Judgment: Wrath of the Lamb

by Brian Godawa

  “Nonsense,” barked Tiberius. “Roman moderation has been proven with every city in this Land that was permitted to surrender. Allowing the temple to stand is not ‘moderation,’ it is weakness.”

  The other dozen plus leaders quietly deferred to Tiberius.

  Titus turned to Josephus. “And what do my Jewish collaborators say?”

  Josephus glanced at the Herods. Agrippa spoke first. “If you leave the temple intact, I can ensure you a generation of a loyal and submissive priesthood.”

  Titus raised his brow. That could be beneficial.

  Josephus stepped in. “If you tear it down, you will only fuel rebellion in their hearts. They will obey on the outside, but inside they will never be loyal.”

  Titus replied, “Unlike you, Josephus?”

  Josephus felt humiliated. But he bit his tongue and said humbly. “Yes, my lord Caesar, unlike me. I am your servant.”

  Titus considered the advice that he had been given. He began to think out loud. “This temple is the heart and soul of the two religions that have caused the most trouble for the empire. Overthrowing the temple would thoroughly subvert both Judaism and Christianity.”232

  Josephus protested, “Caesar, forgive my interruption, but Jews and Christians are completely contrary to one another. Christians reject the temple. They would revel in its desolation. You might even empower them. Remember the Great Fire of Rome.”

  The Herods mumbled in agreement. Titus looked unconvinced. Josephus knew the Roman general had his doubts about whether the Christians had really started the fire even though the Pharisee had convinced Nero that they had.

  “Nevertheless, you both sprang from the same root,” Titus said. “And if the root is destroyed, the offshoots would perish as well.”

  Berenice spoke up. “Caesar, if I may?”

  He nodded to her.

  She said, “Our people have already suffered so much. Yet they will still be obedient if you do not make the humiliation absolute. The people will respond more favorably to a marriage than a funeral.”

  Josephus knew that she was speaking more of her own future with Titus than that of her so-called people. Edomite.

  Titus considered the advice. As his contemplation dragged on, an awkward silence fell over the council. Someone cleared their throat. Another coughed.

  Finally, Titus gave his pronouncement to Tiberius. “Tear it to the ground. Do not leave one stone upon another.”233

  Tiberius stood to attention. “Yes, my lord Caesar.”

  Titus turned to the other tribunes and added, “Then burn down this city, kill everyone who resists, and enslave the rest.”

  Tiberius saluted and left the war tent, followed by the rest of the commanders to prepare for their final assault.

  Josephus glanced at the Herods. Berenice was holding back tears, and Agrippa looked pale.

  For his own part, Josephus felt a total failure. He had sought to convince the Jews to surrender and avoid this very thing. They had branded him a traitor. He’d sought to persuade Titus to refrain from total desolation, but he had been ignored and relegated to a “court prophet” promoting Flavian imperial ambitions.

  Had he sold his soul to gain the world—only to lose everything?

  Certainly, his people had lost everything.

  The heavens and earth shook, the sky rolled up like a scroll, and the constellations went dark. With the destruction of the temple, the end of days had arrived, the whole cosmos destroyed. The power of the holy people was shattered forever.234

  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

  Apocalypse 21:1–5

  CHAPTER 68

  Alexander had lost track of how many days they had been down in the darkness of these secret tunnels beneath the city. What little food they had was gone. Some had already died of starvation.

  The hiding Jews had sent a few scouts out of the tunnels, only to discover that the Roman blockade was still up. They could not leave their hiding place without being discovered. They could hear the distant sounds and feel the rumblings of the destruction of the city just above them. They tried to pass the time by telling stories and giving sermons of hope.

  Alexander didn’t want to feed the delusion that they would all escape their dilemma by God’s hand. Yes, sometimes God did deliver his people as he had done at the Red Sea or with the Christians at Pella. But not always and not everyone.

  Faithful believers had suffered and died before the exodus from Egypt. Righteous men of God had died in the holy wars of Joshua’s conquest as had many of the righteous in the Babylonian exile. God had preserved his Remnant as a whole through those trying times, but some had not made it. The heavenly Father did not owe anyone their life. But he did promise the resurrection that would put all things to rights in the end. And that is what Alexander spoke of, the true hope of the resurrection.

  Presently, he had been explaining how Jesus fulfilled the Feasts of Israel. The fifth of seven, the Feast of Trumpets, was supposed to occur on the first of this very month. But with the capture of the temple, it had not been celebrated. Which was fitting because the Feast of Trumpets was being fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem.

