The Time Markers
Here are a couple of the many time markers, or what some call “time stamps” in the New Testament that show The Day of Vengeance was very near for those receiving letters from the apostles.
The particular adverb, “ἐγγὺς”, (engys), meaning “near”. It can apply to time or place. We need to look at context, just as we do with the English word, to check the genitive / dative position and then observe if it means time or place.
Hebrews 8: 13 “In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready (ἐγγὺς, engys) to vanish away.”
The New Covenant had already come, according to Paul, and yet Jesus had to fulfil completely all the festivals / ceremonial law. The old was about to be burnt up in Paul’s time of writing, and thus, destroyed.
Yet I have heard so many today preach that we now tabernacle with God. But they skip over the Day of Atonement when preaching Christ promised to fulfill all the law. Many preach that the return of Jesus Christ from the Holy of Holies is yet to come – 2000 plus years since He entered that Most Holy Place.
Paul clearly tells the Corinthians in Chapter 10 verse 11 that (his readers) are those “upon whom the end of the ages has come.” It was just over a decade before the war that Paul wrote this to them. He didn’t write it to us. It was written to the original recipients of the letter; and it is also God’s sure word to us, written for our understanding of this important “end”.
Hebrews 10:25 is often used to coerce people to be in church buildings on Sunday mornings. Yet no second scripture is ever given to bring the two witnesses required to prove this. Yet it is a common understanding from Scripture that nothing is proven without two witnesses or mentions.
When we look at the context of Hebrews 10:25, we see a very different message than church memberhsip or attendance. The writer was trying to keep these Hebrews away from temple type of worship; from returning to types and shadows in the synagogue and temple. Here he writer urges them not to forsake, “the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.” The basis of this “assembling” is to “move together”. They were to encourage each other by identification with other believers. This was a social and anti-religous move which would mean Hebrew believers would be cut off from family, friends and worst of all, their trades, and therefore incomes.
The stress in this verse is on “encouraging” or “comforting” one another under this kind of persecution which was rising as the “Day of the Lord” was approaching.
Hebrew believers would know, according to Paul, when the time would come near because of the many warnings they had received, signs of Jesus’ re-appearance in an earthly judgment (war) to finish and show the Day of Atonement was accomplished. This section of Hebrews is not about urging people to attend a church building – no such building is mentioned; it is about identifying with and encouraging others in faith in Christ, assembling wherever -and being seen to identify with other Christians despite the economic sanctions against them (because they had refused the mark of the beast). Hebrew 10:25 is set in the context of comparison of the shadow festival with the real Day of Atonement, and quoting Habakkuk 2:3, it assures the Hebrews there will be no delay of His appearing, despite the generation (40 years) time gap. At the appointed time, “He who is (was) coming will come and not tarry.” Hebrews 10:37. He was coming as judge and rewarder, as Revelation’s letters explain.
This is why we read in Revelation 10:6 that there “should be delay no longer.” That is why the martyrs had asked, “How long?” (for vengeance which God would exact) as they lay under the altar. It is not a literal altar – that would be ridiculously uncomfortable. The phrase “under the altar” is a symbol of being in / with Christ in the post-mortem state after physical death / martyrdom. It is a reference to the soul sleep of the faithful.
Soul sleep ended with the real Day of Atonement re-appearing of Christ so that all was fulfilled of the law. Once the judgment thrones were set up, believers could be taken, at the point of physical death, into their glorious bodies in heaven. This is because they new heaven had already been prepared for them just as the new earth (ge, “promised land”) had been created for them.
If you have not understood Revelation correctly, you may have wondered why we needed a new heaven. The “heaven” the Bible frequently speaks of in the Old Testament is the “Holy of Holies” where God dwelt before the cross. the “new” heaven is the perfected one – mentioned in Ephesians 2:6 and set for all the righteous who had died prior to the cross and inhabited by all who believed and were / are still on earth after the cross. We live out of this perfect heavenly relationship with Christ, doing the works that He has prepared beforehand. Ephesians 2:10.
If we read Ephesians 2:6-10, we see in verse 7 that “the ages to come” are not just the post-mortem state. It encompasses the age that follows 70AD. the destruction of the Old Covenant system and temple was the finish of one age and humanity entered “the age/s to come”.
The destruction of the temple (old heaven and earth as seen in Hebraic eyes), now enables the confirmation of the new creation of the New Jerusalem, as a bride coming forth from heaven. She is the new “land” (ge) – the New Jerusalem / Zion (See Galatians 4). No Bible passages speak of a new kosmos, so we need to care for the one we have, declaring good over it and taking the inherited dominion of sons of God that we now are.
| Matthew 24:33 “So also, when you see all these things, you know that it is near (engys, ἐγγύς ), at the very door.” Jesus didn’t stand at “the door” for 2000 years with His High Priestly Day of Atonement return left hanging. For that would leave the new relationship with God, with a huge family wanting to be “Tabernacling” (= in a homely family relationship) also held at arm’s length. |
Revelation 1:3 “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and those who hear and keep what is written in it, for the time is near (engys, ἐγγύς ).
Revelation 22:10 “And he said to me, ‘Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.’”
This last one is very telling. The time was near, that is why the prophecy must not be sealed, but as it was in letter form, it must then be delivered. It is the same message, but more detailed, as in Daniel 12:9 – where Daniel didn’t have understanding and it was sealed for a long time into the future. That was to be at the end of the Old Covenant age. Now in Revelation, it must not be sealed again. Jesus has “undone” the seals already because the time was “at hand”. If it were for a time 2000 plus years hence, it would be sealed. But no, the word “revelation” means the same as the original meaning of “apocalypse” – it means revealing. Revelation is a narration of what was about to happen in Jerusalem. It was an encouragement for believers to endure to the “time of the end” of the Old Covenant, so that they would walk free of the judgment, establishing the ekklēsia throughout their known world.
We need to attend to the audiences Jesus was speaking to when He warned of Gehenna – that place where so many bodies ended, piled high, rotting. It was always a Jewish audience whom He warned because judgment was to begin at the house of God. The beast from the land had to be destroyed; and time and again, Josephus reports on the animal behaviour of the Jews against their own people, and often against their own kin. To the Gentiles, Jesus never spoke of Gehenna during the gospels – they had broken no covenant.
The initial letters to the seven churches fit perfectly with the messages in the epistles, calling the believers to stand firm against all the wiles of the enemy. Of central importance was the need to stand against a return to the types and shadows, thus forsaking the reality, which is Christ.
Next, in Part 7, I’ll read a few excerpts from historian of that day, Josephus F., The Wars of the Jews. There you’ll see how they are the providential verification of New Testament prophecies of Jesus Christ.
