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That is the consensus, but it is by no means certain.

If the Jerusalem Temple had already been destroyed, John could be measuring a symbolic temple rather than a physical building. He is told to measure not only the temple and altar, but also “those who worship there” (Revelation 11:1). Elsewhere in the New Testament, believers are called God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21–22). This suggests the temple represents God’s people.

But if the temple is not  destroyed because the writing is earlier, then it could be referencing the actual temple. I certainly have no opinion on this right now.

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Proclaimer:
No, its about not casting pearls before swine. If you do that, you put those people into judgment because they have been told a precious truth and then trample on it. It is wiser to not tell them such things, and to give them the basic gospel with the hope that they will be able to receive the deeper things of God.

DesireTruth
What kind of nonsense is this!!

Not nonsense. What is nonsense is expecting scripture and prophecy to be so clear that any dummy can understand it including those that would thwart the plan of God. My point stands and anyone with common sense can see it.

Obviously, truth is for those who seek it, not those who read it once.

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You understand Psalm 22 is poetry…right!! So the events spoken aren’t to be taken literal. The next verse says “I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me”, so David’s bones have eyes?!!?

It means something, and it is far more likely to relate to the fulfilment of prophecy than to be a random verse with no real significance.

All scripture is inspired by God.

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What about when the Jesus says soon in Rev 1:1; 22:6,7,12,20. My understanding of soon isn’t 2000 years. Even at the foundations of your faith they said the Jesus was returning in THEIR day and many sold everything and waited for the Jesus who never came. This event was called “The Great Disappointment” and these people, who now had nothing, left the lies of this false church. Yet today you still cling to the lies that where proven false when this faith first began.

Psalm 90:4:
“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by.”

2 Peter 3:8:
“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

It seems they did not understand this, just as you do not understand it. Humans tend to think in very short timeframes because our lives are short. But when speaking of an eternal God, we need to understand that time is viewed differently.

Also:

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.”

&

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
And saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

Is this not you?

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Still waiting for you to tell me about what John was measuring in Rev 11 as it would point to him measuring the second Temple as it stood in the first century. Which would then place the book of Revelation BEFORE its destruction and render everything  christianity says about the “End Time” as false.

Why is that?

If Revelation was written, say, in AD 65–68, and Revelation 11 was referring to Jerusalem and the Second Temple shortly before their destruction in AD 70, then John would be describing judgement on Jerusalem before it happened. On that reading, the destruction of the city could be regarded as a fulfilment of part of the prophecy.

While I am no expert, John is seeing a vision and visions are full of symbols and as such, the meaning is not always clear. But in time, the meaning becomes clearer when events go in that direction.

You, as do others critics, seem to think that God should have spelled everything out so clearly, that even the enemies of God could have understood it and therefore, not fulfil it.

“None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

So let’s get real here. If the Old Testament said that a man called Yeshua / Jesus (whatever language) was going to be crucified by the Romans and this sacrifice would set up a kingdom that would topple all other kingdoms, then surely they would probably just put him in prison for the rest of his life. Come on. A little common sense goes a long way.

There are examples of rulers knowing about Jewish prophecies of a coming king and being worried by them. The clearest example is Herod the Great. In Matthew 2:3-6, Herod hears that the “king of the Jews” has been born. He asks the Jewish priests and teachers where the Messiah was supposed to be born, and they quote Micah 5:2, which points to Bethlehem. Herod then tries to remove what he sees as a threat.

A later example involves the Roman emperor Domitian. According to Eusebius, Domitian searched for descendants of King David because he was concerned about the coming of Christ. Two relatives of Jesus were questioned about their family line and about Christ’s kingdom.

This shows that Roman rulers could take Jewish Messianic claims seriously, especially when they appeared to threaten their power.

Jesus was crucified and, to the rulers, that probably looked like the end of the threat of a Messiah and king. But in killing him, they actually fulfilled passages that Christians believe pointed to the Messiah’s suffering and death. See Isaiah 53:4–6, Isaiah 53:8, Isaiah 53:11–12, Daniel 9:26, Psalm 22, and Zechariah 12:10.

For the idea of sacrifice and forgiveness of sin, see Leviticus 4:35 and Leviticus 17:11. The New Testament then applies this directly to Jesus in John 1:29:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”.

[Proclaimer]

Proclaimer, you go on to quote from Mark 4:11-12, except you left out verse 12 where the Jesus says he speaks in parables so the everyone other than the disciples would not perceive or understand and therefore not turn from their wicked ways and repent. How does the Jesus fulfill the last portion of 53:9 where there was “no deceit in his mouth”? I call that being deceitful, how about you?!

No, its about not casting pearls before swine. If you do that, you put those people into judgement because they have been told a precious truth and then trample on it. It is wiser to not tell them such things, and to give them the basic gospel with the hope that they will be able to receive the deeper things of God when they are more mature.

But here is the great thing about a parable. If a hearer seeks for its meaning, then God will reveal it because they are demonstrating a search for truth.

“Seek and you will find.”

The angels for example have no available repentance because they have tasted of the Kingdom of God so to reject that is a great sin. This is even true for humans if they reject such revelation and truth.

