And the Tombs were Opened

Matthew’s disregard for chronology in his brief mention of the saints resurrected along with Jesus is baffling until we discern his use of literary architecture.

The “covenantal” patterning of the texts of the Bible describes processes of transformation. Each instance is an act of world building (or sometimes un-building) so it is also architectural in nature. This means that when we read any passage of Scripture, the covenantal-architectural arrangement of that text is a part of the message.¹For more discussion, see Michael Bull, Reading the Bible in 3D. It not only follows a chain of authority from Word to Sacrament to Government, but it allows the author to allude to other instances of the pattern without saying a single word.

Since these patterns are one of the inspired authors’ tools of communication, they expect us to discern what is the same and what is different in each particular structure. Like leaves on a tree, the same pattern can be traced beneath its face, yet each is also unique. The writers also expect us to note their careful placement of certain objects and people within this ubiquitous structure, since their locations give them an allusory “spin.”

Once you know all the notes and are able to recognize the repeated tune in its varied guises, the resulting familiarity is a kind of “learned synesthesia.” You are not only enabled to perceive what the author is saying through his use of the pattern, but also when he deliberately messes with it or inverts a step to make a point.

OVERVIEW

Sometimes the shape is the actual key to the passage. A prime example is Matthew 27:50-56. To fully understand his meticulous fractal composition, the reader must be on Matthew’s wavelength, or perhaps the wavelength of the sevenfold world building Spirit of God who inspired him.

The pericope is heptamerous (sevenfold) and follows the pattern that governs the Creation Week, the Tabernacle furnishings, Israel’s annual festal calendar, the process of sacrifice, and the pattern of all of God’s legal covenants (see the chart here). Once the pattern is discerned in the text as a whole, Matthew’s literary agenda becomes apparent with all the force of recognition one experiences with a “magic eye” puzzle. The veil is removed and the observer finds himself standing inside a literary “temple” that Matthew has constructed. Confronted with the incomparable beauty of Christ as the ultimate craftsman, suddenly God is with us, and the immanence of the Almighty in the testimony of Jesus as the culmination of all biblical history takes one’s breath away.

Take a few minutes to read the chart through as an expression of each thread of the matrix: the dominion pattern, the Festal Year, the Tabernacle, the Creation Week, and covenant history.

ANALYSIS

TRANSCENDENCE
Initiation (Sabbath) – Creation – Genesis

• The passage starts with the Word, ironically the last word of Jesus, as the initiator or “prime mover.”
• Jesus is then placed as the “veil of flesh” in line 2 (Hebrews 10:20).
• His cry corresponds to the opening of the Word on the mountain, most importantly the giving of the Law on Sinai, the opening of the scroll in Revelation 5, and the opening of the books in Revelation 20. It is also seen in the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts.
• The “voice” is thus related to the voice that brought death to 3,000 at the first Pentecost and life to 3,000 at the last. Jesus’ death under the Law and His subsequent ascension led to the pouring out of the Spirit.
• In line 6, Jesus, as Joshua, ironically becomes salvation in His yielding. That is because He yielded to the Father and not to men.
• Line 7 gives us an allusion to the creation of Adam, and also a veiled prediction of the Spirit that would bring both Pentecost and holocaust to first century Israel. Shekinah had been among them, and would be again.

HIERARCHY
Delegation (Passover) – Division – Exodus

• Just as the establishment of the firmament represented a division that covered the face of heaven from the face of the waters on the earth, so the division of the veil reunited heaven and earth. There was no access to the throne of God without the shedding of blood as a near bringing, and all of the types were now being fulfilled in the High Priest who became the veil that we might pass through it.
• The placement of the temple at Ascension (on the mountain) prefigures its demise. The chiastic pattern of the ministry of Christ and the Church puts the veil at Passover and AD70 at Atonement. The first was a sign of the latter. The great city would be split into “three parts” (the Triune Office revoked, Revelation 16:19) and the entire mountain—as a “high place” of idolatry—would be thrown into the Gentile “sea” (Mark 11:23), rendering Israel “common” among the nations once more.
• “The top” is positioned in the stanza to align with the Golden Altar of Incense, the government of heaven. “The bottom” aligns with the Laver and the Priesthood and its continual sacrifices.
• The removal of the enmity between Jew and Gentile via the cross, making of the two “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) is the ultimate result of this tearing apart of the old kingdom order, and is thus positioned at Succession/Booths.

