We don't find first-century Jews all taking for granted that the kingdom of God was going to be a mountain that would fill the earth (as described in Daniel);
Or that even just the temple-mount would become the highest peak in the world;
Or that a physical river would flow from the door of the temple, at that altitude, right where everyone would have to be entering with their animals, and that the physical river would take healing to all the world (as described by Ezekiel).
First-century Jews didn't even all think that it would have to literally be David who would sit on his throne again (even though the Prophet had said so);
or that it would literally be Elijah who would return (as Malachi had said).
They were querying what it meant. Some may have thought along those lines - while some others of the Jews were adamantly opposed to the idea that it was all meant concretely and physically - and each were reading the same plain literal grammatical logical Old Testament Scriptures.
A temple had been built; a Levitical priesthood had been reinstated; and sacrifices had resumed, after the captivity. Zechariah himself was involved with that. His prophesying had spurred that along. So had Haggai's prophecies.
Yet after all that, there was a sense that there was meant to be more.
And that's where the gospel enters. With its explanation of what was meant by 'rivers' in Prophecy; and its claims about the full extent of what is meant by temple and city (in John's gospel, and Acts, and the Epistles, and Revelation - where there's no Levitical application applied to such themes and imagery anymore at all. Such themes and imagery were applied in a way that was now all Christ-centred and gospel-shaped.
Or that even just the temple-mount would become the highest peak in the world;
Or that a physical river would flow from the door of the temple, at that altitude, right where everyone would have to be entering with their animals, and that the physical river would take healing to all the world (as described by Ezekiel).
First-century Jews didn't even all think that it would have to literally be David who would sit on his throne again (even though the Prophet had said so);
or that it would literally be Elijah who would return (as Malachi had said).
They were querying what it meant. Some may have thought along those lines - while some others of the Jews were adamantly opposed to the idea that it was all meant concretely and physically - and each were reading the same plain literal grammatical logical Old Testament Scriptures.
A temple had been built; a Levitical priesthood had been reinstated; and sacrifices had resumed, after the captivity. Zechariah himself was involved with that. His prophesying had spurred that along. So had Haggai's prophecies.
Yet after all that, there was a sense that there was meant to be more.
And that's where the gospel enters. With its explanation of what was meant by 'rivers' in Prophecy; and its claims about the full extent of what is meant by temple and city (in John's gospel, and Acts, and the Epistles, and Revelation - where there's no Levitical application applied to such themes and imagery anymore at all. Such themes and imagery were applied in a way that was now all Christ-centred and gospel-shaped.
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