Today (17th
May, 2026) is the feast-day of
the
Ascension of Jesus Christ into Heaven
Jesus promised the Apostles that he would
send them his Holy Spirit and he commissions them to “be [his]
witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends
of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Prior to his Passion he had told them, “… for
truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of
Israel until the Son of Man comes”.
What was this ‘coming’ of Jesus that would
take place before the Apostles had managed to preach throughout the entirety of
Israel?
It is well explained, I (Damien Mackey) believe,
at:
Coming of God – Preterist Archives
in
an article entitled, “Coming of God”.
What
I would add, though, is that the coming referred to here needs to be clearly
distinguished from the Final Coming of Jesus Christ. On this, see my article:
A Coming of Jesus before the Final Coming
(11)
A Coming of Jesus before the Final Coming
And so we read at the Preterist Archives:
There is much confusion in Christianity today
surrounding the milieu of biblical eschatology. Specifically, there is
widespread misunderstanding about the nature and timing of Jesus’ coming,
arrival or presence (parousia in Greek). In popular preaching and
imagination, it’s often called his “second coming” or “return.” Many life-long
Jesus-followers are surprised to learn that these are not terms
found in the Bible – and then to consider how these terms effect our
thinking on just what this all means.
But the rabbit-hole goes even deeper: What if
the confusion about Jesus’ coming reaches even farther back, to a more basic
misunderstanding about what a ‘coming of God’ really was in the first place?
What was a coming of God according to the Hebrew Scriptures?
In this series, I’d like to try and shed some
light on this concept of a ‘coming of God,’ and why it matters to us today.
Before looking at what a ‘coming of God’
is according to the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), let’s see if Jesus fit
the pattern of a ‘coming of God’. Did Jesus come when, and to whom, he said he
would come? Can we show that Jesus kept his promise to come again, in the glory
of his Father, to his first-century believers?
Where Do We Begin? Jesus.
In taking a deeper look at this
often-taken-for-granted concept, let’s refresh ourselves on when and how Jesus
said he would come again. Most Christians today have picked up a futuristic
paradigm through osmosis – it’s in the religious air we breathe. Because
of an a priori commitment to the idea of a future second coming of Jesus, we
bring the baggage of a futuristic paradigm to Scripture, not
even stopping to question whether a solid interpretation of Scripture
allows for this or not!
Our inherited futurism causes us to
inadvertently run right over the plain teachings of Jesus about when and to
whom he said he would come. It causes confusion because
ministers have not been taught how Jesus fulfilled his prophecies to come,
and yet they feel compelled to preach that “the Bible is true.” So while
Christians believe Jesus is trustworthy – even the Son of God – their
futuristic worldview causes them to necessarily (and yet needlessly) deny
what Jesus plainly taught. And that’s a big deal.
…. Let’s ask:
What do the Hebrew Scriptures show a ‘coming of God’ to be? Then let’s compare
this to what Jesus actually taught about his coming. Then let’s hold this in
light of what actually happened during the time Jesus said his
prophecies would come true.
If a divine pattern emerges out of this that
substantiates Jesus’ promise to come to his generation of believers, and if
this pattern is different than what traditional Christianity has taught us to
expect, then we may need to be open to questioning our previously-held
beliefs. We may need to ask ourselves: Who do we trust
more – the teaching of tradition or the promise of Jesus?
Let me introduce a thought that will help the
rest of this make sense: why did this ‘coming of God’ need to happen, and why
did it need to happen when Jesus said it would? Because Jesus didn’t teach that
he was coming back to judge the whole physical world – this is something we
read into Scripture. He was coming back to judge his conceptual world: the
generation that crucified him, and to reward his first century saints.
Jesus was coming to end the world of
political and religious power that the old temple system centered upon. It was
called the ‘heaven and earth’ of the Old Covenant world. It was a world of
concentrated power, burdensome laws and temple sacrifices. It had served its
purposes, but its time was up. That world killed Jesus and yet, Jesus made this
system obsolete with his life, death and resurrection.
