Understanding "the beginning" and "the end"

Freedm said:

Absolutely not. We're currently living in the thousand years, which is an undetermined length of time.

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We can agree on that.

Freedm said:

The book was addressed to all Christians, everywhere, because the book was literally about the revelation of Jesus Christ and that revelation of Jesus Christ means the passing away of the old covenant law. This was the great mystery of Christ that would be revealed in 70 AD to which all were longingly looking. The end of the law, the end of sin, the end of death.

How can it not be addressed to the people of the first century when the very first line in the book literally says it is about the things that "must soon take place"?

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I would agree with Preterists on Daniel 9 and the fact it has been fulfilled in and through the earthly Messianic ministry of Christ. I also hold that a lot (but not all) of Matthew 24 Mark 13 and Luke 21 was fulfilled in AD70. For example, I believe the great tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24:15-22, Mark 13:14-20 and Luke 21:20-24 relates to the wrath of God being poured out on Jerusalem in 70 AD. But I strongly disagree with their unhealthy obsessive fixation Preterists have with the coming of Titus and 70 AD.

I need to ask: who is the focus of Scripture? What is the focus of Scripture? What are the pivotal points of Scripture? I put it to you that Christ is the focal point of Scripture and history. I put it to use that salvation or redemption is the central aspect of Scripture and history I thought it to you that the pivotal points of Scripture and history are the first and second comings of Christ.

Freedm said:

Christ is indeed the focus. I'm not sure what you mean about an "unhealthy obsessive fixation about the coming of Titus and 70 AD".

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70 AD is the pivotal moment of history for most Preterists you debate with on these forums. That is all they want to talk about. They apply countless second coming passages to that date. That is disturbing.

Freedm said:

I should add that although Christ is the focus of scripture, the work of Christ can not be separated from what happened to Jerusalem in 70 AD. So that event is of paramount importance to every Christian as that is the time when the old covenant ended and death was swallowed up in victory.

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AD70 was not the end of the old covenant. That occurred 40 years earlier. When Christ said "it is finished" on the cross that was the end of the old covenant arrangement. From a heavenly perspective the renting of the veil finished the temple sacrifices forever. Whilst Matthew doesn’t identify what Christ said before He gave up the ghost John does in 19:30: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”

The book of Hebrews shows the removal of the old covenant arrangement and its replacement by the new superior covenant. Hebrews 8:6 declares (before AD70): “now hath he (Christ) obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.”

Hebrews 8:7-8 explains (before AD70), “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”

The old covenant was faulty or defective. It had many limitations. It had to be replaced. Those who suggest it was still active and useful between Calvary and AD70 undermine the cross and fight with clear and repeated Scripture.

Albert Barnes contends: “it did not contain the ample provision for the pardon of sin and the salvation of the soul which was desirable. It was merely ‘preparatory’ to the Gospel.”

The Preachers Homiletical states: “Not merely ‘free from defect’, but ‘incomplete’, unable fully to meet man’s case. The old system was complete enough for its limited sphere and purpose: fault was found with its limitations.”

John Wesley explained: “For if the first had been faultless - If that dispensation had answered all God's designs and man's wants, if it had not been weak and unprofitable unable to make anything perfect, no place would have been for a second.”

Scripture (before AD70) describes the old covenant sacrificial system as “that which is done away” (2 Corinthians 3:11) and “that which is abolished” (2 Corinthians 3:13). It makes clear: “the old testament … vail is done away in Christ" (2 Corinthians 3:14). Hebrews 10:9 confirms: “He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.”

The sad thing is: many Christians today speak on this subject as if the cross never happened. They talk as if the old covenant still exists and is still relevant today or in the future. They fail to see that it has been eternally removed and the new covenant has replaced it. This is why they get messed up when they get to this subject. They want to go back to the old imperfect arrangement or they want Israel to go back to the old imperfect arrangement. They yearn for an old-covenant-type physical kingdom that is focused on the natural, temporal and earthly.

