Abraham believed God and planted glorious trees in the hope of a fruitful land. The rulers slew Abraham’s true sons so Jesus was coming in glory to cut everything down.
Read the Overview. Read Part 1. Read Part 2.
“Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright.
And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”
(Genesis 37:7)WARNING: If you do not have the basic matrix pattern under your belt, you might struggle with what follows. Jesus’ audience knew the Torah back-to-front, and so must we if we are to interpret His words in context. Too many exegetes utterly fail to do so, and end up teaching false doctrines. The first part of my book Moses and the Revelation (online here) is a must-read to help you get up to speed.
As a literary image of Day 3, Matthew brings the priestly “head” of the sequence to a climax with two cycles: land and fruit bearers, Moriah-Zion and Isaac, or altar and table. The first cycle concerns lies and counterfeits, calling the saints to discernment, and warning against the Jewish anti-church as a cadre of false brothers. As Cains who had rejected Jesus’ exhortation to leave one’s gift at the altar and be reconciled with a brother, these Temple loyalists would instead offer (spiritually-speaking) their faithful brothers on the four-horned altar of Herod’s kingdom. This massacre would defile the “four-cornered” Land, much like the altar of Jeroboam (1 Kings 13:5), thus bringing about its desolation. This also explains why the altar “testifies” in Revelation 16:4-7—the blood of all the prophets from Abel onwards (those under the altar in the fifth seal, Revelation 6:9-11) which had been splashed against the altar (Leviticus 1:5, 11) and still cried out for vengeance, had finally been atoned for.