My possibly-provocative assertion – that we
will flesh out in upcoming posts – is that after the Great Revolt
beginning in AD 66 and subsequent Roman siege of Jerusalem and destruction of
its temple in AD 70, God no longer lived in a temple made with hands. God
lived in a temple of people now – his Kingdom of people on earth.
So Jesus was coming back to establish the ‘heaven and earth’ of the New
Covenant world. And Jesus would be the Sun of Righteousness who would never
stop shining in this new Kingdom of hearts and lives. Like the new wine that
burst the old wineskins, Jesus was coming to establish the new ‘heaven and
earth’ and to speed the passing of the ‘heaven and earth’ of the Old Covenant
world.
When – and to whom – did
Jesus promise to come?
When? This
first question is so important. All New Testament eschatology is based on
Jesus’ teachings about his coming. And Jesus’ teachings are based upon earlier
teachings in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Jesus taught that he would
come to his first generation of believers, both explicitly in direct
statements, and implicitly in parables and other typological fulfillments of
Hebrew Scriptures.
I will only be able to touch on a small
sample of Jesus’ many consistent teachings to this end.
To Jesus’ followers:
Truly I tell you, some of you who
are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son
of Man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:28, cf. Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27, emphases
mine here and throughout)
To Jesus’ followers:
When they persecute you in
one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will
not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
(Matthew 10:23)
To Jesus’ disciples who explicitly asked
him when he would come again to end the Old Covenant age:
So also, when you see all
these things [seven signs], you know that he is near, at the
very gates. Truly, truly, I say to you, this
generation will not pass away until all these things
take place. (Matthew 24:33–34)
To Jesus’ disciples:
These are
days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written …when these
things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads,
because your redemption is near … when you see
these things taking place, you know that the Kingdom of God is
near. (Luke 21:22, 28 31)
Therefore I say to you, the
Kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a
nation producing the fruit of it.’ …When the chief priests and the Pharisees
heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them.
(Matthew 21:40-41,43,45)
From now on, you [Caiaphas,
the chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the whole Sanhedrin] shall be
seeing the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the
clouds of heaven. (Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; Luke 22:69)
To Peter:
If I want him [John] to remain until I come,
what is that to you? (John 21:22)
When did Jesus say he would come? Certainly
within the lifetime of his first believers. Jesus taught he would come to his
then-living generation of followers to fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures, end the
Old Covenant age, fulfill the Kingdom of God and dwell with them forever.
But instead of
trusting this teaching of Jesus, we are taught from traditional pulpits
that Jesus did not come when he said he would come or fulfill what he said he
would. This nonoccurence is thought to be so obvious that evidence for it is
not even needed. After all, we are all still here, people are still crying and
dying, and no new ‘heaven and earth’ or utopian world has replaced our world.
But is a physical body floating down from the clouds to take up residence in a
new physical planet really what Jesus promised? And did Jesus massively
fail in doing this?
If we deny the clear time statements of
Scripture pertaining to when Jesus’ coming would occur, then Jesus failed. And
if we interpret the nature of the presence of Jesus and the new ‘heaven and
earth’ through a physical-literal lens, instead of seeking to use Scripture to
interpret Scripture as to the nature of these events, then Jesus failed to keep
his promise. If Jesus missed to boat on such a frequent and blatant assertion,
we have no reason to believe or follow him. There is no getting around this. We
cannot make excuses and call a 2000 year nonoccurence a minor “delay.”
It is a massive failure.
Especially when Holy Writ holds itself to the
mat in asserting that this great coming of God would be happening,
posthaste:
For yet in a very little while,
he who is coming will come, and will not delay. (Hebrews 10:37,
circa 60s AD)
Looking anew at what a ‘coming of God’ was
according to Scripture will shed new light on what Jesus and the whole Bible
teaches about the nature and timing of Jesus’ coming into his Kingdom. If we
set aside futuristic presuppositions for just a moment, letting Scripture and
Jesus speak for themselves, these very time statements that have confounded so
many become a reliable guidepost for Jesus’ right-on-time arrival. And
Scripture itself helps us define the nature of the presence of Jesus and the
new ‘heaven and earth,’ or Kingdom that was to come.
