The Great Tribulation: No Torah – No Tribulation!
Throughout God’s dealings with Israel He gave her warnings that her sins, her abominations, would bring desolation on her. All one has to do is do a word search for abomination / abominations in the Pentateuch to get an idea of the things that God considered as unholy, sinful and abominable. Idolatry, sexual immorality, dishonesty, lack of mercy, etc. are among those things that the Lord counted as abominations.
What would be the result when Israel committed abominations, in violation of Torah? Read Leviticus 26:30-31:
I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.
So, Israel’s abominations – her violation of Torah, the Law of Moses – would lead to her desolation. Her cites would be destroyed, the sanctuary desolated, her land laid desolate, and she would be cast out of the land. This is brought out well in Jeremiah 6:15
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time I punish them, They shall be cast down,” says the Lord.
In that same book, the Lord warned Jerusalem that her sins would lead to her desolation: “The whole land shall be desolate” (Jeremiah 4:27). Then, again in chapter 6:, we find the threat of coming desolation as a result of Jerusalem’s abominable actions: “Be instructed, O Jerusalem, Lest My soul depart from you; Lest I make you desolate, A land not inhabited.”
In chapter 22:4-6, after repeated warnings against her “abominations” YHVH uttered this threat:
For if you indeed do this thing, (repentance and obedience, DKP) then shall enter the gates of this house, riding on horses and in chariots, accompanied by servants and people, kings who sit on the throne of David. But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself,” says the Lord, “that this house shall become a desolation.” ’ For thus says the Lord to the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to Me, The head of Lebanon; Yet I surely will make you a wilderness, Cities which are not inhabited.
Very clearly, the abominations committed by Jerusalem would lead to her desolation. This conforms perfectly with the fact that the term “abomination of desolation” actually means the abomination that brings desolation.” (It is of more than passing interest that in Isaiah 24, a prophecy of the last days, the Lord said that Jerusalem would be desolate, turned over to foreigners).
Be sure to view my YouTube video where I discuss this relationship between the abomination (Israel’s sins) and the Great Tribulation.
Note that Daniel 9:24 foretold that seventy weeks were determined for Israel to “finish the transgression.” Commentators have historically recognized that this meant that Israel would fill the measure of her sin (her abominations) within the seventy weeks.
Jerome said,
There is no doubt but what it constitutes a prediction of Christ’s advent, for He appeared to the world at the end of the seventy weeks. After Him the crimes were consummated and sin reached its end and iniquity was destroyed.” (Jerome’s commentary, Commentary on Daniel, (Grand Rapids, Baker, 1958) 95).
Kenneth Gentry says that the term finish the transgression, “has to do with Israel’s finishing, i.e., completing her transgressions against God.” (Kenneth Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, (Tyler, Tx., Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), 315).
Many other scholars concur that to “finish the transgression” meant that Israel would fill the measure of her sin within the seventy weeks.
What is the result of Israel filling the measure of her sin- within the seventy weeks? It is the destruction of the city and sanctuary (Daniel 9:26), at the consummation of the seventieth week (v. 27). Thus, abomination, the filling up of the measure of sin, led to desolation.
The key point to be made here is that the abomination, the sin that brought the desolation was violation of Torah, the Law of Moses. One has but to read Deuteronomy 28-30, the Law of Blessings and Cursings, to know that Israel’s desolation, her destruction, would be the direct result of her violation of the Law of Moses. A powerful summary of the relationships between violation of the Law of Moses and “Desolation” can be found in Deuteronomy 28:45-
Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.
47 “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. 49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. 51 And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.
52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. 53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. 54 The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. 56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 57 her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, 59 then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses.
It is simply undeniable that Israel’s violation of Torah, the Law of Moses, would bring desolation upon them, covenant wrath. What is so absolutely amazing is that Sam Frost, former preterist, is on record as saying that AD 70 had nothing whatsoever with the application of covenant wrath! In October, 2018, on the Facebook page, Preterism Debate Open and Free, Frost vehemently denied that the Law of Moses was still in effect in AD 70, and affirmed that therefore, that holocaust had nothing to do with the application of the Law of Blessings and Cursings. That catastrophe was just another example of a nation falling, like other nations rise and fall. Nothing to see here!
