“… a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch…” (Rev. 8:10, NKJV)
In the previous teaching we concluded with the question from Rev. 8:10, where we asked what exactly “the great star [that] fell from heaven” was, why it was “burning like a torch,” and what it means that it “fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water”?
The fact that the star is described as “great,” and is compared to a “flaming torch” which falls from the spiritual realm (= heavens) to the earthly realm, makes it clear that it is Jesus the Christ who is impacting, even penetrating, your and my earth with earth-shattering consequences.
In Gen. 15:17 the “flaming torch” is first manifested (we looked at this in the teaching of Day 1582-1584). In his cutting of the covenant with Yahweh, Abram asks God in verse 8: “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” God then asks Abram to make a particular sacrifice, and it notes in verse 17: “And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.” These theophanic manifestations were explained as follows:
• The “smoking furnace” – KJV) is a manifestation of God the Father. Scripture that supports this includes Ex. 19:18, Deut. 29:20, 2Sam. 22:9, Ps. 144:5 and Isa. 6:4;
• “a burning lamp” – KJV; “a flaming torch” (ACV) – is ‘a manifestation of Jesus the Son, the “Light of the world” (John 8:12). Scripture that supports this includes Ex. 27:20, Ps. 119:105, Isa. 9:2, 62:1, Mal. 4:2, Matt. 4:14-16, Luke 2:32, John 1:4-9, 3:19, 9:5 and Acts 26:23.
The Scripture in 1Thess. 4:6, which is often used along with verse 17 to explain the so-called rapture, can absolutely be relevant here: “Because the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.” (CAB). Remember the importance of the announcement the seven trumpets make in last week’s teaching! With the third sounding of trumpets He descends and burns like a lamp – He is truly the Word of God. Ps. 119:105 originally spelled it out: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” On this path the Lamp of God intersects with all the rivers of the soul dimension, the fountains of imagination, carnal and natural knowledge, and oceans of worldly wisdom. In this exposure bitterness becomes an important key, which for instance explains Heb. 12:15 to us: “looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled”.
When the un-regenerated, natural man (1Cor. 2:14) is impacted by the immense power of Jesus and His Christ, it has an earth-shattering effect, which often leaves one with loss, pain, indignation, feelings of guilt, fear, uncertainty, and other similar negative experiences. The typology of this is striking – on the way out of Egypt, the land of slavery, the Israelites, who responded to a desperate cry, “an exceedingly great and bitter cry” (Gen. 27:34), like that of Esau, while they moved (thus, during their transition from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of the heavens), had to eat only unleavened bread, roasted lamb, and bitter herbs: “Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.” (Ex. 12:8).
• Unleavened bread is bread made without leaven, and in 1Cor. 5:7 it is typologically explained as follows: “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.” In verse 8 it is clearly stated: “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” In Gal. 5:7-9 Paul warns the people: “You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
o Because there are so many attempts to call you and I back to Egypt, especially through having us eat “the bread of sorrow” (Deut. 16:3), we long for the proverbial “pots of meat” we had in Egypt (Ex. 16:3). It is then absolutely vital that we, “who are ignorant and going astray” (Heb. 5:2) consciously cleanse ourselves of the leaven of sin, that which allows us to miss our mark, because “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1Cor. 5:6).
o Please do not miss the core and hinge points of this image – the naked lust that they experienced (Num. 11:4) for the “pots of meat” led God to making the quail available! This provision (which also means anointing or fatness) is the provision of the rimmah-words!
• 1Cor. 5:7 makes clear that the Passover lamb that was slaughtered for us, is Christ. We then also understand the later remark Jesus makes regarding the establishing of the covenant meal, the communion: “and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat, this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’” (1Cor. 11:24).
• This food explicitly had to be eaten with “bitter herbs”. Why this specification?
o Obviously, it might point to the bitterness which marked the Israelites after many years of captivity. This is for instance what Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary and New Unger’s Bible Dictionary suggest.
o The Wycliffe Commentary adds that “this bitterness was to be overpowered by the sweet flesh of the lamb”. The bitter herbs “increased … [the] appetite for the lamb and the unleavened bread” of anyone who was being led out of Egypt. I consider this a pretty desperate attempt at an explanation. That the use of bitter herbs is not only for the sake of the culinary, becomes very clear when the Israelites, after just three days in the desert, come to a place named Marah. This name and space points to the fact that God foregrounds bitterness at this point of their journey. In Ex. 15:22-23 it notes: “So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah.”
About the Red Sea, Easton’s Bible Dictionary notes the following: “The origin of this name (Red Sea) is uncertain. Some think it is derived from the red colour of the mountains on the western shore; others from the red coral found in the sea, or the red appearance sometimes given to the water by certain zoophytes floating in it.” All of this is possible, but – as with the meaning of Marah – we need to perhaps rather look for a reason that supports the typological heft of transition. And in this light, it is then quite simple – the first being that God creates as prototype, namely Man, has a change of name with the fall, to Adam, which the AHLB notes means “blood”, which then explicitly links it to the colour red. Strong defines it as, “show blood in the face”, and Faussets Bible Dictionary as “red earth”. In addition, the oldest son of the arch father Isaac carries the name Esau, because he was very red, “He was like a hairy garment all over.” (Gen. 25:25). Therefore, he is named Esau, and symbolically it is important that the first son who is born outside paradise then also prototypically wears the mantle of mortality. Esau becomes the New Testament prototype (Heb. 11:20) of the carnal or natural man, and Jacob of the spiritual man who is able to overcome his human nature with a godly nature. The “red stew” (Gen. 25:30) that Esau bought from Jacob, also points to the first-born rights of Adam (Heb. 12:16) which were sold (Isa. 53:5).
The Red Sea is clearly the symbolic space of death and resurrection, the place where the first Adam dies and the last Adam is resurrected. In short: according to 1Cor. 10:1-2 it is those who have moved through the (Red) Sea, and who are baptised in Moses, or then, Jesus. We know that to be baptised in the Name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:38) forms part of becoming born-again (John 3:3 & 5).
That all these transitions stand in the sign of blood, and of the colour red, is linked to the traumatic state of radical change that takes place in the person who is responding to the call of the Saviour to move out of Egypt, and the difficult first part of the road of faith, that is constantly countered by the carnal nature of our blood.
But – according to the AHLB – this term also points to “likeness,” or the idea that man is created in God’s likeness. There is certainly something of man’s original purpose and calling revealed in this, and thus the path through the Red Sea is symbolic of the return to our original identity.
o The most beautiful part of the mystery of the bitter herbs that need to be eaten with the unleavened bread and the lamb, is that the pictorial bitter is defined through a few very expressive terms:
as a compilation of two images: water + the head, in other words, the Head of primordial waters
rebellion
“To pay the price for a wife.”
“An archer: one who shoots an arrow”
A pleasant fragrance
“change, remove, exchange”
In the next teaching we will consider and integrate the implications of all of these strands of information.
• Selah: Try to put together a narrative that encompasses the six points articulated above.
• Read: Deut. 13-21
• Memorise: Deut. 16:3 (what Godly synchronicity!)
