The Architecture of Salvation

Salvation is obviously a process, but the Bible fails to spell it out with enough clarity to avoid controversy. If we have eyes to see, however, it is indeed explained—in the Scriptures that we tend to avoid.

Calvinist, Arminian, and Roman Catholic theological camps have each proposed an ordo salutis, an “order of salvation” that describes the steps of the process through which God saves sinners. These theories agree in some respects but differ greatly in others. The problem is that they begin the process of deduction at the end of the Bible rather than at the beginning.

Certainly, the New Testament revelation gives its readers far more clarity on core subjects that include salvation and the eternal state, but it does so in such a scattershot way. Attempting to systematize what is going on in the narratives and epistles is a lot like making sense of the instincts and habits of a creature based on numerous but brief glimpses of it in the wild. Of course, all Christians have their own experiences of the work of God in their lives, however, our understanding of that work as the objects of God’s grace is not only circumscribed by our limited awareness of unseen things but also coloured by our inherited or chosen theological schools and their traditions.

Surely God could have given us a more systematic text, at least on the important issues that cause such controversy and schism? So much of His Word seems to be taken up with arcane lists, detailed stipulations, unpronounceable genealogies and extravagantly poetic descriptions of judgment. To many, these texts are an apparent waste of ink and paper and time, attractive only to theologians with a bent similar to biologists who revel in the classification and cataloguing of the many thousands of species of beetle that God also created. Is Yahweh Himself on the spectrum?

The answer, like most things in the Bible, is hidden in plain sight. Not only that but it is systematic to such a miraculous degree that it would floor the world’s top biblical scholars if the bandwidth of their narrow minds could be upgraded to perceive and receive the repeated signal. The same sequence is stamped—typed—into everything in the Bible and everything in the world. That might explain why we are so blind to it. This signal is, of course, the Bible Matrix, but in relation to salvation it is the ubiquitous pattern as it is stamped into sacred architecture and the rite of sacrifice.

Paul tells the saints that they are to be “living sacrifices,” yet it never dawns on us to regard the fussy particulars in Exodus and Leviticus to our own lives. Israelites understood the parallel and avoided eating the hip joint of an animal in honour of their father Jacob (Genesis 32:32). We judge them as illiterate primitives, yet they perceived God’s manner of communicating and would regard us as illiterate in a more dangerous way. We can read the symbols on a page but not the inexhaustible myriad of symbols in the world. Like Job, we need God to point out the significance of all the things we have already seen, to interpret the world for us. Once our eyes are opened, the answers we seek are all around us, but especially in the Bible.

The beloved apostle reveals that God the Son tabernacled among us (John 1:14). English translations tell us that He “dwelled” or “pitched His tent” among us, which is a comforting thought regarding the incarnation but fails to deal with the fact that the Tabernacle that God had pitched at the center of Israel’s tents was (like the arrangement of the tribes themselves around it) a supersized cross.¹For more discussion, see Jacob’s Ziggurat. “Emmanuel” (God with us) entails a holy mountain, blood and fire and smoke, a thunderous voice that humbles and empowers His people, and confuses, enrages, and ultimately cuts off His enemies. The four horsemen of John’s apocalypse are the work of the Gospel in the world via the indwelling Spirit of Christ, the Shekinah finally dwelling in human tabernacles as it had in the tent of Moses and the temple of Solomon. Our failure to assemble (let alone agree upon) an ordo salutis is due, firstly, to our failures—and rebellions—in the sphere of biblical typology.

