Barrenness, Conception, Death-Resurrection, and Typology

I first encountered the idea of birth from barrenness as a type of resurrection from death in the thought of Warren Gage as my friends and I reviewed a book of his last year (link). This has been on my mind as our church has been recently blessed with a couple who have adopted a child, two child baptisms, another birth, and another pregnancy. All of this was a motivating factor as to why I wanted to provide a devotional on the birth of Samuel before the men in our church last month.

The above considerations gave me recent reason to revisit Gage's reasoning: Is it birth that is a kind of resurrection from death-barrenness, or is it conception? Or are both types of resurrection?

Prior to conception, a womb is a barren place, unfruitful and devoid of life (Proverbs 30:16, cf. 2 Kings 2:21). Conception normally occurs through natural means but, as with anything else, is ultimately caused by divine ordination. Specifically, God closes and opens wombs throughout Scripture (Genesis 20:18, 29:31, 30:22, 1 Samuel 1:5-6). Sex does not create life ipso facto or ex nihilo; in the case of conception nowadays, neither does God, but the point is that His power ultimately determines when and whether conception can happen (Ruth 4:13).  God Himself purposes to multiply the conception of the woman right after the Fall and protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15-16). Since a conceived child is treated in Scripture as a human life (Exodus 21:23, Job 3:16, Luke 1), this looked to me like conception could be resurrection in contrast to barrenness-death. 

Once I considered that possibility, I continued to think that once life has been created in the womb - once resurrection has occurred by divine power - the conceived child grows within the womb, being formed by God (Psalm 139:13ff., Jeremiah 1:5). That is, following death and resurrection, by the grace of God, comes progress and maturation. Granted that this is a physical conception and development in view, in a typological manner, this now appears to be a death-resurrection-sanctification pattern.

Because life starts and develops within the womb, an infant coming out of the womb is, in a way, like a second birth and, hence, a second resurrection. This makes birth to be like glorification. As we can see in the city pattern - which will make sense since our newborn selves are ready-made analogies to the tabernacle, [new] creation, etc. - there is an exodus from one life to another (Psalm 71:6, Isaiah 46:3-4) in which God delivers us. Our exodus and deliverance from an old world into a new creation is obvious in a physical sense as we exit the womb but also mirrors the spiritual dimension in which our glorification is yet another [kind of] birth (Romans 8:18-25, cf. Psalm 22:9-10, 1 Peter 1:3). Thus, from barrenness to birth, the child experiences a protological life cycle: death-resurrection-maturation-glorification. 

Pattern         Physical/Anthropological      Spiritual/Soteriological

death            - >     barrenness     ->            sin and guilt, death
resurrection  ->     conception     ->    regeneration, first resurrection
maturation   ->        growth         ->        progressive sanctification
glorification ->         birth           ->  glorification, second resurrection

There is more that can be said. As mentioned in my city pattern post:

I find that an implication of this excursus is that Christology, anthopology, ecclesiology, sociology, cosmology, and other -ologies of places and people at least tend to mirror one another from first things to last things, from the protological to eschatological. 

Above, anthropology and soteriology have been compared explicitly. Scriptural allusions to Christology and cosmology have also been made. Just like the themes in the city pattern, these could and should be explored more fully. But while it is on my mind, I wanted to extend how I see the barrenness-conception-womb-birth pattern plays out ecclesiastically.

I think Moses' question is rhetorical when he asks whether he conceived and begat all the Israelites for whom he was responsible; rather, the Lord conceived and begat His people, so Moses cries out for help from the Lord and receives it (Numbers 11:12ff.). [May our church leaders do the same!] As Paul says in an illustration that is pregnant with [pre]natal symbolism, especially in its context of city-building, Paul remarks that neither the planter nor waterer give increase, but only God, for only God has life in Himself  (1 Corinthians 3:6-7, cf. vss. 9-17 and 22, in which death, life, and the new world into which we will be born are all ours). In Christological-ecclesiastical union, the Son of God and the church were protected during as well as after pregnancy (Revelation 12). In short, we see the conception, growth, and birth of God's people over time. 