This work of discovery is taking context
into consideration.
It is reading Scripture in light of the
ancient near-eastern apocalyptic context that these words were first breathed
in. Jesus taught to a predominantly Jewish audience, and he used Jewish ideas –
often quoting directly from the Hebrew Scriptures – to communicate with them in
a way that his hearers would have understood more readily than we do
today. This contextual view must be taken into account. When we do this, a
whole new world – and a whole new kind of ‘coming of God’ – appears.
“Did Jesus’ AD70 coming fit the biblical
pattern of a ‘coming of God’?”
If it does, then far from being wrong,
failed, or inexplicably delayed, as many teach today, Jesus’ promise to return
to his first followers came right on time.
Again, much of the confusion surrounding the
topic of eschatology today, and specifically the concept of the Parousia or
“Jesus’ arrival”, is due to a fundamental misunderstanding among most modern
Christians. It is a misguided answer to the question: exactly WHAT IS a
‘COMING OF GOD’ according to THE BIBLE? If you are willing to take
another look at the Old Testament understanding of this concept, keep reading,
you may be surprised at what you find – and what you DON’T find there. Most
of us today have no idea what a ‘coming of God’ was according
to the Old Testament. But we should. Understanding this aright
will change the posture of our entire faith.
So where else does the
‘coming of God’ show up in Holy Writ? Was a ‘coming of God’ like the
world-devourer Galactus‘
herald Silver Surfer, gliding in from the sky all bright and
shiny? Or was it a demonstration of God’s power in spiritual, physical and the
visible realms? Let’s delve into the internal language of Scripture to
discover what this concept means to its original speakers.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, a ‘Coming of God’
had many forms; a voice in the Garden, a burning bush, and a pillar of fire. A
‘coming of God’ in judgment was usually when God used the means
of an enemy army to discipline a city and its inhabitants. God’s
presence was recognized in that hostile army because God sent a
prophet to warn of the event beforehand. In the biblical narrative, the pattern
looks like this:
1.
A Prophet uses apocalyptic language to Tell
people that ‘God is coming’ to change the ‘heaven and earth’ of their
society ->
2.
The Prophet tells people to repent and turn
to God->
3.
The People don’t turn to God ->
4.
An Enemy army comes. and people
“see” God – meaning, they recognize that God visited them in judgment
->
5.
God reorients the ‘heaven and earth’ of
the political and religious order of their society.
Like Father, like Son:
“For the Son of Man is going to come in his
Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according
to what they have done.” (Matthew 16:27)
We sometimes forget the poetic stirrings in
the ancient Hebrew writers, setting their evocative words in concrete, beyond
all original recognition. Max King’s depiction of prophecy, though, brings me
back to a primary understanding of how prophetic language functioned for its
earliest hearers: “Prophecy is figurative language describing the
spiritual significance of temporal events.”
This is how God came in the Hebrew Bible (Old
Testament), and this is how Jesus was prophesied to come “in the glory of the
Father” in the New Testament.
Many Christians do not know this, but in
70AD, that is exactly what happened. The presence of God, in the paradoxical
form of Roman armies, trampled the city of Jerusalem for 42 months, or 3 1/2
years – just as prophesied, “… it is given to the nations, and they will
trample the Holy City for 42 months” (Revelation 11:2). Afterwards, even
the Jewish historian, Josephus, recognized that this was a Divine
intervention – a Coming of God – breaking into and changing history forever.
But Different?
The main difference between God’s comings in
the Hebrew Bible and Jesus’ coming was that Jesus’ coming would be
the climax of comings of God in history. His coming would consummate the New
Covenant age of God’s Kingdom of people on earth.
“Now once at the consummation of
the ages he has been manifested to put away sin.” (Hebrews 9:26)
Jesus’ coming would simultaneously cause the
heaven and earth of the Old Covenant to become obsolete, disappearing from
the relationship between God and humanity.
And it would give way to the dawning of the
New Covenant age, the heaven and earth of the New Covenant Kingdom of people.