  Because it was the only feast that began on the first day of the month, it was the only one where the moon was nothing but a sliver in darkness. The start of the feast was therefore determined by two witnesses sighting the new moon and reporting to the Sanhedrin. Because of weather and other difficulties, it was not always easy or precise in the timing, so the beginning of the feast was not known with certainty until the witnesses arrived. This left the people in a continual state of alertness. Thus the well-known phrase, “No man knows the day or the hour” when the feast would begin.235

  Jesus had used this same phrase of his parousia, his cloud coming. It had been like a thief in the night.

  “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only… Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.236

  The prophet Joel had predicted the Day of the Lord when Yahweh would pour out his wrath upon Israel. He had written, “Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. Surely it is near.”237

  On the Day of Pentecost forty years ago, the apostle Peter had said that Joel’s Day of the Lord was at hand. The Holy Spirit was being poured out upon all flesh. The new covenant had been inaugurated. The cosmic order was already changing.238

  Zephaniah had foretold what Alexander and the Jews of Jerusalem had been experiencing these past five months.

  Near is the great day of the Lord, Near and coming very quickly; Listen, the day of the LORD! In it the warrior cries out bitterly. A day of wrath is that day, A day of trouble and distress, A day of destruction and desolation, A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of trumpet and battle cry Against the fortified cities And the high corner towers.

  Zephaniah 1:14–16

  The day and the hour had arrived. With th
e fall of this great city, the Feast of Trumpets was fulfilled. Now Jesus would send out his messengers—Christian believers—and would use the Gospel to gather his elect from the four winds into his kingdom, a mountain that would grow to fill the earth in God’s time.

  Alexander had been explaining all this to the hundreds of refugees surrounding him in the tunnel beneath the sounds of the city being destroyed above them: Jerusalem’s Day of the Lord.

  They tried to concentrate, but he could tell with every jerk or cringe at every concussive sound from above that they were barely holding their fears at bay.

  Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit had fallen upon them, and many Jews had surrendered to Jesus as their Messiah. Some no doubt did so with the hope that God would reward them by rescuing them out of this trap. But most of them were genuine in their reception. They had come to realize that Jesus was the end goal of Torah. That all the promises of God were fulfilled in Jesus as Messiah. That the end of sacrifice and offering had arrived. That vision and prophecy had been sealed up. Even at this last hour, God was redeeming souls.239

  You can still save some.

  The sound of screaming echoed through the tunnels, interrupting Alexander’s sermon. Everyone’s attention was drawn to the other passageways filled with refugees. The screams increased, followed by shouting and a stampede of people running toward them.

  Alexander asked, “What’s happening?”

  One of the fleeing refugees yelled out, “Romans! We’ve been discovered!”

  The Romans had found the tunnels.

  Everyone around Alexander panicked. Shrieks were followed by an attempt to scatter. It was like a bunch of frightened sheep caught in a maze trampling over one another to escape their predators.

  Alexander looked down the passageway they were in toward the far end. Torches emerged into view, the light glinting off drawn swords and the frightful red full body shields of Rome.

  They were trapped. Wedged in. On one side, their fellow patients pushed toward them like a mob. On the other side, a company of legionaries descended upon them like a lion.

  A burly man named Obadiah stood in front of Alexander. “Stay behind me, doctor.” He had been one of the medical assistants saved through the Gospel.

  But it was useless. There was no defense left and no deliverance.

  The Romans thrust their javelins into the outliers, then when they were in close, they lowered their shields and began hacking away at their unarmed victims: men, women, and children. No one was spared. No one was taken captive.240

  Alexander was pushed up against the tunnel wall, crushed by the hundreds of crying, screaming people trying to get away with nowhere to go. Swords and javelins were thrusted and jabbed into bodies. People fell to the ground in piles.

  Obadiah tried to cover Alexander, but in the end he could not do it. Alexander felt the large man smash him back up against the wall followed by the sharp pain of a javelin entering his side.

  He fell down beneath the big man and several others. He couldn’t move.

  Alexander felt his life bleeding out of him. The last thought that went through his mind was that Christ had been pierced in his side. And what an honor it was…

  And then he thought no more.

