What the new covenant means for prophecy

The problem is judgement ceased in AD 70. Since that moment in time the new covenant has been in full power.

 

The destruction of the temple and Jerusalem spells the death of the old covenant.

Now God will under no circumstance remember our sins or our lawlessness.

 

There will be no more judging according to works because to judge a thing would be to call it to mind, to remember it and thus God would be breaking His own covenant if He were to judge.

Now we are like those who sinned before the law.

 

Sin exists independent of the law but is not imputed where there is no law.

 

Of course death and sin still occur but the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law and there is no more law so sin has no power and death has no sting because there is no more judgment!

 

How does this take away the sting of death? Well it means that death isn’t the final say on the matter. Sure under the old covenant it was – the wages of sin are death! If that’s all there is to it then what a sting!

But under the new covenant the wages of sin are the same as the wages of righteousness. LIFE!

 

Of course if you smoke you may get cancer, if you murder you may go to prison, if you stab your foot it’s gonna hurt but God ain’t taking you to task anymore. He’s not waiting for you to exit left of the stage so He can tell you how naughty or nice you’ve been!

 

In fact this realization – that God is not in the punishing and rewarding game anymore. That there are no wages to be earned anymore. That all the work man was to do was done in the act of murdering God’s Son. Means it really was actually finished when Christ said it was!

 

If there’s something we have to do now it’s die. That’s all; fail and die that’s the only command that would make sense in the new covenant!

 

But you can’t fail in the new covenant because there are no criteria for success or failure. We have transcended categories like good/bad, failure/success in the new covenant. We have been translated into the realm where we view and adore the righteousness of God.

In the coming 2nd resurrection all will be resurrected irrespective of works. I don’t think many people fully understand what the new covenant entails concerning judgement and what that entails for prophecy.

 

In fact I would say that if a prophecy contains judgement it simply is not for now or ever in the future because the new covenant is not going to cease till God has reconciled everyone. That is when the covenant achieves what God designed it for!

Views on canonicity

A thought i had the other day was on canonicity.

 

I actually think it’s silly.

 

I mean it’s essentially saying “We have looked at all this stuff so you don’t have to and here is what we think is true”

 

It’s silly – and if you read the apocrypha you see that it is littered with the messiah.

The council of jamnia (which is where the protestant apostasy get their canon) was predominantly pharisaic and of course they were heavily motivated to expulse proof that Jesus was messiah from the hebrew canon.

 

The apocrypha was in the septuagint which was the greek-translation used by Jesus and the apostles.

 

But the point I’m trying to get at is – the spirit bears witness with our spirit that a thing is true – – – this is what it means to follow the lamb and if we know father we can read anything and discern for ourselves – we don’t need a council to tell us what is true or false – – we are men too and we can discern for ourselves.

 

And ultimately it doesn’t matter if we have false beliefs or not because it’s the character and righteousness and wisdom of God that matters not whether or not we are right or wrong!

Why isn’t that sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 spoken of as having happened?

The very fact that the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 is not mentioned as happening is very convincing proof that the new testament in its entirety was written prior to that event!

If the new testament was a spoof written to convince people into a cult then surely they would include within the text the proof of the prophecies that Christ uttered as occurring within that generation.

This would mirror the way in which prophecy is proclaimed and shown as fulfilled in the old testament (compare Jeremiah and Daniel to Ezra and Nehemiah).

 

This is key to understanding “The apocalypse of John”. If it’s written post AD 70 it is a mess of analogies that can be made to fit plenty of events over the last 2 millennia.

 

If it’s written prior to this date and is talking about this event then not only do the statements “Which must shortly come to pass” and “I come quickly” make perfect and normal sense but the whole text is luminous and meaningful because all the content is meant to be understood in relation to a very short period of time around AD 70.

 

In fact prophecy only works if it’s time-specific otherwise the characterisation can be made to fit anything.

 

Look at the prophecies in the old testament and how rapidly they were fulfilled. Look at Jeremiah – the prophecies he proclaimed were in their majority fulfilled within his lifetime.

God can tell time! Even the people in Jesus’ day knew that a messiah was expected because of the precise time predictions of Daniel.

Biblical prophecy is not Nostradamus. It is not a mess of vague allusions that can easily be twisted to be a foretelling of anything and it’s this character of biblical prophecy that makes it stand apart from astrological divinations and vague surmisings based upon an animal’s guts!

If you realize that the law and the prophets were until John the baptist and that the time-limit set to the majority of prophecy was AD 7o then it makes sense and is luminous. But if we believe there’s a split in Daniel’s 70 weeks and insert a synthetic split into the olivet discourse biblical prophecy becomes an irretrievable mess!

This is in the bible!

“I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances in which they could not live. I was defiling them in their gifts when they made all opening up the womb pass through fire, that I might make them desolate, in order that they may know that I am Yahweh” Ezekiel 20: 25 – 26

Every now and then in the old testament you get a glimpse behind the veil. You see what is really happening.

