Sunday, May 22, 2016

RECAP: Visions of the Kingdom of God



“[Jesus probably] “telescopes” A.D. 70 and the end of the age in a manner reminiscent of the prophets, who frequently looked at the end of the age through more immediate historical events.”
D.J. Moo, The Case for the Posttribulation Rapture Position.

“The divine judgments in history are, so to speak, rehearsals of the last judgment and the successive incarnations of antichrist are foreshadowings of the last supreme concentration of the rebelliousness of the devil before the End.” Cranfield, Mark, p 404.

“Another sign of the times [of the end of the age] which indicates opposition to God and to his kingdom is the sign of apostasy…we should note that the apostasies of the NT era were often foreshowed in the OT…Already during the wilderness wanderings there occurred such a wide-scale apostasy that an entire generation of Israelites died in the desert without being permitted to enter the promised land. During the time of the Judges one apostasy followed another with almost monotonous regularity. The later history of both the northern and southern kingdoms, as recounted in the historical and prophetical books of the OT, is a disillusioning tale of growing apostasy leading ultimately to the deportation of both kingdoms…it is clear from the rest of the NT that apostasy is not restricted to the end-time [Heb 6.6; 10.29; 2 Peter 2.20; 1 John 2.19].” The Bible and the Future, Anthony A. Hoekema, pp 151-152.

Temple/Jerusalem destroyed [8th-6th BC]: Micah 3.12; Jer. 7.8-15; 9.10-11; 26.6, 18; Isa 29; 4 Ezra; 2 Baruch [1st-2nd AD].

  • It was NOT “completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another.” (Mar 13.2; cp. Mat 24.2; Luke 19.44; 21.6.)

“Josephus says that [the city was so completely levelled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no reason for believing that it had ever been inhabited, Bell. 7.1-4]. But in addition to the towers much of at least the southern part of the Temple enclosure was spared. The wall surrounding the present Haram es-Sherif is founded on the Herodian wall, and from the ‘Wailing Wall’ at the southern end of the west wall, where the fall of the city is still lamented, right along the south wall and round the south east angle the massive Herodian masonry, reaching in places almost to the top of the Haram wall, stands today as an impressive memorial to its builder…For the excavations round the south west angle, where, inter alia, fallen architectural fragments from the wall and portico have been found, see B. Mazar, The Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, Preliminary Report on the First Season, 1968 (Israel Explor. Soc., 1969); Second and Third Seasons, 1969-70 (1971).” The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian, E. Mary Smallwood, p 328.

“At Jerusalem he founded a city in place of the one which had been razed to the ground, naming it Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of the god he raised a new temple to Jupiter. This brought on a war of no slight importance nor of brief duration, for the Jews deemed it intolerable that foreign races should be settled in their city and foreign religious rites planted there.”
Cassius Dio, Roman History, 69.12.1-2.


  • A future rebuilt Temple, Ire. Ag. Haer. 5.30.4; Ep. Barn. 16.3-4.


Babylon & the end of the age: Isa 13.

Many Anti-Christs?

  • Antiochus Epiphanes IV, Dec. 6, 167 B.C. 1Macc 1.54, “The desolating abomination”; cp. Dan 9.27; 11.31

  • Caligula, A.D. 37-41 [Jos. War 2]: Mark 13.14, “The abomination that causes desolation standing where HE shouldn’t be.”
  • Titus, A.D. 70 [Jos. War 6]: Luke 21.20, “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.”

Disasters by unnamed foe(s): Zep 1-2; cp. Amos 7.4; 8.8-9; 9.5.

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