jgr said in post #193:
No reference at all to people, or to the amount of tribulation, in Matthew 24:21.
Note that Matthew 24:21 refers to the amount of tribulation which people will experience in our future. And this will be so "great", and involve so much death, that if the future Tribulation had not been shortened by God, no flesh would survive on the earth (Matthew 24:22).
jgr said in post #193:
Thayer specifically and intentionally categorized “great” as referring to “other things that distress” i.e. things that cause tribulation.
Note that the future Tribulation of Matthew 24 and Revelation chapters 6 to 18 will involve things that cause great tribulation for people. Such as war, famines, pestilence, etc. (Revelation 6:4-8, Matthew 24:7).
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: Matthew 24:21 doesn't refer to distress caused by crucifixion or evisceration]
Yet they occurred, in addition to various "other things that cause distress".
Note that if crucifixion or evisceration occurred in 70 AD, that does not fulfill Matthew 24:21. For neither was unprecedented nor unsurpassed.
Also, the Second Coming has to occur immediately after the Tribulation of Matthew 24:21 and Revelation chapters 6 to 18 (Matthew 24:29-31, Revelation 19:7 to 20:6).
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: Comparing World War II with 70 AD]
The only legitimate comparison is a comparison of equal numbers in representative populations.
Note that the only legitimate comparison is what is experienced by the people of all nations. For both Luke 21 and Revelation chapters 6 to 18 show that the future Tribulation will affect the entire world (Luke 21:25-26, Revelation 13:7-18).
jgr said in post #193:
“There have been, of course, other periods of tribulation or suffering in which greater numbers of people were involved. and which continued for longer periods of time. But considering the physical, moral, and religious aspects, suffering never reached a greater degree of awfulness and intensity than in the siege of Jerusalem.”
Loraine Boettner, The Millennium, p. 202
Note that it had reached the same degree for the Christians in Rome in 64 AD, as it did subsequently for the Jews in the Holocaust.
Also, note that Matthew 24:21 refers to the total amount of suffering, not to its intensity over a short time.
jgr said in post #193:
If you disagree with Boettner and continue to believe that “World War II was much worse”, then you should be able to cite a source of equal or greater recognition and credibility (e.g. from Wikipedia) compared to Boettner, who agrees with you.
Note that it's just common sense that if hundreds of millions of people suffered for years during World War II, then their total amount of suffering exceeded the total amount of suffering by 1 million people in 70 AD, and by orders of magnitude.
jgr said in post #193:
In a comparison of representative populations, the suffering of 70 AD exceeded that of the flood.
Note that the entire populations affected must be compared.
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: That is how those Christians set on fire in 64 AD illuminated the night]
Not by those on crosses.
Yes, they were set alight as torches lining the roadways.
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: The quote from Tacitus shows that 70 AD was not unprecedented]
No mention of mass crucifixions of hundreds per day with multiple victims per cross, mass eviscerations, mass starvation, internecine killings, divine judgment, et al.
Regarding mass crucifixions, how many Christians were crucified in Rome in 64 AD, and in later persecutions of the Church by the Romans, which persecution went on for centuries?
Regarding mass eviscerations, how many are you talking about? And how many people were "drawn and quartered" by the English during past centuries? And how many people were impaled on sharp spikes by the ancient Assyrians as they conquered the Middle East?
Regarding mass starvation, where in 70 AD were the numbers of people involved in the subsequent Great Chinese Famine or the Bengal Famine?
Regarding internecine killings, where in 70 AD was the horror of the American Civil War, when Americans used their weapons against their fellow Americans, resulting in some 600,000 casualties? And even long before 70 AD, the Jews had their own, huge civil war between their northern kingdom (Israel) and their southern kingdom (Judah) which went on for some 200 years (from about 922 BC to 722 BC) and involved battles in which as many as 500,000 Jews were slaughtered by their fellow Jews (2 Chronicles 13:16-18; cf. also 2 Chronicles 28:6).
Regarding divine judgment, where in 70 AD were the numbers of people involved in the Flood?
Note that it is clear from history that 70 AD was neither unprecedented nor unsurpassed. And so it cannot be the fulfillment of Matthew 24:21.
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: The total amount of suffering in the Holocaust far exceeded that in 70 AD]
See Boettner above.
Note that he does not disagree.
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: We should take Luther's comments regarding scripture with a grain of salt]
Shouldn't we do the same with everyone, yourself included?
Of course. But much more with regard to him. For he rejected whole books of the Bible (James and Revelation). For he placed his theology above the Bible.
Also, he was a notorious anti-Semite.
But we must not be anti-Semitic. For Jesus Christ's Gospel of salvation goes to Jews first (Romans 1:16, Matthew 10:5-6, Matthew 15:24, Acts 3:26, Romans 15:8), and salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22b), because salvation is of the New Covenant (Matthew 26:28; 1 Corinthians 11:25; 2 Corinthians 3:6, Hebrews 9:15), which God has made only with Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Christian Gentiles are grafted into Israel so that they can partake of the salvation offered by God to Israel (Romans 11:17,24, Ephesians 2:12,19, Galatians 3:29, John 10:16). And all Christians, whether Jews (Acts 22:3) or Gentiles (Romans 16:4b), have become spiritually-circumcised Jews if they have undergone the spiritual circumcision of water-immersion (burial) baptism into Jesus (Romans 2:29, Philippians 3:3, Colossians 2:11-13).
