Those who hold to the "AD70 doctrine" may claim that the end of the world, prophesied in the Bible, was the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish religious system. According to the theory, we should identify this Jewish system as the "world" whose destruction is foretold in the Bible
We have already considered, in our previous lesson, the question
Judaism today is one of the great world religions. We know it as one of the three main religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) that recognise the one true God to the exclusion of all "other gods"
Although it took until the 20th century, the Jews regained a portion of their homeland and again became a nation. Whilst they cannot yet call Jerusalem entirely their own, nor yet rebuild and worship in their temple, there is nothing I know of in the scripture that prevents the Jews from one day repossessing their holy city, and restoring their temple and its worship. Nor do I find anything in the scriptures that promises they will. It's not an issue really. Just as a mountain climber may lose an arm and a leg, yet go back to climbing mountains without them, so did the Jews lose much in AD70, yet the Jewish system of
The Jewish culture has shown itself to be indestructible. There have been many efforts to destroy the Jews, both in Bible times and since. The Jews have withstood and survived. Destroying Jerusalem and its temple seemed a great setback, yet may have been a great step forward. Why would Judaism not receive an impetus from their persecution, as Christianity did some years earlier? Certain aspects of the Jewish religion depended on the temple in the holy city. But just as Daniel had remained a true Jew in exile, so could the Jews after AD70
If the New Testament's teaching about the end of the world refers to the end of the Jewish system of things, then the New Testament was wrong. The Jewish way continued to have enormous influence and power in the world, as it does even today. The Roman siege and attack on Jerusalem in AD70 was a local holocaust. It was terrible, but it was not the first holocaust, nor was it the last. The Jews have suffered throughout their history, at times even suffered the loss of their city and temple. They have sustained their cultural and religious "world" nevertheless. It was not destroyed, nor is it ever likely to be
When we examine certain strong elements of the Jewish nature and system of things, we find that the Jewish "world" was not really destroyed at all. Let's look at three such elements which are still alive and
A key element of Judaism is the "blood" or ancestry that makes one a Jew. Although the Jews have been persecuted beyond measure, and are scattered everywhere in the world... although many have intermarried, and they have some irreparable gaps in their genealogies... one could hardly view them as an endangered species, or claim that there are no true Jews in the world anymore. True descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob abound. That aspect of the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is still true, "Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth... the stars of the heavens... the sand on the seashore... too many to count"
There are perhaps millions of Jews today as Jewish as Jesus. Jesus wouldn't want it otherwise. It was never God's intention that the Jewish people become extinct, or even indistinct. On the contrary, God's desire is that "all Israel will be saved"
Another major element of the Jewish system of things is their scriptures. Those scriptures preserve the outstanding history, prophecy, poetry, and law, so fundamental
God's has preserved those Old Testament scriptures that they might never be lost. He did not do this for the Jews' sake only, but for the whole world's sake because the Jewish scriptures are able to make people "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus"
The Law of Moses is the constitution of the Jewish "world". One could destroy Jerusalem and its temple a thousand times without destroying one jot of the Law. When the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and its temple centuries earlier, they did not abolish the law of Moses did they?. Nor did the Romans in AD70. The Jews had to make do without their temple and some aspects of their worship there, but their law and their religion
When Jerusalem was destroyed in AD70, the situation was no different. The desolation "put a stop to sacrifice"
It is easy to mistake an artifact of a religion for the basis of that religion. On closer examination, however, we find that not to be so. It is evident that even an idol is not the basis of idol worship. Much less would the temple and its artifacts be the basis of Jewish worship. Therefore destroying the temple did not destroy the basis,
It is worth noting that the temple that the Romans destroyed in AD70 had always lacked the most important of all Jewish artifacts, namely "the ark of the covenant" . This ark had been in the holiest room of the tabernacle and of Solomon's temple
I do not mean to imply that the covenant was still in force. God himself set the old covenant aside and replaced it with the new covenant when Jesus died on the cross. The words of the covenant were never destroyed however, and until this day many still follow them, not recognizing that Jesus Christ became the mediator of a new covenant
Another element is the synagogue, the "local church" of the Jews. There has never been any great shortage of synagogues in the world, and every once in a while we see a new one established. These synagogues are wonderful institutions of flourishing religious life "at the grass roots". If God wished to destroy the Jewish "world" he should have left the temple, the church of the priests, to its own corruption. He should have destroyed instead the real Jewish church, the church of the people, the hundreds
Of course God never intended any such destruction. Christianity does not require the closure of any synagogue. Nor does it oppose the opening of more synagogues. Rather it invites the synagogue to embrace Jesus the Messiah, and to embrace his "other sheep" whom he has brought into the fold
The idea that the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 could be the prophesied end of the world, does not stand up to examination. The Jewish "world" is based in its blood, its scriptures, and its synagogue. None of these was destroyed or abolished in AD70. To make prophecies in the Bible about the second coming of Christ, and the end of the world, refer to events of AD70 misrepresents these prophecies, because nothing was destroyed that had not been destroyed in times past, and nothing was destroyed that was essential to the Jewish world's continuance