[...] This future reinstatement of the ‘natural branches’ awaits ‘the set time’ (Ps 102:13; Dan 11:27, 29, 35).

That time of fulfillment is clearly future, as shown in Paul’s reference to Isa 59:21 together with a number of other clear passages that speak of Israel’s restoration at the future day of the Lord, also called the ‘last day’ (see Dan 12:1-2 for the time of Israel’s national “deliverance”). That is the time that the final Antichrist is destroyed (Dan 11:36 -12:2 with 2Thes 2:4-8) when Christ returns to establish His thousand year reign over the nations out of a restored Jerusalem. “In that day” Israel receives the revelation that has already come to you and me through the gospel (compare Isa 8:16-17; 66:8; Ezek 39:22-29 with Zech 12:10 and Mt 23:39). In the future ‘day of God’s power’ (Ps 110:3), the surviving remnant of the unequaled tribulation becomes willing concerning the gospel because it has just passed through the greatest trial in their nation’s history, a time called “Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21). Tom believes with me that the church will be here during this time and that it will be the witness people that God will use to prepare Jewish hearts as we share with them many of the tribulations and persecutions of this final time of judgment and divine pleading (see Ezek 20:33-38; Amos 9:8-15). [...]

[...] In this sense, ‘apostolic sending’ is itself ‘an apocalyptic phenonmenon’, theologically speaking. Because the secret is more than new information. It is an event not only of divine disclosure but of spiritual quickening. It at once kills and makes alive. The revealed secret, as only apprehended by the Spirit, completely shatters the pride of self-reliance and gives an open heaven of revelation and power. A full and true apprehension of the mystery of God in Christ designs not a knowledge by which one may glory above another (1Cor 4:7), as in gnosticism. But rather a freedom in love that casts out fear and enables a selfless obedience unto death. “And they loved not their lives unto death” (Rev 12:10). The power that loves the enemy, and the freedom from the fear of death are the tests that prove the value of any knowledge or any mystery (1Cor 13:2).

Ever since Pentecost the secret has been the ‘open secret’, but whether it has been apprehended by the Spirit is shown by one thing only, namely, the presence and power of the life of the age to come, Christ revealed in the church (Jn 13:35; Eph 3:21), with the result that “now is come salvation, strength, the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ” (Rev 12:10). Thus the ACTS of the apostles (Dan 11:32-33). [...]

… Just as the anointed offices of priest and king meet perfectly in Christ in Zech 6:13, so here is the combined witness of Moses and the prophets all pointing to the perfection that is in Christ. This does not mean, however, that I expect the literal Moses and Elijah to show up in the streets of Jerusalem for the final witness, although certain of the same phenomena associated with their ministries are reproduced in the tribulation judgments. It is enough to see that whoever the witnesses are, they come, like the Lord’s reference to John Baptist, “in the spirit and power” of Elijah, not necessarily the literal individual (which creates more problems for interpretation than it solves). …

… Notice the the Lord’s unique use of ‘you’ in His indictment. It is the same in Stephen’s apologetic. It is the generic ‘you’ of corporate solidarity, hence an abiding generation. It is a generation that does not escape judgment, regardless of its particular location in chronological time, ‘UNTIL’ …. This is why Jesus could speak of a future day of public acknowledgment of His messianic dignity, and describes it in terms of the generational ‘until YOU will say.’ It is why He could indict His own contemporaries as present in the killing of the prophets in the very persons of their fathers (“whom you slew”). And it is why Zechariah can speak particularly of the last generation of Jewish survivors of the last tribulation as ‘looking on Him whom THEY have pierced,’ as though they were the actual historical murderers of the Messiah…

The question is who are “the people of the prince that shall come?” Are we to understand this of the Romans that destroyed Jerusalem in 70AD? Does this mean then that we are to trace the coming prince to Roman descent and ancestry? Or, could this refer more particularly to the ‘immediate’ people of a yet future Antichrist that will once more destroy the city and a yet future sanctuary? I take the latter view. Of course, the strength of the former view is that in Dan 2 & 7 the fourth kingdom is clearly Rome. For this cause, many expositors believe they must locate the rise of the Antichrist out of a ‘revived Roman empire’, and therefore expect the Antichrist and his ten nation confederacy to originate in Western Europe among the common market countries. I do not believe this view is necessary for the following reasons: …