This piece is long enough to publish as a book, and that’s what I’ll do when it’s complete.
So if you contact me with any typos or suggested improvements/clarifications, you’ll get an acknowledgement.
4
The Arms of Jacob
The Torahic references in the story
The old story that was coming to an end was the history of the Messianic lineage.
This ancestral line is a cord of scarlet that quietly weaves its unassuming way through the tapestry of sacred history. If we trace it through the Bible’s genealogies, we can follow it all the way from Adam to Jesus. The great story of this single strand is both the context and the subtext of every smaller story. From the conception of the Messianic promise to its delivery in Christ, it is also the arc that ties all of the stories together.
After the judgment of the serpent in Genesis 3, God decreed that a serpent-crushing savior would be born to the Woman. The continuing feud between the Lord and the devil over the fulfillment of this divine pledge is the key to everything that happens in the Scriptures. Although the spiritual war is mostly obscured by the ensuing drama, scandal, and tumult, the fate of this bloodline is the understated cause of all the boisterous conflict.
The battle over the estate of Adam between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent is the visible evidence of the spiritual enmity. The devil took every opportunity, and employed every possible means, to cut off the lineage which he knew would ultimately bring about his doom. These attempts escalated from family strife, to intermarriage with pagans, to child sacrifice, to invading armies.
The direct attacks upon the lineage itself were the most pernicious. At one point, the devil almost managed to cut that red cord right through using Queen Athaliah’s lust for power. She ordered the assassination of all of her grandsons, but one child was rescued. And the preservation of that single thread was all the Lord needed to maintain an unbroken line to the Christ (2 Kings 11:1-20).
Less obvious is the instance of God switching that red cord from one sibling to another. Achan’s lineage was the unstated reason for the devil’s selection of the man who gave in to temptation and stole plunder from Jericho. When he and his family were executed for bringing defeat upon Israel, the line of Zerah, one of Tamar’s sons to Judah, was tragically cut off (Joshua 7:24).
But the red cord tied by the midwife around the hand of Zerah to identify the firstborn heir (Genesis 38:27-30) was switched by God to the line of his twin brother, Perez. Rahab, the prostitute who was redeemed from Jericho, trusted in the God of Israel and was preserved from destruction. She not only obediently tied a scarlet cord in her window, but also married into the family of Perez. Rahab was even honored with inclusion in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. The devil is cunning in his strategies, but God is the only wise god (Romans 16:27).
In most other cases, the divine interventions for the continuation of the lineage were overt. And those stories are the next key to the meaning of the parable of the sheep and the goats. One of the reasons we struggle to interpret the parable is our failure to connect it to God’s habit of overlooking natural heirs in His prudent preference for faithful heirs.
Abraham’s faith was the reason he was chosen by God over his two older brothers. His potential heirs by human means—his loyal servant Eliezar and his son Ishmael by Hagar—were then passed over by God in favor of a miraculous firstborn, Isaac. Sarah’s barren womb being made fertile for the first time would not only prefigure Jesus’ virgin birth, but also His resurrection as the “firstborn from the dead” (Romans 4:16-25; Colossians 1:18). One by one, even the faithful heirs chosen by God from among the sons of men throughout the Old Testament would eventually be overlooked until Jesus, the Son of God, was born as Adam’s faithful heir. The last would be the first.
Concerning the Edenic promise, God also referred to the Hebrews collectively as His “firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22-23). He chose Israel despite the fact that it was the youngest nation on earth, overlooking all of the seventy nations listed in Genesis 10. Under Moses, the failing ministry of the Noahic priest-kings (such as Melchizedek and Jethro) was given to the sons of Abraham, this corporate heir who was the last to be born.
Paul even alludes to this divine prerogative to explain how the Lord could choose him for a unique ministry despite being the latecomer—the “last born” of his brothers-in-arms, the apostles.
“Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Corinthians 15:8)
Man’s usual practice concerning the choice of an heir was likewise overridden when the Lord overlooked all of David’s older brothers in His selection of a king to replace Saul. Samuel saw a potential warrior king in Eliab’s stature, but God looked upon the heart (1 Samuel 16:1-13).
Men naturally favor the advantages brought by bloodline, title, intellect, strength, wealth, and political prowess. None of these is inherently evil, since they are all gifts from God. But without the fortification of virtue, such “power tools” easily become weapons in the hand of the devil. Virtue is always God’s first concern.
This is why the Bible begins with the failure of a natural man to become a spiritual man. Adam’s natural gifts were not enough. He needed the crown of virtue in order to qualify for service as the steward of the world. His loyalty to God was tested because loyalty without works is dead.
God desires servant-kings like David, not serpent-kings like Saul. These two kinds of rulers are often indistinguishable to men at the beginning, and each is capable of both good and evil along the way. But the attitude of the heart towards God is revealed over time by the deeds. As men face various trials, the righteous are willing to humble themselves and wait patiently to be exalted by God; but the proud either use their natural advantages for personal gain or seek to be exalted by their own devious means.
Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence
or stand in the place of the great,
for it is better to be told, “Come up here,”
than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.
(Proverbs 25:6-7)
As far as heredity goes, Adam’s pedigree was perfect. But despite being the “firstborn” of the world, he was disloyal to God when put on the spot. He escaped an immediate death penalty only through the mercy of an atoning sacrifice. His birthright was greatly diminished, his Father’s blessing was withheld, and he was removed from office.
