More Than Heaven: A Biblical Theological Argument for a Federal View of Glorification

By T. Jeff Taylor

The Protestant church has wrestled since the time of the Reformation with how believers can be saved by grace but rewarded in degrees based on their works. Though some through the years have argued that the Scriptures don't actually teach differing degrees of reward, this has been the predominant view. This book takes the minority view. Believers are saved by grace alone through faith alone, and the believers' rewards and glorification are based on the finished work of Christ alone. It is grace from start to finish. The church is the bride of Christ, and in the end all that is his is hers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Jun 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666792737

T. Jeff Taylor

T. Jeff Taylor studied at Westminster Seminary California and Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando. He is retired from pastoral ministry and works in the insurance industry.

Book preview

Section One

Two Federal Heads

1

Temple of the King

The King of Glory

Moses’ prologue to Genesis (1:1—2:3) is a summary statement of God’s final purpose for all of creation. More than recounting the origin of the world, Moses sets forth the metanarrative of creation. He recounts God creating the cosmos, describes the relationship of heaven and earth, and sets forth creation’s final state.

Even without detailed exegesis, it is clear that the relationship of heaven and earth is prominent. In verse 1, God creates the heavens and the earth. In verse 2, the Spirit hovers over the earth. In verses 26ff., God addresses the angelic council regarding making man in his own image.¹ On each of the creation days, God commands from heaven what is brought into existence on earth. The passage concludes with God entering his heavenly sabbath rest and consecrating the sabbath rest for man on earth. The archetype/replica relationship of the heavens and earth gains clarity as one understands the nature of the heavens.

Heavens in verse 1 refers to the invisible part of creation. In the geocentric account, earth includes all the creation normally visible to man including the expanse above the earth. Colossians 1:16 uses the same language and then appositionally supplies its meaning, For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. Heavens is invisible, and earth is visible. Nehemiah 9:6 uses this inclusive language to praise God as Creator of all:

You alone are the L

ord

.

You have made the heavens,

The heaven of heavens with all their host,

The earth and all that is on it,

The seas and all that is in them.

You give life to all of them

And the heavenly host bows down before You.

Heaven is not just the blissful dwelling of God. Heaven is the throne of God, the King. Colossians 1:16 intimates this by reference to thrones that owe their existence to the Creator. He is the one to whom the mighty angelic army² of heaven bows. More explicitly, Psalm 103:19–21 declares that God’s throne is surrounded by the angelic hosts who serve him:

The L

ord

has established His throne in the heavens,

And His sovereignty rules over all.

²⁰ Bless the L

ord

, you His angels,

Mighty in strength, who perform His word,

Obeying the voice of His word!

²¹ Bless the L

ord

, all you His hosts,

You who serve Him, doing His will.³

Isaiah 66:1 expands the description of God’s sovereign rule to include the visible world: Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. He is Lord over all creation. He is the sovereign of heaven who rules over the affairs of men on earth. Daniel describes God sitting on his throne in heaven to adjudicate the claims of the nations:⁴

I kept looking

Until thrones were set up,

And the Ancient of Days took His seat;

His vesture was like white snow

And the hair of His head like pure wool.

His throne was ablaze with flames,

Its wheels were a burning fire.

¹⁰ A river of fire was flowing

And coming out from before Him;

Thousands upon thousands were attending Him,

And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him;

The court sat,

And the books were opened. (Dan

7

:

9–10

)

Likewise, when Jesus reveals the purposes of God to the apostle John, John records, I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne (Rev 4:2). To this King the angels do not stop giving praise, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come (Rev 4:8). The twenty-four elders cast their crowns at his feet, confessing, Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created (Rev 4:11). This King who created all things will sit in final judgment: Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them" (Rev 20:11). From Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures proclaim in unison that heaven is the throne of God.

The description of the throne of God in Revelation 4 also makes it clear that heaven is his temple. The hosts of heaven do not cease their worship of the King, Holy, holy, holy. While one may think that thrones and temples occupy separate jurisdictions, God did not separate them in creation. Heaven is the throne of God, but it is also the temple of the King. Isaiah 6:1–4 says,

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. ² Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called out to another and said,

"Holy, Holy, Holy, is the L

ord

of hosts,

The whole earth is full of His glory."

