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Biblical understanding about Israel
The Abomination in the Sanctuary
By Claude Duvernoy
Many exegetes and the majority of the theologians of the Church, misled by certain expressions in this eschatological discourse of Christ, regard the tragedy of the year 70 as the fulfilment of these prophecies. But in doing so they forget several important points.
Their mistake – among others – is that they fail to recognize Christ’s vision of history. The same exegetes who attach an absolutely prophetical significance to the year 70, carry the fulfilment of what Jesus called “the abomination of desolation of which Daniel spoke” even further back into the past. These dissectors of the Holy Writ hold that the book of Daniel has had no meaning for the Church (and consequently for Israel) since the reign of the Graeco-Syrian King Antiochus-Epiphanes – some 170 years before Christ!
Jesus however, in the three synoptic Gospels, and in particular in the Gospel according to Matthew (24:15) places this “defilation of the Sanctuary” in the future…
It is evident that the fall of Jerusalem and the temple was such a tragic event in the history of the Jewish people that it has not entirely recovered from it till the present day, but this drama marked the beginning, not the end of the time of the Nations! That is why Jesus placed this mysterious sacreligious act and the unprecedented dangers that will threaten Jerusalem, the people of Israel and doubtless the entire world with them, in the far future. What happened in the terrible year 70 in the heart of David’s city was but the general rehearsal of a much greater drama, which will take place in the future.
If this were not true why would Jesus have given this terrible warning in Matthew 24:21-22:
“It will be a time of great distress; there has never been such a time from the beginning of the world until now, and there will never be again… And if that time were not cut short, no living thing could survive.”
And the version of the Gospel according to Luke 21 verse 26 is even stronger:
“…men will faint with terror at the thought of all that is coming upon the world; for the celestial powers will be shaken.”
Let us remember that the Roman armies, which burnt Jerusalem, never caused the Empire to suffer such horrors, but rather led to the malicious joy of Titus’ triumphal procession and to the erection of the triumphal Arch, which is still standing!
No abomination was introduced into the Sanctuary on the year 70 for the simple reason that the Temple was immediately set to fire and destroyed, and the vessels and other sacred objects – among them the great golden Menorah, the symbol of Divine Presence – were dragged through the streets of Rome… Nothing similar to the deed of Antiochus-Epiphanes who ordered to sacrifice a swine and thus provoked the heroic revolt of the Maccabee family, happened in 70.
At what then does Christ allude?
Obviously at the brief reign of him who St. Paul called the Anti-Christ and whom he described as follows in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,8:
“That day cannot come before the final rebellion against God, when wickedness will be revealed in human form, the man doomed to perdition. He is the enemy. He rises in his pride against all who bear the name of God, and even taken his seat in the temple of God claiming to be like God… but the Lord will destroy him with the breath of His mouth and annihilate him by the radiance of His coming.”
In other words: a man will one day enter the Temple compound and even the Holy of Holies, proclaim himself the master of all, the enemy of all “who bear the name of God.”
The Temple compound is actually in the hand of Islam, and the Dome of the Rock, a Sanctuary for the entire Islamic world, rises on the place of the Holy of Holies.
During the twenty years before the Six Day War it was from this same Dome of the Rock that regular calls for a holy war, for the destruction of Israel were launched. And even today, after Jerusalem has witnessed the demolishing of the walls of shame, the same call is still launched in the sermons in this Mosque. Thus, from the very site of Israel’s destroyed Sanctuary people are being incited to genocide. Isn’t this a foreshadowing of the ultimate future abomination foretold by the prophets and by Christ Himself, that from the dwelling place of the God of Israel the preachers of the man of sin would urge the destruction of Israel?
A further precision: anti-Christ means anti-messianic as well as “anti-Jesus.” If this man is hostile to the Christian world, he is just as hostile to Israel whose place is still, through the grace of God, at the heart of the messianic drama. It is because of this unique situation that Israel has so often been confronted with the threat of extermination. Satan has an interest in the destruction of this people, which will bring forth the messianic times. That is why he has incited all the empires of antiquity against Israel. Everything was set into motion to prevent the Jewish people from giving birth to Jesus, including even the order of Herod to massacre the infants of Bethlehem…
Similarly, everything must be set in motion to prevent this people from gathering in the Promised Land to prevent it from bringing forth the time of the Parousia.
One of the most unsettling verses from the Gospel of Matthew is found in chapter 24 verse 28:
“Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
Jesus says in Matthew 24 verse 34 and 35:
“Truly, I tell you this: This people will not pass away until al this happens…” and “Heaven and earthy will pass away; my words will never pass away.”
This would have been a bold expression in the mouth of any prophet, and only the Messiah Himself, who was from the Beginning, could allow Himself to use it. Thus the two realities which nothing can erase are united: the people of Israel and the Word of God…
Is it really coincidence that the resurrection of Israel exactly coincides with the tremendous scientific accomplishments in the field of nuclear research? It was not until the mid-twentieth century that the word of Christ which we have already quoted and which is reported by Luke in chapter 21 verse 26 alone, assumed its full significance:
““…Men will faint with terror at the thought of all that is coming upon the world; for the celestial powers will be shaken.”