A ministry of reconciliation with God was established, but it was given to Adam’s sons in his stead. However, Adam’s natural heir failed to rule over sin. Cain was a son of man but he was not a Son of God.
Despite Cain being the firstborn of all mankind, the Lord overlooked him and favored Abel. And there is an important lesson here. The brothers were born to the same parents and raised in the same household. In other words, the seed of the serpent and the seed of the Woman could begin as siblings. In Genesis 3, the Lord uses the language of natural birth (seed or offspring) to describe spiritual heritage. So right from the start, the Bible teaches us that God is no respecter of persons. As far as He is concerned, character is the actual cord of divine succession.
But the character of the founder of a people certainly influences the character of the ensuing nation. Nature quickly becomes culture. The lineages of Seth and Cain not only reflected, but also amplified, the characters of their respective fathers.
The Cainite line eventually grew and matured into a cultural expression of Cain’s character, a self-evidently “serpentine” lineage. They were murderers like their father. As the sons of Man’s firstborn, the offspring of Cain were blessed with various skills to take dominion of the earth. But without the continued blessing of God they could only maintain their wealth and power by entrenching a culture of adultery and murder after the example of their first king, Lamech (Genesis 4:19-22).
In contrast, the men of the Sethite line began in priestly obedience, proclaiming the name of the Lord as Abraham later did (Genesis 4:26; 26:25). But they, too, eventually became corrupted because they envied the more glorious culture of the Cainites. They intermarried with the wicked, and the Sethite distinction—along with its important ministry of mediation between God and men—was lost. But again, God protected a holy strand, rebooting all humanity in the seed of faithful Noah.
The making of covenants with pagans like the Cainites was also the sin of the rulers of Israel and Judah before the exile in Babylon. In order to maintain the blessings received from heaven by their faithful fathers, the kings resorted to earthly solutions—religious and political “intermarriage.” Instead of imitating the practices of the surrounding Gentile kings, they should have emulated their father, Abraham, who owed the heathen nothing.
Despite famine, Abraham avoided the fertile lands of the plain; despite leading the local peoples to victory, he refused the plunder of war; he overlooked Canaanite women and sought out a faithful wife for Isaac; and although he had been promised all of Canaan from the hand of God, he purchased land for a burial plot. Instead of seeking peace, prosperity, and a lasting inheritance by earthly means, he honored and obeyed the words of God.
Like the sins of the Cainites, the sins of Israel’s kings were all Adamic in nature because they sought to obtain the promises of God (kingdom) without obeying God (priesthood). And that is the context of Jesus’ condemnation of the rulers of Jerusalem. They were guilty of precisely the same sort of faithless conniving. Despite claiming to be sons of Abraham according to natural descent, the Pharisees were resembled their true father, the devil (John 8:44), the envious servant who sought to disinherit mankind. They followed the path of Cain in the murders of their innocent brothers (Jude 1:11; Matthew 23:35).
In that regard, the Gospel of Christ was a spiritual paternity test. It would sort those who were only Jews-by-blood from those who were Jews-by-heart. And the scandal was that even a Gentile without the advantage of Jewish heritage could be included among the Sons of God (Romans 2:25-29). Of course, this should have been no surprise to the Jews, since such an ingathering was promised and prefigured throughout the Old Testament Scriptures.
Understandably, the natural but unbelieving sons whom God was overlooking were envious of those whom He had chosen in their place. Instead of rejoicing in the return of these prodigal brothers—not only from among the Jews, but also from among the Gentiles—the apparent theft of their birthright and blessing turned that envy into a blind, burning rage.
The Bible’s prime referent for this jealousy is, of course, the rivalry between Esau and Jacob. Unlike Perez and Zerah, these earlier twins were wrestling for the inheritance of the firstborn even before they were born. Although they were siblings and raised in the same household, the sons of Isaac were very different in character. Esau intermarried with the pagans while Jacob was a “blameless” (not “quiet”) man who sought a faithful wife among his kin.
The reader is expected to notice in Esau’s compromise the seed of the rebellion that eventually resulted in the Great Flood. The division of humanity into Jew and Gentile was intended to prevent the intermarriage that dissolved the priesthood in the days of Noah. Esau’s lack of character presented an opportunity for the devil to evade that strategy and dissolve the priestly Abrahamic line from the inside. So the story of Esau and Jacob and their descendants was a reprise, as well as a magnification, of the story of Cain and Abel.
The difference between Cain and Abel had been expounded in their names and occupations. Cain means “forge” or “spear” and his domain was the ground. Abel means “mist” and his domain, like the Levites, was ministry in the court of heaven.
Likewise, Esau thrived as a hunter in the wild while Jacob preferred more civilized pursuits among the tents. But by divine purpose, the contrast in the spiritual characters of Esau and Jacob was also reflected in their physical characteristics. From birth, “kingly” Esau was red and hairy while “priestly” Jacob was smooth.
Nothing is inherently wrong with any of these physical characteristics, character traits, or chosen occupations. However, they were used by God to illustrate the religious affections of the two men. In other words, these physical, visible things served as object lessons for the spiritual, invisible things.
Esau, like Adam, was natural. He was something taken from the red earth that remained in its rough state. He was a log that was “unfinished” timber, or a stone that was still spiritually unhewn. But receptive Jacob was supernatural in the sense that he had been spiritually cut and planed by God since childhood. He was refined and ready for service as a pillar in God’s tent and a cornerstone in His temple.