ETHICS: Priesthood
Presentation (Firstfruits) – Ascension – Leviticus

• Stanza 3 brings us that which fulfils the Levitical priesthood: a resurrection from the land that makes the old inheritance obsolete. Like the tearing of the veil, the splitting of the land as the four-cornered Bronze Altar (like the altar of Jeroboam) would end the offerings of blood. In this sense, the blood of the martyrs would later correspond to the blood carried into the Tabernacle and daubed upon the horns of the Altar of Incense, a memorial that “filled up” or multiplied the sufferings of Christ as a testimony across the empire.
• Some dismiss this event as a mere fancy, but it proves Jesus’ statement that the seed that falls into the ground and dies does not remain alone (John 12:24). Jesus was bound that we might be loosed. Jesus yielded up His breath and a “firstfruits” of believers immediately received it. He exhaled and they inhaled. This was Pentecost in miniature. The first act of binding the strong man was accomplished. The plundering of his vessels by an even mightier king had begun (Mark 3:27).
• These saints—like all those previously resurrected in biblical history—served as a sign of events to come and would die again. But the “first resurrection” (around AD66) and the “second resurrection” (at the end of history). There are three resurrections, corresponding to the Garden, the Land, and the World, the theoscape established in Genesis and represented in the three levels of sacred architecture. Jesus was condemned in the House of the High Priest (Garden), then in the court of Herod (Land) and finally in the court of Pilate (World). Paul’s ministry followed the same threefold pattern, culminating in his desire to testify in the courts of Rome. This architectural “outflow” also eliminates the confusion surrounding Paul’s statement concerning the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:23-24.

But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, [Garden]
then at his coming those who belong to Christ. [Land]
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. [World]

• The placement of the “bodies” at the center of the stanza reminds us of the bodies that fell in the wilderness in the book of Numbers (Numbers 14:29; Hebrews 3:17), also referred to as “the body of Moses,” since Israel was baptised into Moses (1 Corinthians 10:2; Jude 9:9), but also corresponds to the body of Christ in the tomb before His resurrection. The lesson is that every resurrection is “corporate” in both a personal and, well, corporate sense. A biblical baptism is thus a full body baptism like those of the Levite priests, a death rather than an anointing for service, which is a different rite with a different purpose.

ETHICS: Kingdom – Purification (Pentecost) – Testing – Numbers

• Identifying the Kingdom stanza answers many questions. The first apparent anomaly is the timing of the earthquake and the appearance of these resurrected saints. The background is revealed in the literary structure. Adam was created in the Land and lifted up as priestly Firstfruits into the Garden-Sanctuary. His faithful testimony against the serpent would qualify him for kingdom. Likewise, the Levites had no inheritance in the Land since as the priestly contingent of God’s “firstborn” nation, their role concerned the ministry of the Sanctuary. The Levites were also taken as representatives of the firstborn of Israel (Numbers 3:12, 45) since the Sanctuary—even today—is the domain of legal representatives, not the place for the fruit of the womb. This also hints at the possibility that in the resurrection those who died as infants will be fully grown when glorified. So in the priestly stanza these saints emerged from their tombs when Jesus died, representing “living sacrifices” upon the Bronze Altar. After three days, they were “lifted up” into the holy city, the “civic sanctuary” of the oikoumene, as a testimony like the fragrant bread and wine upon the Golden Table within the tent. This explains the inclusion of frankincense in the list of ingredients for the showbread (Leviticus 24:5-9). It is a precursor to—a firstfruits promise of—the actual “resurrection” represented by the Incense Altar. Since this final testament of the Bible is bookended by the witness of two Johns, both Levites, perhaps some of these saints were in the number of the final contingent or martyrs slain within the city just before the Roman siege began. The rejection of their miraculous testimony sealed the fate of the once holy city.²For more discussion, see “Sin City” in Michael Bull, Moses and the Revelation: Why the End of the World is not in Your Future. A preview of the book is available here.