“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”

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Isa 53:9 translated from the Hebrew (found on biblehub) when translated says “in his deaths”, I didn’t write this, Isaiah did! The  christian interpreters mistranslated the Hebrew text. Even the NET bible admits this plurality seems to be out of place and attributes it as being a “mistake” and “fixes” it to the singular; BIG PROBLEM, the Hebrew text has it in the plural. Will you say that isn’t messing with G-d word?

A Hebrew plural does not always mean more than one separate event. Biblical Hebrew can use a plural for emphasis or intensity. So although mōtāw is grammatically plural, it does not necessarily mean the servant literally died several deaths. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesenius%27_Hebrew_Grammar/124._The_Various_Uses_of_the_Plural-form

Also, The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran appears to have a different reading at this point, בומתו, which some textual scholars understand as referring to “his tomb” or “his burial” rather than “his deaths”.

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A fairly literal reading of Isaiah 53:9 is:

“His grave was with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, though he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”

A modern Jewish translation, the 2023 JPS Tanakh, says something very similar:

“His grave was set among the wicked, and with the rich, in his death … though he had done no injustice and had spoken no falsehood.”

So this basic wording is not something invented by Christian translators. And personally, I find it difficult to see how this description naturally fits Israel as a nation.

Isaiah 53 became very important to the earliest Christians because they saw the prophecy fulfilled in Jesus’ suffering and death. Of course, the passage does not literally say, “The Messiah will be crucified beside criminals and then buried in a rich man’s tomb”.

But Scripture is rarely written that way. Prophecy is often given through imagery, patterns and parables that only become fully clear when the event takes place.

Some people seem to expect prophecy to spell everything out beforehand before they will accept it as fulfilled. But think about what that would mean. If God had plainly announced every detail of His plan in advance, He would also have been revealing that plan to those who opposed Him.

Why would He do that when even humans wouldn’t be so foolish?

Daniel 12:10 says:

“None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”

Jesus also said in Mark 4:11–12:

“To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.”

And Paul explains that spiritual things are not always understood by those who look at them only in a natural way.

Most importantly, 1 Corinthians 2:8 tells us exactly why God’s plan was not obvious to everyone:

“None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

That is a remarkable statement. Paul’s point is that those who opposed Jesus did not understand what they were actually doing. Their lack of understanding became part of the fulfilment of God’s plan. Given that, if the scripture had plainly spelled it out, then perhaps the opposite thing would have happened.

So the pattern is quite clear: God reveals His plan, but not always in a way that the wicked can recognise. The prophecy may remain hidden for hundreds or even thousands of years. Then, when it is fulfilled, those with spiritual understanding can look back and recognise what God was doing all along.

And through that fulfilment, the righteous gain a little more understanding of where they are within God’s glorious plan.

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Your response comes from my comment to Lightenup where he says the Tanakh DOESN’T say The Messiah is to come twice and your response is “logic”?!??! Please enlighten me! The only “logic” needed is what the Tanakh says.

God has a plan. The enemies of God wants to know that plan. But God reveals his plan to his people / the innocent. He doesn’t write it all down so any old person or demon can counter his plans. Even Jesus spoke in parables so the wicked would not understand.

It’s logical to not tell your enemies your battle plan. After all, the Devil had Jesus killed. But he didn’t know what that would do. He didn’t know the plan. But in hindsight, you can see it when you read the scriptures.

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I thought this child was to be named “Immanuel” (Isa 7:14) and now his name is “the Jesus.”

In biblical times, a name meant much more than the word used to identify someone. A name could represent a person’s purpose, identity, character, reputation, authority etc.

When the Bible speaks about “the name of Jesus” fir example, it usually means more than simply saying the word Jesus / Yeshua. It refers to who Jesus is, the authority he has and everything he represents.

For example, when Peter said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk”, he was not using Jesus’s name as a magic wand. He was acting under the authority and power of Jesus.

To pray in Jesus’ name also means more than adding those words to the end of a prayer. It means praying as one of his followers and asking for things that agree with his character and will.

So if his name is “God with Us”, then yes, the Father was in Christ, redeeming the world to himself. So the actual sound of the name that he is called is almost irrelevant. It is more about what he represents, and interestingly enough, he came in his Father’s name.

Do not confuse this word with the limited way we use it in English.

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If the Word Was God, then that excludes the Father from being God.

If Donald Trump is the president, then Kamala Harris is NOT the president.

If you are someone, then no one else is that someone.

Basic stuff.

