CHRONOLOGY AND GNOSTICISM

by James B. Jordan

It is widely assumed in evangelicalism today that Biblical chronology is of no great theological importance. The assumption that Biblical chronology is not important lies behind the easy dismissal of it by late nineteenth century evangelical scholars, and the continual ignoring of it in the twentieth century. The purpose of the present essay is to demonstrate that Biblical chronology is, on the contrary, very important to Biblical theology.

To show why this is so, we need to consider for a few moments the great counterfeit of true religion, which we can call "gnosticism," after the movements in the early centuries of the Christian Church that are called by that name. Gnosticism is the tendency to substitute ideology for history and otherworldliness for creation. The gnostics of the early Church period held that the events of Christ's life, suffering, death, and resurrection were not particularly important. Following ancient paganism, the gnostics wanted a religion of ideas. For them, the point was not to trust in a series of historical events, but to get in contact with a set of eternal ideas. The gnostic gods were always dying and always rising again, and these stories were regarded simply as myths that pointed to the cyclical character of time as a reflection of a static eternity.

Against this idea the early Church took an unalterable stand. Their views are enshrined in the two great early creeds of the Church: the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. These creeds stated that Jesus was "born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the God the Father Almighty; from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead." This statement is an affirmation of irreversible history. It is an affirmation that Christ's work was done in this world ("under Pontius Pilate") in real chronological time ("third day"). It cannot be repeated: Christ does not die and rise again and again; instead He is coming to judge the world.

SACRED TIME

For the gnostics and pagans this was nonsense. For them history was not real. Only the eternal realm of ideas was real. Their system said that there were two kinds of time and space. There was sacred time and sacred space, and there was profane time and profane space. The important religious events took place in sacred time and sacred space, which were in another world.

For the pagans and gnostics, sacred time was not clock-time as we know it. To express this, they spoke of events in sacred time as taking millions and billions of years, yet instantaneously. Nor was sacred space the same as earthly space as we know it. Sacred space was vast yet tiny. These were ways of saying that sacred time and space are eternal. The goal of pagan and gnostic religions was to get hold of the power of sacred space and time and bring these into this world as a means of getting life, power, and knowledge. (The many works of religion scholar Mircea Eliade can be consulted for detailed discussions of these matters.)

This worldview is sometimes called the "archaic" worldview. It is a counterfeit of the true "archaic" world, which in the Bible is called the Old Creation. In the Bible there are also sacred space and sacred time, but in a completely different sense. Sacred space in the Old Testament was an area marked off in this world. Sacred time was the chronology that took place in that sacred space. But this sacred time was clocked exactly the same way as time outside the boundaries of the sanctuary. In other words, in the Bible sacred space and sacred time are simply the centers of the world of space and time, not some other world of space and time.

(For the moment, I shall discuss the Biblical picture in terms of "sacred" and "profane" space and time. Below I shall point out that the Biblical picture is actually more complex.)

Sacred space in the Bible is always set off by boundaries that are described geometrically. When we find God setting specific dimensions for an object, that object is being enclosed as holy or sacred space. Ultimately, God's "sacred space" is His people. It is they who, gathered around His throne, create His temple.

The human body, proportioned and measured by God in Genesis 2, is the ultimate boundary of "sacred space," which is why in the "archaic" Old Creation religion there were important sacramental laws of diet. The heart beats out time within this human space. For the holy man, the heart beats out sacred time in his sacred body; for the clean man, the heart beats out clean time in his clean body; for the unclean man, the heart beats out unclean time in his unclean body. This is the archetype and the ultimate fulfillment of all other sacred geometry and sacred time in the Old Creation.

To get this before us, let us briefly look at the Old Testament. The first holy ground was the Garden of Eden. Outside this Garden were the land of Eden and the other lands. Let us call the Garden "sacred space" and the rest of the world "profane space." The location of sacred space in this world indicated that sacred space was to impact this world. The boundaries of the Garden (transgressed by Satan) correspond to the boundaries of the holy people (transgressed by eating the forbidden fruit). It is important to note right away that in Biblical religion, only the will and action of man can defile "sacred space." Satan did not defile the Garden; Adam and Eve did. The fruit did not defile their bodies; their rebellious hearts did (unthankfulness, Romans 1:21).

