(On Matthew 24:15)
"Whence I think that by the abomination of desolation, He means the army by which the city of the holy Jerusalem was desolated." (Matthew 24:3, Quoted in Golden Chain)

(Why Second Temple Destroyed)
"The Lord is silent respecting His own death, because He had spoken of it in the foregoing parable, but He shews forth the death of His disciples, whom after His ascension the Jews put to death, stoning Stephen and executing James the son of Alphaeus, for which things Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. And it is to be observed, that anger is attributed to God figuratively and not properly; He is then said to be angry when [p. 744] He punishes." (Matthew 22)

"The Roman army is called God's army; because "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof;" [Ps 24:1] nor would the Romans have come to Jerusalem, had not the Lord stirred them thither." (Matthew 22)

"Or, by the business of a farm, He denotes the Jewish populace, whom the delights of this world separated from Christ; by the excuse of merchandize, the Priests and other ministers of the Temple, who, coming to the service of the Law and the Temple through greediness of gain, have been shut out of the faith by covetousness. Of these He said not 'They were filled with envy,' but "They made light of it." For they who through hate and spite crucified Christ, are they who were filled with envy; but they who being entangled in business did not believe on Him, are not said to have been filled with envy, but to have made light of it.

"As all the good things which had been merited by all the saints in each generation since the foundation of the world were bestowed upon that last generation which received Christ; so all the evil that all the wicked in every generation from the foundation of the world had deserved to suffer, came upon that last generation of the Jews which rejected Christ.

"Or thus; As all the righteous of former saints, yea, of all the saints, could not merit that so great grace as was given to men in Christ; so the sins of all the wicked could not deserve so much evil as came upon the Jews, that they should suffer such things as these suffered from the Romans, and that in after time every generation of them to the end of the world should be cast off from God, and be made a mock by all the Gentiles.

"For what is there worse than to reject and in such sort to put to death the Son coming in mercy and lowliness!

"Or thus; Nations and states when they sin are not thereupon immediately punished by God, but He waits for many generations; but when He sees fit to destroy that state or nation, He then seems to visit upon them the sins of all former generations, and one generation suffers the accumulation of all that former generations have deserved. Thus this generation of the Jews seems to have been punished for their fathers; but [p. 796] in truth they suffered not for others, but on their own account."

"Foreseeing the destruction of the city, and the blow it would receive from the Romans, He called to mind the blood of the saints which had been, and should yet be, shed in it. Thou killedst Esaias who was sent unto thee, and stonedst my servant Jeremias; thou dashedst out the brains of Ezechiel by dragging him over stones; how shalt thou be saved, which wilt not suffer a physician to come nigh thee?" (Matthew 22)

(On the Transition Text Theory)
"When the Lord had finished all that related to Jerusalem, He came in the rest to His own coming, and gives them signs thereof, useful not for them only, but for us and for all who shall be after us. 

As above, the Evangelist said, "In those days came John the Baptist," [Matt 3:1] not implying immediately after what had gone before, but thirty years after; so here, when He says, "Then," He passes over the whole interval of time between the taking of Jerusalem and the beginnings of the consummation of the world."  (Matthew 24:23, Golden Chain)

  THE SPIRITUAL PASSOVER

The Passover we celebrate brings celebration to the whole human race beginning with the first man, who together with all others is saved and given life. 

In an imperfect and transitory way, the types and images of the past prefigured the perfect and eternal reality which has now been revealed.   The presence of what is represented makes the symbol obsolete: when the king appears in person no one pays reverence to his statue. How far the symbol falls short of the reality is seen from the fact that the symbolic Passover celebrated the brief life of the firstborn of the Jews, whereas the real Passover celebrates the eternal life of all mankind.  It is a small gain to escape death for a short time, only to die soon afterward; it is a very different thing to escape death altogether as we do through the sacrifice of Christ our 
Passover. 

Correctly understood, its very name shows why this is our greatest feast.  It is called the Passover because, when he was striking down the firstborn, the destroying angel passed over the houses of the Hebrews, but it is even more true to say that he passes over us, for he does so once for all when we are raised up by Christ to eternal life. 

If we think only of the true Passover and ask why it is that the time of the Passover and the salvation of the firstborn is taken to be the beginning of the year, the answer must surely be that the sacrifice of the true Passover is for us the beginning of eternal life.  Because it revolves in cycles and never comes to an end, the year is a symbol of eternity. 

Christ, the sacrifice that was offered for us, is the father of the world to come.  He puts an end to our former life, and through the regenerating waters of baptism in which we imitate his death and resurrection, he give us the beginning of a new life.  The knowledge that Christ is the Passover lamb who was sacrificed for should make us regard the moment of his immolation as the beginning of our own lives.  As far as we are concerned, Christ’s immolation on our behalf takes place when we become aware of this grace and understand the life conferred on us by this sacrifice. Having once understood it, we should enter upon this new life with all eagerness and never return to the old one, which is now at an end.  As Scripture says:   We have died to sin — how then can we continue to live in it?

WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID

"Other than pseudo-Chrysostom, no eastern list of the canon includes the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Judith or Tobit. "

What do YOU think ?

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Date: 24 Feb 2006
Time: 04:07:57

Comments:

i am quite new to christianity and feel distressed by the mixed messages i am getting. I am currently reading mere christianity and have read very little of the bible.
in my search for which church to go to am thinking about attending a quakers meeting. is there anything to be said against this ?
i find this site to sometimes leave out or reword truths (are not partial prets from the 3rd school of thought of thinking on the apocolypse you mention.
thanks for your time there is obviously alot of knowledgable highly intelligent prets who have come to there beliefs through much study and i await your responses