Indeed, this “liturgical” aspect of their personalities and preferred habitats is later expressed in the sacred architecture of the Tabernacle. Esau was a bloody bronze altar outside the tent where the fruits of nature were offered, and even his garments smelled of the field; Jacob was a golden incense altar inside the tent where the fragrant fruit of the Spirit was a savor pleasing to God.
Both sons were flesh and blood, but only Jacob would ascend the stairway to the throne of God. Just like a son of the herd or the flock (Leviticus 1:2-3), only the fire of the Spirit can transform a son of man into a temple of God, a living sacrifice, a pillar of cloud that is acceptable in heaven.
Like Adam, Esau had no desire for the things of God. That is why the name of Esau’s nation—Edom—became a running gag in the Old Testament prophets. The punning of Adam and Edom served as a literary and historical metaphor for the conflict between natural and spiritual men. Edom means “red,” and Edom became a counterfeit scarlet thread that challenged and threatened the Messianic promise at every turn of history.
Like the Messianic line, the virulent strain of Esau does not announce itself. It tacitly worms its way through the Bible as Israel’s pathogenic nemesis. In its final state, Edom is pictured in an Edenic scenario as a great red dragon (Revelation 12:1-5). As a beastly hunter empowered by Gentile kings, the ravenous reptile stood waiting to devour the offspring of the Woman.
This was also the scenario that Jacob feared when he faced a confrontation with his brother.
“Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude’.” (Genesis 32:11-12)
In a wonderful turn of events, Jacob made peace with Esau, but it involved a test akin to God’s command to Abraham that he sacrifice his miraculous son, Isaac. In an act of faith in God’s promises, Jacob risked the loss of his legacy, putting everything God had given him on the altar. His obedience as a Son of God, a peacemaker (Matthew 5:9), resulted in reconciliation between the brothers.
But despite the end of hostility at this personal level, the Edomites nursed a jealousy of the inheritance of Israel at a national level, and bitterly mistreated their brothers whenever possible. The worst instance was their exultation over the invasion and destruction of Judah by the Babylonians. The Edomites even raided and looted the city. For this violence against their Israelite brothers, God promised to judge their kingdom (Obadiah 1:10-18).
It must also be noted that King Saul—a giant who took up spear-wielding like Goliath—used Doeg the Edomite to slay the priests of the Lord. These men of God had not only aided Saul’s rival, the son of Jesse, but had also given him the sword of Goliath. In his report to the king, Doeg cunningly mentioned this gift to remind Saul of David’s courage and Saul’s cowardice. This quisling, whom Saul had unwisely set above all his servants, was deliberately provoking the king’s jealousy and wrath.
When Saul’s officials, who rightly feared God, refused to lay a hand upon the holy priests, only the Edomite was willing to do the dirty deed. Having no love for God, no respect for the things of God, and no affection for the people of God, Doeg then put “all flesh” in the city of the priests, the location of the Tabernacle, to the sword as if it were Jericho (1 Samuel 22:6-23). The word of Saul had become the voice of a god, and a son of Esau relished the opportunity to obey it.
In the same way that God chose faithful brothers from among the “herds” of Israel, He also reserved a special hatred for one of the sons of Esau. The brutal Amalekites, descended from Esau’s grandson, were the first people to attack the Israelites after the exodus.
“The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:16)
“Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God.” (Deuteronomy 25:17-18)
This attempt at national fratricide, an attack upon the Lord’s “firstborn” people, must be recognized as another satanic assault upon the Messianic line. It is also the background of some perfectly just but necessarily merciless judgments from God in later history.
Firstly, Agag, the Amalekite king whom King Saul should not have spared, and whose plunder he should not have kept, was subsequently hacked to pieces by Samuel the prophet. This was holy war, so “all flesh” was devoted to the Lord (1 Samuel 15:32-33).
Secondly, Haman the Agagite was an Amalekite whose personal hatred for Mordecai the Jew incited his devious attempt to wipe out every Jew across the expansive Persian empire. But, as we know, God turned the tables on Haman. Since he desired to be exalted, he was indeed lifted up—as a serpent impaled on his own pole. His ten sons were likewise executed, and the seed of the serpent was cut off.
These two events are inextricably linked. Mordecai, like Saul, was a son of Kish. And the Jews, unlike Saul but like Abraham and Joshua, laid no hand upon the plunder in this holy war.
Another attempt to slay God’s “firstborn” came via the prophet Balaam, the Edomite priest-king who was succeeded by Job (Genesis 36:31-33). He was hired to curse the nation, and intended to do so from atop four surrounding mountains. In liturgical terms, these peaks were the four horns of an enormous bronze altar, and the sons of Jacob were to be a corporate child sacrifice.
God not only turned Balaam’s curses into a blessing upon Israel, He also revealed the real target of the attack, the promised Seed. The Messiah was described as a star that would come out of Jacob, and a scepter that would rise out of Israel (Number 24:15-24). But the clincher is that the rest of Balaam’s final oracle promised the crushing of all of Israel’s false brothers, including Edom, as if they were fiery serpents in the wilderness. Among these sons is Amalek, the first nation to attack Israel. He is given a brief but potent warning that alludes to the natural firstborn seeking to maintain his birthright but ultimately losing his legacy.
