1.) So just to be clear, you don’t believe persecution, wars, famine, earthquakes, false prophets/messiahs, lawlessness, those falling away from the church, the gospel going to every creature under heaven, the son of man coming on the clouds, nor the servants gathering the good and bad into the wedding feast, occurred during the disciples’ generation of the first century?
How about the answer as...NO? This has NOTHING to do with first-century "generation!"
Look, do you honestly think that the "generation" of 70A.D the worst calamities and miseries of the Jews, ever? Okay, how about countless thousands raped, tortured, and six million killed in World War II alone? If physical tribulation is in view, this view does NOT have a leg to stand on. And GREATER tribulation than ever was or ever shall be? Humm? How about the greater tribulation than when Satan himself is loosed after the millennium to gather the armies together against the Holy City? This is NONSENSE! But this seems to be your and OP's distraction "DIVERTING" us FROM Scripture in order to rely upon some secular historians in an attempt to define and fulfill the Lord's prophecy. God does NOT work like that, Selah!
The Bible is its own interpreter, not historians. That is "precisely" how we know that the Old Testament congregation of Israel was judged at the Cross. Not because of the writings of men you often referred like Adam Whatz-his-name or Mathew Henry, but because
God's Word says so! We follow the light of His Word, not the traditions of these men. Thus we are always guided down the right path.
STICK WITH THE BIBLE!
Psalms 119:105
- "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."
His Word, not Josephus. Not Hammster. Or my own!
2.) to be clear, you don’t believe “this generation” means Jesus’ contemporaries, despite “genea” always meaning contemporaries in every other context given in the NT and LXX?
Nope. See...
You think Our Lord wept at the foresight of these calamities based on the book of Josephus. Christ is NOT weeping over a few thousand people being killed. Thousands of people are killed EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. No, you do err. Christ was weeping at foreseeing the
fall of Israel that they are blinded, and
that the kingdom will be taken from them and
given to another, not that some Romans would conquer their temporal physical city! He wept for their souls, not because they wouldn't run and hide in some physical mountains from the Romans. That's not the important thing to weep over, their souls were what Christ wept over. That they
were branches now broken off of the Covenanted Olive tree, and
that their children now would have no root. That is what He wept over, get it!? People have got to stop looking at the world, the physical, carnal, fleshly, earthly symbols--
but unto spiritual.
Luke 23:28-31
- "But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
- For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
- Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.
- For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
Do we define this prophecy by the ramblings of Josephus (who wasn't even a Christian, remember that), or do we define it by the "light" of the Word of God? It is clearly "NOT ONLY" a prophecy of the fall of Israel at the cross when Christ would be removed, but also a prophecy of the New Testament Church (the barren having more children). It has
nothing whatsoever to do with AD 70 theory. Look and compare the parallel accounts about the barren having more children. It couldn't be any clearer. The green tree is when the Life of Christ is the root of Israel, and the dry is when Christ is no longer their Root and there is no longer that life in Israel. She becomes baren, her children are dead in trespass and sin, blinded, and in bondage to Satan. While the barren (the nations) become of Christ. That was the New Testament Congregation of Israel after the cross, it didn't happen in AD 70!
Galatians 4:25-28
- "For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
- But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
- For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
- Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise."
To attempt to assign this fulfillment of the prophecy of Christ to the year AD 70 is tortuous of Matthew 23!
Clearly, and despite your objections based on the tradition of those holding to Josephus, the prophecy was
already fulfilled when Galatians was written, and Jerusalem in bondage was
already judged of God and in
bondage with her children. That is why Christ said to Jerusalem, weep for yourselves, and for
your children. Because, listen to this, they were
NOT the children of promise, not the children of the Jerusalem from above. This has nothing to do with Romans sacking a physical Jerusalem and killing literal children, it has to do with the wrath of God upon His unfaithful Old Testament congregation of Israel making up of her CHILDREN (Jews) within her, and they being left desolate by their rejection. People need to stop attempting to define scripture by secular history books, and define it by itself. The Bible is the only History book that can interpret prophesy.
Sadly, it seems Josephus has to a large degree become the god of prophecy these days. But Josephus was not even a man of God, not even Christian! Why then are so many people putting prophecy validation into the hands of this man's untrustworthy writings, humm? How do we know the biblical prophecy took place in AD 70 is
because Josephus told us? Sigh...but the enigma is revealed once we understand that people believe whatever they want to hear in support of their positions.
@sovereigngrace
@Spiritual Jew
