Israel and Messianic Prophecy

According to the context of the Messianic prophecies in the Bible, the Messiah was to come at a time when the prophecies about Israel being regathered from captivity to their land and to God, bringing sacrifices to the altar in a rebuilt Temple on Mt Zion, in a rebuilt city with rebuilt walls, with a Levitical priesthood functioning under the Old Covenant, and people out of many nations joining  them annually for the Feasts, had come to pass and were still a reality in Israel.

The Messiah indeed came at a time when all the details of those prophecies about Israel had come to pass and were still a reality in Israel, just as required by the prophecies.

Soon afterwards, with the destruction of the Temple (in AD70) and the end of the Old Covenant and its practices, those things forever ceased to be a reality in Israel.

So the Messiah had to have come before then, or else the Messianic prophecies forever lost their opportunity to be fulfilled.  He did come before then, and His Name is Jesus of Nazareth.

But if we instead make those prophecies about Israel and the nations about the future instead of seeing them as already fulfilled while the Old Covenant was still in force, then we in effect advocate a return in Israel to Old Covenant shadows and practices - and at the same time we do away with the proof-texts which establish our case that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Messiah.