⁴ And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.

Isaiah sees the throne of the Lord in the temple filled with God’s Glory. Isaiah describes the King seated in Glory in his temple in Isaiah 40:21–23:

Do you not know? Have you not heard?

Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

²² It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.

And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,

Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain

And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

²³ He it is who reduces rulers to nothing.

Who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.⁵

The use of the tent of God refers to the tabernacle and temple. God stretches out the heavens like a curtain—like a tent to dwell in. God, enthroned in his royal temple, sovereignly rules over the kings of the earth. The psalmist identifies the throne of the King of Heaven with the temple of heaven when he writes, Yahweh is in His holy temple, His throne is in the heavens (Ps 11:4 AT). Similarly, Micah identifies God’s heavenly temple with his throne when he warns of the judgment to come on Israel:

Hear, O peoples, all of you;

Listen, O earth and all it contains,

And let the Lord God be a witness against you,

The Lord from His holy temple.

³ For behold, the L

ord

is coming forth from His place.

He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. (Mic

1

:

2–3

)

The doom is certain. God, the conquering King, will come forth from his temple in heaven and conquer Israel’s fortified mountains. They have broken the King’s covenant, and there is no defense that can withstand him.

Deuteronomy 26:15 speaks of the day when Israel will enter the land of their inheritance and keep the requirements before the priests to be a consecrated people and will pray to the Lord to pour out from his heavenly temple onto their holy land the blessings of the covenant. Moses writes, Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the ground which You have given us, a land flowing with milk and honey, as You swore to our fathers.⁶

Genesis 1:1 starts with the proclamation that God created his heavenly royal temple. But verse 2 immediately informs the reader that heaven itself is the created epiphany of God. Moses’ use of the Spirit is not just a reference to God in verse 1 but actually references the King in his royal temple of Glory. This is easily lost on the modern reader, but the unique vocabulary Moses uses in Genesis 1:2 alerts the Hebrew reader to the Spirit’s connection with the theophany⁷ of God in the wilderness described in Deuteronomy 32.

Moses didn’t write Genesis 1 without context. He wrote Genesis for Israel in the context of their experience. Richard Pratt contends, Moses wrote the book of Genesis to teach his readers that leaving Egypt and possessing Canaan was God’s design for Israel.⁸ While Pratt’s proposed purpose is considerably narrower than Moses’ purpose, it does make the point that Moses’ original readers would have connected vocabulary, categories, and concepts in Genesis to their own experience in the exodus, the wilderness, and conquest. The reader is not left to interpret Genesis 1 in isolation from Moses’ selected words and concepts used elsewhere in the Pentateuch. His word choice connects Genesis 1:2 to Deuteronomy 32:10–11. Genesis 1:2 reads,

The earth was formless and void,

and darkness was over the face of the deep,

and the Spirit of God was hovering

over the face of the waters.

These rare terms would have taken the first readers to Deuteronomy 32:

He found him in a desert land,

And in the howling waste of a wilderness;

He encircled him, He cared for him,

He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.

¹¹ Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,

That hovers over its young,

He spread His wings and caught them,

He carried them on His pinions. (Deut

32

:

10–11

)

Though the word is translated waste in Deuteronomy 32 and formless in Genesis 1, the same word is used in Hebrew, tōhû (תֹּהוּ). M. G. Kline explains the connection between these two passages:

The intention to portray the exodus history as a replay of Gen

1

:

2

is made clear by the use in Deut

32

:

10

,

11

of two rare words (the noun tōhû and the verb rḥp), found in the Pentateuch only in these two passages. In the Song of Moses, the wilderness becomes the new tōhû, the waste land, equivalent to the primeval deep-and-darkness, and it is the Shekinah-cloud that is referred to as hovering (the verb rḥp) over Israel in the wilderness-tōhû.⁹