These narratives don't just describe what does and will continue to happen to the invisible church - the body of true believers whose source of life is in the Head of the members - but also the visible church. While it may be easy to view our circumstances myopically, within our own time and place, over time, God's kingdom has steadily visibly expanded across the globe. The visible church, being comprised of both true and false members, is in an ongoing process of maturation driven by true members (ecclesiology) just as a newly conceived infant in the womb steadily grows and acclimates to its surroundings before being ready to face a new world (anthropology). The same is true of individual believers (soteriology). The earthly realm itself is a womb to which the visible church is acclimating and growing within until we are a developed people. The God who resurrected us by exodus-deliverance from the death-curse of the ground-womb is forming us even now within this womb, readying us for a second resurrection-birth (Genesis 3, Romans 8).

At the same time, we cannot miss that sin has deeply twisted conception itself, a resurrection-life from death-barrenness, into a death-curse (Psalm 51:5, James 1:15), an unhappy and ironic result of our participation in the original sin of Adam (about which my friends and I will soon discuss on this this fascinating book I chose for this month's podcast). Original sin has caused a loss of original righteousness with which Adam was concreated, and therefore his progeny (us) require spiritual rebirth, which only happens as the Spirit unites us to the twice-baptized Christ. The physical twofold pattern of life-deliverances in conception and birth is matched by our twofold resurrection experiences of regeneration and glorification.

Now, I mentioned in the city post that the ebbs and flows in the killing of sin occurs over time, not all at once, both individually and corporately. This is true for the invisible body of believers. How much more true is it in the case of the visible church in which we can find deceitful leaders, unrepentant or false professors, or even corporate bodies whom our judge-elders must ex-communicate or disassociate with, cutting off rotting members to prune the olive tree? Such discipline is both for their judgment (an exodus-curse a la Genesis 3:24) and benefit (that they might see the gravity of their sin and repent). It is also a deliverance to the church whose worship, testimony, and prayerfulness are reborn (e.g. Numbers 21:4-9, 1 Corinthians 5).

Being engrafted into the [visible] church normally leads to life-abidance as one is surrounded by life. In fact, normally one cannot find life except in the visible church. However - and while believers in whom Christ is rooted will not fall away - because of the reality of sin and apostasy, death is able to spread even to the places where God forms His people. Death spreads to all men because all sinned (Romans 5:12), and therefore even infants sometimes tragically die in the secret place of the womb. Instead of ensured maturation, sin has made death where life once was a possibility with which we must deal - in the womb of a mother, the womb of the world, and even the womb of the visible church. Only being found in the Triune family are we ultimately secured unto eternal life. 

Hence, we sometimes see signs of life from those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed before they, like seed in rocky soil, wither against the heat of the Son. These apostates are sad cases - like infants who are stillborn, miscarried, or murdered in the womb - as are those who cause such a one to die (Psalm 58:8, Hosea 9). When we consider the judgment upon those who cause little ones to stumble in sin (Matthew 18:6), we must correspondingly consider those who abort or murder their own children or others and be afraid for them. This correspondence is all the more reason the visible church must be vigilant in opposing false teachings.

Mirror Images: The City as a Biblical Paradigm of Eschatological Escalation

Before our most recent podcast on localism, my friends and I were discussing the theology of location as a lacuna within Reformed theology that could use supplementation or systematic treatment. While writing about that subject seems better suited to some of my friends, it prompted one of them to ask me to put down what was, in nascent form at the time, a few thoughts in which I tried to outline an eschatological escalation of and towards “city.”

To give context to where this thinking stemmed from, as I was learning about localism, which was mentioned in a different book we had recently reviewed, I wanted to make sure that one of my friends who is an advocate for localism and is moving to a more rural area wasn’t becoming a “romantic agrarian.” After all, while the people of God began by being planted in a garden, the people of God end in and as a city (Revelation 21-22). Of course, that begs a whole host of questions such as what a city looks like, but as my friend was level-headed in his answer to my concern, my thoughts trended towards a different direction: what do we read about cities in Scripture?

In Genesis, the first cities explicitly mentioned are cities of men: Cain's city, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Zoar where Lot slept with his daughters. This is not a particularly great start in our understanding of how city life can be good!

The next cities mentioned, however, are patriarchal and convert nations: Ephron (in which peoples blessed Abraham and gifted him with land for a burial site), Nahor (in which kin blessed Abraham and Isaac with the gift of Rebekah), Beersheba (the first city founded by a patriarch – in particular, the son of promise, Isaac – in which Isaac covenanted with Abimelech, had a peace meal with people who had previously persecuted him, and drew water), and Bethel (Jacob's mediatorial ladder). We begin to see major typological and redemptive themes associated with cities.

