If I understand correctly, you are saying the pagan Roman army was "the righteous" that would tread under foot the wicked? Also, the roots and branches of Israel remain to this day so I'm not sure I follow how they were left with no lineage in 70 AD? It seems any war could be the Day of the Lord if these things are symbolic.
No, the Roman army was not "the righteous" that would tread under foot the wicked. This is the
believers doing a post-AD 70 treading underfoot of these wicked who were burned to ashes. We have a record given to us by Epiphanius of the believers who returned to Jerusalem just after the war, and began another assembly there. They were led by a cousin of Christ, Symeon son of Clopas, who was chosen bishop to lead the church in Jerusalem. (Eusebius' Church History, Book III, Ch. 11 writes of that appointment of Symeon).
"So Aquila [an envoy of Hadrian], while he was in Jerusalem, also saw the disciples of the disciples of the apostles flourishing in the faith and working great signs, healings, and other miracles.
For they were such as had come back from the city of Pella to Jerusalem and were living there and teaching. For when the city was about to be taken and destroyed by the Romans, it was revealed in advance to all the disciples by an angel of God that they should remove from the city, as it was going to be completely destroyed. They sojourned as emigrants in Pella, the city above mentioned, in Transjordania. And this city is said to be of the Decapolis. But after the destruction of Jerusalem when they had returned to Jerusalem, as I have said, they wrought great signs, as I have already said." (The Treatise of St. Epiphanius on Weights and Measures)
As for the genealogies of the tribes of Israel, even in Paul's epistles, he was teaching that "endless genealogies" were both "unprofitable and vain", and both Timothy and Titus were to "avoid" them. (Titus 3:9, 1 Tim. 1:4). Ever since Christ was crowned high priest king as the "
root and offspring of David", the necessity for any tribal distinctions today is irrelevant and "unprofitable". To make that point obvious to one and all, God saw to it that the archived tribal genealogical records were burned up in AD 66.
Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek,
Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight.
Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts. 2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when
He appears? ... 4:1 “For behold, the day is coming, Burning like an oven, And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,” Says the Lord of hosts, “That will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves. 3 You shall trample the wicked, For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet On the day that I do this,” Says the Lord of hosts.
Verse 4:2 indicates deliverance for the righteous on this day? Did that happen in 70AD? Also, Malachi was a prophet to Israel, not Rome. The promise is TO the children of Israel. Did Jesus appear in 70 AD? Paul wrote about the "Day of Christ/Lord" and always referred to it as a day Jesus comes/appears.
Yes, there was deliverance for the righteous in that AD 70 day of Christ's appearing. All the resurrected righteous who had been
dead (both Jews and Gentiles) were then taken to heaven - the fulfillment of the "rapture" text in 1 Thess. 4. As for the
living righteous (both Jews and Gentiles) who were left on earth, they were given rest from their persecutors, (the Jewish religious leadership), which had been persecuting the early church periodically ever since Christ's ascension, as recorded in the book of Acts.
Paul wrote in 2 Thess. 1:6-10 of the fire of God's avenging wrath against these who had been giving tribulation to His church in those days. "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; And to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His might angels, In flaming fire
taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from
the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day."
When the Jews as a nation and a people were shattered by the close of AD 70, this gave relief to all the believers (both Jews and Gentiles) who had been persecuted by them in those early years of the church. The "Great Tribulation" in those "
Days of Vengeance" on that wicked generation was God's justifiable retribution for this offense against His saints.
And Christ's soon literal
"appearing" at His return in AD 70 was predicted by Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1, when the Lord Jesus Christ was "about to" judge both the living and the dead at His
appearing and His kingdom.
Are you saying Ezekiel 38 was fulfilled in 70 AD? Not sure I am following you here. Satan was crushed back in 70 AD? He seems to be hard at work to me.
Yes, I am most definitely saying Ezekiel
28 was fulfilled in AD 70. Isaiah 24:21-23 prophesied that the "host of the high ones that are on high" would be punished by being imprisoned within Jerusalem for many days, along with the "kings of the earth" (high priests of Israel) who would also be gathered in that same location, like "prisoners in a pit". After those "many days" of imprisonment, they would all be "found wanting". In Bible language, that means
GONE. Revelation 18:2 also predicted that "every unclean spirit" would be imprisoned in Babylon / Jerusalem during its period of destruction.
Isaiah also wrote in Isaiah 34:4-10 about the "
day of the Lord's vengeance" when the "
host of heaven" shall be dissolved", and the heavens rolled together like a scroll, with all their host falling down when the Lord's sword would be "bathed in heaven" in that "year of recompences for the controversy of Zion".
Satan was indeed crushed under the saints' feet back in AD 70,
shortly after Romans was written around AD 60. What evil you presently see taking place in the world is coming from the "children of the devil", as Christ once called them.
Humanity is inherently capable, all on its own, of committing great evil. As Christ once said in Matthew 15:20, "
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:" By reducing Satan and his angels to ashes in AD 70, God has been showing us just how much evil humanity can perform, even without the presence of an outside influence of the demonic realm in the world anymore.
Our offenses are actually worse than Satan's, since humanity sins against grace extended to it ever since the cross. The demonic realm was never given such a second chance with a redemption, as we have been. "To whom much is given, much shall be required".
Also, are you saying 70 AD was the second death, the lake of fire, after the final judgment in Rev 20?
The AD 70 era of "Great Tribulation" saw the city of Jerusalem, its temple, and the people of Israel dying its "
second death"; almost an exact duplicate of its
first death under the Babylonians in 586 BC. Death and Hell (Hades - the grave) came upon the city both times. (Isaiah 28:14-18, and Revelation 20:14). The city quite literally turned into a "Lake of Fire" towards the end. Christ called it a "furnace of fire" when those who were experiencing its torments would be weeping and gnashing their teeth. This was ordinary living inhabitants experiencing all the horrors of a siege by the Zealots and the Romans as Jerusalem burned down around them.
God had once said in Isaiah 31:9 that the Lord's "
fire is in Zion, and
His furnace in Jerusalem". God's heavenly fire was present in Jerusalem's Temple, and somehow this symbolism portrayed God's "consuming fire" obliterating the wicked in that city - both demonic, and wicked humanity as well.
But that was not the "
final judgment" in Revelation 20. There was
one white throne judgement for the dead back then in AD 70, but there will also be another, and
final one in the end of fallen man's history on this planet. God is perfectly capable of opening the books on more than one occasion to judge the dead by those books.
