“If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is more than a philological importance.
26. Christ returned in A.D. 70 (?), but according to preterists the literal cloud was missing (see Acts 1: 9; Matt. 24: 30; Rev. 1: 7).
The “Bible matrix” pattern always begins with a Word from God’s glory cloud on the Lord’s Day (Sabbath), the accepted Mediator received into this single-cloud “Tabernacle” (Firstfruits) and ends with multiple clouds, a corporate Mediator (the body). The Feast of Tabernacles (“succoth”) is literally the Feast of Clouds. This was fulfilled in AD70. Christ ascended to prepare the place, and the firstfruits church was received into it at the destruction of the Temple.
See also Not Just Any Old Cloud.
A quote from a great book I picked up today. Observations from an (atheistic, agnostic?) Roman Catholic perspective, but, as the blurb says: ‘far from losing himself in a thicket of erudition, Debray knows how to touch on the essential.’
Here’s a charming quote discovered and posted by Doug Wilson over a year ago. Being exactly the opposite of the so-called “party” image portrayed on TV and in glossy mags, it kind of stuck with me. It is not sinful like they are, yet it is so “incorrect” that it must be true.
The Bible is full of food and money, and not just because God speaks to us using things we understand. Eating and working and spending wisely are glorifying to God. Our economics flows from our worship. Cultus begets culture, always. Doug Wilson writes:
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Our nation’s public economists usually refer to you in your capacity as consumer. This is in contrast to previous and wiser eras, when citizens were thought of as producers, and as savers. But we have departed from the way, and when disaster strikes, one of the things we think to do, is spend our way out of it. Republicans want to spend out way out this way, and Democrats that way, but we all think that consumption is king. Our understanding of consuming has become deranged.
21. The New Covenant is still not established, because Christians need teaching. Jer. 31: 34.
The Jeremiah passage is actually not referring to the first century, but to the Restoration Covenant. Every death-and-resurrection of Israel starts with law on stone and ends with law on flesh, ie. law incarnate. See Jeremiah was a Bullfrog? The writer of Hebrews is simply saying, “It’s happening again one last time!”
God had repeated His promises of land and people to Isaac, but it was to Jacob that God revealed He was going to build the true Babelic tower in the Promised Land. With his head on a rough stone, Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on a stairway to heaven, a ziggurat, a constructed holy mountain, between God and man. As with Eve, the Lord would build it out of flesh and blood—Jacob’s offspring—a living Tabernacle made of precious stones mined from the Land.
WORDS OF WARNING:
[Romans] is not a letter written to generic Gentiles. These words are given to the saints in Rome. “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7). When he cautions them against hubris, why would he do this? He did it because he saw the first stirrings of it. Remember that Paul characteristically argues “one of you will say then,” and he does this because he knows how the Q&A sessions usually go. And what happens here? “God cut out the Jews to make way for us Romans” (v. 19). Remember that this was the capital city of the most powerful empire in the world. Anyone who thinks that Christians don’t get caught up by this kind of reflected glory need to ask more pointed questions of their sinful hearts. The Lord spurned the devil’s offer of all the kingdoms of men in their glory—His followers have not always been so successful.
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11. “We shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3: 2). Never happened in A.D. 70.
12. “We shall know, even as we are known” (1 Cor. 13: 12). Still not fulfilled — unless you redefine knowledge.
I believe the first resurrection occurred during the Jewish war. Revelation specifically teaches two resurrections bookending the kingdom age. The end of the Temple was the coming of the kingdom. We cannot spiritualise this idea and say the first resurrection is conversion. That’s not what the text says. It says that those who took part in the first resurrection lived and reigned with Christ for the millennium. They are a human government in heaven. See Big Government.
I am not conceding anything to hyperpreterists. Yes, I believe they are right (to some degree) concerning a resurrection in AD70. What they don’t take into account is the pattern of the bigger picture laid down in the Old Testament, starting in Genesis, a pattern that structures the world, the Tabernacle, and even the human body, that leaves their denial of a future resurrection and judgment without justification. A physical “Land” resurrection actually guarantees a physical “World” resurrection. See Trinitarian Judgments.
After a friend pointed out that New Orleans and Haiti are big on voodoo, I read this insightful piece from Rich Bledsoe. It is reproduced here with his permission:
Bible Matrix blog