The Law was sent to make sin increase to bring about judgment.

Here we have a good example of the function of judgment and the actual intention of God in all his doings with man. It is all “In order that they may know that I am Yahweh”. This reason for judgment is reiterated more times than I care to remember.

In a very real sense God is setting up a dialectic. His intention is to express Himself to us, to make himself known to us and He does this by setting up resistance to himself so that through this dialectic between God and the adversary we are shown God’s character.

A brilliant example of this is Pharaoh. “And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth”

In the story of Moses’ dealings with Pharaoh we see that in order for Pharaoh to stand against God enough to fulfil God’s intention in raising him up God had to come in and harden Pharaoh’s heart. On his own Pharaoh could not have stood against God. So we see this declaration of God before Moses has even spoken to Pharaoh:

“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt… And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.” Exodus 7: 3 – 5

In the verse I began with we see God giving laws that were not good and ordinances the Hebrews could not live in so as to make them desolate! But the intention – the end goal – is so that they may know Yahweh and his mighty power and that He is for them!

Oh and that they would wise up and stop worshipping bits of wood by killing their kids. Stupid Hebrews.

Thoughts inspired from backlog 1

Thought I’d post from my backlog. This one is from before I was a believer. Though I don’t actually place as much significance on the salvation issue. That is to say on the issue of figuring out the prerequisites for salvation… I don’t think there are any.

I believe that that lovely man 2000 years ago expressed in his personality the way into the the holy of holies. He showed us that we are on a rollercoaster predestined and being transformed into divinity in the loving hands of the master craftsman Yahweh who knows us!

His death on the cross and His resurrection made abundantly clear that there is nothing we could do that would thwart His love.

He knows our weaknesses. He knows the mainsprings of our actions and decisions. (He is the mainspring of our actions and decisions!) He knows us the way only our maker could and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

I believe in this review of “Lolita” I may have expressed Father’s comprehension and attitude towards us. Especially in the paragraph where I talk about traits. Of course not His full comprehension and attitude but the bit which is the foundation for our faith.

It is knowledge of our own wretched impotent condition – not evil or good in itself but in the grip of entropy. A time-lapse putrefaction that in itself has no hope but the one hope that comes to all at the end… of a saviour, of more Life and Light that is the salvation that matters! Life not some petty rebate from eternal pain.

Not forgiveness from a God who had nothing against you and to whom you, you puny worm, could do nothing that would warrant even a shifting of the pupil in Yahweh’s eye let alone something deserving of forgiveness!

How can you believe in Him if He doesn’t first reveal himself?

I have talked previously how we have faith in our senses; in so far as we believe that they inform us of a “real” world. We have faith on the basis of past experience that the ground will be hard when we walk on it. And so on…

God doesn’t demand that we lay down our normal basis of evidence. For me personally there have been two occasions on which I have experienced the glory of God. Like fire pouring through me. The first time got me sectioned… I appealed and they let me out.

I’ve actually been intending to write about those experiences. They kind of bracket this blog – in that after being sectioned within months or so I just lost belief… well I say that – I just couldn’t fit the experience and insight that I’d had into the christian box. Not any box for that matter.

I tried meditation and mindfulness. Got good at it! Spend a whole week not thinking once – moved around like it wasn’t me, like I wasn’t there. But it wasn’t the experience I’d had before.

That experience was full of understanding and language. Not telling me to do anything but just like having my internal monologue taken hold of and spewing forth the effluvia of understanding (damn it effluvia is the wrong word… sounds nice though).

All of that resulted in this blog.

And then this time – well september time last year (so a 5 year bracket) I began to experience a fiery heat pouring through me out of nowhere. And then all this insight into what the good news meant. Now I’m not saying I’m infallible – – I’ve refrained from talking about this because I don’t think it is at all relevant when considering the strengths and weaknesses of what I say – the words stand or fall on their own!

Plus I’m stoned and should probably link the review before I descend into the realms of nonsense. Effluvia… I swear that meant the stuff like waves… what is it a theory about our consciousness, decisions and objects of conscious… like flotsam on the sea… epiphenomenalism… could use epiphenomena… accurate but still it’s not effluvia.

https://christopherjack101.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/nabokovs-lolita-forgivness-and-taboo/

So He came back in 70 AD… So what?!

The parousia was the utter close of the mosaic covenant. Not only was it that but it was a distinct shift on the part of God in how he was dealing with man. From Adam up until Christ was a specific dispensation.

At this moment in time all the dead that had died from Adam were judged.

One of the primary functions of the age of law – the old covenant – was to show man his futility. It was to make abundantly clear to man that he is not in control, that he is not powerful.

In order to fulfil this function it didn’t have to be given to everyone. It was enough that it was placed before a nation.

