OPINION PIECE
It's important to compare the following fact with the two facts that follow it:-
Fact #1: The reason why Jesus' disciples questioned Him again regarding the temple that represented the Old Covenant, even after He had left the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, crossed the Kidron Valley and ascended the Mount of Olives, is fully understandable:
- The last Passover meal where Jesus had taken the cup and told them it represents His blood of the New Covenant was still only to take place a night or two later, and though Jesus had ALREADY told them that He would be delivered over to the Gentiles and be killed, and would rise again on the third day, they had barely believed Him, because:
- Their conception of the Messiah - a conception which had always been the expectation of the Jews - was one of a conquering king who would destroy Israel's enemies, and usher in the Messianic kingdom where Israel and the temple in Jerusalem would be exalted above all nations, and the temple would become "a house of prayer for all nations".
So Jesus' disciples had not understood - yet - about how the Temple of God of the New Covenant IS CHRIST, nor, at that point, did they understand (yet) how He was going to replace the Old Covenant and the temple in Jerusalem which represented it.
Fact # 2: Jesus Himself understood all these things, and Jesus Himself had ALREADY pronounced THE END of the Old Covenant system and the temple that represented it BEFORE finally turning His back on the temple and making His way to the Mount of Olives:
- "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." (Matthew 23:38).
- "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19).
- "Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." (Matthew 24:2).
The Old Covenant was very soon to be abolished in His flesh (Ephesians 2:15). The veil in the temple that represented the Old Covenant system would be torn in two the moment Jesus died (Matthew 27:50-51):
"For this is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matthew 26:28). ("Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." - John 2:19).
Jesus' final statement about the Old Covenant temple had ALREADY been made on the Temple Mount:
"Not one stone will be left upon another".
The temple in Jerusalem was already as good as destroyed when Jesus pronounced the end of it and the Old Covenant system it represented, not only decades later: God no longer acknowledged its existence as the Temple of God after Christ died and rose again.
Fact # 3: Therefore, because of the New Covenant - the new things that lay ahead - and ESPECIALLY because of what Jesus was soon to face in order to establish the New Covenant in His blood, and remembering Lot's wife, He was most likely not interested in looking back to the old after pronouncing THE END of the old, let alone talking about it: He was soon to sweat blood pleading with His Father that if at all possible, to let that cup pass from Him.
It's highly likely that Jesus was only interested in looking at what lay ahead - the New Covenant and the anguish and suffering He was to endure in order to establish it in His own blood.
It can be easily understood why the apostles and disciples at that point still failed to understand, but today there are many Christians who have had the gospel, the New Covenant scriptures and the teaching of the apostles at their disposal - for over 1,900 years - yet for different reasons and to various degrees, are STILL EVEN NOW obsessed with the old things.
All of them fall under the same umbrella category: Half-believers: One foot in the old, and one foot in the new.
The above category contains a number of sub-categories:- *
1. Those who interpret Jesus' entire Olivet Discourse and later Revelation to His churches entirely in terms of the Old Covenant, and being fulfilled ONLY in the events surrounding the destruction of the Old Covenant temple in 70 AD (Preterists and Partial-Preterists); and
2. Dispensationalists, who claim that all members of the Old Covenant chosen nation who reject Christ and the New Covenant in His blood, are still God's chosen people (though the old has GONE FOREVER and the new has come); and
3.Those among the Messianic Jews and the "Hebrew roots movement" Christians who insist that God requires that Mosaic law must still be obeyed.
4. All those who claim that Christ - who is Israel, the seed of Abraham - is a "Replacement Theologist" because He turned His back on the Old Covenant, suffered and died, and rose again from the dead,
the Old Covenant having been completely abolished in his flesh, and the veil of the temple that represented the Old Covenant having been torn in two at the precise moment He died.
The only real "Replacement Theology" is replacing God's Israel in Christ with those who are not in Christ - and God's Israel in Christ together are the living stones who make up the New Covenant Temple of God (the churches who are in Christ).
The truth is that it is written that they will be blessed, those who bless Christ - who is a light to the Gentiles and through whom all families of the earth have been blessed, - and those who curse Him will be cursed. It has nothing to do with either blessing or cursing any person, nation or people group who do not follow Him, nor believe in Him.
* Not every non-Preterist Amillennialist, nor every Premillennialist can be included in the above list of sub-categories, even though some of them interpret PART OF the Olivet Discourse in terms of Jesus talking about the Old Covenant things, because the ONLY reason many interpret the Olivet Discourse this way is because they figure that "just because" Jesus' disciples asked a question regarding when the Old Covenant temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed., He therefore MUST HAVE answered the disciples' question.
But Jesus was not interested in looking back to the OLD after having ALREADY turned His back on the Old Covenant the moment He turned His back on the temple that represented that Old Covenant, and began making His way to the Mount of Olives
- which is the very mountain upon which just one or two nights later, Jesus was going to be arrested after having been betrayed by one of His own, and the events which followed involving the greatest mental anguish coupled with physical torture ever faced by a human being.
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