The Spirit hovers (rḥp, רָחַף) over the formless (tōhû, תֹּהו) in Genesis 1:2 as the visible Shekinah hovers (rḥp) over the waste (tōhû) in Deuteronomy 32:10–11. Moses uses the terms in Deuteronomy to describe the exodus as a new creation. Likewise, the Spirit hovering over the earth at creation is an obvious reference to the theophany of the Glory-cloud in the wilderness and the Shekinah-cloud in the tabernacle and temple. Later writers will also note the identity of the Spirit of God and the theophany with Israel. Nehemiah connects the presence of the Spirit with the cloud theophany when he writes,

Even when they made for themselves

A calf of molten metal

And said, ‘This is your God

Who brought you up from Egypt,’

And committed great blasphemies,

¹⁹ You, in Your great compassion,

Did not forsake them in the wilderness;

The pillar of cloud did not leave them by day,

To guide them on their way,

Nor the pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they were to go.

²⁰ "You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them,

Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth,

And You gave them water for their thirst. (Neh

9

:

18–20

)

Isaiah also describes the visible presence of the Holy Spirit with Israel in the exodus and journey through the wilderness:

But they rebelled

And grieved His Holy Spirit;

Therefore He turned Himself to become their enemy,

He fought against them.

¹¹ Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses.

Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock?

Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them,

¹² Who caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses,

Who divided the waters before them to make for Himself an everlasting name,

¹³ Who led them through the depths?

Like the horse in the wilderness, they did not stumble;

¹⁴ As the cattle which go down into the valley,

The Spirit of the L

ord

gave them rest.

So You led Your people,

To make for Yourself a glorious name. (Isa

63

:

10–14

)

Isaiah identifies the glorious arm of the Lord as the Holy Spirit.¹⁰ Exodus 14 identifies the Lord’s presence as the theophany pillar of fire and cloud:

. . . the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. ²⁰ So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night. ²¹ Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the L

ord

swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided. ²² The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. ²³ Then the Egyptians took up the pursuit, and all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots and his horsemen went in after them into the midst of the sea. ²⁴ At the morning watch, the L

ord

looked down on the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud and brought the army of the Egyptians into confusion. (Exod

14

:

19–24

)

This formative event in Israel’s history furnishes Haggai with the background for the promise. Just as God was present in the theophany in the past, God promises a coming glory: As for the promise which I made you when you came out of Egypt, My Spirit is abiding in your midst; do not fear! (Hag 2:5) The pillar of cloud is the theophany of God, the Spirit.

The cloud theophany Israel knew as God’s presence was bright and identified with the Lord’s Glory. The theophany was a Glory-cloud.¹¹ Moses uses the glory to refer to the theophany synonymously with the cloud. Exodus 24 records,

Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶ The glory of the L

ord

rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. ¹⁷ And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the L

ord

was like a consuming fire on the mountain top. ¹⁸ Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. (Exod

24

:

15–18

)

The Glory of God’s theophanic presence, the Spirit, led Israel in the wilderness. Exodus 40 concludes,

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the L

ord

filled the tabernacle. ³⁵ Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the L

ord

filled the tabernacle. ³⁶ Throughout all their journeys whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would set out; ³⁷ but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day when it was taken up. ³⁸ For throughout all their journeys, the cloud of the L

ord

was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel. (Exod

40

:

34–38

)

Israel was not witness just to an unusual cloud; they were in the presence of God. Kline writes,

God’s theophanic glory is the glory of royal majesty. At the center of the heavens within the veil of the Glory-cloud is found a throne; the Glory is preeminently the place of God’s enthronement. It is, therefore, a royal palace, site of the divine council and court of judgment. As royal house of a divine King, the dwelling of deity, it is a holy house, a temple.¹²

The Glory-cloud theophany, the pillar, and subsequently the Shekinah-cloud were the local manifestation of the presence of the King in heaven. God was with his people.

By using the unique vocabulary to reference Deuteronomy 32, Moses is identifying the Spirit in Genesis 1:2 with the visible theophany in the wilderness.¹³ The localized theophany of the Glory-cloud in the wilderness was a manifestation of the Glory-Spirit of heaven (Gen 1:2 the Spirit). The Spirit in Genesis 1:2 is the Glory of the divine presence of heaven. Like the Glory-cloud theophany hovered over Israel, so the Glory-Spirit hovered over the earth. Deuteronomy 32:11 says,

Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,

That hovers over its young,

He spread His wings and caught them,

He carried them on His pinions.