The next mention of cities returns to those of men: Shechem (in which the Dinah is defiled by a prince and Jacob’s sons literally apply circumcision-death to people with whom they had covenanted; surrounding cities become terrified as Jacob and his sons experience an exodus from Shechem to the house of God in Bethel, cf. Genesis 34:30 and Exodus 5:21) and 3 Edomite cities I don't know much about (Dinhalah, Avith, Pau).

Finally, Pharaoh and his cities (plural) of Egypt convert under the ascension of Joseph, and Israel is blessed and reciprocally blesses Pharaoh.

Genesis events – the patriarchal ones in particular – were later meant to be a template for the Israelites (especially their leaders) to know how to act. Learn from history. Will you be a spiritual city of refuge for the nations or spiritual Babel, Sodom, and Egypt? We now know how that eventually turned out. The same message now applies to visible churches.

With this backdrop in mind, in James B. Jordan's Crisis, Opportunity, and the Christian Future, he writes a chapter about “The Three Fundamental Cultures” that followed the giving of the Decalogue, listed here and described with examples in my own words:

The Age of Tribes – tribal, priestly, period of the judges

The Age of Nations (or Cities) – national, kingly, period of the kings

The Cosmopolitan Age – imperial, prophetic, period of the emperors

Reflection on this chapter, scattered statements he has made elsewhere, and study on my own led me to see an eschatological escalation of the city theme throughout Scripture. The following is an outline of what I have in mind:

In the patriarchal era after which Israel's history was patterned, we first see God scatter the nations at Babel, one of the first cities mentioned in the Bible, because He would not allow a centralization of false worship. Out of this event came the temporary distinction between a nation of priests (Hebrews/Israelites/Jews) and those who were not, an event which catalyzes the cultural periods Jordan alludes to above. The resulting multitude of nations was good, not bad (see this podcast discussion), and these local-cultural distinctions will remain (Revelation 7:9), but conflated with the Babel-event is a judgment which led to exodus.

[...and parenthetically, perhaps this always happens: the first, divine judgments follow divine separations (exoduses?), all of which eschatologically resolve in our experiencing exoduses from darkness and waters of judgment. When does the first exodus occur? Not in the book of Exodus! That isn’t even the first (or second!) exodus from Egypt in particular that we read in Scripture. I think it possible that one can find exoduses as early as Genesis 1, and earlier than Jordan himself proposes: the day/night distinction will resolve on the Day of the Lord, the firmament distinction will resolve in a baptism by fire – just as there was a Noahic baptism by water – as heaven descends upon earth, and the water/land distinction will become land only, as there will be no more sea; Revelation 21:1, 25). Creation itself might be an exodus – it is some kind of ontological change from what could have been, at least. When we become new creations, we have certainly experienced an exodus. This is a bit speculative and tangential on my part, but interesting to consider. One danger to watch out for would be pantheism, as the Creator-creature distinction will always remain. If creation was an exodus in that Creator and creature are separated, it is the only one that doesn't resolve.]

Regardless, there are plenty of exoduses in Genesis – particularly in the patriarchal narratives, which directly follow the Babel narrative – and Israel's history recapitulates these patriarchal events, from which they do not learn many lessons. Besides the example of Jacob in Shechem that I mentioned above: Abraham and Isaac are faithful throughout their exoduses from Egypt, whereas Israel was falsely worshipping (Joshua 24:14) and required salvation from God’s plagues. They are more like Lot’s wife during and after their exodus from Sodom and Gomorrah – barely out of Egypt before crying out against Moses (and, thus, God) that they wish they had never left – than they are like Hagar and Isaac, who wandered in a wilderness and cry out to God for salvation. Abraham and Isaac wandered before the latter, the son of promise, established the first patriarchal city, Beersheba, with its waters of healing and feast of peace between covenanted peoples. Israel wanders like the patriarchs did before finally establishing cities in the promised land to which Gentiles come and convert (prophetically, cf. Exodus 15-18)... before they fall again and again, resulting in the desolation of the tabernacle, 1st temple, and 2nd temple. Etc.