Equally, they want to elevate Israel to a place that they no longer own in the New Testament. Many want to render circumcision (the sign of the old covenant) meritorious or advantageous when the New Testament says it avails nothing.

The fact is, on the authority of God’s Word, we are never going back to the shadow, the type and the abolished. The reason being: God was, and is, fully and eternally satisfied with the new covenant. It doesn’t need modified, added to or replaced. The cross did it all!

The old covenant was only a signpost to the new covenant – the substance, fulfilment and the reality. It simply pointed to the new covenant arrangement that was focused on the real Jerusalem (the heavenly), not Christ-rejecting carnal Jerusalem. The old has been eternally abolished.

Hebrews 10:1 (before AD70) makes it perfectly clear, “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things."

The old Jewish temple in Jerusalem, which is now destroyed, served as an impressive physical, yet, imperfect temporal type of the living temple of God – the Lord Jesus Christ and His mystical body. It was the focal-point for the whole Judaic sacrificial system for many centuries.

Paul the Apostle addresses this in Galatians 4:9-10 (before AD70), asking, “now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.”

The New Testament writer is referring here to the old covenant ceremonial calendar. His contention is simple: why would a liberated Christian want to go back to the old elaborate abolished Jewish arrangement? This phrase “days, and months, and times, and years” refer to the many holy days, feasts and festivals that Israel had to carefully maintain until Jesus died on the cross. All of these were a heavy bondage to them. Paul despaired because some believers were looking back to the bondage of the old that was gone. This is so opposed to the freedom that comes in Christ.

The phrase “Ye observe” is one Greek word paratēreō meaning you ‘assiduously observe’ or you ‘painstakingly observe’. The word translated “weak” here (asthenes) means strengthless or impotent. The word interpreted “beggarly” in this passage (ptochos) relates to the condition of a pauper. It is derived from the original word ptoeo meaning fallen or flown away. The word “bondage,” which relates to the old Judaic system, is the word douleuo, meaning to be a slave.

As we piece these original Greek words together, we start to get a real sense of how the New Testament viewed the whole Old Testament ceremonial law. The old covenant ritualistic system has been abolished because it is expressly ‘impotent, impoverished and slavish’. The old covenant could not remove sin. It could never eradicate a guilty conscious. It was destitute. It has fallen and flown away. It has been rendered redundant. It is obsolete!

It has no ongoing purpose in the plan of God because of its weakness. It could never secure eternal salvation because it was not an eternal covenant. It had an expiration date. The coming in of the new perfect covenant removed the old imperfect system. When Christ came, He introduced “the everlasting covenant,” thus making the old temporal system useless. The shadow simply pointed to the substance.

Why would God ever want to bring back an insolvent and ineffective religious system that has been replaced by a perfect arrangement?

Colossians 2:14 (before AD70) plainly declares, speaking of these Old Testament ordinances and what happened at Calvary: “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.”

The Greek word for “blotting out” here is exaleiphō meaning: ‘to wipe off, wipe away, to obliterate, erase, wipe out, blot out’

Q. When did/will the "blotting out the handwriting of ordinances" occur?
A. Christ "took it out of the way" by "nailing it to his cross.”

These ordinances embraced the old covenant civil, ceremonial and ecclesiastical law. They were finished at the cross. When Christ made that final sacrifice for sin He satisfied all God’s holy demands for sin and uncleanness and thus Christ became the final propitiation and substitution for the sinner.

Colossians 2:16-17 (before AD70) continues, keeping on the same theme: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”

The Greek word translated “holyday” here is heorte meaning a festival or feast. The normally precise KJV should probably have used feast or festival here rather than holyday because out of 27 mentions of this word in the New Testament it is interpreted “feast” in all of them apart from here.