In fact, though, there are four zones of space (and thus of time and personage) in this original world, according to the Biblical picture. The Garden was on the east side of the Land of Eden, and a river arose in Eden and then flowed into the Garden, and from there out to the rest of the world. Accordingly, the Land of Eden was higher ground than the Garden. The difference between the Land and the Garden is that between king and priest. Adam and Eve started as priests. They were given the Tree of Life. They were put in the Garden to learn and serve. Had they proven faithful, they would have been given the royal Tree of Knowledge, been admitted to the Throneland of Eden, and been allowed into their own sabbath rest, enthroned as kings.

Cast out of the Garden to the east, they were moving down-slope from the sanctuary. Throughout the rest of the Bible, we always see the sanctuary on high ground, and access to it consisting of moving up a slope to the place of the sanctuary. Thus, there is a forecourt area before the sanctuary. This is the third environment. Finally, of course, there is the rest of the world.

Thus, we have four spaces: the profane space of the world, the clean space of the forecourt, the holy space of the sanctuary-garden, and the glorious space of the throneland. But all of these are in this world, and all are measured by the same time.

When man sinned, he was cast out of the Garden into a forecourt land east of Eden. Outside this was the "wilderness," which was in some sense "profane space." Now we have four areas: kingly, sacred, clean, and profane.1 All of these existed in this world. In paganism, there were only two realms: sacred and profane. Also in paganism, these two realms existed impersonally; while in Biblical religion the four realms are brought about by human intention and action. In paganism, the way to get from the profane to the sacred realm is by impersonal ritual or other techniques; in Biblical religion, the way to move from profane (common) to clean to holy to glorious is by personal repentance and obedience.

Between the Fall and the call of Abraham, "sacred space" was carried in the persons of the Patriarchs. They were God's sanctuary on earth, and the chronology is attached to them. During the Flood Year, however, sacred space was the Ark, whose right-angled dimensions were carefully dictated by God. Genesis 7-8 gives the chronology of the Flood Year in terms of the Ark.

With the call of Abraham, "sacred space" became the community of the special priestly people. Sacred time, then, was measured in the years of the Hebrew Patriarchs. There was a "clean" land around these Patriarchs, and outside the "Promised Land" was the profane land of the "wilderness world." Thus there was "clean time" and "profane time," but the clocks of sacred, clean, and profane time ticked at the same rate, and existed in the same world.

In the Mosaic era, sacred space was the Tabernacle and its courtyard. The chronology is given in terms of the Tabernacle and Temple (480 years from the Exodus which was a departure for a religious festival to the building of the Temple; Exodus 3:18; 1 Kings 6:1).

When the Temple (Yahweh's Palace) was built, the palace of the King was made part of its precincts, part of the furniture of Yahweh's Palace. The chronology of this period is tied to the Kings as New Adamic builders and rebuilders of the Temple. The Kings, ruling enthroned in the land, have entered a kind of "glory time" that advances beyond "sacred time." The focus on the person of the King continues the theme that "sacred/glory space and time" are ultimately personal, not geographical.

After the Restoration, sacred space is more sharply focussed on the Person of the coming Messiah, and the chronology (Daniel's seventy weeks of years) is tied to the coming of that Messiah. In a sense, we now have neither priestly time or kingly time, but prophetic time.

In the Gospels, sacred space is manifest in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and the chronology is tied to the events in His life. Away from His presence is the demonic realm of uncleanness.

With the ascension of Jesus Christ, "sacred space" is positioned in heaven. No longer is there any "holy ground" on the earth. Similarly, "sacred time" is positioned in heaven, and accordingly the New Testament is not concerned to provide a strict chronology of events after Pentecost. Nevertheless, the clocks in heaven, on earth, and in hell tick at the same rate. It is just that the definitive chronology of the New Creation is being "recorded" in heaven, not in connection with any earthly sanctuary. It is Christ's "heartbeat" in heaven which is the measure of the ultimately Personal sacred time.

This theological grid shows the intense theological importance of Biblical chronology. The history of the sanctuary, in its various forms, is not an other-worldly history, as in gnosticism and paganism. Rather, the history of the sanctuary is the core of world history from creation to the cross.

We may also mention that it should be clear from this discussion that the seven days of creation week did not take place in some kind of otherworldly "sacred time," but in the same kind of clock-chronology time as every other week.

