“After Jesus was crucified, any further animal sacrifice for sin would have been, dare we say it, an abomination”
Really, then explain what the Jerusalem Church and Paul were doing offering sacrifices for sin 30 years after the crucifixion,
Act 21:18-27, “And the [day] following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present. And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. And when they heard [it], they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise [their] children, neither to walk after the customs.
What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave [their] heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but [that] thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written [and] concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from [things] offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them. And when the seven days were almost ended,....”
As departed mother would likely say . . . QUIET, THE JUDGE WANTS TO SPIT . . .
I see THREE issues [I) SYMBOLIC/LITERAL II) TYPES & FORERUNNERS--BOTH/AND; III) SACRIFICE & MYSTERIES] that folks throw rocks over and about without addressing directly. And, it's not easy nor even likely that addressing the issues directly would bear much fruit given the different Bibles, histories and disctionaries in force . . . nevertheless, I wish to make a comment or three . . . given my lifelong habit of rushing in where angels fear to tread . . .
It is highly unlikely there will be much meeting of the minds--much less the theologies and certainly not the dictioaries on this ball park--at least not very much before the 2nd Coming and likely significantly after that.
My reading of Scripture for 55+ years has left me with the following observations and convictions on such:
1. LITERAL IS BEST. Sometimes it's obvious that the literal meaning alone is intended . . . is sufficient . . . needful . . . required. Counting on that in a prophetic Scripture discussion between Dispies and Replacementarians is a sure sign of delusion or sleep walking or being drunk in The Spirit or something.
2. LITERAL is sometimes mixed with symbolic/figurative in prophetic Scriptures. Haven't counted . . . I'd guesstimate maybe 15-25% of all prophetic verses could be categorized such. I realize that Replacementarians have a compulsion to slam everything into symbolic so such are more easily mangled and otherwise they'd have to believe The Bible but that's another issue.
3. Sometimes things are symbolic, figurative, mysterious virtually totally and only . . . FOR NOW. The Messiah as Suffering Servant has been that way for eons to the Children of Jacob. They perfer the Messiah as Conquering King line of Scriptures [Kind of like Replacementarians are allergic to anything after AD70] and in true schizophrenic fashion . . . as well, we might add, in true knee jerk/meat axe Replacementarian fashion--RATHER THAN TAKE SCRIPTURE AT FACE VALUE AND MERELY NOTE THAT "WE DON'T UNDERSTAND," they have concluded that there must be 2 Messiah figures.
The principle exegetical dogma/practice seems to be--WHEN IN DOUBT . . . run about, shout and SLAM INTO THE SYMBOLIC AND/OR AD70 BOX. Then pontificate ad nauseum with SHRILLERY logic and convolutions about how Biblical and historical and logical it all is when it's literally the OPPOSITE of all 3. But I digress.
God seems to have His reasons for hiding things mysteriously in symbolism OCCASIONALLY--He seems to want us to realize only closer to the event or during or after the event and/or He wants the truly wise and sensitive to His Spirit to ferret out the deeper meanings VIA HOLY SPIRIT and to thereby keep them hidden from the clueless, the enemy etc. His sand box. He has His reasons.
I think many times, SOME FEW wise folks who've lived, breathed, studied The Word IN THE SPIRIT for decades and sometimes less . . . may come up with a Spirit dropped insight that truly illumines a previously obscure prophetic verse or issue. Praise God. Wonderful. Expecting all to jump on the bandwagon and cheer the new revelation is a sure sign of being stuck in Disney's IT'S A SMALL WORLD for farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr toooooooo long. The bloke will be blessed if even some of his own family members agree. And, some of the MORE IN-TUNE WITH GOD folks may realize the merit in the new revelation.
But for Christianity as a whole, it is not ragingly likely to take the bulk of even Pentecostal Christianity by a storm. For all intents and purposes . . . it will remain an obscure footnote unless and until Holy Spirit massively enlightens masses of Christians on the matter--something He seems to be rarely inclined to do. But that could change. He could begin a series of enlightening dreams or daylight visions or simple daily mental/spiritual enlightenments many orders of magnitude above normal . . . he could begin a new program of such any day in these END TIMES for whatever purposes. Not holding my breath.