ETHICS: Prophecy – Transformation (Trumpets) – Maturity – Deuteronomy

• AD68 was the fifth year of the seven years of vengeance, and it brought the death of Nero and the shaking of the Gentile empire.³See the chronology on pages 201-205 of Moses and the Revelation: Why the End of the World is not in Your Future.
• Notice that the centurion, as leader of a “host” (a Day 5 symbol) is described as a cherubim guarding over Jesus like an armed priest of the Tabernacle. This signifies that there were two earthquakes—two witnesses—one at Jesus’ death and the other at His resurrection. At the first one, Jesus was a dead man and the soldiers’ eyes were opened. At the second, Jesus was alive and the soldiers’ fear caused them to become as dead men (Matthew 28:4). The Deuteronomy step in a sequence often concerns a “dual witness.”
• This stanza ends with Jesus as the first true Adam, an elohim who submitted to heaven to receive dominion upon the earth.

OATH/SANCTIONS – Vindication (Coverings) – Conquest – Joshua

• The Atonement/Day 6 stanza gathers the bride—in type—from across the empire, as a new holy city. Perhaps, after the fear of the Gentiles in the Deuteronomy stanza, there is also an allusion to the testimony and faith of Rahab in Jericho. Just as her city would be “circumcised” and devoted as an “ascension” (whole burnt offering) by Israel, so also Jerusalem would be circumcised by a Roman trench and devoted entirely to God as a firstfruits of the world.
• Related to this is the placement of “from afar off” at ascension. The women picture a new Israel gathering to worship, possibly singing the Psalms of Ascent, following the High Priest into the Holy of Holies that was now open to the faithful, regardless of station. As Luke repeatedly tells us in the book of Acts, “both men and women” were now baptized for office. The reason for this is that the serpent had finally been crushed and the Sanctuary was safe.
• Matthew’s alignment of Galilee with the Laver is brilliant, and also alludes to the repeated connection between brides and wells throughout the Bible as a symbol of fertility.
• A terrifying outcome of the rejection of the testimony of Jesus, and the city becoming the harlot of Numbers 5, is that this “ascension” from Galilee to Jerusalem was not only a reenactment of the ministry of Jesus, but also also replayed by General Titus in his campaign against Judea. The Jews who claimed that they had no king but Caesar would be given up to what they desired.

SUCCESSION – Representation (Booths) – Glorification – Judges

• This wonderful pericope ends with a multiplication of the Seed of the Woman in a contingent of faithful mothers and sons. Matthew’s careful placement of each word into the architectural pattern explains his unusual word order.
• The number of women named Mary speaks of a bitter, barren spring made sweet and fruitful. That is why Naomi desired to be called Mara (‘bitter,’ Exodus 15:23; Ruth 1:20). It also alludes to Elisha’s healing of the spring in Jericho that was causing miscarriages and the subsequent cutting off of the children in idolatrous Bethel (2 Kings 2:19-25).
• Mary Magdalene is mentioned twelve times in the Gospels, more than most of the apostles, a woman from the “tower” by the sea, an authority among the believing women.
• The placement of Mary and James (or Jacob) alludes to the fruitful earth and its firstfruits. Joseph is located at the center as the fruitful king whose fruitful son Ephraim replaced Levi in Numbers 2. The lifting up of a sacrificial firstfruits to the House of God never leaves the house of the worshiper lacking.
• The two mothers are located at the Deuteronomy step, another double witness, this time bridal in nature. The same is seen in the structure of Luke 1, where the testimonies of the fragrant Elizabeth and Mary are the two silver Trumpets.
• The passage ends with a reference to sons as a gift of God, highlighting the sacrifice of the Son who was cut off without any earthly offspring. As a Levitical offering, Jesus’ kingdom authority was not from this world, but from heaven.

If you are new to this method of interpretation, please visit the Welcome page for some help to get you up to speed.