“When God speaks of a “new” covenant, it
means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon
disappear.” (Hebrews 8:13)
Jesus’ glorious arrival would be into his
New Kingdom – and that New Kingdom is us!
Jesus arrived to give life to his own body on
earth – the body of Christ.
Through Us, Not To Us
It’s time to adjust our lens. The purpose of
God’s coming wasn’t to physically renew the earth into a utopian state in an
instant. It was to consummate the marriage relationship begun, the New Covenant
relationship, with the New ‘Israel of God’ in Christ. Historically, marriage
has had the purpose of producing legally recognized descendants who could be
designated as heirs to a father’s land or Kingdom. Such is the case with God,
his bride and his children. God came and consummated a New Covenant world, making
a new relationship with his bride, the New Humanity, so that they could begin
producing spiritual children, heirs with rights to all the promises and
benefits as God’s all-pervasive Kingdom.
Damien Mackey’s comment: On this,
see my article:
Jesus Christ came as
Bridegroom
(13)
Jesus Christ came as Bridegroom
This consummation has nothing to do with the
end of the material world, or the beginning of a utopian earth. It is about
belonging to a spiritual reality that we can live in now,
amidst our material world. It is a Kingdom that is coming into the physical
world through us. You can opt into it and recognize your belonging to
it at any time.
It is not that God isn’t changing and
powerfully transforming this world toward God’s own victorious
influence of justice, mercy, hope and glory. No, its that these
changes are breaking into the world through us, as we live out
our lives seeking to be a benefit and blessing to all the world, opening
ourselves to the very real and powerful presence of an all-in-all God.
God is coming into this world through us, right now, not
coming in one earth-ending future installation “to” us.
To End a Covenant World
So let’s look at the pattern in the text
again.
There were many “Coming of God” events
prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, complete with earth-ending and
cloud-coming apocalyptic language, signifying great change. But was this
language describing the end of the physical planet? Or was it the end of a
society’s religious and political order – the end of their world
as they knew it?
The Bible and history both confirm that this
apocalyptic language was consistently describing the end of political and
religious worlds – or societies – like Greece, Edom, Babylon, Egypt and
Israel, as you can see from Scriptures we’ll explore below.
A Coming of God, in biblical literature, was
never literally a physical deity dropping out of the ‘sky,’ although this
cloud-coming language occurs to many modern ears that way. But
an ancient person at all familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures would have
recognized that Jesus was quoting the Hebrew descriptions of past comings of
God from Isaiah and Ezekiel. Thus, they would have reason to hear Jesus’ words
in the same way – as a poetic and apocalyptic way of describing God’s end of Israel’s
Old Covenantal world through the use of an enemy army.
Jesus was not describing the
end of the material world – not in his future, nor in ours.
Jesus, a prophet in the line of Hebrew
prophets, predicted a ‘cloud-coming’ judgment on Jerusalem in his generation.
Jesus was not predicting the end of the world, time or history! Jesus simply
quotes his Hebrew Bible and follows the same Hebrew biblical pattern set
by many before him, in a way his first century Jewish
audience would understand. Jesus was predicting great covenantal
change, as signified by his paradoxical presence in Jerusalem being given
over to its violent strategies via Rome in AD 70, having ignored Jesus’ Way of
Peace (Luke 13:34-35).
We all have our own ideas about what a
‘Coming of God’ is, or should be, depending on the kind of eschatological view
we were taught to ‘see’ in the Bible. But what does the Bible say a ‘coming of
God’ is? Is it a physical body coming out of the sky? Or is it a more
far-reaching demonstration of God’s power in the spiritual, visible and
physical realms? I’m not arguing that Jesus’ coming was less than you’ve been
taught to expect, but much more! It results in a kind of world renewal that we
can be a part of today!
