When did Caiaphas die?

So which do we interpret in the plainest sense? Time-statements or descriptions of His coming and Kingdom?

I heard it once said and agree, " let the timing determine the nature". Most do it backwards from that.

Yes, to US it would seem to be interpreted literally. But it was not written too US.It was written to 1st century Jews who spent their entire life reading and studying the OT. What would they think when they read of Christ coming in the clouds? Would they not refer back to the OT where this exact language was used? If not, why not?

So the question is what is like manner? Why the assumption they are speaking of physical? Why not coming on the clouds is the manner in which He comes? Revelation says He rides a horse, will He be riding a horse when He returns?

1 I say then, Did God cast off his people ? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God did not cast off his people which he foreknew. Or know ye not what the scripture saith of Elijah? how he pleadeth with God against Israel:
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

Let me first say my bible does not say "the nation of Israel". It says Israel. This gets into a whole other debate of who is the Israel of God. I believe it to be the elect, those He foreknew. Perhaps those to who Paul was writing were under the impression that God was through with individual physical Jews. I could see how they would believe this since they were aware that the Kingdom would be taken from them. But Paul reassures them saying he is a Jew and was not cast away. He continues in vs. 5 to say that yes, there will still be physical Jews in the Kingdom because a remnant was still part of His elect.

Notice verse 26: All Israel will be saved as it is written. Then Paul quotes Is 59:20-21. Verse 20 starts out.. "The Deliverer will come out of Zion." Since the Deliverer was Jesus, this seems to indicate a past event, not future.

That is an assumption base upon your presupposition that these things are still future. I could use your own statement back on Matt 26:64. While He was talking face to face with Caiaphus He was really talking to the people of Israel specifically. To be honest with myself, I cannot take this approach, otherwise we can say just about anything we want, which leads to a slippery slope. Take the thief on the cross, was He speaking to him? Or was He really speaking to future Gentiles? I can't go there.

Now lets look at Joels prophecy which Peter proclaims of being fulfilled.

16 but this is that which hath been spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh: And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy , And your young men shall see visions , And your old men shall dream dreams:
18 Yea and on my servants and on my handmaidens in those days Will I pour forth of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heaven above, And signs on the earth beneath; Blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke:
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the day of the Lord come, That great and notable day. 21 And it shall be, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Notice the fulfilment:

Acts 21: 9 Now this man had four virgin daughters, who prophesied .10 And as we tarried there some days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus .

Acts 9: 10 Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and the Lord said unto him in a vision , Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.

Acts 16:9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night : There was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.

Compare verse 20 with past Judgements by God:

Destruction of Babylon:
Is. 16:10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not cause its light to shine.


Fall of Israel
Amos 8: 8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? yea, it shall rise up wholly like the River; and it shall be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt. 9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon , and I will darken the earth in the clear day .

So verse 20 describes the Fall of Jerusalem using apocolyptic language very familiar with the 1st century Jews. Why would some try to literalize this?

Verse 21 speaks for itself. The "last days" ended in AD70. It was the end of the Jewish Age. We now live in the Kingdom of which the increase shall never end.

Now just a few Yes or No follow-ups.

1. Do you expect a future Elijah?
2. Do you equate "Last Days" to "Church Age"
3. Being from the Phoenix area, did you ever hear one of my favorite preachers, Richard Jackson of NPBC?

 

Grasshopper,

Have you read any books by Gary DeMar? I picked up a couple last year out of curiousity, and was pretty impressed in general. I don't know if I buy into all of his ideas, but he raises some interesting points.

 

Yes, in fact his book Last Days Maddness is what got me started on this. I have also read End Times Fiction. Last Days Maddness was a real eye-opener for me.

 

So you still believe in a yet future coming of Elijah. This is amazing to me, though I understand why you must. Jesus and the disciples tell us that John was the fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy.

Matt 11:10 This is he, of whom it is written , Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare thy way before thee.11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force.13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.14 And if ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah, that is to come.

Are you not willing to receive it? Was Jesus mistaken?

Matt 17:9-10-13 …. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come ,…. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Now the disciples heve figured it out. They too were probably looking for the literal, physical Elijah, but unless the are mistaken, they realized it was John.

Matt 17:11 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.

Jesus again affirms for us that Elijah has already come. So what is your basis for believing for a yet future coming of Elijah? Is there a prophecy of another Elijah that will come after the first?

You believe the Last Days are the same as the Church Age. Do you consider the Last Hour to also be the Church Age?

I John18 Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.

If not, what does the "last hour" refer too?

I believe he was refering to natural Jews individually. I do not believe he is refering to Jews as a group. John tells us that physical Jews are not New Covenant Jews:

Rev 2:9 I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty (but thou art rich), and the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews, and they art not , but are a synagogue of Satan.

Rev 3:9 Behold, I give of the synagogue of Satan, of them that say they are Jews, and they are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

Yet in other places in scripture, believing Gentiles are called the children of Abraham. Clearly a spiritual application.

