What is the significance of 70AD when considering the Old and New Covenants: Essential question #5

The introductory post explains the purposes, goals and scope of this blog. If you have not read it, I suggest you start there and then, look through the posts to get a feeling for where I have gone and where I am going. But, if you don’t have the time, feel free to read this post alone. However, the blog is meant to be a series and so if you find it interesting you can go back and read it or, if you would prefer you can download a PDF of the entire blog. This PDF will be updated every Saturday so that it will have the entire blog, from first post to last, through the latest Saturday.

In the last post we continued looking at obedience; both, obedience from the heart (the obedience of faith) and legal obedience. I want to reiterate that legal obedience or law obedience is not salvific. It does not save and, it does not keep one saved. In other words, while it is important in a saint’s life, it is not the deciding factor….grace, faith and, love are the prime forces.

It seems that before we can go on with the Obedience of Faith thread we have to spend some time answering another of the essential questions. These are essential questions that are necessary for uncovering the apostle’s teaching or doctrine. The need for essential questions to recover the apostle's doctrine of course, assumes that the necessity of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, suggested that it would be reasonable to look for the apostle’s teaching as opposed to the teaching of the early church fathers and church tradtion. Let’s look at question number five. Could it be that church doctrine and tradition was off the mark?

5. What is the significance of the Cross – and what is the significance of 70AD when considering the New and Old Covenants?

The answer to the first part of the question is that the cross instituted the New Covenant Matt 26:28. The answer to the second question is that 70AD and the destruction of the temple was the consummation of the New Covenant. It was the passing of heaven and earth. The old heaven and earth was the Old Covenant and, the new heaven and earth was the New Covenant

There was an expectation of imminence in the first century writings. The New Testament is full of this imminent expectation. I want to be sure that I define imminent. It should not be confused with eminence nor, immanence….. Imminent means that it is likely to occur at any moment….eminence is a high station or rank….and, immanent is remaining within, indwelling. Inherent….so, Jesus is eminent, the Holy Spirit is immanent and the scripture has imminence…smile.

We will be looking at imminence in the next few posts as we explore the destruction of the temple in 70AD. I realize that the three words that sound so much alike are confusing but it is important to understand that for our purposes, imminent is the word that we will be using and let me repeat….it means that it is likely to occur at any time and, that it is expected soon. There is no way that one could postpone something that was imminent for two thousand years and still have it be imminent. In fact, waiting a generation for fulfillment is pushing the envelop for imminent which I think, is the reason behind 2Peter 3:9.