The Forbidden Feast

We are bidden to the forbidden feast, a table where bread and wine are not only served to us as priest-kings, but irretrievably mixed together inside us, nourishment and shalom united at last.

Melchizedek’s Order

Many theologians will tell you that the Old Testament Scriptures have little to say about resurrection. Yet, these texts scream about it constantly — if we have eyes to see.

Old Testament history is a series of types. The shape of events in Bible history always prefigures events that were yet to come. That is the nature of God’s revelation. Once we understand this, we can see pictures of death and resurrection, over and over again, at both personal and national levels, hidden in plain sight.¹See Bible Matrix: An Introduction to the DNA of the Scriptures and Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key for a visual blow-by-blow account of this death and resurrection process in Bible history.

This death-and-resurrection process involves a passing-over and a passing-through. At Pass-over, the people of God are separated from the nations. At Pass-through, (Atonement), that “middle wall” of partition comes down, and Israel is reunited with the nations.

Now, we see this “matrix” in every part and in the whole. This pattern takes us:

• from the original promise of the Land to Abraham (Abraham “passed-over” in a deep sleep) to the destruction of Egypt (the death of the firstborn as the Atonement for Pharaoh’s massacre of Hebrew infants, while Israel “passed-through” the sea);
• from the destruction of Egypt (Israel “passed-over” behind their bloodied doors) to the destruction of Jericho (Israel “passing-through” the Jordan, and Rahab’s red cord in the window);
• and, when these two halves are combined as Head and Body (patriarchs and nation), the pattern takes us from the promise of the Land to the conquest of the Land.²For relevant diagrams, see Bible Matrix: An Introduction to the DNA of the Scriptures pages 41, 61, 93, 115.

This greater pattern gives us the complete picture. The fall of the walls of Jericho ended the covering sacrifice that Abram mediated over Canaan more than four hundred years before. The very structure of Genesis 15 lays out for us liturgically the exact pattern of this Canaan-to-Canaan history.

So, like Adam and Eve, Israel and the Land were torn apart (in a deep sleep) and then reunited with a promise of an abundant future based on obedience. But despite the fact that Israel was now settled among the nations, Israelites were still set apart. The conquest of Canaan did not end circumcision. In fact, the conquest reinstituted it.

Joshua was commanded to circumcise Israel a “second time.” There is blood in the division and blood in the reunion. This points toward an even greater fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, a larger pattern, one that would even tear down the Jew-Gentile divide. In the greater scheme of things, the cutting of Adam’s flesh into Jew and Gentile—like bread and wine—would not be reversed until the destruction of the Temple in AD70.

All this background brings us to Melchizedek, the High Priest of Salem, as an imposing set of bookends to the Abrahamic divide. Before the institution of circumcision, worship was not centralized. Worship of the true God was carried out by men like Noah, priest-kings of all nations. In fact, centralized worship was part of the sin at Babel. It was a gathering of nations around a lie.

To avoid another flood, God tore humanity into two — priestly nation and Gentile kings—like bread and wine. Abram’s feast with Melchizedek was the last time the Messianic line would eat bread and wine together, before God, until Christ. From the circumcision of Abram, bread and wine became “holy,” a “forbidden mixture.”³For more on forbidden mixtures as “holy hybrids,” see Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key, chapter 8, “Elementary Things.”

Both were present in the Tabernacle, but the wine was always poured out as an offering. It was never consumed in the presence of God by the priests. Bread and wine, flesh and blood, were divided.⁴This is one of the evidences for Ezekiel’s temple being fulfilled in Israel’s history under Gentile kings before Christ. In that construct, the wine was still to be poured out for God, not … Continue reading

MELCHIZEDEK
Bread and Wine
(Abraham blessed by “all nations”)

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Circumcision
(“Pass-over”)

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Gentile: Kingly Wine   –––––––––––––––––––– Jew: Priestly Bread….

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Baptism (Sanctions)
(“Pass-through”)

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MELCHIZEDEK (CHRIST)
Bread and Wine
(Abraham blesses all nations – AD70)⁵Notice that this five-step process follows the five-fold Covenant pattern, with the Mosaic “Ethics” as the dividing wall.

So Christ, as Melchizedek, serves the forbidden feast — bread and wine consumed together in the presence of God—to twelve men from the loins of Abraham. They are the representatives of a new, reunited body. He brings the Aaronic priesthood, the “division,” to an end by allowing His own flesh and blood to be separated. “Pass-through” came with the destruction of centralized worship in Jerusalem. Abraham finally entered his heavenly country.

Old Covenant Israel was Adam broken and “tipped out.” He was divided that he might be conquered. As with all the other forbidden mixtures in the Law of Moses, this recombination of bread and wine, Jew and Gentile, was holy, that is, impossible without the Spirit of God. The New Covenant Israel is Greater Eve, the marriage feast at God’s Table.

The priests of God are no longer limited to humbling bread, and those to whom they minister as examples of kingdom citizens are no longer limited to the crumbs that fall off the table.

We are bidden to the forbidden feast, a table where bread and wine are not only served to us as priest-kings, but irretrievably mixed together inside us, nourishment and shalom united at last.

With holy bodies, we submit ourselves to be broken — divided — sacrifices — for the sake of the world united by the New Covenant in the blood of Christ.

“The Forbidden Feast” is a chapter from God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink.

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