New American Standard puts it like this: “Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day -- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

The Living Bible says, “So don't let anyone criticize you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating Jewish holidays and feasts or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these were only temporary rules that ended when Christ came. They were only shadows of the real thing-of Christ himself.”

Paul is saying here that the old covenant feasts and festivals simply served as types and shadows of things that were to come. They looked forward to the new covenant arrangement and the reality and substance in Christ. The Jews of Ezekiel’s day and Zechariah’s day would never have understood this.

Colossians 2:20-22 (before AD70) adds, summing up the new covenant freedom: “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why … are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men?”

The phrase “are ye subject to ordinances” is interpreted from the lone Greek word dogmatizo, which literally means to submit to ceremonially rule. Christianity took us completely away from the bondage of the old Mosaic ceremonial law. These festivals were filled with numerous ordinances and blood sacrifices that had to be stringently observed.

Speaking of these impotent religious ordinances, Scriptures counsels: “Touch not; taste not; handle not.” This couldn’t be clearer!

Matthew Henry adds: “Christians are freed by Christ from the ritual observances of Moses's law, and delivered from that yoke of bondage which God himself had laid upon them. Subjection to ordinances, or human appointments in the worship of God, is highly blamable, and contrary to the freedom and liberty of the Gospel.”

Adam Clarke explains: “all the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion now perish, having accomplished the end of their institution; namely, to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

Romans 15:6-7 (before AD70) tells us: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day [alike]. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth [it] unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard [it]. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.”

The strict religious insistence on observing precise sacred days and the keeping of the old arrangement is exposed here as erroneous. Under the new covenant we are at liberty to worship God anywhere at any time, and it is totally acceptable unto God.

Freedm said:

I agree that the old covenant has been removed, but I also believe that it overlapped with the new for 40 years, at least in a sense. Yes, Jesus "finished" the establishment of the new covenant and removed the need for the old, but as long as the temple still stood the old covenant was still being adhered to, and although God had declared the old covenant null and void, the Jews had not.

Imagine divorcing your wife and she continues to walk into your house and sleep in your bed as if nothing had changed. If you allow that to continue to happen, then you can't rightfully claim you're divorced. Only after you change the locks and she loses access to your house is the divorce final.

Also note that the author of Hebrews said in Hebrews 8:13

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

That implies the old covenant had not yet disappeared at that time.

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Please quote me if you are speaking to me.

It was redundant through the cross-work. The outward shell was about to disappear, but the covenant was gone in God's eyes. See the Scripture above that proves that. There definitely were not two parallel covenants coexisting - that is Dispensationalism. Nowhere does it say the old covenant finished at AD70. That is a Preterist invention. One the new arrived the old was redundant.

Freedm said:

Let me just expand on this a little bit. The reason I say the old covenant ended in 70 AD is because I believe the thousand years began at that time also. They can not have begun at the cross because Revelation 20 makes it clear that those who refused the mark of the beast came to life and reigned with Christ, which means the thousand years must begin after the mark of the beast.

It also means that death was defeated after the mark of the beast, as it is demonstrated by the resurrection of the martyrs, and 1 Corinthians 15 links that event to the end of the law.

1 Corinthians 15:56
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Law = sin = death.

If death comes through sin, and sin comes through the law, then as long as the law exists, death exists. Which means if death was destroyed, as demonstrated by the resurrection just prior to the thousand years, that must mean also that the law was destroyed at that time. The law can not have been destroyed at the cross, because that would require for the mark of the beast to have been in place prior to the cross.

I'm afraid my explanation might be a little bit confusing so let me just summarize my logic.

1. The mark of the beast comes prior to the thousand years.
2. The resurrection comes after the mark of the beast.
3. The resurrection signals the start of the thousand years.
4. The resurrection signals the end of death.
5. The end of death signals the end of sin.
6. The end of sin signals the end of the law.

All these things are connected. Therefore, the end of the law is after the mark of the beast.

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The thousand years began with the first resurrection. That definitely did not happen in AD70.