Bully's Blog

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.

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“Paul knew his kinsmen. This is a group of people on whom this tactic would work.”

Doug Wilson has been preaching through Romans (subscribe to his podcast now!) and recently commented on his blog about Romans 11, and the relationship between Christians and Jews today.[1] I’ll have to listen to his sermon to figure out whether Doug sees this as interpretation (“all Israel” is yet to be saved), or application.

I made some comments and a gent called Lemuel replied, and I made some more. It brings out the significance of the phrase “the sons of God.”

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“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Non-dispensationalists are often accused of “Replacement Theology,” that is, the church replaced Israel. But we find in the Old Testament many examples of the same process prefiguring what the people of God went through in the first century. It is not replacement, but transformation. 

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“If Satan was defeated at the cross, why was there so much Satanic activity before the destruction of the Temple?”

(*Satan was thrown out of the heavenly Temple but moved into the earthly one – seven worse demons – a false Lampstand. Judaism’s seven eyes were darkened. [Matt. 6:23])

“Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”  (1 Cor. 3:12-17)

Are the gold, silver and precious stones our heavenly bling? From the structure of this passage, I think what Paul is referring to is the church. If we are building disciples who remain despite trials and testing from God, we will be rewarded. The immediate context of this is the false doctrine of Judaisers, and their house of gold, silver and precious stones (Herod’s Temple and his puppet High Priest’s robes). While Paul was building a Temple out of people, Herod was busy polishing the brass on the Titanic that he knew Jesus had said would be submerged under a Gentile flood (Daniel 9:26). Herod’s precious stones didn’t make it through God’s judgment. The Day declared what it was in truth.

The question is, are our disciples a robe/house for Jesus, or are they kindling in His nostrils? When He comes to judge, what will our ministry be revealed as?

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. He opened the shaft of the Abyss, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Revelation 9:1-2

The fifth trumpet aligns with both the Feast of Trumpets, and Deuteronomy. It is the summoning of armies on Day 5, swarms of birds and fish filling sky and sea as glorious clouds. The Altar of the Abyss, in this case, is now an evil twin of the Altar of Incense, a demonic response to the ascension of Christ and His new government. Continue reading