It showed this by putting before the israelites a law that they delighted in. It was their god-given mark of peculiarity.

Not only did it make them special but if they kept it then they would get all the blessings expressed in the penultimate chapter of leviticus but if they failed to keep it then they would get the curses.

So not only did they esteem the law in its own right but they had treats and punishments to coerce them into really trying to keep the law. To get them to hand themselves over to it.

Of course they failed abysmally. The entirety of the scriptures – including the new testament – is a long story of them breaking the covenant and God judging them to bring them back into the covenant and then a fresh break.

The parousia was God putting a final end to this state of affairs by removing the old covenant – by removing all the commands.

Now there are no commands. This is the freedom in Christ. Freedom is the absence of commands.

Of course the law is still in effect in the same sense it was in effect to those without law throughout the old covenant. We continually erect laws or standards for ourselves and we continually break our self-imposed and self-enforced standards.

Not only is it in effect in that sense but like the old covenant man has constructed social laws for his fellow man and man breaks them all.

But now God is giving no commands because His is the work. If we knew what He was working in us then there would be the chance we’d stick our oar in and gloat over what He had wrought.

Rightly dividing the scriptures is all about correctly determining what pertains to those under the old covenant, what pertains to the wilderness wanderers between Christ’s ascension and His parousia and what pertains to us.

So He came back in AD 70… So what?! (Part 1)

What does it mean for us that Christ returned in 70 AD?

I think one of the keys to understanding what the Parousia means is the 40 year wilderness trek of the Hebrews.

In a sense you could say that the entire narrative of the scriptures is given in the torah.

The bible is full of foreshadowings.

Let us for now focus on the similarities between the desert wandering Hebrews and the believers extant in the period from Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection and ascension to the parousia/2nd advent.

The Hebrews had been promised a land. The entering into this promised land is depicted in Joshua and is inaugurated with the passing through the Jordan and the placing of the stones (yes plural) that had the law written on them onto the altar made of unworked stones.

One parallel that immediately springs to mind is that both groups were looking for a Promised land.

Just as the Hebrew’s were given a set of rules that would become truly applicable only when they entered the promised lands (no cities of retreat in the wilderness) so the believers were given the truth concerning the law (which is to say they were told what the true and hidden purpose of the then dying but not yet dead covenant was) and established in the doctrines of grace and justification.

Not only that but they were informed through the prophets and apostles what the new covenant was going to be.

Whereas the mosaic covenant was a set of laws or standards outside of people that the people had to – at least try to – conform themselves to now the law was to be written on their hearts.

I believe the distinction between the old and new covenant can be summed up as:

Old covenant = Try to make yourself righteous

New covenant = God will make you righteous

The parousia was Christ returning to destroy that which was faltering. It was his coming in wrath and judgement upon Judah.

It was the full flowering of the fruit of sin in Israel. The sin that was brought to maturity through the law to bear fruit unto death.

It was the destruction of the vessel of wrath…

To see all this just read romans. It tells you the import and function of the law.

Jerusalem and Jericho bear the similarity that they both had to be destroyed before the elect could enter into the Kingdom/promised land.

“The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time.” Hebrews 9:8

When will/did Christ return?

At first I fought against the idea that Jesus returned in 70 AD but the more I read matt 24 I just couldn’t escape it.

“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Matt 24:34

Some people say that “Generation here refers to the jewish race”!

But then you get this statement:

“For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Matt 16:28

I couldn’t escape the fact that He was referring all the signs of the second coming and the second coming itself to the 1st century AD

 

Also every single argument I’ve heard against this idea makes the mistake of taking allegorical and vague statements of the writings and using them to interpret or contradict literal and plain statements.

The arguments against the salvation of all make the same mistake.

 

They take plain, obviously literal statements such as “Who is the saviour of all men” and force them to say what they literally interpret obviously allegorical statements such as the parable of the the rich man and Lazarus to say.

The process of interpretation should be that the allegorical should be interpreted in light of the literal not vice versa.

 

All the time statements in the scripture concerning the coming again of Christ are obviously literal “This generation shall not pass”, “There are some amongst you that shall not taste of death” but all the arguments against it are of the type “But there have been times of greater trial and such since then”

 

Firstly how are we to quantify such a thing as trials? To some people some things are intolerable that to others are tolerable. Even the tolerance of pain varies between individuals.

Anyway the scripture uses similar statements in reference to the 1st destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon:

“I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.” Ezekiel 5:9

I would contend that such statements are figures of speech used to embellish a catastrophe rather literal statements.

But Jesus was not speaking in parable when he spoke to his disciples because it says “the disciples came to him privately.” This is significant because:

“He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” Matt 13:10

What is more literal and easy to understand than these statements:

“Which must shortly take place” Revelations 1:1 and “Surely I am coming quickly” revelations 22:20.

Is 2000 odd years a quick coming? It’s longer from us to Christ than it is from Christ to Moses!