“Amalek was the first among the nations, but its end is utter destruction.” (Numbers 24:20)
Under Moses, and during the eras of the judges and the kings, the Lord also judged His people for their failures and betrayals. But He did not punish Israel as an enemy; He disciplined him as a son (Proverbs 3:11-12; Hebrews 4:5-12). That is the only reason the nation was not cut off like Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9; Romans 9:29).
When the Israelites disobeyed God in the wilderness, God chastised the rebels severely, disinheriting an entire generation of fighting men of the Abrahamic promise of land. But in order to keep those very same promises, He spared their children.
When Israel questioned God’s tough love after the miraculous return from exile in Babylon, the Lord reminded them of His favor for the sons of Jacob over the sons of Esau. Although the Messianic line was under repeated attack from men, the sword of the Lord would continue to strike the red thread of the Edomites until His purpose in them was fulfilled.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” (Malachi 1:2-3)
When the Lord said that He loved Jacob and hated Esau, He was using an idiom that related to choosing an heir. Jesus used it when He spoke of “hating” one’s temporal life and family to pursue an eternal inheritance (Luke 14:26). John described himself as the disciple whom Jesus “loved,” since Jesus chose this spiritual brother over His own siblings to care for His mother (John 19:26-27).
John also wrote that to “love” the world, coveting its glories as the natural man does, is to forfeit the greater inheritance that God has in store for His heirs (1 John 2:15-17). That inordinate “love” was the sin of Esau, which is why God “hated” him, and chose Jacob instead.
The Hebrew word “hate” derives from a word for a thorn, and in this regard it speaks of making a choice that will wisely avoid future pain. Isaac “loved” Esau, but if he had given Esau charge of the promises to Abraham, the bitterness already experienced by Isaac and Rebekah through Esau’s Canaanite intermarriage would have flowed like a river of wormwood to flood the entire world.
So, God told Rebekah that the older son would serve the younger. Her deception of Isaac was thus not only an inversion of the serpent’s deception of Eve, it was also an act of obedience to God.
The claim of virtue in this deception is supported by the fact that the scenario was a further development of the “liturgical” symbolism in the traits of the two brothers. While the domain of God in the Tabernacle (the Most Holy Place) corresponded to the inner covering of the tent with linen, the domain of the servant sons (the Holy Place) corresponded with the next coverings—smooth ram skin (priestly Jacob) and hairy goat skin (kingly Esau).
But this link also extends to the most important rite carried out in the Tabernacle. Isaac’s tent prefigured the later tent of God, and Jacob’s approach to the seat of his father prefigured the ministry of the High Priest on behalf of the people. Jacob’s smooth arms, disguised as Esau’s with hairy goat skin, prefigured the two goats offered on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16).
Both goats would be sacrificed. One would be blessed and ascend to heaven as fragrant smoke; the other would be cursed and sent to destruction in the wilderness, to be eaten by the unclean birds and beasts. But prior to the divine choice expressed in the lot, it was impossible to tell these goats apart. Which one was to be blessed, and which one was to be cursed? Only God could judge because only God could see the unseen. He would judge their hearts—and all their other organs, too!
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins [kidneys], even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. (Jeremiah 17:9-10 KJV)
In this way, Israel’s annual rite of national atonement pictured a God-inspired deception of the devil—a bait-and-switch like the deception of Isaac. And that ruse was a just use of the devil’s own tactic in the Garden of Eden, where God’s priest assumed the office of a king. The expansion of Israel would come via a wily inversion.
Goats are used in other acts of deception in the Old Testament. Joseph’s jealous older brothers dipped his robe in the blood of a goat, and Jacob judged this as proof that his favored son was dead. Saul’s daughter, Michal, placed a household god crowned with goat skin in David’s bed in order to deceive the soldiers who were sent by her father to assassinate him. In both of these instances there was a substitution, a switch akin to the overlooking of one for the other. Jacob “loved” virtuous Joseph and chose him over his brothers, and God “loved” David (whose very name means “beloved”) and chose him over Saul.
So it is of enormous significance that those very same arms of Jacob, once disguised as the arms of Esau, were later crossed to switch the greater blessing from Manasseh, Joseph’s firstborn, to his brother Ephraim. Presumably, it was God who inspired Jacob, as a human lot, to choose the son named “Doubly Fruitful” over a potential thorn bush who, if given the opportunity, would quickly grow proud and draw blood like Cain, Esau, and Saul.
The rivalry between brothers and tribes grows into a proper rivalry between nations in the Book of Exodus. God’s choice of the son of Sarah over the son of Hagar is played out in the terrifying culling of the offspring of Egypt during the final plague—the Passover. And here we find the explicit background for Jesus’ choice of both sheep and goats as symbols for men in His parable.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats… (Exodus 12:5)
The Passover sacrifice could be a lamb or a kid, that is, a smooth sheep like Jacob or a hairy goat like Esau. Both were the sons of Isaac according to the flesh, and the Passover was an act of vengeance for Pharaoh’s satanic attack upon the physical offspring of Abraham.
However, under the Law of Moses, the Firstfruits offering had to be a lamb (Leviticus 23:12). This is why it was a lamb, and not a kid, who ascended to heaven and was enthroned in Revelation 6. The son who submits to heaven as a priest is the son who ultimately receives dominion on the earth as a king. Then the Lamb becomes a Lion, and that is the event Jesus describes in the parable of the sheep and the goats. He would ascend the steps of Jacob’s ziggurat to the heavenly Zion and be enthroned among the angels as the Son of David.
