Abomination of Desolation II

This piece builds on and (I hope) refines and corrects some of the raw ideas I began thinking about in another post last July. I just happened to notice in my morning devotions, that…

In Ezra, chapter 3, Yeshua (son of Jozadak) is mentioned three times (v2, 8 & 9). The word “foundation” (yacad) is also used three times (v6, 10, & 11). In verse 12, those who remembered the old temple, before the Babylonian captivity, weep for it even as others cheer and rejoice at the new temple going up in front of their very eyes. They just couldn’t see the new one for what it was.

Foreshadowing typology, much? The question, as with all such types and allegories, is whether the echo stops with one major confirming fulfillment (i.e., in this case, Christ himself) or whether the pattern repeats somehow. Usually, it’s the latter.

In 1st Corinthians, 3:16-17, Paul writes (to believers):

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Later, in 1st Corinthians 6:19-20, he reiterates the point:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

All of which draws upon Jesus’ words, in John 2:19-21, where we read:

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

As well as passages such as Romans 12:4-5 –

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Or 1st Corinthians 12:12-31 (One Body With Many Members).

Unless we are to allegorize these clear and repeated passages describing how the body of Christ and God’s holy temple were redefined after Christ’s resurrection — the new temple going up right in front of the eyes of those still looking at the empty old one, then we are left with something that flies in the face of (or at least flies in parallel to) most of the end-times scenarios I’ve ever run across.

As a newbie to end-times prophecy, the notion that the abomination of desolation in the end times (Daniel 11) will look much like the old one (a pagan sacrifice on a pagan altar set up by military force in a newly rebuilt marble temple building in Jerusalem) seems to be set in virtual concrete. (Ironic expression intentional.)

Maybe it will happen that way. Or maybe the abomination that causes desolation will happen, as it did in Christ’s body on the cross: via the body of his church universal. Or maybe it will be both — one track for the church, and one for the Jews. I.e., both notions being correct, but separate. I don’t know.

Back in July I wrote:

I’d always heard the ’standing in the holy place’ bit [Daniel 11] as referring to the temple in Jerusalem. The ‘holy place’ (and ‘most holy place’) both have very specific meanings in OT scripture, e.g., in Exodus. Yet as I noted above, the OT temple [didn't yet exist in Exodus]. And why the aside from Jesus, (or perhaps Matthew himself), “let the reader understand”. Why is that necessary if it’s the [conventional] interpretation of holy place?

What if… just what if maybe, perhaps… [it refers, instead or in addition] to the most holy place we can find in a New Testament context, the very ‘room’ in which Christ manifested as man, namely the womb of Mary and (by extension, all women)?

Or for that matter, all people — in their DNA… the word of life. Note also that regulations, rulings, directives and military incursions can “stand” just as people can.

With ample references to the body of Christ (and bodies of Christians) as temples, it’s hard NOT to head down that path and keep our minds open to that possibility. A look at the colors, fabrics, and physical and symbolic architecture of the tabernacle in the OT in comparison to the womb and the process of conception only amplifies that tantalizing possibility — especially in light of discussion about high-tech physical persecution, eugenics, bio-warfare, bio-engineering, cloning, abortion, and manipulation of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, DNA and whatnot.

The list of potential abominations that would cause desolation (i.e., death or an inability to produce life) in the bodies of human beings (selectively or en masse) as well as in the larger body of Christ are myriad here in the second decade of the 21st century.

Furthermore, the number of people and organizations who would love to see exactly that happen is myriad also. See, just for example, the piece on the Georgia Guidestones that Steve Coerper linked to as homework earlier this week — an absolute must read to see how feeble and defenseless the body of Christ has become to abominable ideas.

In Ezra 6:15, we read about the finalization of the re-built temple in Jerusalem: “and this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.” That is, the king of Persia, aka modern Iran. The third of Adar falls on President’s Day this year — February 15th. (Rosh Chodesh Adar — the evening that begins the month occurs precisely seven days after the Superbowl.)

Wouldn’t it be interesting, and upside-down ironic if, on the eve of what looks like war with the same nation (Persia/Iran) whose leader ordered the second temple rebuilt, another temple — that of the body of Christ, i.e., His church — were completed, and perhaps also, subject to “the abomination that causes desolation”?

A dear sister in Christ and I have been discussing a compound, highly improbable set of signs that came to my attention yesterday — highly improbable that it is merely ‘noise’ or ‘chance’, because of the number and depth of mutually reinforcing signs and layers to it that cut across what any one person is seeing or working on. I won’t burden this post with that still-incomplete bunny trail that’s being tested by the Holy Spirit. The upshot is that it also point towards President’s Day, the president, various military elements, the occult… and perhaps fire.

We shall see. In the meantime, pray and be at peace. The temple of the body of Christ is one day closer to completion. His return is one day closer.

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