I am not asking what he teaches over all, but that specific passage.
It's apocalyptic symbolism (and I agree).
Here's an article about the overall topic.
QUOTE from article:
>>>>Does this mean abandoning belief in the “second coming”? Certainly not. It means taking seriously the whole biblical picture, instead of highlighting, and misinterpreting, one part of it. The problem has been, in
[43] the last two centuries in particular, that certain texts have been read from within the worldview of dualistic apocalypticism, and have thus produced a less than fully biblical picture, with Jesus flying around like a spaceman and the physical world being destroyed. And if we really suppose – as, alas, many seem to – that this will be the meaning of the Millennium, we will miss the point entirely. Rather, the Bible points to God’s new world, where heaven and earth are fully integrated at last, and whose central feature is the personal, loving and healing presence of Jesus himself, the living embodiment of the one true God as well as the prototype of full, liberated humanity. When we talk about Jesus’ “coming”, the reality to which we point is his personal presence within God’s new creation. -
Apocalypse Now? - NTWrightPage
In every past fulfilled OT Judgment, God is always depicted as running around on the clouds, cleaving mountains in half, melting them like wax, making them level with the ground, etc...
Yahweh's various day-of-the-Lord judgments were signaled by the prophets with common apocalyptic language that consists of common apocalyptic idioms and metaphoric doom language. See these fulfilled prophecies and note the common apocalyptic metaphors in each:
*
Micah 1:1-9 -- Assyrian conquest of Samaria and Jerusalem
*
Nahum 1:1-8 -- Nineveh's doom
*
Zephaniah 1:1-10,14-18 -- Judgment against Judah
*
2 Samuel 22:8-16 -- the destruction of Saul's kingdom
*
Ezekiel 32:1-12 -- Judgment against Egypt by Babylon
In each of these
fulfilled passages, we read all of the common apocalyptic metaphors to describe Jehovah's comings:
*the destruction of earth
*the bowing of the heavens
*the melting of the mountains like wax
*the blackening of the sun, moon, and stars
*the wiping away of every living thing
*blood as high as the mountains
*the burning of the earth and all that dwell in it (at His presence)
*Etc. etc.
This is known as APOCALYPTIC LANGUAGE, which is used by the prophets to foretell the downfall of nations and individuals by God in history.
We have no scriptural instruction to interpret this OT prophesy about the Ancient Assyrian conquest of Jerusalem and Samaria as Metaphor:
The mountains will melt under Him,
And the valleys will split
Like wax before the fire,
Like waters poured down a steep place.
Yet Interpret the same language found in Zechariah 14 in Polar Opposite, Hyper-Literal Fashion.
Interestingly in the Zechariah passage, we have a time indicator...
"
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south."
Zechariah 14 gives us further information for pinpointing exactly when THAT DAY takes place:
8And
in that day it shall be
That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem,
Half of them toward the eastern sea
And half of them toward the western sea;
In both summer and winter it shall occur.
Jesus said (which should be proof enough) the He personally FULFILLED this Living Waters Prophesy during His earthly Ministry, (John 7:38) Placing the timing of "in that day" concretely in the 1st century
Tertullian (A.D. 145-220) agrees.
Writing barely 150 years after it happened, he says:
“But at night He went out to the Mount of Olives. For thus had Zechariah pointed out: ‘And His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives’
Tertullian was alluding to the fact that the Olivet prophecy set the stage for the judgment-coming of Christ that would once for all break down the Jewish/Gentile division. Matthew Henry explains the theology behind the prophecy:
The partition-wall between Jew and Gentiles shall be taken away. The mountains about Jerusalem, and particularly this, signified it to be an enclosure, and that it stood in the way of those who would approach to it. Between the Gentiles and Jerusalem this mountain of Bether, of division, stood, Cant. ii. 17. But by the destruction of Jerusalem this mountain shall be made to cleave in the midst, and so the Jewish pale shall be taken down, and the church laid in common with the Gentiles, who were made one with the Jews by the breaking down of this middle wall of partition, Eph. ii. 14.8