Pastor Dave wrote:

On Wed, 7 Jul 2004 20:22:09 +0000 (UTC), zugzwang
<zugzwang@akwaw.com> posted thusly:

Jerusalem was destroyed, as Jesus predicted and it was
done by the Romans, in the lifetime of the Apostles,
just as He told them and they expected. God used the
Roman army, just as He previously used Babylon to mete
out judgment against Jerusalem.

It seems to me that you are arguing that because God used
the Romans and the Babylonians to judge Israel, that makes
them the people of God. I can't accept that.

I think it is a language problem here. There is a
difference between saying, "the people of the prince"
and, "Godly people".

I think the language problem is that if Christ is the
Prince of Dan 9, then "the people of the prince" would
have to be either the Jews or the Christians. I see
no way to render it sensibly as the Romans.

Why not? They would be merely agents of God's divine
judgment. As I said, how many other times has this
happened? God said He would judge Jerusalem and yet,
here comes Babylon. Were they not "the people of God"
for His purpose?

I don't think so. To me, if you render "the prince" as
Christ, then I can't really read "the people of Christ"
as being some a nation of unbelievers unrelated to
Christ.

I'm not trying to defend any other position apart from
that I don't think the verse fits Christ.

In your dilemma with one portion of this, you are
ignoring the host of other questions that arise, if you
do not believe that the Prince is Jesus. Let me give
you another example. V27 tells us about a covenant
made, which, as I said, can only be done by God,

Covenants are not just something that can be made
by God. They can be made between men, or groups of
men, or nations.

but to
go even further than that, it also talks about
sacrifice ceasing. Can anyone but God cause sacrifices
to cease?

Yes. The Babylonians caused the sacrifice to cease
once before. I don't think it necessarily implies
a permenant cessation.

Who can overrule God? And since sacrifices
did cease and have been stopped, since 70 A.D., what
does that tell you?

That does not imply that there will not be sacrifice
in the future. There's a big Jewish movement to
rebuild the temple. They've already made the furniture
for the holy of holies, they've been breeding red
heffers. etc etc

Think about it. Why should you
ignore factual history that fulfilled Daniel's and
Jesus' words to the letter, in favor of some future
date, or ignore the host of problems you create with
the passages, because of one sentence that you are
unable to reconcile in your own mind.

Because to me, the 70AD destruction of Jerusalem does
not seem to fulfill the Daniel prophecy to the letter.

Doesn't it make
sense to bow to the weight of Scripture and think that
maybe we should keep searching for a solution to that
one sentence, without throwing aside what is logical
for the rest of the words?

I don't see the weight of the rest of scripture behind
70AD being the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy. The
words of the prophecy are the only thing we have to
go by. It goes against my hermenutical principles to
force a historical event onto a prophecy whose words
don't seem to fit it.

Just a thought. :) Bear in
mind, all it's really saying, is that the Lord will use
a people to mete out judgment.

I find it difficult to get that just from reading the
text.

But I do understand
your conflict.

:-)

Whether or not the prince is the Antichrist is a
different issue, and not one that I'm defending
here.

I didn't say you were. It is however common, for
people to believe that, so I simply brought it out and
put it on the table. Also, since the Christians are
not the ones who attacked Jerusalem, thereby stopping
sacrifice, in order to claim it wasn't the Romans,
where does that leave you?