Israel is scattered from Egypt to be priests to the nations, because Egypt became a new Babel. Like Babel, the scattering was again due to the false worship in the city (by both nation-peoples), for which the city was to be judged. Judgment again led to exodus. Furthermore, I think Egypt is the first biblical instance in which we explicitly see a land that has cities (plural) over which one person, pharaoh, ruled. This is kingly, if not imperial (as I might argue), and an escalation in the Babel pattern. History typologically spirals, not exactly repeats. The history in Genesis foreshadows the rest of biblical history, with Israel’s history being next, so the escalating pattern of city judgment, exodus-scattering, and new creation should and does appear in Israel's history. 

There are quite a few examples in Israel's history that are worth mentioning in a more exploratory post on this subject, but the eventual scenario of multiple cities over which a Davidic king rules is perhaps on the same scale as Egypt in one sense, perhaps on a larger scale in another sense (given more distinctive local communities and a wider sphere of influence), and perhaps less in another sense (pharaoh ruled over both priestly and non-priestly peoples). I could include the tabernacle-temple escalation as a microcosmic escalation of what we see playing out geographically. As before, though, syncretism leads to false worship (in both tabernacle and temple, by both priests and kings), Israel becomes a new Babel, judgment led to exodus, and the Israelites are exiled in one sense – and yet, although scattered, God promises to be with them as they continue their priestly ministry among the nations of the Babylonian empire.

During the prophetic period of Daniel et al., the Jews eventually return to rebuild the temple at the behest of emperor Cyrus, a king who disarms other kings (Isaiah 45:1, Ezra 6). Israel’s history reaches an escalated climax in proportion to the climax of the patriarchal narratives in Genesis. Their sphere of influence is pervasive in the biblical oikouménē until they reject the true King of the cosmos, Yahweh, in Acts. Jesus came as the Cosmic Man, recapitulating the events of the patriarchs and Israel as the true Israel and Son of God, antitype of these types. He passed the wilderness wanderings (it seems to me He wanders throughout most of the gospels), eventually establishing Himself as the City of Refuge, the resurrected third and true Temple-City, Head of the new body-politic of believers in which Jews and Gentiles were finally one house. Jerusalem became Babel when they rejected this City for their own, judgment led to exodus, and believers in Christ were scattered among the nations, a true priestly people and truly adopted sons of the Spirit. Now on an escalated, world-wide scale, this will lead to peoples from all nations converting.

The escalating pattern of scattering should and does appear in church history, since we are united with Him. The cherubim firmament-guarders of the sanctuaries (Eden, Sinai, tabernacle, temple, heaven) have been succeeded by the church, since while we were in infancy under angelic tutors, we are now united with Christ who has been exalted above them. The flaming sword and duty of the cherubim have been passed to the church. The church appeals to God’s word-Word to mediate the new covenant, guarding His sanctuary from within (excommunication) as well as at the gates (sacrament), a priestly firmament in which people are cut off or cut in, so to speak.

So when, like the leaders of Israel, the visible church compromises its power to bind and loose, the visible manifestation of God’s kingdom on earth ebbs until it flows; the difference between Israel and the church, I think, is that in our case, the power of Christ will flow through the Spirit to we who are truly united with Him. It isn’t a matter of if (cf. discussion of Daniel 2 below). I recall that Jordan somewhere mentions the tabernacle is emblematic of a man, with its innermost regions (most holy place), stomach (holy place), and feet (pillars) – or something like that. Just as individually, we experience our own exodus from sin and ebbs and flows as we escalate in sanctification towards being glorified temple-bodies of the Holy Spirit, corporately, we see the same in the church. 

[As an aside, this means that I disagree with Jordan’s view of the relation between good works and final justification, his view of the conditional perseverance of those united to Christ, etc. Like Jordan, I do believe ecclesiology, anthropology, and soteriology are tied together (a point to which I will return below). But not all Israel is of Israel, and not all the church is of the Church. I think that the visible-invisible church distinction is sufficient to explain visible ebbs in the manifestation of God’s kingdom. It just takes time for Christ's true body to fully mature in worship and practice, cutting off infectious sources (false members), just as it takes a man time to mature in worship and practice, cutting off sin.]

