by Brian Godawa
“Calvin views Isaiah 65:17–25 as a new covenant blessing that results from a change in covenantal administration:
By these metaphors he promises a remarkable change of affairs; as if God had said that he has both the inclination and the power not only to restore his Church, but to restore it in such a manner that it shall appear to gain new life and to dwell in a new world. These are exaggerated modes of expression; but the greatness of such a blessing, which was to be manifested at the coming of Christ, could not be described in any other way. Nor does he mean only the first coming, but the whole reign, which must be extended as far as to the last coming.
“The transformational effect of the gospel kingdom is such that those who are newly born of its power101 are thereby constituted new creatures: “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation” (Gal 6:15). The transforming power of the gospel creates a “new man” of two warring factions, Jew and Gentile (Eph 2:15–18). Gospel-transformed new creatures are to lay aside the old self and take on the new (Eph 4:22–23), which is “created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph 4:24; cf. Col 3:9–11). This is because they are “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).
“This glorious conception involves both a re-created “Jerusalem” and “people” (Isa 65:18–19). Interestingly, in Galatians 6 Paul speaks of the new creation in the context of a transformed “Israel of God” existing in his day: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. and as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, even upon the Israel of God” (Gal 6:15–16; cf. Ro 2:28–29). In that same epistle, he urges a commitment to the “Jerusalem above” (the heavenly Jerusalem, Heb 12:22) rather than to the cast out Jerusalem that now is (the historical capital city of Israel, Gal 4:25–26).
“The heavenly Jerusalem is the bride of Christ that comes down from God to replace the earthly Jerusalem (Rev 21:2–5) in the first century (Rev 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10). With the shaking and destruction of the old Jerusalem in AD 70, the heavenly (re-created) Jerusalem replaces her: His “voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ Now this, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made [i.e., the Levitical ritual system102], that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb 12:26–28; cp. 8:13).”
Kenneth Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology (Apologetics Group Media, 1992, 1997, 1999, 2009), 406-408..
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The New Covenant Church is the New Jerusalem. And the old covenant is about to be “shaken” or removed:
Hebrews 12:22–28
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken – that is, things that have been made – in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken…
The bride of Christ is the New Jerusalem:
Revelation 21:1–2; 9-10
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God…
The new covenant makes the old covenant obsolete when the temple is destroyed:
Hebrews 8:13
13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. [the temple had not yet been destroyed when this was first written]
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Boaz refers to: Romans 16:20.
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Boaz quotes from: Ephesianns 6:12.
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John 6:32–35.
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The fortress at Pella:
“South of the main mound of Pella, across the deeply carved Wadi Jirm, is the steep, largely natural hill called Tell el-Husn (Arabic for fortress). On the northern slopes of the hillside of Tell el-Husn is a stretch of beautifully constructed limestone fortification wall. This wall probably once ringed the summit of the hill. Basil Hennessy’s codirector and Hellenistic pottery ceramicist, Tony McNicoll, dated some of the material linked to the wall to the Herodian and early Roman Imperial age. Several coins support this dating…
“As already noted, traces of a near-impregnable Husn fortress have survived. We can assume Pella’s citizens continued to occupy the Husn summit in the years after the Hasmonean sack by Alexander Jannaeus.”
Stephen Bourke, “The Christian Flight to Pella: True or Tale?” Biblical Archeology Review Vol 39 No 3
http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2742
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The caves of Pella:
“The last hope for those seeking remains of early Christians at ancient Pella seemingly rests in a cave complex just a short distance from the main mound. Although the caves have not been fully surveyed or excavated due to health risks, several of them were outfitted as residences in antiquity and may have served as ideal living spaces or hideouts for fleeing Christians.”
“Excavating Ancient Pella, Jordan: Archaeology investigates the Jerusalem Christians’ escape to Pella,” Biblical Archaeology Society Staff, 12/23/2017, Bible History Daily Online. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/excavating-ancient-pella-jordan/
“This brings us back to “Schumacher’s Caves,” the caves that Gottlieb Schumacher explored at the end of the 19th century, which he thought might have been occupied by the Christians who supposedly fled to Pella in 70 A.D. These caves were cut into the sharply rising north face of the Wadi Jirm some 1,600 feet southwest of the main mound, and nearly a mile from the Civic Complex at the head of the Wadi Jirm…
“These caves, apparently unknown to Schumacher (or to his successor Richmond), were partly natural, and partly hewn, and consisted of a series of large, roughly rounded chambers between 10 by 10 feet and 15 by 15 feet, connected together by narrow passageways…
"As strings of connected rooms, these complexes penetrated deep under the rock escarpment, forming a series of hewn and columned rooms, well provisioned with lamp niches and sleeping benches. Airflow and light were ensured by wide porch-like galleries that opened onto the sheer north face of the wadi, completely inaccessible from the wadi bottom some 125 feet below. Entranceways into these caves were small, concealed and easily defended.”