‘Comings of God’ in Biblical
History
As we will see the cloud comings of
God in history all follow a similar pattern of nature and timing. The NATURE of
the trumpets, clouds, darkening of the constellations, the burning up of the
heavens and shaking of the earth’s foundations are ancient near eastern
apocalyptic ways of describing God coming with ARMIES in
judgment. The TIMING of these ‘Day of the Lord’ judgment
events is well within one generation of when the prophet spoke the words of
warning. Again, this all exactly fits the nature and timing of Jesus’ teaching
about his coming to judge Jerusalem and the fulfillment of this in the events
surrounding 70AD.
God Comes to End Saul’s
Kingdom – 1000 BC
Then the earth shook and
quaked, the foundations of heaven were trembling and were shaken, because He
was angry.
Smoke went up out of His nostrils, fire from
His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens
also, and ** HE CAME DOWN ** with thick darkness [on
the earth] under His feet. And He rode on a cherub and flew;
And ** HE APPEARED ** on the wings of the wind. And He
made darkness canopies around Him, a mass of waters, thick clouds of the sky.
From the brightness before Him coals of fire were kindled. The LORD thundered
from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice. And He sent out
arrows, and scattered them, Lightning, and
routed them. Then the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the
world were laid bare by the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of
the breath of His nostrils. (2 Sam 22:8-16)
Notice the descriptions, God CAME DOWN and
God APPEARED. Did he visibly appear? God is Spirit and later Scriptures say
that no one has seen God. So we have no reason to believe that these ‘comings
of God’ were visible or bodily. None the less, they were very REAL and
PERCEPTIBLE, for those who had “eyes to see” and minds to perceive the
spiritual significance of God’s involvement. Notice also that the ‘shaking of
earth and heaven’ were symbolic ways of describing the decline of a nation.
Likewise, God says, regarding the way he will shake the Old Covenant and
Israel, symbolically described as ‘heaven and earth’ in 70AD, Hebrews
12:26-28 “Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying,
‘Yet once more I shake not the earth only,
but also heaven.’ And this word, …symbolizes the removing of
those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things
which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which
cannot be shaken…”
God Comes in a Cloud Against
Ancient Egypt – 700s BC
Behold, YAHWEH rides on a
swift cloud, and COMES TO Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall
tremble at his PRESENCE; and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the
midst of it. I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians (Isaiah
19:1-2)
Notice that God’s COMING to
Egypt is described as sending the Egyptians to fight a war. The Egyptians are
acting as God’s instrument, doing His will, in this prophesied war.
God Comes to Judge Nineveh –
600s BC
The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries,
and He reserves wrath for His enemies…IN whirlwind and storm is His way,
and clouds are the dust beneath His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes
it dry; He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither; The blossoms of
Lebanon wither. Mountains quake because of Him and the hills
dissolve; Indeed the EARTH is upheaved by ** His PRESENCE**, the
WORLD and all the inhabitants in it. (Nahum 1:2-5)
In this cloud-coming judgment
God’s presence is prophesied to destroy the world. But we know from the context
and from history that He means the world of Nineveh – not the whole world.
God Comes to Judge Egypt in
the Time of Nebuchadnezzar – 500s BC
The day is
near, even the day of the LORD is near; It will be a day of
clouds, a time of doom for the nations. A sword will come
upon Egypt, and anguish will be in Ethiopia; When the slain fall in
Egypt…And they will know that I am the LORD, when I set a fire in
Egypt … I will also make the hordes of Egypt cease by the hand of
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He and his people with him, the
most ruthless of the nations, will be brought in to destroy the land; and
they will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain.
(Ezekiel 30:3-4,8, 10-11)
Notice the “Day of the Lord”
mentioned here is a local judgment or war on Egypt. God says the acts of
Nebuchadnezzar are really from Him and He intends to make His presence in that
war known. The army is used as an instrument of judgment in God’s hand to judge
Egypt. Just as the Roman army was used to judge Jerusalem.