The next time a kingdom is shaken and a death-resurrection and exodus scattering event occurs, it will be the last, and on a cosmic scale, a crescendo in the escalation in geographic manifestation of God’s king-domain on earth as in heaven – heaven on earth. God’s enemies rather than His people will be finally scattered; in fact, His people will assemble together. Judgment will lead to death, resurrection, and exodus one last time, with true worship being established forever in the resolving of creation judgments alluded to earlier.

Returning to Jordan's "Three Fundamental Cultures": remembering that this pattern was meant to depict a time after the giving of the Law (Israelite history), and given that Israelite history is particularly patterned after patriarchal history, the principle of city judgment, exodus-scattering, and new creation, may not capture but does also apply, for example, to Cain's prediluvian city. Cities which have forsaken God will always be judged, and the remnant of God's people (if such there be) will experience exodus from the city. In Noah's time, the whole earth became the city of man, and judgment led to exodus, this time with Noah being replanted, as it were, as a new Adam in a garden-city, commanded to be fruitful and multiply. This leads me to consider the ark of Noah as a city of refuge, with the ark's door as the gate of entrance. From reading I've done in the past, I am convinced it was a protological temple and microcosm of the universe. Antitypically, Christ is our Temple-City now, our Ark-Gate-Door, the Cosmic Man in whom we will survive the coming baptism by fire and be planted in the eschatological garden-city of Revelation 21-22. There is more to Peter's description of the Noahic flood as the end of an epoch that will be matched by the baptism by fire to come than meets the eye (2 Peter 3).

Now, one of my friends on the podcast pointed out that Eden was to become the glorified city of Revelation 21-22 (compare the tree and river imagery in both settings, for example). Thus, the garden is a prototypical city. I recalled that was to happen by Adam's adornment of it with jewels from Havilah - the eschatological end on Adam wasn't somewhere "out there," although he was called to engage in the public domain to glorify the sanctuary. Eden is the first city. When Adam sinned, judgment led to exodus, and humanity was scattered across the face of the earth, awaiting the new creation through the second Adam, whose work tore the temple veil and enabled return access to the sanctuary-city that true churches now enjoy fellowship with in worship.

What is true macrocosmically is true microcosmically: we are called trees in Scripture. Upon conversion, we become temple-houses of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of a sanctifying process of killing sin that ends in city-glorification: adorned, bejeweled, and given robes of glory in being united with Christ. Our eschatological end isn't some "out-of-body" spirit a la gnosticism, although our sanctification of our individual (and corporate) sanctuary-bodies is likewise not [only] found by inward reflection or contemplation but by working out our salvation with fear and trembling in the real world. And as we engage in the real world, different people bring back different jewels with which to adorn the temple: localism and distinctiveness of nation-peoples is preserved even as we are all united in the sanctuary. As the land of Eden was to be adorned – as was the later tabernacle and temple – with gold (etc.), the heavenly Jerusalem will be adorned with us. 

One final picture of this I will present here is the mountain theme. Mountains are constantly depicted as places of God’s presence: His city in which He is enthroned. Eden, Sinai, Zion, and so forth. Mountains are also temples, locations of sacrifice; hence, altars were miniature mountains. We, as living sacrifices, come to the true Mount Zion, the city of the living God (Hebrews 12:22). United to Christ, we are also mountains, living stones built upon the Chief Cornerstone of the Rock of Christ, the builder of His house-church. So when Daniel 2 mentions an uncut stone that grows to become a great mountain and smashes the false body-politic/temple/idolatrous worship – true worship[pers] triumphs over false worsip[pers] – it simultaneously pictures the city-people-worship of God as simultaneously growing to encompass the whole cosmos, scattering God's enemies to establish His kingdom and throne (cf. various parables like the mustard seed, which grows to become a tree of refuge to the nations-birds).

I find that an implication of this excursus is that Christology, anthopology, ecclesiology, sociology, cosmology, and other -ologies of places and people at least tend to mirror one another from first things to last things, from the protological to eschatological. Actions of God and man – soteriological ones, yes, but also pre-redemptive historical actions such as doxology, liturgy, faith, obedience, etc. – are the means by which this glorification from first to last takes place. And, I suppose, Trinitarianism is at root. After all, the chief end of man is the glory-exaltation of God.

There's clearly a lot more than could be fleshed out here, but I leave it to the reader's consideration for now.