Christian Zionists a boon to Israel, but sadly mistaken about Final Coming and Third Temple

by Damien F. Mackey Dr Ali Ataie really ought to be a Christian. He has well noted in his video that the Passover ritual that was occurring at the Temple while Jesus, the Lamb of God, was being crucified, facing the Temple, was being enacted in his very flesh. The slaughter of the sacrificial lambs, for instance. The rending of the huge curtain of the Holy of Holies. Christian Zionism Some non-Christians, such as the Muslim scholar Dr Ali Ataie (Christian Zionism: a Major Oxymoron), are emphasising that the Christian Zionists are going against the New Testament by hoping to hasten the end times and the Final Coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, by re-building the (third) Temple in Jerusalem. For, as these non-Christians rightly say, Jesus had claimed of the old Temple that “not one stone here will be left on another” (Mark 13:2), and that He himself was the Temple. In this way, such non-Christians have read the New Testament far more accurately than have the Christian Zionists, who are succeeding only in emptying the Scriptures of their true meaning. Blood and water flows from the Temple Dr Ali Ataie really ought to be a Christian. He has well noted in his video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUxTg2qTJlw) that the Passover ritual that was occurring at the Temple while Jesus, the Lamb of God, was being crucified, facing the Temple, was being enacted in his very flesh. The slaughter of the sacrificial lambs, for instance. The rending of the huge curtain of the Holy of Holies. Even the Temple priests sprinkling the floor with blood was imaged when Judas Iscariot (was he a priest?) threw the blood money across the floor in front of the priests. (Dr. Ernest L. Martin, RIP, brilliantly picked up this one). But, most significantly, the blood and water that gushed out from the side of the Temple when the priests opened a side door, at the same time that blood and water was flowing from the pierced side of Jesus on the Cross (Christian Zionism). Dr Ali Ataie, a convinced Muslim, is referring to the biblical accounts here. While he, personally, does not believe that these events actually occurred, he rightly insists that this is what Christians are supposed to believe. Implications of Abrahamic Covenant A completely new age had been ushered in with the return of Jesus Christ, as He said, to bring fiery Justice upon the evil and adulterous generation that had crucified Him (cf. Malachi 3:5: “I will come to you in judgment ....”). The land of Israel was ravaged and burned, its capital city of Jerusalem was destroyed, the Temple was totally eradicated, and those thousands of Jews who were not killed were taken away into captivity. That physically severed forever the ancient Abrahamic connection between the Jews and the Holy Land. The far more important spiritual connection with Abraham, based on Faith, a pre-requisite for the possession of the Holy Land, had already been shattered. So much so that Jesus, when the Jews boasted of having Abraham for their father, insisted that the Devil, not Abraham, was the father of the prophet-slaying Jews. ‘You belong to your father the Devil’ (John 8:44). On this same important subject, see also my recent article: Covenant between God and Abram wonderfully foreshadows the immolation of Jesus Christ (6) Covenant between God and Abram wonderfully foreshadows the immolation of Jesus Christ Saint Paul in Galatians makes it quite clear that the connection with Abraham is only through Jesus Christ, the “seed” of Abraham (3:29): “And if you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise”. The straw that broke the camel’s back would be the rejection of, and murder of, the Prophet of Prophets himself, Jesus the Christ. It is sad and quite frustrating to see pious Jews now reverencing a massive Gentile wall situated well away from where the Jerusalem Temples had stood, and hopefully expecting the Messiah to arrive in Jerusalem in the not too distant future: Fort Antonia and Wailing Wall (7) Fort Antonia and Wailing Wall Nor is it of any true worth that Zionists - including the Christian version of these - a very powerful and wealthy lobby, have that same goal of re-building the stone Temple (in the wrong place, it must be said), to welcome the Messiah, or Jesus (depending on whether one is Jewish or Christian). “Tabernacled Among Us” "And the Word became flesh and Tabernacled among us". John 1:14 No wonder that Jesus Christ was wont to go all the way back to Moses to explain himself (Luke 24:27). His human existence, moving amongst his people, had been foreshadowed back in the time of Moses, in the Pentateuch, by the moveable Tent of Meeting, or Tabernacle. Jesus, too, was often on the move among the people. As John Dickson has written: https://www.johndickson.org/blog/2018/2/7/jesus-as-the-temple “Jesus handed out forgiveness whenever anyone humbly approached him. He acted like a mobile temple”. Saint John picks this up in his Gospel by likening the Word’s human existence, dwelling on earth, to being Tabernacled (ἐσκήνωσεν). That is the literal meaning of the text, and it is meant to recall the ancient Tent of Meeting which contained the glorious Ark of the Covenant with its mercy seat, the Menorah, and the shew bread.