THE CHURCH AND CHRONOLOGY

If "sacred space and time" are in Christ and in heaven, then by the power of the Holy Spirit, they also exist on earth in the Church. The gathering of the Church creates sacred time and sacred space for worship. Precise geographical lines and calendrical times no longer demarcate these events; they are all now "in-personated" in the persons of Christ and His bride.

It is interesting to observe, along these lines, that the New Creation Church on earth is in a sense the "courtyard" of the heavenly sanctuary. It has been the Church that has provided a chronology for the world. It has been the Church that reformed the calendar. It has been the Church that kept accurate chronological records for centuries until the birth of the modern world. Thus, in a "shadow" fashion, the Church as the "center" of the world continues to be the center of chronological time.

Chronology is the backbone of history, and the sanctuary is the center of the world. Agreeable to this is the fact that the core chronology of the world is the chronology of the sanctuary given in the Bible. Christians who understand this fact will not be tempted to exchange Biblical chronology for the Egyptian leaven of Manetho's dynasties or any other set of garbled pagan records, all of which show the pagan-gnostic tendency to exaggerate numbers greatly in order to point to their brand of mythical "sacred time."

Gnosticism is with us today in the evangelical church. Twenty years ago it was still true that most evangelical scholars held to seven-day creationism. Today it seems that the "orthodox" position is that the seven days of Genesis are not chronological days but Seven Big Ideas. In Calvinistic circles this has been pushed by Meredith G. Kline and his followers, who display a tendency to downplay history across the board. The history of the Old Creation in these circles tends to lose any kind of cause and effect and becomes a series of rather random "intrusions" of God. The New Creation is understood in these circles as a kind of static "common grace" that will someday suddenly be interrupted by a final "instrusion."

Of course, I hasten to add that no evangelical pushes these ideas to their limits. I am not accusing Kline or any of his followers of gnosticism, but I do believe we see in this way of thinking a gnostic tendency, a tendency to downplay the reality of history, of cause and effect, of the impact of the sanctuary on the world. In Biblical perspective, the location of the sanctuary (sacred space/time) in the world meant the impact of the sanctuary on the world.

The ascension of Christ to heaven and the relocation of the sanctuary into heaven did not reduce that impact, but strengthened it. This is for two reasons. First, being in heaven, the sanctuary is now readily accessible by all persons anywhere in the world. Second, the continual streaming forth of the Holy Spirit from the heavenly sanctuary provides a far more powerful impact than was ever felt in the Old Creation.

"Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven" is part of the Lord's Prayer. In Biblical theology, the principle that heaven impacts the earth and imprints heavenly principles on the earth is called typology. In the Old Creation, the earthly sanctuary typologically imprinted heavenly principles on the world beyond its borders. In the New Creation, the far more powerful heavenly sanctuary typologically imprints heavenly principles on the earth through the streaming forth of the Spirit of life, power, and knowledge.

The modern gnostic tendency tends to separate the sanctuary from the world. This is not new: the nature/grace separation of Medieval theology had the same effect. This separation has had tremendous effects on liturgics, since worshippers no longer have any sense of moving into a Spirit-created sanctuary and then back out again into the world. It has had tremendous effects on worldview, since Christians do not see their movement back into the world as one of dynamically carrying forth the impact of holiness into all of life. It has had tremendous effects on theology, as the themes of glorification and transfiguration are almost completely ignored. It has had tremendous effects on exegesis, as the principle of typology of the progressive impact and imprint of sacred time and space (persons) on the world is not recognized. And it means that Biblical chronology is regarded as unimportant.

Biblical religion, however, is not an ideology. It is not the legalistic ideology of the Pharisees, the political ideology of the Zealot, or the contemplative ideology of the Gnostic. Biblical religion, rather, is the gift of the Kingdom, a new life in a new world. That gift and that life have come in history as an historical event, measurable in chronological clock-time, the only time there is. For this reason, chronology is of paramount importance in the recovery of the true faith from the influence of gnosticism.

 

1. The concept of uncleaness only pertains to the persons and spaces that are clean. Under the Sinaitic covenant, the world outside the clean realm of Isreal is the gentile world which is neither clean nor unclean. We are calling it "profane" in this chapter.

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