My own suspicion is that a good chunk of the relatively few symbolic only Scriptures will remain mysterious for most if not all Believers until just prior to their fulfillment or until during or after their fulfillment. Then the lights will go on. We can pontificate, conjecture, assume, extrapolate until the cows come home . . . And Heaven will likely laugh . . . or cry then laugh.
There's a lot of Scriptures with BOTH literal meanings AND symbolic meanings. Pretending that Replacementarians and Dispies are going to agree on such categories etc. this side of the 2nd Coming is another sure sign of delusion or gargantuan faith or parallel universes or something.
Certainly context, the whole of Scripture, logic etc. can help. I'm impressed with Wallvoord's job in a number of cases. He's fair, scholarly, presents all sides and articulates the most plausible Biblical answer well. I like that. But none of that will even scratch the surface of the Replacementarians' Rubber Bibles, Rubber Histories, Rubber Dictionaries, Rubber logic books. Imagining that it will is an exercise in vanity or futility or 'self-mental-massage' or some such. Oh, we should try, nevertheless. Certainly for the lurkers.
But I also believe that there are SOME relatively few Replacementarians who lean HOWEVER SLIGHTLY toward the realm of reason, Biblical truth etc. WHO, WHEN EVENTS ON CNN START MORE VIVIDLY AND MORE ROUTINELY OVERTLY MATCH BIBLICAL PROPHECY SCRIPTURES . . . they might actually waken out of their stupor because of earnest efforts on the part of Holy Spirit through us flawed Dispies.
Whether the light bulbs go on in time to minimize the singes on their long robes as they scurry into the woodlands ahead of the globalist gestapo remains to be seen.
But, while I may respect Jack Van Impe’s work; Hal Lindsey’s work etc. to a point . . . and they have a lot of research and/or scholarship beyond mine . . . too often THEY ARE JUST PERSONALLY PONTIFICATING imho. Their Scriptural support is as shakey and fantasmagorical as the Replacementarians’ routinely is.
I personally TRY to avoid such emphatic statements unless there’s considerable Scriptural support for such. I still see through the glass darkly, too. Yet, Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. Both are true. We do NOT know a LOT more than we emphatically know, by far, imho.
Tempis is Fugeting again . . . whack. Settle down Tempis.
Any Bible reader worth the label should know that the cross in the wilderness with the serpents to look upon and be healed was
A TYPE, A FORERUNNER OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS. That’s not really rocket science to understand that.
Yet, endlessly, hereon, The Replacementarians rave and rant about how this or that prophetic Scripture was 100% absolutely about this or that ridiculous event in AD70.
AT BEST AD 70 and other events before these prophetic END TIMES were mere foreshadowings of what is slated for our era, our DISPENSATION. The movie trailer does NOT EQUAL the movie. The HINT does not EQUAL the secret.
Of course, Dispies should not expect Replacementarians with their rubber Bibles, dictionaries and histories to accurately divide the Word of Truth in terms of what’s foreshadowings and what’s literally predicted to become literally true precisely to the letter etc. Shoot, I doubt many Dispies get a lot of things very PRECISELY accurate. But we should at least get the rough outline reasonably accurate.
At the very least, we ought to know the MAJOR MILE POSTS to watch for with understanding and discernment.
This has long been an area of puzzle and mystery. The wiser in my experience have acknowledged it so. GIVEN CHRIST—why are some Scriptures about future millennial sacrifices even remote Biblical reality? Is it only symbolic ceremony memorializing . . . by then . . . or what?
GOD HASN’T SPELLED IT OUT!
He’s just teased us with some SEEMINGLY mutually exclusive stuff WITHOUT EXPLANATION.
GUESS WHAT—HE’S GOD. RANK HAS ITS PRIVILEGES.
Clearly there WILL BE a 3rd Temple with daily sacrifices that the Anti-Christ will end with his own image in the Holy of Holies. That much is CERTAIN.
But the evidently millennial mention of a sacrifice makes no sense. But the Scriptures are there. Now, Replacementarians just stretch their rubber Bibles this way and that until they have forced ‘reality’ to fit their tidy [actually very untidy but anyway] little boxes and then proudly pretend they have it all figured out.
I think on this score, Dispies are wiser to say—WE DON’T KNOW. God hasn’t made it clear yet. And that’s OK with us because, contrary to Replacementarian compulsions, we don’t need to give God competition playing God.
Anyway—enough—I have other tasks to do and this has taken longer than I intended.