Featured Spiritual understanding - part 8

Look at my avatar - I am wholly prettier.

 

You are forgetting this is thread #8. The basic line we are answering is that the OT prophecies are literal, so that Jesus is prophesied to be a king who comes in person to sit on David's throne in earthly Jerusalem as king of the Jews; ruling the world from Jerusalem; engaging in physical warfare against physical enemies. They see the Gospel age as an emergency plan, saving the Gentiles because the Jews did not accept their Messiah.

They take the Olivet prophecy as requiring a new temple in Jerusalem so the Ezek. 40-48 can be fulfilled, complete with renewed animal sacrifices & a divided up land. Presumably a temple built during the tribulation so it can be destroyed & another in the millennium.

Amils, Postmils & Preterists all reject the futurist trib/millennial literal interpretation. The Old covenant prophecies do have a real interpretation that we see as the Gospel age, centred on Christ & his present spiritual kingdom, and saving all the redeemed, Jew & Gentile, as one body, one church, one spiritual temple. We enter heaven at death, welcomed by Jesus as Stephen was, & enjoy a bodily resurrection when Jesus returns for resurrection & judgment.

You ask "Did the believing Jews see Jesus in AD 70?" Surely you can see that "see" is used in the sense of perceiving or understanding in the texts I referred to in the OP?

Likewise the unbelieving Jews saw him as his prophecies came true.

Mat. 24:30 ‘and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth smite the breast, and they shall see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of the heaven, with power and much glory;

Rev. 1:7 Lo, he doth come with the clouds, and see him shall every eye, even those who did pierce him, and wail because of him shall all the tribes of the land. Yes! Amen!​

I've used Young's Literal Translation - the Greek is the same for all the tribes of the land/earth.
In Revelation John makes it clear that those who did pierce him are those who will see his coming. This generation.

 

I see in its simplest form that literal interpretation of the OT prophecy is concerned with national Israel & the Jews - yet future, with the dispensationalist fables distorting the interpretation of New Covenant Scripture.

Spiritual interpretation of prophecy focuses on Christ, & the New Covenant Church. The promises to Israel are realised on an individual basis when sinners repent & believe in Jesus. Acts records many thousands of Jews believing. The New Heaven & New Earth represent the ultimate promised land.

Tribes of the land.​

Jesus' prophecy was concerned with the destruction, & he declared:

34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.​

That was stated AFTER he prophesied:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the [earth] land mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.​

Was Jesus mistaken? Surely NOT! But when the Jews defending Jerusalem saw the destruction occurring as Jesus had prophesied, in the time-scale prophesied, they would have seen/understood that the days of vengeance were the fulfilment of Jesus' words in prophecy & parable. In effect they saw Jesus fulfilling his prophecy & mourned in terror.

We do not have an inspired report of that destruction, but Jesus in Revelation gives more explicit details - which clearly relate to the destruction & Jesus' warnings. Especially Rev. 11.

Does that refer to his coming for general resurrection & judgment, or AD 70? Does it refute the separately prophesied AD 70 coming? No.

Stephen saw him in glory. Saul saw him at his conversion. All believers will see him at death - the Lamb will be our Shepherd in glory.

Jewish persecution in Israel continued - as Paul experienced. AFAIK there is no record of it ceasing before the destruction. The situation of the churches around the Roman Empire is not relevant. Only Jerusalem & Judea.

Why should they want destruction of the city & people? As Paul explains in Romans, they were longing for salvation of the Jews, & expressed concern for the city. But warning of the coming judgment.

Even in heaven they are shown as expecting divine vengeance:

Rev. 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10 and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.​

You refer to 1 Thes. 2:14. Have you read the context?

14 For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judæa are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: 15 who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: 16 forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.​

The wrath against the generation of Jews who rejected their Messiah was coming on them. There is no prophecy of further wrath against them down the ages. From then on, the Jews are simple a people group needing the Gospel.

 

Sorry about duplicates - the system was malfunctioning.

 

Sorry about duplicates - the system is malfunctioning.

 

No. I am saying that as Jesus prophesied "coming in the clouds" (Mat. 24:30 & Mark & Luke) to occur in the lifetime of this generation he cannot be referring to the second advent, but to the AD 70 judgement of the generation that rejected him.

How then should we understand/see coming with the clouds? I believe the Jews saw/understood too late as his prophetic warning occurred as prophesied.. Clouds of judgement rather than breaking through the clouds. See e.g. Jeremiah 4:13

Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.​