But, notice that Deuteronomy (and be sure to read Leviticus 26) emphatically posited the coming of wrath on Israel due to covenant violation:
If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses.
Violation of Torah would bring covenant wrath.
As I point out in my book, Elijah Has Come: A Solution for Romans 11:25-27, the Lord foretold the coming of the messenger to prepare the way of the Lord, His coming in judgment (Malachi 3:1-6 / 4:4-6). That messenger was Elijah. John the Baptizer was that promised messenger (Mark 1:1-3) Jesus undeniably affirmed that John was the promised Elijah (Matthew 17:10-12). As the messenger / Elijah, John was to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord in covenant wrath against Israel for violating Torah (Malachi 3:5f).
The question is, therefore, since John was Elijah to prepare for the coming of the Lord in judgment of Israel for violating the Law of Moses then when did that coming of the Lord take place, after John, but, before the Cross where Sam Frost and so many commentators claim that the Law of Moses ended? When did the desolation – the punishment for abomination – come on Israel in fulfillment of John’s message? According to the view that the Law ended at the Cross, that judgment had to take place before the cross! After all, if a law or covenant is not valid and binding then its covenant sanctions cannot be applied, can they? If so, upon what basis?
It should be more than obvious that there was no coming of the Lord after John, but before the cross. In fact, Jesus was still anticipating the coming judgment on Israel for her sins– her sins against Torah – and in fact, some of the very sins listed in Malachi 3– for his generation.
In Matthew 23, Jesus uttered several “woes” against Jerusalem. He then said that because of those sins, and the sin of persecuting his apostles and prophets that, “your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:37). Thus, the pattern of covenant violation bringing covenant sanctions is clear and undeniable. Covenant wrath was coming on Israel in that generation, when they had filled the measure of their sin– as foretold by Daniel 9. Please note that Israel could not fill the measure of her sin unless Torah was still binding, since she had been in the process of filling that cup of sin from the time of their fathers (Matthew 23:29f). Furthermore, when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in 2:14-16, here cup was almost full and wrath was about to fall.
The application to the doctrine of the Great Tribulation should be apparent by now. Israel’s sins, her committing of abominations, would bring the Great Tribulation on her. Those sins against the Law would bring the desolation. But, this means that the Law of Moses was not “nailed to the cross.” It means that Israel continue to violate Torah after the cross, after Pentecost, and that continuing violation of Torah filled up the measure of her sin. When her cup was completely full (cf. Revelation 17:6f) judgment would – and did! fall.
What this means is that if there was no Law of Moses fully in effect from the cross onward, then there was no abomination that would bring desolation. And if there was no abomination– if there was no sin on the part of Israel to fill up the measure of her sin, then there was no cause for the Great Tribulation, because it was the Abomination (Israel’s sin) that would bring about that Tribulation.
However, since all futurist views of eschatology claim that the Law of Moses ended at the cross, this is an overt denial of the relationship between the abomination – Israel’s sin- and the Great Tribulation, i.e. covenant wrath on Israel for violation of Torah. You cannot have the Abomination and the Tribulation without Israel and without Torah! You cannot have the Abomination without Israel being guilty of that abomination (s). And therefore, you cannot have the Great Tribulation without Israel remaining as God’s covenant people– under Torah.
Thus, if there was (or is) no Torah, there was (and is) no Abomination. If there was (or is) no Abomination there was (nor is) no Tribulation. The connection between Torah, abomination and desolation is clear, explicit, undeniable and irrefutable.
Side Bar: It is now being argued by some, e.g. Greg Beale, that the Great Tribulation began in AD 70 and will continue until the end of time. (Greg Beale, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, Apollos, 2007), 88). Sam Frost, former preterist has adopted that few. Yet, Beale (and Frost, we presume) would deny that Israel remains under the covenant sanctions / punishments for her sins until the end of time! However, it is untenable to say that the Great Tribulation began in the first century and continues until the end of time, unless you are able to definitively prove that Israel’s sin had no relationship to or with the Abomination and the Tribulation.
Be sure to get a copy of my book: The Resurrection of Daniel 12:2: Fulfilled or Future? for a great discussion of the Great Tribulation, and its direct connection to the resurrection of the dead!