The Judgment of the Living and the Dead
Opponents of Covenant Eschatology commonly claim that the AD 70 judgment was simply the destruction of a troublesome outpost of a city in the Roman Empire. They claim that it most assuredly had no “spiritual significance.” They claim, as Dr. David Hester did in our formal public debate, July 14-15, 2016, that the judgment of Jerusalem did not involve the judgment of former generations of people. It did not involve the judgment of the living and the dead. Evidently, Dr. Hester has never read or carefully examined Matthew 23:29-37:
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
How extensive was the judgment of Jerusalem? It was a judgment of the living, i.e. “this generation”, and it was the judgment of former generations, i.e. “all the blood, of all the righteous, from righteous Abel” onward! Does that sound like a “minor,” “insignificant”, or strictly “local judgment”? This is clearly the judgment of the living and the dead – in AD 70, at the end of the Old Covenant age!
I have produced a YouTube video explaining– briefly– even more of why Dr. Hester is so egregiously wrong to deny that the judgment of the living and the dead occurred in AD 70. Be sure to check it out!