This text speaks doubtless of a wave of suicides, or at least of unprecedented horror. Some people in the Christian world begin to have their doubts about man’s encroachment on the terrain that is reserved to Divine authority alone, by his conquest of space, his nuclear experiments and his poisoning of the genetic roots of life. For never before Creation has so “groaned in all its parts as if in the pangs of childbirth,” to use the words of Paul in Romans 8 verse 22.
It is undeniable that man has begun to “shake the celestial powers.” Nor can it be denied that a terrible agony is rapidly spreading throughout the world. When will the Church at last take to heart the words and warnings of its Master, launched more than two thousand years ago?
Throughout the centuries many believers of the Bible have poked fum at the apocalyptic sections of the Prophets and the New Testament. The world had to wait until Hiroshima before the full meaning of these grave warnings was realized. Now that we are at last surrounded by this new terror every nation knows “what is threatening the world.”
Within a few years man has become used to the revolutionary developments in space research. Hence nothing but the conquest of a new planet will excite them. And what is he going to do, this man in space? To create a new mankind, a new society? To take a hold in space in order to dominate, to rule, to threaten and to fight?
Celestial powers are “shaken” by the intrusion of sinful men into a virginal world, which has not been entrusted to their authority and genius, as the earth has been. The era of the sorcerer’s apprentice which started Hiroshima, and which is the time in which man can no longer control the results of sorcery, will end, exactly as in the days of the Tower of Babel in the desire to “take the place of God’ in the entire universe.
For we do not sufficiently realize how monstrous this just begun conquest is in view of the fact that none of the acute problems of our own little planet have been solved. In view of the fact that bombs and guerrillas still have the last word, that hunger and hatred prevail in two-thirds of the world.
On the verge of the abyss, the nuclear sword over his head, man of the space age has found a fascinating, explosive toy and he is delirious with pride.
Because so many problems are unsolved, humans foolishness is so great and the sorcerers’ apprentices have caused such anarchy, the Lord has decided to return, for only He knows the antidote against the deadly poison which for the first time has penetrated the vital parts of Creation.
The prophet Daniel contemplated and announced long ago, the Coming on earth, from the right hand of God, of this heavenly cosmonaut, unimpeded by monstrous, inhuman machines. Alas, it is not faith the Son of Man will find on our planet when He comes in power and glory, but a kingdom of pride in the clutches of fear. A world about to jump in the abyss, a society based on demonic arms, while hundreds of millions of poor slaves are hungry for bread and justice, in body and soul.
That is why it is not coincidence that the world of Hiroshima, of gas chambers and satanic forces is also the world of this little State of Israel which has embarked on the conquest of the desert, the search for a just society and whose children speak the language of the prophets.
Without really knowing it – and that is the wonder of grace – it is preparing the paths and gardens of our Messiah. In the desert of the Nations it is the voice, which, like that of the Baptist, calls for repentance, forgiveness and brotherhood. It continues to be the voice, which cries out in the name of the innocent Martyrs who were burnt in the gas chambers of the “very-Christian” western world…
Its neighbours, supported by the great and mighty of this world, respond by piling up these same demonic weapons and by talking daily of wiping it from the face of the earth…
And that is why the messiah, coming in glory, will not set foot in one of the boastful capitals of the “great”, but rather on that hill He knows so well, where He so often prayed under peaceful olive trees.
To the world which refuses to greet Jerusalem as the capital of the new Israel, and to the Church which also does not recognize it a such, the King of the Jews shows that it is His capital, and the capital of the Kingdom of justice He will establish and impose on all nations, as both the Prophets and the Apostle have announced:
“And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east…” (Zechariah 14:4)
“Men of Galilee, why stand there looking up in the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken away from you up in heaven, will come in the same way as you have seen him go” (Acts 1:11).
This time of the Church, the time of the Missions, which began with the Ascension, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, is reaching its end. Notwithstanding the cruelty of men and the hostility of the Nations, Israel has rebuilt Jerusalem, opposite the City of David and the Wailing Wall, which has been recovered and transformed into a place of joy, for the time of wailing, which coincided exactly with the time of the Nations, has ended for Israel.
Men are looking up into the sky, not because they await their Redeemer, but to watch the passage of their metal capsules or the radiance of their nuclear conflicts; they are trembling and start hiding in their laughable subterranean shelters.
But another light will go up, not to exterminate them, but to save them. It is the light of which Christ spoke in the Gospel according to Matthew 24 verse 27, the light heralding His Return:
“Like lightning from the East, flashing as far as the West, will be the Coming of the Son of Man.”
(Source: “Controversy of Zion” by Claude Duvernoy, New Leaf Press 1987, ISBN: 0-89221-144-X)