Interplanner
Well-known member
First, to compliment you, you have always thought about your answer. I appreciate that. I mean in true debating style, you have a counter. I'm saying this because I accidentally read a recent response by STP whose ability to discuss is nil. I have him on ignore for that reason.
But I think you have missed too much of the picture. The real statement here by Jesus is that there is not going to be a golden age for Judaism. Can you not see that? Lk 21 is the most emphatic on this, saying that the events of 70 are all the wrath of God written pertaining to Israel, which concurs with 2 Th 1. (Luke's material is essential transcription of Paul anyway).
Since that event was the 2nd destruction, and happened auspiciously on the same week of the year as the first, I really don't see anything else happening to Israel--if I am to take Lk 21 with plain non-2P2P meaning.
You have decided that this prophecy stuff is a perfect transcript like a time sequence for a NASA launch. Good luck with that. I do not think it is anything of the sort. So that is your problem. When you do the numbers in the Rev, and get half way through and there is -275% people and places and things on the stage... you realize it must mean something else.
Now on the delay problem. Why is it "wrong" for God to delay the destruction of the world? Isn't 2 Peter 3 part of all this too? Notice again the basic features of what I'm saying:
1, Mt24A (up to 29) is about 1st century Judea
2, Mt24B is worldwide and was expected right after. But Christ says only a few verses later that only the Father knows when this (worldwide things) would happen. I believe he set-up and validated what 2 Peter 3 would say later.
The church historian Lattourrette therefore says that what the surviving apostles concluded after Masada happened in 72 is the settled view of all this. They continued to do the mission. That's all there is to say about it.
In Genesis 6, God has emotions about creating man. I believe he has emotions about ending the world, too.