  CHAPTER 69

  The Divine Council

  Alexander felt himself floating into the sky as the seventh and final trumpet of judgment sounded upon the Land. He looked below him to see the corpses of his fellow refugees in the tunnels beneath the city. His heart became heavy with sorrow. The Romans cut through the Jewish residents like demon-possessed madmen.241

  Alexander saw the city burning and destroyed, tens of thousands of people dead in the streets and valleys—citizens, soldiers, and rulers. Birds of prey consumed the flesh of the dead, reminding Alexander of the words of the Apocalypse.

  Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great”.

  Apocalypse 19:17–18

  Alexander was high enough now to see the temple mount, its holy house vanished, desolate. Daniel had foretold it. Jesus had foretold it. The Two Witnesses had foretold it. The temple had been given over to the nations of Rome and trampled beneath the feet of the iron beast for 42 months. Not one of its stones were left upon another. The great city of Jerusalem had become Babylon the great and had been thrown down with violence. The voice of the bridegroom and bride would be heard in her no more.

  “Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

  Apocalypse 18:10

  From his lofty height of observation, Alexander could only conclude one thing: he was dead and was about to face his Creator.

  But he felt a peace in his whole being. He knew the blood of Christ covered him like the blood of the Passover Lamb. Messiah’s death had brought about the new exodus like the Unleavened Bread, and his resurrection had been the first-fruits of the resurrection to come. He had begun his new covenant ekklesia on the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of Trumpets had been fulfilled in the destruction of the temple. The Day of the Lord had come when the Jews had not expected it would.

  Now the Day of Atonement was fulfilled in Christ. The sixth of seven feasts, the Day of Atonement was supposed to have occurred in this same month of September. It was a solemn day of fasting and sacrifice. It included the scapegoat rite where the sins of the people were placed upon two goats, one for Yahweh that was sacrificed and one for the wilderness of Azazel that would wander into oblivion.242

  This was the one and only day of the year that the high priest was allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies and stand before the presence of God, who stood between the cherubim on the mercy seat. There the high priest would offer atonement for the priesthood, the people, and the Holy Place as well. And atonement was not complete until the high priest came out of the Holy Place.

  This solemn and holy day had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ as our scapegoat, but also as our high priest who had entered into the true Holy Place in heaven and offered his once for all sacrifice.243 But the way into that heavenly Holy of Holies would not be made open until the earthly Holy Place was destroyed.244

  That destruction was now complete.

  Alexander saw Jesus exiting the Holy Place of heaven, opening that Holy of Holies forever.245 The transgression of Israel had been put to an end and finished, atoned for. Jesus had been anointed the Most Holy, and everlasting righteousness was now secured.246

  The ark of the covenant was supposed to have been inside the earthly Holy of Holies, but it had been destroyed during the Babylonian exile hundreds of years ago. It was the footstool of Yahweh’s throne where his presence resided, and yet it had never been returned to its rightful location in the temple—until now.247

  As heaven opened, Alexander could see the new ark of the covenant surrounded by heavenly host in the temple above the waters. Flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, and even earthquakes and heavy hail accompanied this vision of holy beauty.248

  He remembered this part of John’s Apocalypse as well as Daniel’s night visions.249 He had read them both often. But this couldn’t be another dream because he was dead. This must be the real thing.

  He then realized that the ark was indeed a footstool before a throne of fiery flames with wheels of burning fire. Cherubim supported the throne with their strange hybrid bodies and their multiple wings. Alexander was in the very throne room of Yahweh.250

  He saw martyrs sitting on thrones surrounded by ten thousand time ten thousand heavenly host. He knew these martyrs represented the Christians who had been killed during the Great Tribulation. They had been slaughtered because they would not worship the Beast or take his mark. John’s Apocalypse had been written to comfort these blessed and holy ones with the assurance that they wo
uld sit in judgment over their persecutors. That they would reign with Christ for a millennium, a symbolically long future. Alexander was watching the vindication of the martyrs that Jesus himself had called for a generation ago. The cry of their souls beneath the altar had finally been answered.251

  Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

  Apocalypse 20:4–6252

  Alexander heard the voice of living creatures call out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

  Then he saw the Ancient of Days take a seat on his throne before a sea of glass like crystal. Alexander felt his entire body stiffen with paralysis. His soul was filled with both terror and joy. The brightness of Yahweh’s glory penetrated him. He could barely look upon the presence of the Lord.

  His clothing was white as snow, his hair like pure wool. A stream of fire issued forth from the throne into the crystal sea. Those on their thrones then cast their crowns before the throne, and they proclaimed, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”