Jesus is the Focal Point, Terminating End, and Comprehensive Consummation of the OT

From Same Storms’s new exhaustive treatise on Amillennial perspective, Kingdom Come:

First, Jesus is the Temple.

The glory which once shined in the tent/tabernacle/temple of old, veiled in the mysterious cloud, was simply a fore-glow, a mere anticipatory flicker, if you will, of that exceedingly excelling glory now embodied in the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ (cf. Col. 1:19) (beside this sentence in my book, I penciled in all caps, “AMEN”).  

God no longer lives in a tent or tabernacle built by human hands, nor will he ever.  God’s glorious manifest presence is not to be found in an ornate temple of marble, gold, and precious stones, but rather in Jesus.  Jesus is the glory of God in human flesh, the one in whom God has finally and fully pitched his tent.

The point is that the temple of the Old Covenant was a type or foreshadowing of the glory of Christ.

“Divine space is now no longer located in a place but in a person,” says Gary Burge.

It would be an egregious expression of the word imaginable redemptive regression to suggest that God would ever sanction the rebuilding of the temple (p. 18-21)

Second, Jesus fulfills the Feasts.     Continue at Greg Gibson

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The Continuity of Theological Concepts: A New Covenant Reading of Old Covenant Texts

While studying and teaching Zechariah 9-14 near Beirut, Lebanon I was challenged to think about the meaning and relevance of those chapters to Lebanese believers who often suffer because of the animosity between Lebanon and the very nation and people who are mentioned in those chapters. Does an alleged promised restoration of Israel and Jerusalem bring comfort or chagrin to believers in Lebanon? After all, are not Arabic speaking believers and Jewish believers in the Middle East the true people of God? Are they not the ones who should expect to share in the triumph of God? Does present day Israel have a “favored nation” status that trumps the “holy nation” of the church (1 Pet 2:9-10)?
Furthermore, does not a similar conundrum exist for those of us who live in North America? Do these texts have anything relevant to say to a largely Gentile church? Do we simply rejoice because ethnic Israel is to be restored or do we rejoice because the triumph which the old covenant nation expected is the triumph that belongs to all of those who are children of God through faith in Jesus Christ? Admittedly, the question of relevancy should not be determinative in the understanding of biblical texts but it does raise questions that might not be raised otherwise. Continue Reading>>>