So, how does sacred architecture inform our understanding of salvation? We might begin with the fact that all creation is based upon the “word and response” pattern inherent in everything that God does. He spoke and constructed the physical world (Genesis 1). At the culmination of that process, He spoke and constructed the social world according to the same pattern (Genesis 2).² See Covenant Structure in Genesis 2. Adam was then called not only to name that which was good but also that which was evil, based upon the revealed Word. Once qualified as God’s legal representative, a mediator between heaven and earth (a priest-king), Adam would continue to speak and construct the social world according to the pattern revealed to him. This order is repeated in the revelations to Moses and David, Ezekiel and John, of “edifices” that God desires to be constructed on earth. But in each case, the first “tabernacle” was an individual man. The failure of Adam to become a human cosmos—all creation represented “in him”—resulted in “the judgment of this world.” Like Aaron, he was intended to be glorified with representatives of the animal, vegetable, and mineral features of the earth, a “holy mixture” that was forbidden to common men. Instead, he was “slain” as a beast through substitutionary atonement at the foot of the mountain (Hebrews 12:20). But even that rite was carried out according to the pattern built into all creation. Because Adam failed to be a living sacrifice, the “near bringing” (that is the meaning of the word “sacrifice,” since it enables man to draw near to God in restored fellowship) was abstracted from the house as a separate rite. That which was intended to be internal to Man (the peaceful arbitration of the Spirit) was made external. Because he had failed to examine his own heart, he would witness his own death “in type” as an act of death and resurrection.

To be “cut to the heart” was understood in the relentless cutting of animals to satisfy the holy Creator. Indeed, the ascension offering in Leviticus 1 is a recapitulation of Genesis 1 carried out in blood and guts. Between the created order and this gruesome “microcosm” of the world scribbled on the earth in spattered blood is the Man—the image of God—being taught to read his own heart through external symbols. In this manner, the law was “written on flesh” in image first, and then, in actual men. As Abel removed the heart and the lungs of the firstborn of his flock every year before his death, his own priestly heart was cut before God and the Lord breathed upon him the kingly Spirit of wisdom and understanding. In contrast, his brother Cain, the actual king, came to despise this brutal “Word” and over time he allowed it to harden his heart.

The Creation of the world, the qualification of Adam, and the rite of sacrifice, share a single heptamerous pattern, the same “sentence” written in the cosmos (physical house), in man (social household), and in blood (ethical hearth). The same pattern is found in the first seven books of the Bible (the heptateuch) and it shows a gradual process that culminates not in the creation of Man but in the glorification of Man. In other words, God built a chariot-house and set it in motion with the intention of handing the keys to a faithful servant. Adam’s failure in the Garden is thus akin to Israel’s failures in the Land: an unwillingness to see—to judge—things as God sees them.

Creation as Heptateuch

Genesis 2 “zooms in” on Adam and the mountain of God. Cultus always precedes culture, priesthood before kingdom, submission to heaven before dominion on earth. Lifted up as a “firstfruits” from the dust of the Land to the Garden Sanctuary, Adam underwent the same process that the entire earth just went through, a “heptateuch” (seven books) of forming and filling, seven scrolls—or rather seven seals broken on a single scroll. The world was an eye on the universe and Adam was its pupil.

Moreover, just as the lights in the sky now governed the days, seasons, and years, the qualification of Adam—as the firstfruits of the Land—prefigures the annual harvests (as described in Leviticus 23) in liturgical form.

Adam as Creation

To give you an idea not only of the beauty of God’s Word but also how seriously He takes this concept of a man as a “tabernacle,” here is the same pattern found in Genesis 2:7—the “Exodus” step of the process, where the text “zooms in” on Adam to an even greater degree. Here we must add the elements of the Tabernacle—which was a microcosmic legal representative of the entire world—to each step of the process.

Adam as Tabernacle

Now, notice the correspondence between the Man (Day 6, the Day of Coverings) and the book of Joshua. The name Joshua is the Hebrew name from which “Jesus” is derived. It means “salvation.” Salvation means “preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss.” That is what Adam was intended to be. Keeping the garden meant guarding the Sanctuary. That is what the Levite priests were commissioned to do. It was their spears that pierced any “Day 6” animal or man who dared to approach God’s dwelling without the appropriate “near bringing.” Of course, rather than being salvation, Adam required salvation. He was under the sword of God for the purpose of constructing Eve, but he was intended to defeat the serpent and bear that sword on God’s behalf as a human elohim—a “god”—that is, a judge who served as the Word or voice of God incarnate. The process carried out in carnal terms in Genesis 2:7 was to shape Adam’s “creation” in spiritual terms. First the natural, then the supernatural.³For more discussion, see “The Spirit of Adam” in Michael Bull, Inquiétude: Essays for a People without Eyes. Of course, this “forming and filling” duality is seen to be perverted in Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, and Egypt and Israel later in the book of Genesis, and then in the first Adam and the last (Jesus).