Now, the reason that Jesus describes the sheep as being on His right, and the goats on His left, is because He has “crossed His arms” and switched the sons.
Once again, the Tabernacle comes into play, since it pictured the court of God. Christ sits in the Most Holy Place, the “seat of Moses,” as the Son who has fulfilled the Law. Before Him, in the Holy Place, the priestly sheep are no longer servants but the royal sword bearers at His right hand. In the Tabernacle, this corresponds to the Menorah, the lamp that was a light to David’s path. The kingly goats are now demoted to servanthood, corresponding to the food on the priestly Table. However, they are not holy like the Showbread given to David, so they are rejected by Christ and thrown out as a great feast for unclean beasts.
Jesus’ sudden switch enthrones as judges the priestly “Jacobs” who received the Word, and it puts on the Table the ruling “Esaus” who choked upon the Word and would not receive it.
The significance of this switch for the Messianic line is made even more apparent by a unique feature of the Table of Showbread. While all the Tabernacle furniture was covered in “nighttime” blue when the Tabernacle was on the move, only the Table and its accouterments were covered in an extra garment—a scarlet cloth (Numbers 4:8). So those “red” brothers who tried to cut off the red cord of the promised Messiah would themselves be cut off.
All of this background brings us a step closer to the identities of the sheep and the goats. Jerusalem was currently under the rule of the dynasty of the Herods. These were Idumeans (Edomites) who had “converted” to Judaism. Since Edom no longer existed as a kingdom, infiltrating the kingdom of Judah was a cunning means of regaining power.
Herod the Great, who was despised by the Jewish ruling class as a half-breed, ordered that the genealogies be destroyed so that none of the Jews in Judea could prove the purity of his lineage—or, more importantly, disprove that of the Herods. As far as bloodline was concerned, it became difficult to separate the Israelite sheep from the Edomite goats. Of course, God preserved the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels and they remain with us to this day.
This bait-and-switch of the Herods in their bloody grasp upon the throne of David would be answered eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth by Jesus when He returned to judge Jerusalem. But remember, we are only one step closer to interpreting the parable. The sheep and goats judgment is not a separation of true and false Jews but a discernment of the hearts of many nations. Jesus had an apocalypse of much greater scope in mind.
What is most fascinating about the sheep and goats judgment is that the deception was not coming from a disguised son, like Jacob, who approaches the throne. Instead, the deception comes from the throne itself. And that brings us to another important thread of the Scriptures, one that gives us a further key to the story: the wise and righteous ruler who deliberately deceives those in His court in order to uncover the truth.
5
The Ministry of Provocation
The legal precedents of the story
Distinguishing the heroes from the villains in the parable of the sheep and the goats might seem a simple task to us, but this is only because the Son of Man does it for us.
Since the sheep and the goats were not literal sheep and literal goats, there was no way to tell them apart visually. Even after they were divided to the right and the left of the throne in the royal court of Christ, their outward appearances would still not reveal why each was placed in their respective locations.
The livestock symbolism only described spiritual character, so some other method of perception was required to achieve the separation. Christ does not judge according to what is seen with the eyes or heard with the ears (Isaiah 11:3), so He was judging things that were unseen and unspoken. His Spirit discerns in human hearts what the natural man cannot.
But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Matthew 9:4)
And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts?” (Mark 2:8)
And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.” (Luke 16:15)
But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. (John 2:24-25)
This physical separation manifested what was previously hidden. The divine magistrate convened an uncovering (the Greek word is apocalypse) of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Only God can look upon the heart at the beginning, but He exposes everything at the end.
“Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:1-3)
Jesus warned His disciples about an imminent judgment of the Jewish rulers. Their cloak-and-dagger plotting, incendiary rabble-rousing, and devious abuses of the Law eventually resulted in His crucifixion, and He knew that they would soon after pursue His followers in the same way. They would hate the Christians just as they had hated the Christ (John 15:18-25).
This explains why the Book of Revelation, as the finale of the New Testament, is the “discovery” in Jesus’ covenant court case against Jerusalem. The legal term means the compulsory pretrial disclosure of all documents and testimony relevant to the dispute. The bulk of the prophecy is a courtroom drama in which evidence of the first-century conspiracy against the saints was proclaimed for all to hear.
And that brings us to a pertinent point concerning the trial of the sheep and the goats. Although the judge of all things already knows all things, and needs no one to bear witness about our hearts to Him, He still calls for some kind of external evidence before He declares the verdict. He will not execute a sentence without a two- or three-factor authentication of His omniscient determination.
What your eyes have seen
do not hastily bring into court,
for what will you do in the end,
when your neighbor puts you to shame?
(Proverbs 25:8)
The legal reason for this relates to the reputation of the Almighty. If His judgment were based solely upon things that remained hidden from the eyes of men, it could easily be called into question by men. Is He truly impartial? Can He be bribed? Or worse, is He merely a man-made god like the deities of Greece and Rome—fickle, self-centered, intemperate, and capricious. A second testimony verifies the facts and puts the virtue of His verdict beyond dispute. In this way, every legal challenge is rendered moot.
For justice to be seen to be done, the divine verdict has to be substantiated by a confession (true or false) from the accused, a statement from witnesses, and/or evidence of the deeds. For the Israelites, even this twofold factor was given a twofold witness—one from above and one from below.