Here are some interesting thoughts from Todd Dennis:

the ONLY 'nation' that the kingdom of God belongs to is the same nation of I Peter 2:9, which reads, "But ye (those in Christ) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation.." And Christ Himself clearly identified that "nation" by the word He spoke to His disciples, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).
For another confirmation of who 'God's chosen people' really are, Galatians 6:15-16 tells us, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." Paul is certainly not saying that the Old Covenant nation of Israel walks after that "rule" (salvation), as he knows clearly that they are lost, and will perish in their sins without Christ. Neither is Paul wishing peace upon the lost nation, for, having "great heaviness and continual sorrow in (his) heart" (Romans 9:1) regarding them, he knows the only peace is in Jesus Christ. Therefore, it appears, according to Scripture, that the only Biblical Israelite is the individual, regardless of lineage, who is 'in Christ' through salvation.
The Bible teaches that God's only 'chosen people' are those who are born again (Rom. 8:11-14). According to Galatians chapter three, "to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." This means that the promises of eternal inheritance or adoption, delivered by Abraham's physical descendants, can only be claimed through Jesus Christ, as Galatians 3:29 concurs.
In a statement that can only be taken as meaning addition, or subtraction, God reveals that something has indeed been subtracted from the 'nation of Israel after the flesh'. Romans 9:6-8 reads, "... For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." These verses confirm that something has been taken away... and that not everyone that is a racial part of national 'Israel' are the true eternal Israel, nor are they the children of God. What we are discovering when we try to relate the Old Testament 'nation of Israel' (which is a possessive phrase) to the New Covenant, is that the fleshly nation of the fleshly man Israel was but a shadow of the heavenly nation of the spiritual Israel, which can only be entered into by Spirit, not by water. Therefore, physical Israelites, could, from then on, have no place in the nation of Israel (which is after the Spirit), except on the basis of personal salvation, through their faith in Christ Jesus (Hebrews 11:13,39-40).

What if the descendents of those 1st century Jews do not exist? What does that do to ones eschatology?

The Encyclopedia Brittanica (1973)
'The Jews As A Race: The findings of physical anthropology show that, contrary to the popular view, there is no Jewish race. Anthropornetric measurements of Jewish groups in many parts of the world indicate that they differ greatly from one another with respect to all the important physical characteristics." (vol. 12, page 1054)

Encyclopedia Judaica Jerusalem (1971)
"It is a common assumption, and one that sometimes seems ineradicable even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the Jews of today constitute a race, a homogeneous entity easily recognizable. From the preceding discussion of the origin and early history of the Jews, it should be clear that in the course of their formation as a people and a nation they had already assimilated a variety of racial strains from people moving into the general area they occupied. This had taken place by interbreeding and then by conversion to Judaism of a considerable number of communities. . . .

Encyclopedia Americana (1986)
"Racial and Ethnic Considerations. Some theorists have considered the Jews a distinct race, although this has no factual basis. In every country in which the Jews lived for a considerable time, their physical traits came to approximate those of the indigenous people. Hence the Jews belong to several distinct racial types, ranging, for example, from fair to dark. Among the reasons for this phenomenon are voluntary or involuntary miscegenation and the conversion of Gentiles to Judaism" (Encyclopedia Americana, 1986, vol. 16, p. 71).

Collier's Encyclopedia (1977)
"A common error and persistent modern myth is the designation of the Jews as a 'race! This is scientifically fallacious, from the standpoint of both physical and historical tradition. Investigations by anthropologists have shown that Jews are by no means uniform in physical character and that they nearly always reflect the physical and mental characteristics of the people among whom they five" (Collier's Encyclopedia, 1977, vol. 13, p. 573).

H.G. Wells
"There can be little doubt that the scattered Phoenicians in Spain and Africa and throughout the Mediterranean, speaking as they did a language closely akin to Hebrew and being deprived of their authentic political rights, became proselytes to Judaism. For phases of vigorous proselytism alternated with phases of exclusive jealousy in Jewish history. On one occasion the Idumeans, being conquered, were all forcibly made Jews. There were Arab tribes who were Jews in the time of Muhammad, and a Thrkish people who were mainly Jews in South Russia in the ninth century. Judaism is indeed the reconstructed political ideal of many shattered peoples - mainly Semitic.... The main part of Jewry never was in Judea and had never come out of Judea" (The Outline of History, p. 505).

Happy Easter, and don't think I didn't see your post on Revelation.

 

Excellent question. You are a thinking man. This is a subject that sneaks up on one when moving toward Preterism. I have seen good arguments from Preterist on both sides of the issue, that being do we still observe it. Yes, I still observe it, but I honestly do not know what to think. Something I'm still working out. Tradition whether right or wrong is a very strong force.

Since it doesn't give Elijah's name in the text, that is another presupposition. However you are on to something. I believe the two witness's are representative of the Prophets(Elijah) and the Law(Moses).

Read vs. 17 very carefully

:17 And he shall go before his face in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to walk in the wisdom of the just; to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.

In it Luke quotes Malachi 4:4-5

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come.6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

You have made another great case for John being Elijah. Elijah "shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers" and Luke speaking of John the Baptist says John would: turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,

So all the prophecies point to John in the 1st century, not a future Elijah in the 21st century.

He did come before the second coming(parousia).

True. He and the religious leaders were also expecting a literal-physical Elijah. It was not till later they understood that it was not to be in the physical. He was not Elijah, but he was the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Again, Elijah is not mentioned in Rev. 11

Ex 34:6 And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth,7 keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.

John was undoing the effects of sin that existed in verse 7.

The dreadful day of the Lord was the destruction of Jerusalem and death of over a million Jews who were in the city.

You are correct that Revelation describes this event. And speaking of Revelation:

Revelation 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass: and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John;

Two things to notice in the very first verse. It tells us when these things were to happen(shortly) and how to interpret the book(signified). It is full of signs and symbols. Most are found in the OT. Understand thier meaning in the OT and you will have a better chance of interpreting them. Example: Who is the "Harlot" in Rev.? Find out who played the "Harlot" in the OT. Could the Beast of Revelation be the Beast of Daniel 7?