Basileia's Oxblood Red logo is comprised of four gateways arranged in a square to represent the City of God.
Basileia's logo is comprised of four gateways arranged in a square to represent the City of God.
The logo subtly invokes the image of the Jerusalem cross in a future-ancient way that symbolizes the progressive increase of Christ's Kingdom to the north, south, east and west. It recalls the river that flowed from Eden to water the Garden which parted into four rivers (Gen. 2:10) that then flowed down “the holy mountain of God” (Ezek. 28:14) to the four corners of the earth.
A Gateway City Connecting Heaven and Earth
Our logo represents the Church as a City of gateways that connect heaven and earth. The cross and the city square are one. There are horizontal gateways to the north, south, east and west, and the City as a whole is a vertical gateway that connects heaven and earth. Jacob called “the house of God” at Bethel, “the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17). The City of God is where we ascend and descend between heaven and earth in ruling and reigning with Christ, making it a thin place where the veil between the realms is transparent.
The Dwelling of God with Mankind 365/24/7 in All Areas of Life
Salvation is citywide, transforming every area of thought and life into the dwelling place of God with mankind. Ezekiel saw this City, calling it, “THE LORD IS THERE.” John also saw this City and “heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’” (Rev. 21:3). This City is the goal of Genesis 1:26-28. Just as history begins in a Garden sanctuary and matures into this City, so our worship in Sunday sanctuaries sets in motion a Monday through Saturday process of transformation whereby God’s Kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as in heaven. Therefore, like Abraham, we too look “for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). The Church is not merely a religious institution in someone else’s society, but the kingdomcultural alternative to the Fallen World System altogether. This City is the reality that the fallen world only parodies.
We Are Called to be the Gatekeepers of this City
Furthermore, God assigns gatekeepers (Gen. 2:15) as watchmen (Is. 62:7) to guard the City’s gates. Adam, the world’s first watchman, was to keep the Garden open as a gateway that connected heaven and earth vertically and that led to the four corners of the earth horizontally (Gen. 2:15-17). But Adam and Eve’s disobedience in not crushing evil when it slithered into the Garden tragically opened up the world to sin, Satan and death. The Lord immediately promised a solution to the resulting ruin – the coming of a Second Adam (Gen. 3:15) who in His perfect obedience as Man would keep every word that proceeded from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4) and thereby reopen the gateway to Paradise that Adam’s disobedience slammed shut (Jn. 1:51; Also see Gen. 3:24; Ex. 26:1; Matt. 27:51).
Jesus now calls His Church to keep God’s commands and then in turn to teach all nations to observe and to keep His every word (Matt. 28:20). Where Adam failed, Christ succeeds in building His Church as the alternative gateway against which the gates of Hades shall not prevail. Thus the gates of Hades are closed down even as the gates of the City of God are opened up.
Lifestyle Disciplines
Basileia's logo speaks to the overall goal of our lifestyle disciplines, namely, to rule and reign with Christ in the City of God. All of our disciplines and their related practices are the disciplines and practices, not of slaves, but of a free people who run their own city. Babylon is not our home. To live there is to be in exile in someone else’s city. Instead, New Jerusalem is our home, the place where we “as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5). Our disciplines shape us as the living stones we are each meant to be so that we can each be perfectly fitted together and built up as a spiritual house.
By means of our disciplines we are individually constituted collectively to be the Church, not by overriding or diminishing individual freedom, but incorporating individuals together into a divinely authored social order with others into a City of living stones.
Oxblood Red
Red in general is used to represent the Church, which required the blood of Christ to establish. Oxblood Red in particular is a color that is used to celebrate Holy Week, marking the very center of the Church Year focused on the central events of Christ’s death and resurrection. The use of Oxblood Red in Basileia's logo is therefore a connection to the very center of the mystery of faith: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Amen.