God Comes to Judge Edom in
the Time of Nebuchadnezzar – 500s BC
Yahweh is enraged against all the nations, and angry with all
their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He
has given them over for slaughter. Their slain will also be cast out, and the
stench of their dead bodies will come up; and the mountains will melt in
their blood. All of the host of heaven will be dissolved. The
heavens will be rolled up like a scroll, and all its armies will fade away, as
a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in
heaven. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the
people of my curse, for judgment. Yahweh’s sword is filled
with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And
a great slaughter in the land of Edom … For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a
year of recompense for the cause of Zion. Its streams will be turned into
pitch, its dust into sulfur, And its land will become burning pitch. It won’t
be quenched night nor day. Its smoke will go up forever. From
generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it
forever and ever. (Isaiah 34: 2-6, 8-10)
Notice that Jesus quotes from
this passage in Isaiah when he prophesies the Destruction of Jerusalem to His
disciples in the Olivet Discourse (Mt 24, Mk 13, Lk 21). Isaiah says that the
whole host of heaven will be destroyed, the very sky will be rolled up like a
scroll and God’s sword will be bathed with blood and in the sky … this is
cosmic and universal sounding language to describe local events with spiritual
implications.
God Comes to Judge Israel at
the Time of the Babylonian Exile – 500s BC
As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely with
a mighty hand… I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there
will I enter into judgment with you FACE TO FACE Hear the
word of Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Behold, I will kindle a fire in you,
and it shall devour every green tree in you, and every dry tree: the flaming
flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be
burnt thereby. All flesh shall see that I, Yahweh, have kindled it …
Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I am against you, and will draw forth my
sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you the righteous and
the wicked. Seeing then that I will cut off from you the righteous and the
wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh
from the south to the north: and all flesh shall know that I,
Yahweh, have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath (Ezek 20:33-35,47-48;
21:3-5)
“Behold, HE goes up like CLOUDS And his
chariots like the whirlwind; His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to
us, for we are ruined! Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem, That you may be
saved … I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and
void; And to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the
mountains, and behold, they were quaking, And all the hills moved to and fro. I
looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had
fled. I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness, And all its
cities were pulled down Before the LORD, before His fierce anger. For thus says
the LORD, The whole land shall be a desolation, Yet I will not execute a
complete destruction. For this the earth shall mourn and
the heavens above be dark, because I have spoken, I have purposed, And
I will not change My mind, nor will I turn from it.
At the sound of the horseman and bowman every
city flees; They go into the thickets and climb among the rocks; Every city is
forsaken, And no man dwells in them. And you, O desolate one, what will you
do?” (Jeremiah 4:13-14, 23-30)
God Comes To Judge Ancient
Babylon Using the Medes – 500s BC
Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
it will come like destruction from the Almighty! Therefore all
hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt, and they will be
dismayed. Pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman
in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame.
See, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce
anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its
sinners from it.
For the stars of the heavens and
their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its
rising, and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world
for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity…Therefore I will
make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at
the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce
anger. Like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with no one to gather them,
all will turn to their own people, and all will flee to their own lands.
Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the
sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses
will be plundered, and their wives ravished. See, I am stirring up
the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not
delight in gold. Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no
mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children. And Babylon,
the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like
Sodom and Gomorrah when GOD OVERTHREW THEM (Isaiah 13:6-11,
13,15-19)
Is this verse saying that the
earth was blasted with asteroids and falling stars? Were the sun, moon and
stars all destroyed so that they wouldn’t shine anymore? Did the earth come out
of its usual orbit and shake?
No. This is apocalyptic and
symbolic language describing the shaking of the political powers of a nation.
Specifically, the ramifications of the Medes on the social, political and
religious order of Babylon. The ‘heaven and earth’ or ‘sun, moon and stars’
language here refers to the shaking political order of the nation itself, just
like the symbols you see on a nation’s flag today – a red sun for Japan, an
earth for Brazil, the crescent moon and star for Islam, the 50 stars for the
States of America. All universally recognized national, political and religious
symbols. This same use of symbols in language goes back to Biblical times.