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: 70 AD]
Corpses were thrown into the Kidron valley and the Valley of Hinnom.
The same thing happened in 586 BC.
"Hinnom" is the name of the person after whose son the "valley of the son of Hinnom", on the south side of Jerusalem, was named (Joshua 15:8). At the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 BC, in the time of the prophet Jeremiah, this valley became representative of God's awful judgment, as it was where masses of dead bodies were cast unburied to rot out in the open for all to see (Jeremiah 7:32-34). Decades later, after the Jews returned (in 538 BC) from their Babylonian captivity, the valley became a garbage dump, where fires were set to try to burn up the garbage, so that smoke continually rose up from the valley.
These two images of a valley filled with rotting corpses by the judgment of God (cf. Isaiah 66:24), and fires with smoke continually rising (cf. Revelation 14:11) came together in the minds of the Jews to where the valley of Hinnom came to represent the future, eternal hell itself. This is why the name "Gehenna" (or "Ge-Hinnom"), "geenna" in the original Greek, is used in the Bible to refer to the future, eternal hell (Mark 9:45-46). "Geenna" (G1067, pronounced gheh'-en-nah) is derived from the Hebrew words for "valley" (gay: H1516, pronounced gah'-ee) and "Hinnom" (H2011, pronounced hin-nome').
jgr said in post #193:
[Re: Corpses remaining after Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction]
You don't think God did a complete job?
Complete in what way?
For note that even the eternal hell will not involve the annihilation of the bodies of the unsaved. But God's judgment against them will still be complete.
For what is eternally punishing (Matthew 25:46, Revelation 14:10-11) about the future, "Gehenna" hell (Luke 12:5, Greek) is fire eternally burning the physical body, and worms eternally eating the physical body (Mark 9:46, Isaiah 66:24). The physical bodies of non-Christians in Gehenna need not be exactly like people have now, which do not regenerate parts of themselves if those parts are burned or eaten. For before non-Christians are cast into the Gehenna hell (also called the lake of fire), they will be physically resurrected (Revelation 20:12-15, John 5:29b). And their new, physical resurrection bodies could eternally regenerate parts of themselves whenever those parts are burned or eaten. But then the regenerated parts could be burned or eaten again, only to regenerate again, only to be burned or eaten again, and so on, forever: an everlasting suffering (Revelation 14:10-11).
In Gehenna the fire will never go out (Mark 9:46). It will never run out of fuel, but will continue to punish non-Christians forever (Matthew 25:41,46, Revelation 14:10-11, Revelation 20:10,15). The fact that the fire will already be burning before the physical resurrection bodies of non-Christians are cast into it (Matthew 25:41, Revelation 20:15) means that their bodies will not be the fire's fuel. The fire will have its own source of fuel by which it will burn/punish non-Christians forever (Revelation 14:10-11, Revelation 20:10,15, Matthew 25:41,46, Mark 9:45-46).
jgr said in post #193:
John Wesley leaves no doubt that he recognized the cited portions of Matthew 24 to have been historically fulfilled.
But note that he was mistaken, for the reasons given in reply, in the "Wesley" part of post #192 above.
jgr said in post #193:
Charles Spurgeon
Matthew 24:15-18
This portion of our Savior’s words appears to relate solely to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Note that it didn't, because it referred to the same, never-fulfilled time as Matthew 24:21-31.
Please show how each of these verses was fulfilled in 70 AD.
jgr quoted Spurgeon in post #193:
As soon as Christ’s disciples saw “the abomination of desolation,” that is, the Roman ensigns with their idolatrous emblems, “stand in the holy place,” . . .
Note that the Romans never fulfilled the abomination of desolation.
See the "abomination of desolation" part of post #55 above.
jgr quoted Spurgeon in post #193:
They must flee to the mountains in the greatest haste, the moment that they saw “Jerusalem compassed with armies” (Luke 21:20).
See the "Luke 21:20" part of post #156 above. Also, see the "Luke 21:24" part of post #115 above.
jgr said in post #193:
Easy decision.
For those who have ceased from men (Isaiah 2:22).
For the Bible makes clear that the Tribulation of Matthew 24 and Revelation chapters 6 to 18 has never happened, just as Matthew 24:29-31 and Revelation 19:7 to 20:6 has never happened.
For an example of how the Tribulation remains unfulfilled, note that Revelation 13:7-10 shows that the future Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of Revelation's "beast"), during his literal 3.5-year worldwide reign (Revelation 13:5-10), will be allowed to physically overcome Biblical Christians in every nation (Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 14:12-13, Matthew 24:9-13), just as, for example, the Roman emperors and Satan were allowed to physically overcome some Biblical Christians in the first century AD (e.g. Revelation 2:10). There are no Biblical Christians outside of the Church (Ephesians 4:4-6).
But Revelation 13:7-10 does not mean that every person in the Church will be overcome by the future Antichrist. For some in the Church will be in God-protected wilderness places (Revelation 12:6,14-16). And so they will still be "alive and remain" on the earth at Jesus Christ's future, Second Coming to be raptured (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17), immediately after the Tribulation (Mark 13:24-27; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8, Revelation 19:7 to 20:6).