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today…” (Deuteronomy 4:26)
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today…” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
The Apocalypse that crowns the Scriptures is thus a double witness—a twofold revelation. It is not only the revelation of Jesus Christ as the glorified Man in heaven (Revelation 1:1), but also an uncovering, an exposure, a laying bare of things on the earth. The hypocrites who stripped and flogged Jesus were suddenly standing before the judgment seat of Christ. Stripped of all disguise and pretence, they were as naked before their Creator as Adam in the Garden of Eden.
This desire of the Lord for a vindication of His heavenly judgment through a corroborated testimony on earth was understood by King David. He expressed it in his psalm of repentance after his sins of adultery and murder.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
(Psalm 51:3-4)
David not only confessed his sin as a humbled believer, but as a wise king he also preserved his confession in song as an example for his people to follow. Confession of sin is a voluntary apocalypse that avoids an involuntary one.
This appeal for agreement is why the Lord questioned Adam and Eve after their sin in the Garden of Eden. Eve had been led astray, yet her testimony was pure. Adam, as her priest, failed to lead Eve away from her error; he participated in the sin as a self-styled king; and he bore false witness against the Woman as a lying prophet.
The Lord had called Adam to judge himself, to “cross the room” and take God’s side against himself and the serpent. But Adam doubled down and committed perjury in the court of God. He maintained his controversy with God and, by doing so, publicly condemned himself. So when God calls for a confession, He unsheathes a two-edged sword. He gives the penitent another chance, but also metaphorically gives the wicked enough rope to hang themselves.
It was the public doubling-down of Ananias and Sapphira in their false testimony, not their actual crime, which condemned them. In contrast to the theft committed by Adam and Eve, mercy was withheld and the death sentence was immediate. This was now the age of the indwelling Spirit, and God’s people were expected to judge themselves with the Lord’s own eyes. So the Lord Himself made an example of them to the Church. With the saints gathered, there were enough witnesses for Him to condemn and execute the accused. And it was Jesus Himself, by the Spirit, who carried it out.
On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 17:6-7)
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20)
The corrupt “Adam and Eve” pair were identified as seeds of destruction in the fledgling Church. Some question the Lord’s gracious character due to the apparent lack of mercy or lenience in this immediate judgment. But the background was the command for the Israelites to deal quickly with sin in their midst, cutting it out like a cancer lest it bring death upon them all.
Those who question God’s mercy when He judges His people swiftly also question God’s apparent slowness in dealing with wickedness in the world. The answer is that the judge of all the earth does what is right; He follows due process. Any criticism from men is the result of a lack of understanding of that process. He waits patiently, not wishing that any should perish. But when that time is up, He comes suddenly like a thief in the night (2 Peter 3:9-10).
We must understand that in all cases, whether the legal deliberation concerns persons or entire nations, the public judgment finalizes a protracted process of discovery. For Ananias and Sapphira, this act of deceit was not the seed of a possible fall but the ripe fruit of a long process of wicked thinking. God had already been patient with them. Now their time was up.
But their demise as individuals also served as a sign of what was in store corporately for the king and city of Jerusalem. Zion, too, would not be judged until its bitter fruit was ripe. That was the lesson of the fig tree. It was also the lesson of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares. God wisely allows the righteous and the wicked to grow to maturity and bear fruit in order that hidden natures might be exposed. Once that occurs, there is no more delay (Revelation 10:5-7). The Lord has a long fuse, but it is a fuse nonetheless.
This strategy of delay also served a crucial legal purpose. The postponement of punishment made possible a judgment that cannot be questioned—a verdict that stops every mouth because the facts have become self-evident, and thus undeniable.
Since the disciples could not read human hearts, Jesus called them to discern the true nature of people over time: they would know them by their fruits (Matthew 7:15-20). A confession of faith was enough to be baptized, but the validity of that public act of allegiance to Christ was proved over time by perseverance.
A call to perseverance, whether in good or evil, explains Jesus’ strange words near the end of the Apocalypse:
“Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy. Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.” (Revelation 22:11-12)
His decades-long delay would cost the lives of many of the saints, but the crucible of conflict would also separate the silver from the dross. The division caused by the Word of God would cause men to become more and more consistent in their trajectories. So this peculiar statement was a call for hypocritical good deeds to wither away like plucked fig leaves, and for true holiness to bloom as an indisputable proof of authentic spiritual life.
The offspring of the serpent, whatever their outward guise, are ultimately betrayed by the nature of their fruit. For instance, John taught the Jewish Christians to discern false brothers by their lack of love (1 John 3:11-15). Despite their pious words, the religious zeal of these people was motivated by hatred.
While these troublemakers might have even considered themselves to be brethren who were doing the work of God (John 16:2; Philippians 3:6), the unholy strife they caused was a sign that they were fiery serpents among the people. Like the Gospel itself, the two-edged sword of church discipline was, and is, a paternity test that reveals our true spiritual pedigree.
This gradual process of growing to maturity is described by Paul in Romans 1:18-32. Each time a rebel doubles down in sin, God gives them over to what they desire. This seems strange until we perceive the wisdom in it. Those with soft hearts see the consequences of their actions and repent. Those who harden their hearts continue in their case against God, attempt to justify their actions, and even blame Him for the consequences of their sins. “It is not my sin but the Word that troubles my conscience that is the problem!” Eventually, the unrepentant destroy themselves, and because they have reaped what they sowed, the God who warned them can no longer be mocked as a false prophet (Galatians 6:7).
