From Philip Mauro
Dispensationalists do not confuse literal versus spiritual. What is literal may in fact be physical or it may be spiritual. Both the OT and the NT distinguish between that which is physical and that which is spiritual. Everything is understood in context. Many times the OT refers to "soul" or "heart", with the clear understanding that we are talking about "things that are unseen", the spiritual, the eternal. But many times the OT refers to "body, kingdom, nation, plow, sword, vine, lion, lamb" and these are not references to the spiritual, they are references to physical realities.
?
okay....did the lamb represent something AS WELL AS PERFORMING SOMETHING int he physical?
So too the NT sometimes refers to physical realities and sometimes to spiritual realities. Paul uses the word "flesh" (sarx) in Greek and he sometimes refers to physical flesh, and sometimes to the old sin nature, the fleshly desires, the spiritual but carnal flesh. It is not the NT which is spiritual and the OT which speaks in physical terms but really refers to spiritual terms.
Philip Mauro
This is basically stating that the NT reinterprets the OT
well the NT DOES interpret the OT
that's not to say what literally actuall happend in the OT didn't happen...it means what happened in the OT was, though SPIRITUAL, at the same time and primarily NATURAL.
first the natural, then the spiritual.
because without a doubt the OT promises looked like they were physical promises, but suddenly we should have a new hermeneutic which translates them all as spiritual terms. Not so at all.
so, you literally believe that Abraham had children that numbered as many as the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea?
how many children is that?
and that LAND promise - was that NOT realized in the Global expansion of the Kingdom of God - with people from EVERY nation?
and will it not see it's final fulfillment in the New Heavnes and Earth? New Jerusalem, Heavenly Zion?
Hebrews says the OT saints KNEW they were sojouners on this earth. why don't we?
it says they longed for a BETTER country, a BETTER CITY, who builder and maker is GOD - not this Jerusalem.
Paul said the SAME.
they said all that 2000 years ago
The New covenant was clearly a spiritual covenant, that the "law would be written on their hearts", this is a spiritual concept. The book of Hebrews does not show that the New Covenant is a spiritual covenant whereas the Old Covenant, the Mosaic was a physical covenant, as if that which is physical is first, then the spiritual. The Mosaic covenant had many spiritual aspects to it, it covered sins!
OKAY....but is the OLD abolished or NOT?
by the NEW?
see,
you're setting up that false dichotomy.
nobody DENIES the OLD was spiritual - it POINTED TO THE REALITY which was
MORE SPIRITUAL.
Philip makes the hermeneutical error of assuming that because the Mosaic Covenant was to physical Israel, the New Covenant is now to spiritual Israel, the so-called "Israel of God." That is not what the Bible portrays at all. The Mosaic Covenant was to physical Israel, and any Gentile who became a part of the cultural nation could partake of its blessings. So too the New Covenant was promised to "physical Israel" and any who wants can partake of its blessings, thus becoming a Jew inwardly.
HUH???
who do you think became the Israel of GOD?
you just agreed with us
:
"So too the New Covenant was promised to "physical Israel" and any who wants can partake of its blessings, thus becoming a Jew inwardly."
but not ALL of "physical Israel" entered....right??
There is no doubt that one can become a spiritual descendent of Abraham by having faith like he did. But the idea that this spiritual process makes a new hermeneutic out of all of the OT passages that without a doubt defined Israel and Judah as physical people is a misnomer.
it's
your misnomer.
nobody pretends those people didn't exist or receive promises!
The New Covenant was Promised to them FIRST.
they gave us the NT!
It is not dispensationalists who fail to see the spiritual ideas that are found in the OT, it is an Philip Mauro who uses an inconsistent hermeneutic to "spiritualize" OT promises to refer to a spiritualized Israel.
oh...wow.
of the (?) million hebrews in the wilderness...HOW MANY ENTERED THE PROMISED LAND?
did the ones He destroyed enter the New Covenant?
they were physical Israel.
how about the ones who rebelled and rejected Jesus and died in 70AD?
New Covenant?
they were physical Israel.
Mauro defines the term "in that day" as referring only to the present church age with no reference to judgment afterward. But the term "in that day" was used by the prophets to refer to the Jews return from captivity, to God judging all those who had wronged Israel, and to a time of peace and prosperity which the Jews did not experience
well, are you ever going to read Joshua?
will you believe Joshua?
and what did Jesus say He came to do?
DIVIDE THE PEOPLE - those who rejected Him were cut off....those who didn't received PEACE WITH GOD.
eternal PEACE and REST....didn;t He say that's what was offering?
reconciliation and the resurrection unto eternal life - in the ETERNAL KINGDOM?
He said NOTHING about an interim 1,000 year flesh/spirit mix. nothing.
Mauro says that Zech 14"And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west; and there shall be a very great valley; and half (i.e. a part) of the mountain shall remove toward the north and half (part) of it toward the south... And it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half (or part) of them toward the former sea and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord and His name one" should be understood not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense.
okay. you have 3 choices
1) that passage was literally by Jesus at His first Coming - using spiritual (figurative) language
2) that passage was not fulfilled by the Lord's First Coming even though the other passages (see below) lead DIRECTLY TO THE COMING 70TH WEEK), and is about His Second Advent and eternity
3) that passage is about a future coming which leads into a literal Millennium where people will do what is described in the passages below (tabernacles; sacrifices etc)
Zechariah was written to the remnant who returned from captivity. In the whole chapter there is reference to a literal earthquake and literal mountains, "the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel", there is no warrant for seeing the word "mountain" as a metaphor for "nation" as Mauro does here.
okay.
but now you agree: "Zechariah was written to the remnant who returned from captivity."?
what was the sequence of events after the returned from captivity?
rebuilt the city and temple...then what?
Jesus came.
then what?
If the destruction of Jerusalem is the reference here, then why didn't "the Lord, my God will come, and all the holy ones with Him!" This is a clear reference to the 2nd coming, not the 1st, and it's in the same context of this chapter!
this is something that has to wait to be tackled i guess.
that's why i'm not going there until we can agree on the passages BELOW.
are they PAST? OR FUTURE?
how can you say the living waters
may have a spiritual meaning when Jesus Christ Himself explained what that was?
..............
anyways: can we just deal with these passages and the entire books - FIRST?
PAST/ OR FUTURE?
(or some sort of dual fulfillment precisely to the letter?)
WRITTEN FIRST (prophecy of what follows)
Zechariah 14
16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. 18 If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
THIS WAS WRITTEN AFTER (fulfillments):
Nehemiah 8
13 Now on the second day the heads of the fathers’ houses of all the people, with the priests and Levites, were gathered to Ezra the scribe, in order to understand the words of the Law. 14 And they found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, 15 and that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the mountain, and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.”
16 Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the roof of his house, or in their courtyards or the courts of the house of God, and in the open square of the Water Gate and in the open square of the Gate of Ephraim. 17 So the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great gladness. 18 Also day by day, from the first day until the last day, he read from the Book of the Law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day there was a sacred assembly, according to the prescribed manner.
AND SO WAS THIS:
Ezra 7
11
This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the LORD and his statutes for Israel: 12“Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven. Peace.b And now 13I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. 14For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand, 15and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, 16with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem. 17With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams, and lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem. 18Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God. 19The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. 20And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king’s treasury.
21“
And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, 22up to 100 talentsc of silver, 100 corsd of wheat, 100 bathse of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. 23Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. 24We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God.
25“
And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach.
26
Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.”
NOW READ THIS AGAIN:
WRITTEN FIRST
Zechariah 14
16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. 18 If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
??
future?
really?
in the Millennium?
that means Daniel's 70 weeks never happened.