The theophany of the Spirit in the wilderness cared for Israel like an eagle cares for it’s young.¹⁴ So too Genesis 1:2 describes the Spirit hovering. Kline explains the connection:

To describe the action of the Glory-cloud by the figure of outspread wings was natural, not simply because of the overshadowing function it performed, but because of the composition of this theophanic cloud. For when prophetic vision penetrates the thick darkness, the cloud is seen to be alive with winged creatures, with cherubim and seraphim.¹⁵

The Spirit in Genesis 1:2 is heaven itself filled with the Glory of the divine presence. But just as the Glory-cloud was the localized presence of God, so the Spirit references the Glory of God and his royal temple. Heaven is the epiphany of the Glory of the Spirit, just as the Glory-cloud was the visible manifestation of God.

Just as the Second Person of the Trinity became incarnated in history, so the Third Person of the Trinity became endoxated. Heaven is the created manifestation of the Glory of God. Kline writes, The creation of heaven was an epiphany.¹⁶ The psalmist writes,

Praise the L

ord

, my soul.

L

ord

my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

² The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent. (Ps

104

:

1–2 NIV

)

Kline observes that the splendor with which God is clothed is identified with the theophanic light of the Lord.¹⁷ Kline concludes,

As an epiphany, the Glory that constitutes heaven is identifiable with God. At the same time, this Glory epiphany is a created phenomenon . . . The heavenly Glory is then an embodiment of Deity . . . a permanent embodiment.¹⁸

Heaven is a created manifestation of the Glory of the Spirit, like the incarnation is of the Son. Kline coined the term endoxation to describe the creational projection of the eternal procession of the Spirit . . .¹⁹ Kline later again says,

. . . the creating of heaven itself was a replicating of the eternal, uncreated Glory of God . . .the replicating of eternal divine Glory in the creation of the cosmos points back to a radiating of divine Glory involved in the dynamic forms of subsistence with the Trinity apart from creation.²⁰

The Genesis 1:2 reference to the Spirit speaks not just of the Holy Spirit, but to the heavens as the endoxation of the Holy Spirit—the God of Glory in his royal temple. This does not in any way confuse the creation with the Creator any more than the incarnation does. The Spirit references the holy court of the triune God. The Son is present in heaven as the Angel of the Presence. That is not to say that the Son is an angel and not the Son of God. He is God. The Son, in his preincarnate state, is present in creation as the Angel of the Lord or the Angel of the Presence. The Father is King of Glory. God is one and is seen in the created invisible heavens.

Many people assume that heaven has always existed, and that God made the visible world. The first verse of Genesis starts with the declaration that God created the invisible heavens. Genesis 1:1 is the alpha point, the beginning of creation. God is Creator of all existence outside himself. This is the point everything outside of God comes into existence. The creation was not, and then it was. Time, space, matter, creation was not, and then God created it. Moses starts with the starting point—the distinction between the Creator and the creation. God created ex nihilo, out of nothing, and in nihilum, into nothing. There was not a void. There was not blackness. There was not emptiness. There was not an infinite passing of time before God created the creation. There was God. Proverbs 8 affirms this aseity²¹ of God. God’s self-existent wisdom forms his architectural wonder. No one taught him. God’s Wisdom confesses,

The

Lord

possessed me at the beginning of His way,

Before His works of old.

²³ From everlasting I was established,

From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.

²⁴ When there were no depths I was brought forth,

When there were no springs abounding with water.

²⁵ Before the mountains were settled,

Before the hills I was brought forth;

²⁶ While He had not yet made the earth and the fields,

Nor the first dust of the world.

