souls.

  What did Moses do in the wilderness? He planted a Garden of God!

  The first “Tree” that was planted was at Mt. Horeb — “the Mountain of God.” Moses would find water on Mount Horeb. God would provide the water but Moses acted as if he was God and he struck the rock to make it flow. The water there is symbolic of the Holy Ghost and water and blood of Jesus, and Moses comparative to Longinus, the centurion who pierced the side of Jesus to flow the water from his side.

  Note that both Moses and Longinus soon saw just who God is and who He is not! The water gushing from Jesus, and surely both water and blood on his flesh, would baptize Longinus with the Holy Ghost!

  Now back to Moses and his “Garden of Living Souls.” He took the hard people and planted them around the Tabernacle. There they pitched their tents facing the Tabernacle of God where they could see Him as a cloud during the day and a fire at dusk and beyond. They always faced west.

  Moses, under the direction of God “reproduced” the Garden of Eden. The Tabernacle was the Tent of God, symbolic of the Canopy of the Tree of Life, and the tents of the people the “canopies” of the hard wood trees of the Garden.

  The “Garden” would not be in Jerusalem but wherever God is. “Church” was in the Garden of Eden with canopy worship, and it failed because of improper worship.

  With Moses, “Church” was wherever God was and He would lead them to the Cross in the Promise Land. That type of worship is the same as for the Christian Church; “For where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mat 8:20).

  God was content with the Garden, but Adam’s kind failed Him because they had to go where God was. With Moses, God went with His people: Where any of them were gathered in His Name, there He would be in the midst of them.

  We have missed something in scripture — wherever Moses was there too was Joshua. Moses was noble, vocal, and the focus of attention. The Hebrews looked more to Moses than to God. They also believed in Moses (“Water”) more than Yahweh.

  Perhaps the Campbellite doctrine of water baptism as soterial is more Moses worship than the Name of God!  Perhaps their true God is Poseidon, the god of water, and their age, the Age of Aquarius (Water). Indeed, many fundamentalist Campbellites put water baptism above the baptism of the Holy Ghost (the one baptism; Ephes 4:5), and by that blaspheme the Holy Ghost (Mark 3:29).

  Now let’s examine Joshua, the son of Nun. He had already been filled with the Spirit. He had found grace along with Moses.

  Just as Moses means “Water,” Nun means “Fish.” Joshua was not the son of Water, but of Fish. Moses would represent the Age of Aquarius and Joshua the Age of Pisces. The Christian era is the Age of Pisces as Jesus was born at the dawning of the Age of the Fish. In other words, Moses represents works of the water as he was saved by that work when his sister put him in a basket in the water.

  Joshua is the seed of the Fish just as Jesus would be much later.

  Now remember what Jesus said, ““For where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them” from above. Now look Tabernacle worship:

¹¹ And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. ¹² And Moses said unto the Lord, “See, thou sayest unto me, ‘Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me.’ Yet thou hast said, ‘I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.’” (Exod 33:11-12)

  The focus there is not on Moses but Joshua who remained with God in the Tabernacle. He was always there with God. Joshua remained with the Holy Spirit of God who appeared as a cloud.

 That brings to mind the unity between Jesus and the Spirit of His Father when Jesus was baptized: John the Baptist said, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” (John 1:33). That Joshua remained with the Holy Spirit of God is not just a way to fill space but means something; perhaps that Joshua who had found grace was “baptized” by the Holy Spirit. It was a foreshadowing of things to come.

  In Hebrew Joshua is “Yehowshwa’” which means Yehovah Yasha’  — “Yahweh saves.” Not by coincidence, the Name “Jesus” means “Ya(weh) saves.”  

  Moses knew that wherever people gathered in His Name, there He would be! “God With Us” (Emmanuel) is called “Jesus” — Yehovah Yashi’.

  Right there in the Tabernacle was the “Shadow” of God and His “Persona” (Joshua). They were gathered in the Name of Jesus looking at the Tree of Life with the Shadow (Cloud) on His “throne” (the Mercy Seat) with “Jesus” at His right hand!

  You may have missed it, but they were having Church and that is the same Garden that is in Paradise to this day. When Jesus (Yehova Yashi’) ascended, “He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19).

  Not only was Tabernacle a picture of God on His throne in heaven with His Son with Him but was a picture of Garden worship, with the Tree of Life (Jesus) in the midst and the hard trees surrounding, under their canopies, or tree-like tents.

  And the symbolism goes even further. Moses was planting a “Tree” in that metaphorical “Garden” and also the symbol of the Holy Cross. Tabernacle worship strongly resembled the activities on Calvary to a tee!

  There were “trees” on Calvary (Acts 5:30; the Cross) and Gehenna (Mat 27:5; Judas’s hanging tree). Also, there were two other “trees” with Jesus: the “Dismus” Tree and the “Gestus Tree,” representing the repentant thief’s and the unrepentant’s, respectively.

  Dismus (“Sunset”) means looking West toward the evening and his name came true because as the sun was setting that day he was with the Holy Ghost of Jesus in Paradise. Gestas (or Testas) would mean “observer.” Those two figures very well could be antitypes of Moses and Joshua.

  Moses was the observer who would not make it to “Paradise” in that day, and Joshua would be the Name who would make it to Paradise in that day; day being age.

  What was missing from Tabernacle worship? Not much, for the ram, representing Satan in Judas, would be slaughtered and burned that day as the sacrifice right there in their midst!

  And the stiff-necked people? Where were they on the day that Jesus died? He was surrounded by them and even his apostles were stiff-necked that day. They stood as still as the hardwood trees in the Garden when Lucifer became the center of worship with the “Serpent” in him. He was the “Judas” in the beginning, and there is nothing new under the sun as Solomon would say.

  Even in heaven there will be a multitude gathered around the throne with Jesus right there with God. The Tree of Life remains standing to this day and will for eternity on the River of God in Paradise in Heaven, to wit: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev 2:7).

  Paradise worship will be Garden worship, Tabernacle Worship, and Jesus worship. They are all the same, with the people standing around facing west toward God with God in the midst of them!

 

(picture credit: stockphoto.com; "Two Trees")