http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2742
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The whip sword Rahab and its story: Uriel actually got the sword from Jesus. This weapon has a long fictional history that is told through the entire Chronicles of the Nep
hilim series ending with Jesus Triumphant.
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These stories are all found in the prior series: Chronicles of the Nephilim by Brian Godawa.
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Elihu quotes from: Revelation 18:2-3 and 18:9.
Jerusalem as a dwelling place of demons:
“During the Jewish War, Jerusalem (and the Land) became very much a “dwelling place of demons” in that she “became infested with demoniacal exhibitions of wickedness” (Terry 437). We may discern this from Josephus’s lament that “neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness that this was, from the beginning of the world” (J.W. 5:10:5 §442). He writes that “the madness of the rebellious did also increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were every day inflamed more and more” (J.W. 5:10:2 §424). “And indeed that was a time most fertile in all manner of wicked practices, insomuch that no kind of evil deeds were then left undone; nor could any one so much as devise any bad thing that was new, so deeply were they all infected, and strove with one another in their single capacity, and in their communities, who should run the greatest lengths in impiety towards God, and in unjust actions towards their neighbors; the men of power oppressing the multitude, and the multitude earnestly laboring to destroy the men of power. The one part were desirous of tyrannizing over others, and the rest of offering violence to others, and of plundering such as were richer than themselves. They were the Sicarii who first began these transgressions, and first became barbarous towards those allied to them, and left no words of reproach unsaid, and no works of perdition untried, in order to destroy those whom their contrivances affected” (J.W. 7:8:1 §259–62). He states that John of Gischala “filled his entire country with ten thousand instances of wickedness, such as a man who was already hardened sufficiently in his impiety towards God would naturally do” (J.W. 7:8:1 §263).”
Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Divorce of Israel: A Redemptive-Historical Interpretation of Revelation Vol. 2 (Dallas, GA: Tolle Lege Press, 2016), 494.
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“The wine of the passion of her immorality”:
“By the “wine of the passion [thumos] of her immorality” (18:3), John appears to be symbolically portraying the widespread Jewish passion for stirring up the nations (ta ethnē, “Gentiles,” 18:3a) against Christians (see discussion of the Jewish role in the Neronic persecution at 13:7b).17 This repeats the idea found in 17:1-2 (drunkenness + immorality) where we hear of the “judgment” (krima) of the Babylonian harlot who “sits on many waters,” which waters represent “peoples and multitudes and nations [ethnē] and tongues” (17:15). There Babylon-Jerusalem is drunk on the blood of the saints (17:6).”
Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Divorce of Israel: A Redemptive-Historical Interpretation of Revelation Vol. 2 (Dallas, GA: Tolle Lege Press, 2016), 503.
Jewish leaders influenced Nero to persecute Christians:
In Tyrant: Rise of the Beast, I argue that high placed Jews like Josephus and Poppea most likely inspired Nero to blame the Great Fire of Rome on the Christians in order to save their own people.
Josephus was in Rome during the Great Fire:
Flavius Josephus, The Life of Flavius Josephus, 13-16. Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, 20.195.
Tigellinus, Poppaea, Aliturius and Josephus are all considered possible candidates of influencing Nero to blame the Christians for the Great Fire: Leon Hardy Canfield, The Early Persecutions of the Christians (New York, Columbia, 1913), 69.