The act of contradicting God’s omniscient judgment of the situation is the sin that Jesus referred to as “blasphemy against the Spirit.” He describes this sin as being unforgivable, and this has troubled many believers who suspect they might have unwittingly committed it. But this sin is simply an outright rejection of God’s warnings, and such a position does not accord with the nature of a believer.
God sees the heart, He sends a prophet to warn the accused, and if the accused disputes what the prophet says, he or she has blasphemed the Spirit’s conviction of the heart by accusing God of lying. Thus, blasphemy against the Spirit is not the worst sin but the last sin. It is an obstinate rejection of the “last chance” warnings of the prophets whose Sinaitic words thunder like trumpets before the walls fall down.
Jude referred to this as “blaspheming the glorious ones” (Jude 1:8) and listed some famous offenders from the Old Testament. They continued on their wicked path despite the warnings from God’s “angels” (messengers)—both the angelic and the human. He then reminded his hearers of the predictions of the apostles, the “ev-angels” of the first century, who foresaw the multiplication of scoffers in the last days of the Old Covenant era.
As in the days of Jeremiah, the disaster proclaimed by these prophets seemed unthinkable. Thanks to the political maneuvering of the Herods, the city seemed destined not for destruction, but for a new era of glory under Roman rule. Like Noah’s preaching before the Great Flood, the warnings of the apostles in the final decades of Jerusalem’s spiritual rule seemed ridiculous to the natural mind.
The unbelieving Jews rejected, blasphemed, the legal testimony of Jesus—His words concerning Himself, and His words concerning those who rejected His words (Revelation 19:9-10). But their “lived experience” of peace and safety ended in sudden destruction. It came upon them unexpectedly like birth pains, and they could not escape (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
The wrath that was hidden from men’s eyes in the court of God, and thus disputed in the courts of men, was abruptly revealed from heaven as an unimaginable calamity on earth. As mentioned, this vindication of the warnings of Jesus is the subject of the Book of Revelation, which describes a Levitical rite of sacrifice, seals, trumpets, and bowls above that incites and governs the apocalyptic events below.
The step-by-step prophetic warnings given by Moses to Pharaoh served the same purpose. It was the words themselves that caused Pharaoh to harden his heart, to double down, and to confirm his trajectory. In that way, his draconian character was revealed in a distilled form—not just in the eyes of God, but also on the world stage—and God’s judgment was vindicated.
However, there are instances where a wise judge can only expose a heart by its reaction to a tactical act of provocation. The nature of the beast is made plain by means of a trick or a bluff—a deception from the throne. And this is where we meet the dark side of God—the examiner who temporarily hides His face in order to mask His intentions.
As discussed, Jesus’ teachings were deliberately provocative, and the rest of the Bible, to varying degrees, is the same. However, the riddles of God seem benign when compared to the use of prophetic guile. The Lord often works under the cover of darkness in order to bring things into the light. To the pure He shows Himself pure, but to the crooked He becomes as twisted as a serpentine dragon in Pharaoh’s court (2 Samuel 22:27).
Allowing the serpent into the Garden of Eden was the first such divine provocation. The state of the hearts of the Man and the Woman would be exposed not only to God, but also to themselves. Whatever the outcome, they would develop wisdom through such a confrontation—either the easy way through obedience, or the hard way through disobedience.
And this wisdom that was to be gained was judicial in nature—the ability to divide light from darkness in the moral realm (Hebrews 5:14). If they judged themselves, they would not only not be judged by God, they would also qualify as actual judges‚ His legal representatives on earth. The first to qualify for this office was Noah, the blameless man who kept his family from compromise with the wicked, who believed God’s words of life and death, and to whom God ultimately delegated His own sword of judgment (Genesis 9:5-6).
The remainder of Genesis contains many examples of confrontations with “serpents.” The dispassionate, matter-of-fact style forces the reader to judge the motives behind the deeds, but we too often misjudge them. In our naivety, we do not expect judicial cunning from the righteous, let alone from God. So we misinterpret the ruses of the righteous and even use their shrewd poker bluffs as indications of supposed character flaws that we must avoid.
Part of the problem is our failure to take into account the Edenic context and the Messianic subtext. As usual, the key to the puzzle box of each story is to be found outside the box. When we interpret the events within the bigger picture we are able—as the prophets of God—to judge as the Lord does. And that is the point of the exercise.
Abram’s deception of Pharaoh is supposed to be evidence of a lack of faith on the part of the patriarch. But in reality it was a wily goading by a seasoned prophet who possessed the wisdom of God.
Abram’s claim to be Sarai’s brother was a half truth intended to reveal Pharaoh’s true character. If the king wished to marry Sarai, he was bound by custom to consult her brother. But like the serpent in Eden, Pharaoh seized her to raise up his own seed. Abram’s tactic exposed Pharaoh’s nature, and he was vindicated by God’s judgment upon the king’s household. In the context of the failure in Eden, Abram was a better Adam.
Abraham is similarly condemned for testing Abimelech with the same ruse, but once again he was justified in doing so. God knew Abimelech’s heart, and so prevented him from sinning. The king was vindicated by the test as a righteous man, and God blessed his household as a result. The test was the same, but the outcome was different.