But, by birth, Abel was initially as “natural” as Cain, and Jacob (who is called in the Hebrew “blameless” not “quiet” in Genesis 25:27) as “natural” as Esau. What made the difference? Each man’s response to the Word of God. Both Cain and Abel brought offerings. Both Esau and Jacob were circumcised in the flesh. It was the hearing of the Word—both spoken by the fathers and enacted in the sacrificial rites, that was intended to circumcise the heart. Later, in the Tabernacle, it was the entire cosmos that was destroyed and recreated by proxy in this rite. The Tabernacle was comprised of elements from the Creation, but it was cruciform, the shape of a Man.

Sacrifice as Tabernacle

The process of offering an “ascension” (fulfilled in Jesus’ ascension into the glory-cloud of God) saw flesh transformed into fragrant smoke by fire. That is the nature of every trial in the Christian life, just as it was for Adam. The process was undertaken to enlarge Adam in order to bestow upon him greater authority. Of course, Jesus now has all authority, yet He stated that His disciples would do even greater works on earth than He did.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

This statement must be understood sacrificially. Jesus would ascend as the Firstfruits and the holy fire of the Spirit would descend upon the saints to purify and enlighten them (Pentecost). The subsequent apostolic testimony (Trumpets) led to the destruction of the Temple (Atonement) and the vindication of the Jew-Gentile Church in its mission to all nations (Booths). This was a national recapitulation (culture) of the personal ministry of Jesus (cultus). The act of Atonement by Jesus on the cross became the Passover of a greater pattern. The first culminated in the tearing of the Temple veil. That led ultimately to the tearing down of the entire Temple. Just as Cain and Abel brought their offerings at the “end of days,” so also the blood of Abel would be avenged in the last days of the Old Covenant era, ending animal sacrifice forever.

The Last Days

Just as Cain and Abel brought their offerings at the “end of days,” so also the blood of Abel would be avenged in the last days of the Old Covenant era, ending animal sacrifice forever. But also note that this process ended with the enthronement of the saints as “gods.” That is described in Revelation 20. Those who followed Jesus as living sacrifices and died or were martyred rose from the dead after the last trumpet. This call was most likely the testimony of John, “a son of thunder.”

The same pattern can be observed in the pattern of biblical history, and here we can see that Jesus’ death (as the Division step) fulfilled the circumcision.

World History

All of human history is thus the process of external law becoming internal, with the perfect sacrifice of Christ at the center of the pattern as its thesis.

But notice the position of baptism in the pattern. It corresponds to the book of Joshua, and to Jesus, as the Man with the sword in His hand. Finally, we are able to discern the biblical pattern of salvation, both personally and culturally. The new covenant sign is not a carnal, involuntary Division but a voluntary vow of service for Conquest as a priest-king (or queen).

The Order of Conversion

The Order of Salvation

From this pattern, we can zoom in on baptism itself, just as we zoomed in on the creation of Adam, and see the heptamerous sign of death and resurrection in immersion as the annihilation of the natural (life from the womb) and the raising of the supernatural (life from the tomb) as a “new creation.” The pattern is apparent in the response of the 3,000 Jews who were saved at the last Pentecost (a “supernatural” recapitulation of the 3,000 who slain at the first Pentecost at Sinai under its external law) and in the salvation of the Ethiopian eunuch. There are many other examples throughout the book of Acts.

We can also zoom out and see this pattern as a microcosm of the entire Christian life. Just as Jesus’ Atonement pictured the destruction of the Temple, so every individual baptism pictures death and resurrection for the individual believer. That allows us to understand Paul’s ordo salutis in Romans 8:29-30 as based in God’s creative, architectural and sacrificial praxes: first the offering of the clean Head, then the washing and offering of the Body (Leviticus 1:8). That is the subject matter of the book of Revelation, where the lambs that Peter fed for slaughter are chosen, set apart, slain, tested, testify, redeemed, and enthroned.⁴For more discussion, and more charts than you can handle, see Michael Bull, Moses and the Revelation: Why the End of the World is not in Your Future.