God Comes During the
Maccabean Period
For I have bent Judah for me, I have filled
the bow with Ephraim; and I will stir up your sons, Zion, against your sons,
Greece, and will make you as the sword of a mighty man. Yahweh shall be seen
over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning; and the Lord Yahweh
will blow the trumpet, and will go with whirlwinds of the south. Yahweh of
Hosts will defend them; and they shall devour, and shall tread down the
sling-stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they
shall be filled like bowls, like the corners of the altar. Yahweh their God
will save them in that day (Zechariah 9:13-16)
God Comes to Judge Jerusalem
at AD 70
·
“When therefore the Lord of
the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers”? They told
him, “He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will lease out
the vineyard to other farmers, who will give him the fruit in its season.”
Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the
builders rejected, the same was made the head cornerstone. This was from the
Lord. It is marvelous in our eyes?’ Therefore I tell you, the Kingdom
of God will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation bringing
forth its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces,
but on whoever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.” When the chief
priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that He
spoke about THEM. (Matthew 21:40-45)
·
Immediately after the tribulation of those
days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then
the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all
the tribes of the land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:29-30)
NOTICE THAT JESUS IS QUOTING
FROM ISAIAH HERE. HE IS SPEAKING OF COVENANTAL CHANGES
AND REALITIES. HE IS NOT SAYING THE PLANET WILL BE SHAKEN. HE
IS SAYING THAT THE POWERS OF THE OLD COVENANT, ISRAEL AND THE WAY OF BEING
GOD’S PEOPLE THROUGH THE LAW OF MOSES WILL BE SHAKEN. THEY WILL GIVE
WAY TO A NEW WAY OF BEING GOD’S PEOPLE THROUGH CHRIST.
·
I saw, and behold a white cloud;
and upon the cloud one sitting like to the Son of man, having
on his head a crown of gold, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel
came out from the temple crying with a loud voice to him that sat upon
the cloud: Thrust in thy sickle, and reap, because the hour has
come to reap: for the harvest of the land is ripe…And the press was trodden
without the city (Revelation 14:14, 20)
·
Jesus’ coming to judgment was the time of the
fall of Jerusalem in 70ad. The good news is that “the end” of the Old Covenant
is consummated and past. The Kingdom of God is here! And it is coming into the
world evermoreso through us now. Jesus’ coming, therefore, is not
something that is going to happen “TO US” in the future.
Rather, His life, light, love and presence is
coming to the world THROUGH us NOW! The great mystery to us physically
minded earthlings is coming to understand how Jesus is more truly present here
with us now than he ever was while he walked the earth. Spiritually, he lives
in us, in untold numbers of us at once. And we see him ceaselessly visiting His
Church, blessing and healing the world.
·
So there is no justification for Christians
to preach a fear-based message of ‘Repent now because Jesus may be coming soon
to end the world and you don’t want to be left behind!” Perhaps
well-intentioned, this is little more than fear-mongering. Instead, when
you finally see that Jesus did what He said He would do, and came when
He said He would come, you can share the story of the great
faithfulness of God in Jesus, of His reliability and trustworthiness, of how He
spoke accurately and authentically from God. Jesus did not fail to
keep his promise to come to His disciples in their generation and to
resurrect them to life anew in the body of Christ. Even though we may have
failed at keeping a correct understanding of what His coming to consummate his
Kingdom on earth would look like.
·
The empowerment in this message is that we
can be a part of God’s story of renewal and rebirth in the world. God
has chosen to work through us in the world, as co-creators of a Great Kingdom. He
didn’t leave us abandoned in a disintegrating world, only to have us put our
hope in escaping it. He will not someday snatch this world away from us as if
to say “Fine! Enough already! I’ll do it myself then!” because our efforts
alone were inadequate. Because He has not left us alone! He fills us both
personally and corporately with His Resurrection Life, Light, Spirit and
Presence. He says there’s a place for each of us in Jesus’ body just like
there’s a place for each member of our body to work together for good.
·
So from this lesson remember – we are not
here alone awaiting rescue from a fallen world. The God who redeemed the world
is here – NOW – working THROUGH us. As God’s chosen vessels, we can participate
in channeling his love, blessing and healing to the world. Jesus’ coming,
therefore, is not something that is going to happen “TO US” in the future.
Rather, His life, light, love and presence is coming into the world THROUGH us
RIGHT NOW!