This principle also explains why righteous Lot offered his daughters to the men of the city of Sodom. This apparently heartless self-preservation was in fact a calculated judicial provocation. Lot served as a judge in the gates of the city. He already knew the hearts of these Sodomites by their deeds (2 Peter 2:7-9). But their reaction to his ruse confirmed their nature in the “heavenly court” of the two legal witnesses sent by the Lord.
In this way, their own testimony at Lot’s improvised “gate of God” condemned them, resulting in their immediate judgment by the two “cherubim.” In the context of Eden, flanked by guardian angels, Lot was a flaming sword.
The Lord Himself is similarly criticized for commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But wily Abraham saw through the ruse. His trust in God’s promises was now so mature that he practically hurried up the mountain to see how the Lord was going to get Himself out of this one. The prophet’s faith in God’s character was tested and vindicated.
The instances when God threatened the immediate and total destruction of the cities of the plain and the people of Israel were similar provocations. Abraham, Moses, and David all stepped into the gap to intercede for the condemned. Although the judgments would have been entirely just, the Lord feigned a withholding of His mercy because He was training His men to be merciful. Ancient rulers not only served as judges, but also as advocates. And God’s men are known by their mercy.
Rebekah’s inspired deception of Isaac, and Jacob’s inspired outsmarting of Laban, are further, and more obvious, examples of prophetic ploys. But there is one that is understandably overlooked because it is only implied. It is the kingly wisdom with which Joseph’s Pharaoh discerned the hearts of his baker and his butler.
Since both men denied responsibility for an offense against their king, the guilty baker’s denial implicated the innocent butler. He was attempting to steal the innocent butler’s future. Of course, God knew the hearts of both men, and He revealed their respective fates in advance. But how did Pharaoh come to the same conclusion?
The restoration of both servants to the king’s court would have been perceived as an act of emancipation, but in reality it was a veiled provocation. We are not told what happened at Pharaoh’s birthday celebration. Perhaps the baker, assuming that the matter was now in the past, made some gloating remark to the butler. But whatever it was, some action by one or both of the servants in response to Pharaoh’s decree was observed by the king, and it revealed their true characters to him.
As we know, the vindicated butler forgot all about the amazing young man who interpreted his dream, and Joseph was left to languish in prison. But this was part of God’s plan. Joseph’s heavenly insight and earthly wisdom were a divine gift, but it was still being perfected in the crucible of suffering and betrayal. With enough time to consider the event, it is likely that this ruse of Pharaoh was the inspiration for Joseph’s later provocations of his own brothers. For the baker and the butler, bearers of bread and wine, he substituted a sack of grain and a “stolen” cup.
In a subtle reprise of earlier events, he demanded that Simeon be left behind and Benjamin be brought to him, substituting the loss of Benjamin for Jacob’s loss of Joseph. Would they also betray the other son of Rachel, offering him willingly as the price for Simeon’s release?
Thankfully, the response of Joseph’s brothers to his apparently capricious requests revealed hearts that were softened by sorrow and regret over what they had done to him, and to their own father. Their grief over Benjamin was grief over Joseph. What they now did for the least of his brothers, they did for Joseph. Once he was satisfied, Joseph revealed himself to them and a wonderful reconciliation ensued.
Perhaps the most famous incident in the history of the Ministry of Provocation was the conviction of King David by his own court prophet. How does one confront one’s king for committing the capital crimes of adultery and murder? The answer is: very carefully.
Once again, the tactic was a temporary subterfuge, after which the veil of deceit would be torn away. But in this case, the provocation was designed to trick the king into judging himself under the Law of Moses from his own throne.
Nathan’s contrived story of the theft from the poor man by the rich man served as a mirror by which David might view his own sin objectively. With the courageous prophet’s “Thou art the man!” the king’s eyes were opened to see that the travesty he had just condemned was but a splinter in comparison to the beam in his own eye. His own testimony in his own court condemned him. He was both the judge and the judged.
Jesus has been criticized and even accused of racism for his harsh words to a desperate Gentile woman. But the dark side of God turned to a joyous noonday when she called His bluff.
And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15:21-28)
Jesus also reminded the Jews in his home town of the faith of two Gentiles—Naaman the Syrian and the widow of Sidon. Those who had spoken well of Him were suddenly enraged, and they attempted to kill Him. Who else but Jesus would have seen the necessity for a taunt after receiving such praise? He knew what was in their hearts, and He brought it out into the open.
The use of the saints as bait in a trap is an even darker strategy dispensed from the throne of God. This should not surprise us, since the exodus of Israel coaxed Pharaoh out of Egypt to his own destruction, and Haman’s plot to kill the Jews purged the empire of all their enemies. Jesus Himself, hanging from a tree, was fruit that the devil could not resist even though he knew it would be his undoing.
The Lord used Christians to goad Saul the Pharisee into a rage (Acts 26:14). And Jesus revealed that what Saul was doing to the saints he was actually doing to Jesus Himself. Jesus then used Paul himself as a goad, and his ministry to the Gentiles served a similarly dual purpose—not only salvation, but also provocation. The undeniable conversion of Gentiles across the empire was a strategy calculated to provoke his countrymen to jealousy (Romans 11:13-14).
And this brings us to consider just how devious—in the light of the Ministry of Provocation—was the trap sprung in the judgment of the sheep and the goats. As the culmination of the Olivet Discourse, it contains a twist so dark, and so deeply woven into the Scriptures, that its full significance passes right over our heads.
