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The Great Exchange

Part XLVII

The Great Exchange has sought to document the incredible role reversal which occurred at the cross of JESUS CHRIST, and we have likened this to the phrase The Great Exchange.

Not only did Jesus exchange His holy life for our existence in this world, but He moved in those who recognized His amazing plan, even as He fulfilled His promise to inhabit the believer.

"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord (Zechariah 2:10).  

As descendants of Adam and Eve, earthbound mankind was, and is, permanently barred from the eternal life which was enjoyed by our ancestors in the Garden.

In the LORD's astonishing plan, over the course of centuries, He continually manifested the triune architecture associated with salvation – and this thread of thought also served the purpose of instructing His people concerning aspects of His own divine nature.

As we've repeatedly shown, in what we call the Triuniverse, as God was separated from fallen man because of His divine existence and our sinful nature, He engineered the office of the Mediator, who would act as His agent, between Himself and mankind.

The pattern consistently shows us that God initially chooses to utilize a single individual, who would then spread His word until that Mediation functions in a collective sense. This begins immediately after the fall in Eden, when the LORD formally recognizes the infraction, as Adam was seeking to hide from God because he was naked.

Once the Spirit of God had vacated contact with Adam and Eve, because  they had disobeyed God and eaten the forbidden fruit, they immediately became aware of the fact that they were naked. This marks the cessation of union with God, and points us to a conscious awareness of our earthly environment.

This is also the first instance of Death in the Bible, as God killed animals in order to clothe the couple.

"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21).

Thus the drama that is the Great Exchange began. Here we see the trio of players in the eternal tale, which has God, now separated from His creation in the form of the fallen Adam and Eve, and the innocent animals that die in order to provide the skins that will cover the first couple.

As there are strains of this process in every biblical account in the Scriptures, the cycle progressively provides more information each time it occurs. However, in the early stages before the earth was heavily repopulated after the great flood of Noah, the episodes mentioned in Part XLVII of the Great Exchange are similar to that of Adam and Eve.

When Abraham, who is clearly chosen by the LORD to fulfill His purpose, has a son in his old age, we again see the Death which occurs as a result of the pattern that is emerging. God tests Abraham by instructing him to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac.

In this important account – which occurs long before the time of Moses who administers the Ten Commandments -- God will decisively indicate that there is to be no human sacrifice to Him.

Although the LORD has instructed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, God has no intention of allowing it to occur. Thus, the heathen societies which were already developing at that time were put on notice that the God of Adam, Noah, and Abraham, will never sanction this type of sacrifice.

In the story, Abraham takes Isaac to a mountain, and tells him they are going to offer a sacrifice to the LORD. A little known detail is how  Abraham takes with him two young men of his growing family – and they provide the beginning of a long line of two witnesses concerning events which were then unfolding.

Obviously, the LORD will not allow Abraham to sacrifice his own son, and specifically tells him so. God then arranges for a ram whose horns have become entangled in the brush, as the animal will again serve as the innocent sacrifice for mankind's ongoing sinful nature.

"And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son" (Genesis 22:13).

We might note the subtle shades of Prophetic Metaphor are already beginning at this early date, as the hapless ram, immobilized because of his predicament, foreshadows Christ wearing a crown of thorns, as he is led to the slaughter.

"And the soldiers [formed] a crown of thorns, and put it on his head" (John 19:2).

Virtually every significant account in the Old Testament has parallel elements of a similar nature. However, the premiere example of the triune alignment seen in the shadow that is this world, was Moses, as he was uniquely raised up by the LORD as the pivotal figure in the Old Covenant.

In the days of Moses, the people who were chosen by God had become known as Israelites because they were descended from Jacob -- whose name was changed to Israel -- to signify the fact that he continued the lineage of Abraham whom God had chosen.

As we all know, the large number of Israelites had come to be slaves in the powerful Egyptian empire.

When God heard the cries of the Israelites in bondage, the triune alignment was to be further revealed, as the Egyptians were clearly oppressing the LORD's mediator, who was Moses.

To the Israelites, Moses was the Mediator between them and God, offering Life through the authority of the LORD. But to the Egyptians, Moses was also the Mediator from God, but the Egyptians were threatened with a supernaturally delivered Death, through the irresistible power of the LORD.

The reader will note that these parallel structures are both triune, with Moses functioning as the Mediator between God and Israel, as well as the "middleman" between the LORD and the Egyptians. 

However, the promise of salvation was ever present in both sides of the equation, as Moses repeatedly offered the cessation of the plagues striking Egypt – if they did the will of the Father and released the people the Lord had chosen.