The Jews diverting Nero away from them to the Christians:
Regarding Nero’s search for scapegoats on which to blame the Roman fires of July, AD 64 (Tac., Ann. 15:41), Gibbon sees the Jews behind Nero’s choice of Christians. He notes that the Jews “possessed very powerful advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant: his wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppaea, and a favourite player of the race of Abraham.” These two suggest to Nero “the new and pernicious sect of Galileans,” the Christians…
Clement (1 Clem 6:5) claims that the Neronic persecution was prompted “through envy [dia zēlos pathontes],” which many scholars believe refers to the Jews…
(2) Suetonius (Claud. 25:4; cp. Dio 60:66:6) shows that the Jews were expelled from Rome under Claudius around AD 50 for causing riots in their confrontations with Christians (cp. Ac 18:2; 24:5). The Romans disliked the Jews (Jos., Ap 2:66-92) even declaring that “the Jews regard as profane all that we hold sacred; on the other hand, they permit all that we abhor” (Tac., Hist 5:4). Tacitus (Hist. 5:5) adds that “the other customs of the Jews are base and abominable, and owe their persistence to their depravity” and that toward the non-Jewish “they feel only hate and enmity.” Romans saw the Jews as troublemakers frequently stirring riots in Rome. Such conduct caused the Romans to expel them from Rome on several occasions (Suet., Tib. 36; Tac. Ann. 2:85; Jos. Ant. 18:3:5 §81). The Jews could rightly fear that blame for the AD 64 fires in Rome might fall upon them and would therefore be motivated to deflect attention to the Christians…
Schaff (HCC 1:383) comments that “it is not unlikely that in this (as in all previous persecutions, and often afterwards) the fanatical Jews, enraged by the rapid progress of Christianity, and anxious to avert suspicion from themselves, stirred up the people against the hated Galileans.” Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Divorce of Israel: A Redemptive-Historical Interpretation of Revelation Vol. 2 (Dallas, GA: Tolle Lege Press, 2016), 220-223.
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Moshe quotes from: Revelation 18:10-11.
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The merchant goods listed here:
This list of merchandise parallels Ezekiel 27:12-24 list of Tyre's merchandise in her judgment.
Even better, with the merchandise of the first temple aided by Tyre: 2 Chronicles 2:11-14
“This list follows Ezek 27. Not exactly, but very close. It is Solomon who is the Israelite most associated in the Old Testament with Tyrian trade (the subject of Ezek. 27.12-24), and what was it, according to 1 Kings 5, that Hiram of Tyre provided Solomon with? Materials for the building of the Jerusalem temple!”
The Temple only accepted the currency of Tyre, and ironically, the Tyrian coinage had an image of Melkart on it, which made it idolatrous used in the temple!:
“There is also evidence of commerce with Tyre in the frequent equivalents drawn between the Jerusalem money and the Tyrian (p. 33). According to T. Ket. xiii.3, and elsewhere, the Jerusalem standard of currency was the same as the Tyrian. The prevalence of the Tyrian standard is explained not only by the brisk trade which went on, but also because in the Temple only Tyrian currency was allowed.”
Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the time of Jesus, (Christian Book Distributors, 2014), 36.
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A condensation of Revelation 18:20-24.
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Jerusalem’s covenantal glory: “The angel now identifies the Harlot as the Great City, which, as we have seen, St. John uses as a term for Jerusalem, where the Lord was crucified (11 :8; 16: 19). Moreover, says the angel, this City has a Kingdom over all the kings of the earth. It is perhaps this verse, more than any other, which has confused expositors into supposing, against all other evidence, that the Harlot is Rome. If the City is Jerusalem, how can she be said to wield this kind of worldwide political power? The answer is that Revelation is not a book about politics; it is a book about the Covenant. Jerusalem did reign over the nations. She did possess a Kingdom which was above all the kingdoms of the world. She had a covenantal priority over the kingdoms of the earth. Israel was a Kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6), exercising a priestly ministry of guardianship, instruction, and intercession on behalf of the nations of the world. When Israel was faithful to God, offering up sacrifices for the nations, the world was at peace; when Israel broke the Covenant, the world was in turmoil. The Gentile nations recognized this (1 Kings 10:24; Ezra 1; 4-7; cf. Rom. 2:17-24).26 Yet, perversely, they would seek to seduce Israel to commit w
horedom against the Covenant – and when she did, they would turn on her and destroy her. That pattern was repeated several times over until Israel’s final excommunication in A.D. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed. The desolation of the Harlot was God’s final sign that the Kingdom had been transferred to His new people, the Church (Matt. 21:43; 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 11:19; 15:5; 21:3). The Kingdom over the kingdoms will never again be possessed by national Israel.” David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Texas: Dominion Press, 1987, 1990) 442-443.
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The blood of the prophets upon the first century generation:
Matthew 23:35–36
35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
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CHAPTER 18
This past encounter between Uriel and Molech during the days of Messiah: This is a fictional even that occurs in the novel Jesus Triumphant, book 8 of Chronicles of the Nephilim by Brian Godawa. You’re just going to have to buy it to find out.