²⁷ When He established the heavens, I was there,

When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,

²⁸ When He made firm the skies above,

When the springs of the deep became fixed,

²⁹ When He set for the sea its boundary

So that the water would not transgress His command,

When He marked out the foundations of the earth;

³⁰ Then I was beside Him, as a master workman;

And I was daily His delight,

Rejoicing always before Him. (Prov

8

:

22–30

)

Before God created his works of old, when there were no depths, before the springs that bring forth water, before the mountains were even set as the foundational pillars of the earth, prior to making the dust of the earth, God’s Wisdom existed in himself. God did not get his Wisdom from anywhere, anyone, or anything. Bruce Walke explains,

The metaphor brought forth signifies that Solomon’s inspired wisdom comes from God’s essential being; it is a revelation that has an organic connection with God’s very nature and being, unlike the rest of creation that came into existence outside of him and independent from his being.²²

The apostle John also starts his gospel account with the same contrast between the triune God and creation. John writes,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (John

1

:

1–3

)

Note how John echoes the words of Genesis 1:1, In the beginning. The Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, was with God. Indeed, the Word himself is God. He is the Wisdom of Proverbs 8. The one who would become incarnate (John 1:14) created all things. Verses 3 excludes the thought of anything having existence in creation that God, the Word, did not bring into being.

What is astonishing is that God created heaven as part of creation and then stepped into time and space. God, who exists in himself before creation and does not need anything, created the invisible heavens and made himself knowable to the creation by dwelling in heaven as his royal temple. When Solomon was making the tiny replica of the temple of heaven, he confessed, But who is able to build a house for Him, for the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him? (2 Chr 2:6).²³ Solomon was taken aback by the thought that if the invisible created heavens filled with the Glory of God could come anywhere close to containing the eternal God, then how could his sixty-by-twenty-cubit temple replica!²⁴ It is this created endoxation of the Glory of the Spirit of God, the royal temple of the King, that hovered over the earth at creation to replicate heaven on earth.

Created in the King’s Image

The Glory-Spirit is the archetype for the creation of the earth and its vassal king. In Genesis 1:26, the King of Glory in heaven addresses the divine angelic council,²⁵ Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. The vassal king would represent the King of Heaven on earth. But more, the image bearer would bear the resemblance of his heavenly Father. The Spirit of the Lord hovers as a father giving life to his son. Though only a man created from the dust of the earth, Adam would resemble his Father, the God of heaven. Genesis 5:1, 3 says,

In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God . . . ³ When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.

Adam’s son was in his likeness as Adam was created in the likeness of God. Luke’s genealogy also uses this same language: the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God (Luke 3:38). After the fall of Adam, man’s image identity continues to be acknowledged in a very broken and perverted form. The end of the first section of Genesis culminates with the judgment on the pagan kings who called themselves the sons of gods.²⁶

The hovering of the Spirit in order to father is seen at other inceptional events. The Glory-cloud hovered over and fathered Israel in the wilderness. The angel announced that the Spirit would overshadow the virgin Mary.²⁷ The Spirit came as a violent noise of a rushing wind on the church at Pentecost.²⁸ In these subsequent events, the Spirit was birthing a son. Israel was called son,²⁹ as his covenant people. Gabriel announced that Jesus is the Son of God. And the New Covenant church birthed at Pentecost would call God Abba! Father.³⁰ Adam is the son of God, created in the Glory-Spirit’s image. As the Glory-Spirit is the temple of God in heaven, so Adam is the Spirit’s replica on earth. Adam himself is the temple of God. The Spirit breathes life into Adam (Gen 2:7). The Spirit fills Adam.

Many find it awkward to think of Adam himself as a temple of God. But as the dwelling of God’s Spirit, that is what he was. John 1:14 uses the same architectural language when John writes that Jesus tabernacled³¹ (or as is usually translated dwelt) among us. Paul uses the unusual mixed metaphor of being clothed and being temples in 2 Corinthians 5:1–4:

For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, ³ inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. ⁴ For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.

Paul likens putting on the image to being clothed with Christ.³² To be the image is to be the temple of God.³³ Kline notes, God created man in the likeness of the Glory to be a spirit-temple of God in the Spirit.³⁴ The Spirit endoxated is the temple of God. So Adam, made in the likeness of the Spirit, is a replica temple of God.