The culmination of the tale is obviously the Exodus, where Israel passes through the watery Death of the Red Sea, even as the Egyptians, moving in opposition to the will of the Lord, were destroyed. With this sharp contrast, we again see the triune alignment, wherein God, and the Israelites led by Moses, are conducted to Life in the Spiritual realm by obeying the LORD.

Conversely, on the opposite side of the formula, we see God, and the Egyptians led by the foolish leadership of the Pharaoh, conducted to Death in the very same arena.

The knowledge imparted through such accounts is clear. If we yield to the leadership of the "Pharaoh" (a Prophetic Metaphor if there ever was one), only ruin awaits.

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to who ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (Roman 6:26).

In the cumulative knowledge conveyed via the Scriptures, we learn the Good News is the ultimate Mediator sent by the LORD is the "Good Shepherd," and He will lead us to the allegorical "Green Pastures" which we all seek.

"The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake" (Psalm 23:1-3).

After Israel beholds the destruction of the Egyptians, and the Israelites are gradually conformed to the image of Moses the Mediator of the Old Covenant, we begin to see traces of wisdom in God's chosen.

"And Moses came and called for the elders of the people…And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do" (Exodus 19:7,8).

At this juncture, the angelic architecture is taking shape, as we now see all Israel as a larger form of the Mediator. Thus we have God, Israel as His Mediator, and all the other nations.

"At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. You only have I known of all the families of the earth" (Jeremiah 31:1; Amos 3:2).

In this structure, God seeks to Mediate between Himself and all of the nations of the world. As he blesses Israel openly, the idea is the chosen family of God is to export His righteousness to the Gentile nations.

It is after the Exodus from Egypt that the LORD provides further glimpses into the true nature of the Triuniverse, through the other two characters in the sequence. Aaron, who is the brother of Moses, and Miriam, who is his sister, step into the spotlight.

They were present from the beginning, as Miriam was instrumental in the survival of the infant Moses, for the Pharaoh had decreed Death for all the Hebrew babies, when he saw their numbers increasing. Miriam is the one who was present when the mother of Moses set the child adrift in an ark, in the hope that he would be adopted by an Egyptian.

"And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river…and when she saw the ark…she sent her maid to fetch it" (Exodus 2:5).

As this sequence develops, we see another aspect of the Great Exchange, as the lowly position of Moses, born into Hebrew slavery, is abruptly traded for the privileged status of being raised by the daughter of Pharaoh.

When Moses is called by the LORD to confront the Egyptians and demand they set the Israelites free, his brother Aaron is called to the role of prophet, and he performs miraculous feats on behalf of Moses.

"And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh…and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent" (Exodus 7:10).

Thus Aaron and Miriam have a significant standing among the Israelites as they leave Egypt. When the pair begins to resent Moses making decisions in which they were not consulted, the triune alignment again resurfaces; but this time it addresses the Spiritual configuration which will illustrate the superiority of what is revealed to be the "third part."

The prophet Zechariah records how the LORD shows a distinct separation of the third part, as He reveals this aspect of the epic truth through the prophet.

"And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die: but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them" (Zechariah 13:8,9).

This example certainly does not indicate that Aaron and Miriam are lost. It is designed to show the superiority of the "third part," as Moses is a prophetic figure anticipating the Son of God Jesus Christ, as the third part of the Trinity the Father has ordained for the role of redeemer.

In short, Christ is the Son of God – who is a Spirit – and He is designated from the very beginning to function as the eternal Mediator, who will bridge the gap between lost mankind, and our Holy Creator.

In fact, in the New Testament where we learn many of the details that are concealed in the Old Covenant, we find that Jesus was present when God called Moses to serve Him, thus prefiguring the incarnation of Christ.

The prophet Stephen, as he was rehearsing the matter of the ministry of Moses before the priests who would shortly murder him, was summarizing the calling of Moses.

"This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount sina" (Acts 7:37, 38).

By referring to the assembly of Israel as the "church" (an impossibility according to the Rapture Cult which strictly separates Israel and the church), the Holy Spirit was hinting that Christ was present in the wilderness calling of Moses.

Moreover, in Stephen's detailed defense of the Gospel, the fact that he cited the prophecy that God would "raise up unto you of your brethren…a prophet" that Israel would be required to hear (Deuteronomy 18:19) in the very same sequence, the anointed statements further connect Christ to Moses in a pre-incarnate appearance all the way back to the Exodus.

But a resumption of the multitude of examples of The Great Exchange will have to wait for our next installment.

-- James Lloyd

To Be Continued

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