And the simple version is correct. The lack of the definite article tells us that the last mention of theos is not talking about The God. Origen said this on the subject:

“We next notice John’s use of the article [“the”] in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article [“the”], and in some he omits it. He adds the article [“the”] to logos, but to the name of theos he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article [“the”], when the name of theos refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the logos is named theos. Does the same difference which we observe between theos with the article [“the], and theos without it, prevail also between logos with it and without it? We must enquire into this. As God who is over all is theos with the article [“the”] not without it, so also “the” logos is the source of that logos (reason} which dwells in every reasonable creature; the logos which is in each creature is not, like the former called par excellence “the” logos. Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about  religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two theos (gods), and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked. Either they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of His own besides that of the Father, and make Him whom they call the Son to be theos all but the name, or they deny the divinity of the Son, giving Him a separate existence of His own, and making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are separable from each other. To such persons we have to say that God on the one hand is autotheos (God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father, “That they may know You the only true God; “but that all beyond the autotheos (God) is made theos by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply “the” theos but rather theos. And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other theos (gods) beside Him, of whom “the” theos is “the” theos, as it is written, “The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.” It was by the offices of the first-born that they became (gods), for He drew from God in generous measure that they should be made theos gods, and He communicated it to them according to His own bounty. The true God, then, is ho theos (“the god”), and those who are formed after Him are (gods), images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the ho logos (“the word”) of ho theos (“the god”) , who was in the beginning, and who by being with “the” theos (“God”) is at all times theos (“god”), not possessing that of Himself, but by His being with the Father, and not continuing to be theos, if we should think of this, except by remaining always in uninterrupted contemplation of the depths of the Father.
(Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book II, 2)

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Absolutely, so why do you believe the Jesus will come twice?

Logic is one reason.

God brings the law and the law condemns.

God brings grace and forgives those who are repentant.

God works through one flock, the Jews, and they have the law.

God works through another flock, the Church, and they have grace.

God is sovereign. He can unravel his plan as he sees fit.

God sends the Lamb of God that forgives all sin for all time.

Up to us to choose to align with God’s glorious plan or reject it.

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I think it is better to have a president who is Christian and believes in God than one who is an Atheist or of a religion that promotes violence. We should pray for our leaders and often God gives leaders over the people depending who they deserve. Sometimes, God even allows captivity and genocide to happen. Such things can happen when he withdraws his protection and why would he do that? Because the people have rejected him. So it is the people making that choice.

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One prominent scholar called Origen is sometimes quoted by Trinitarians who appeal to his wisdom for other purposes. However, they avoid this particular quotation for obvious reasons. Origen wrote in the early 200’s A.D and was a noted expert in Koine Greek.

“We next notice John’s use of the article [“the”] in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He adds the article to the Word, but to the name of theos he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article, when the name of theos refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the Word is named theos. Does the same difference which we observe between theos with the article and theos without it prevail also between the Word with it and without it? We must enquire into this. As the theos who is over all is theos with the article not without it, so the Word is the source of that reason (Logos) which dwells in every reasonable creature; the reason which is in each creature is not, like the former called par excellence the Word. Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two theos [gods] and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked. Either they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of His own besides that of the Father, and make Him whom they call the Son to be theos all but the name, or they deny divinity of the Son, giving Him a separate existence of His own, and making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are separable from each other. To such persons we have to say that “the theos” on the one hand is Autotheos [God of himself] and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father, “That they may know Thee the only true theos [God]; “but that all beyond the theos [God] is made theos by participation in His deity, and is not to be called simply “theos” but rather “the theos “. And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with the theos , and to attract to Himself deity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other theos [gods] beside Him, of which theos is the theos [God], as it is written, “The theos [God] of theos [gods], the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.” It was by the offices of the first-born that they became theos [gods], for He drew from the theos [God] in generous measure that they should be made theos [gods], and He communicated it to them according to His own bounty. The true theos [God], then, is “the theos ,” [“the God” as opposed to “god”] and those who are formed after Him are theos [such as the Son of God], images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the word of the theos [God], who was in the beginning, and who by being with the theos [God] is at all times deity, not possessing that of Himself, but by His being with the Father, and not continuing to be theos , if we should think of this, except by remaining always in uninterrupted contemplation of the depths of the Father.”
(Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book II, 2)

[Proclaimer]

The Old Testament does not explicitly say the Messiah comes twice. But there appears to be two phases in the prophecies. A suffering and rejection, then later glory and kingship. Judaism generally does not read these as two separate comings of the same Messiah, whereas logically speaking, it would normally take at least two phases.

Rejected

Isaiah 53
The servant is rejected, suffers, is pierced, and bears the sins of many.

Psalm 22
A righteous sufferer is mocked and surrounded by enemies.

Zechariah 12:10
“They shall look upon me whom they have pierced…”

Daniel 9:26
“Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself…”

Victorious

Daniel 7:13–14
One like a son of man receives everlasting dominion.

Isaiah 9:6–7
A royal child rules on David’s throne with justice and peace.

Psalm 110
The Lord’s chosen king rules at God’s right hand.

Zechariah 14
The Lord comes in victory and reigns as king over all the earth.

So yes, two phases can explain all of it.

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No one is arguing that Trump is King Cyrus reincarnated. It goes without question that there will be differences.

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@mikeboll64

Do you want to continue this debate?

Perhaps you have seen the error of your ways now?

I hope and pray that you are not pedaling lies anymore.

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As far as Trump being chosen by G-d; last I checked G-d wasn’t running the voting machines…man chose Trump.

He changes times and seasons;
he deposes kings and raises up others.
He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to the discerning.

Daniel 2:21

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Search Warrant: What the Courts Actually Found

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You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour

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