11:7
Just in case you thought that the previous verse meant that we could zap all our enemies like a superhero, any such notion is quickly disabused. For now the beast comes up from the Abyss, attacks, overpowers and kills the witnesses! Dan 7:21 talks about the horn waging war against God’s holy people and defeating them. The Bible teaches that God’s people do have power, but also teaches that we will suffer, sometimes terribly. We need to take a multi-dimensional view, taking account of all the teaching of Scripture.
11:8
The bodies of the dead witnesses will be left to lie in the public square. In the Middle East great store was set on burying the dead quickly. No doubt this was partly because of health reasons, with the heat leading to quick decay. However, this was also incorporated into religious teaching as well. The great city has sometimes been identified with Jerusalem for the obvious reason that that is where Jesus was crucified. However, it also says that figuratively it was called “Sodom and Egypt”. So there should perhaps be a more general interpretation, and it is essentially referring to the world. Now this includes Jerusalem. The way I see the Bible is that Israel is a microcosm of the world. So what happens with Israel and how it is portrayed is how the whole world goes. So Israel is hopelessly sinful and rebellious, the whole world is hopelessly sinful and rebellious. God saves Israel, He will save people from the whole world (not universalism!).
No comments:
Post a Comment