The Genesis 2:7 infilling of the Adamic temple becomes a foundational event referenced by later writers. Ezekiel 36 promises a re-creation of Israel, when her desolation will be removed and she will again become like the garden of Eden (Ezek 36:35) when God puts his Spirit in his people (Ezek 36:27). Ezekiel 37:1–10 describes the breath³⁵ of God coming on the dry bones and bringing them to life. Ezekiel 37:14 summarizes the promise, And I will put my Spirit within you, and you will come to life. Lamentations 4:20 alludes to Genesis 2:7 in the parallelism of the Lord’s anointed, breath of our nostrils. After the resurrection, Jesus promised the Spirit would come on the disciples. John 20:22 records, He breathed in³⁶ them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (AT). Beasley-Murray notes the clear connection of these passages: ‘He breathed in’ is perhaps needlessly literal, but it harks back to the unusual term in Gen 2:7 and Ezek 37:9–10. He continues,

The symbolism is a clear application of the notion of resurrection, and that in an eschatological context (deliverance for the kingdom). It is not surprising that it came to be viewed as a representation of resurrection in the time of the kingdom. In v.

22

the symbolic action primarily represents the impartation of life that the Holy Spirit gives in the new age, brought about through Christ’s exaltation in death and resurrection.³⁷

As the Spirit gave indwelling life to Adam, so now in the new age of the kingdom Christ would give the Spirit’s indwelling life to believers.

Adam, the image of God, would rule as vassal over the kingdom of God on the earth. God’s address to the divine council continues in Genesis 1:26: let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. The creation of Adam is the culmination of the six days of replicating the kingdom of heaven on earth. The reader can hear the edicts of the King, Let there be, and the actualization on earth, and it was so. The greater light is created to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night. The first three days of creation bring forth dominions that are filled on the following three days by their respective rulers—the creatures of the sea and fowl of the sky on the fifth day and the animals on the sixth day. Over this earthly kingdom, the image of God is placed as vassal king. Each creature is created after its kind. Adam is in the likeness of God.

Not only would Adam be vassal king over the kingdom of God on earth; he would be a priest in the kingdom. This kingdom is holy, the temple of God on earth. Adam would be a priest/king. He would fill and subdue as king, but he was also tasked to guard the holiness of the kingdom. Genesis 2:15 says, And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to guard it (AT). Although some scholars translate shamar (שָׁמַר) with guard, most translate it keep. Kline points out that the same word used for keep (shamar) in Genesis 2:15 is also translated guard (shamar). When Adam is cast out of the garden, it is the cherubim who guard³⁸ (shamar) the entrance to the holy garden.³⁹ Adam is a priest in the temple of Eden. Kline explains,

Elsewhere in the Bible, especially in passages dealing with functions of the priests and Levites in Israel, the verb shamar occurs frequently in the sense of guarding the holiness of God’s sanctuary against profanation by unauthorized strangers (cf. E.g. Num

1

:

53

;

3

:

8

,

10

,

32

;

8

:

26

;

18

:

3

ff;

31

:

30

,

47

;

1

Sam

7

:

1

;

2

Kgs

12

:

9

;

1

Chr

23

:

32

;

2

Chr

34

:

9

; Ezek

44

:

15

f,

48

:

11

).⁴⁰

Beale too affirms that Adam is a priest: he was the archetypal priest who served in and guarded (or ‘took care of’) God’s first temple.⁴¹ So Beale affirms the dual role of the image: Adam should always best be referred to as a ‘priest-king’.⁴²

Ezekiel calls Eden the holy mount of God (Ezek 28:14). Eden is the garden of God (Ezek 28:13; 31:8–9; Isa 51:3). John describes the new heavens and new earth in Revelation 21–22 as the temple/tabernacle of Eden; it is the city of God, the new Jerusalem (21:2). The loud voice from heaven’s throne announces, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will tabernacle among them (Rev 21:3 AT). The great city temple is reminiscent of Eden, the mountain of God.⁴³ Revelation’s description is like the temple of God described in Ezekiel 40–47.⁴⁴ Revelation 22:1ff. describes the ultimate paradise in terms of Eden. There is the river and the tree of life, and there is no more curse. This is the throne of God.