In the Tanakh, the Old Testament, in the prophetic books, the term Zion, i.e., Jerusalem becomes “short hand” for the end time salvation. This is especially true in the book of Isaiah. Every major constituent element of eschatology and soteriology (salvation) is posited in Zion, in those scriptures. (Be sure to go to www.fulfilledradio.com and search the archives for the programs that William Bell and I did on this subject. It is fascinating).
The point to be made is that the OT foretold the time, the last days, in which God’s plan of salvation would be realized in “Zion.” To be sure, the nature of the promises was radically different from the materialistic, nationalistic expectations of the ancient Jews– and, lamentably, many modern futurists– but the promises were to be fulfilled in the “heavenly city” that was promised to Abraham (Hebrews 11:13f). This is a critical point.
In 2025 I debated noted atheist scholar Richard Carrier. In his opening remarks he claimed – as I had anticipated that he would– that Jesus and the NT writers fully accepted the common Jewish expectation of the nationalistic restoration of Israel, a materialistic kingdom, a conquering Warrior to defeat the Romans in armed conflict. I resoundingly refuted that claim. Unfortunately, some former preterists are making the identical claim about what Jesus believed. This claim is demonstrably and patently false. When we examine the doctrine of Zion, we soon discover that neither Jesus or the NT writers had a materialistic, literalistic, nationalistic concept of the Redemption of Zion like their Jewish contemporary brethren.
Since this is a Short Shot I will keep my commentary to a minimum allowing the Scriptures to interpret themselves. What I will do is to list the constituent elements of eschatology and soteriology linked to Zion in the Tanakh. I will then close with a few NT texts that draw on those prophecies and comment on their fulfillment. While many OT verses could be adduced on each point I will only give one or two texts.
✱ One of the critical tenets concerning Zion is that the OT foretold a New Jerusalem (Isaiah 65:17-19).
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, And her people a joy. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, And joy in My people; The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, Nor the voice of crying.
✱ The "regathering" of "all Israel" -- Isaiah 27 / Isaiah 59 / 60-62 / Ezekiel 37.
✱ Remarriage of "all Israel" (Hosea / Isaiah 62).
Hosea 2:19–20 - “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; 20 I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the Lord.
Isaiah 62:1- 5f - For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, And her salvation as a lamp that burns... For as a young man marries a virgin, So shall your sons marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So shall your God rejoice over you.
Hosea 3:4-5– For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.
✱ Resurrection -- Isaiah 25:6-8:
And in this mountain (Zion, DKP) The Lord of hosts will make for all people A feast of choice pieces, A feast of wines on the lees, Of fat things full of marrow, Of well-refined wines on the lees. 7 And He will destroy on this mountain The surface of the covering cast over all people, And the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever, And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken.
✱ Resurrection through the Outpouring of the Spirit– Ezekiel 37:11-14
Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’ ”
✱ Kingdom -- Isaiah 2-4: Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the Lord’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
✱ Messianic Temple – See Isaiah 2-4 again
✱ Salvation -- Isaiah 46:13: I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, For Israel My glory.
✱ Salvation of the Gentiles (Isaiah 62).
For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, And her salvation as a lamp that burns. 2 The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, And all kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, Which the mouth of the Lord will name. 3 You shall also be a crown of glory In the hand of the Lord, And a royal diadem In the hand of your God. 4 You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, Nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate; But you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; For the Lord delights in you, And your land shall be married. 5 For as a young man marries a virgin, So shall your sons marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So shall your God rejoice over you.
✱ New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-33)
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
There are, doubtless, additional tenets that could be listed that are all inseparably tied to the Redemption of Zion. These will suffice to establish that “Zion” is, in Messianic prophecy, the “capital” of the Lord’s kingdom. (To return to an earlier point, however, contra the common Jewish expectation of the kingdom, along with the futurist view, the true nature of the Kingdom was not of an earthly, materialistic, nationalistic kingdom).
✱ Dwelling in the Presence (Greek, prosopon) of God:
“They go from strength to strength; each appears before God in Zion” (Psalms 84:7).
Ezekiel 37:26– Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
There are several things to be gleaned from these - and other -prophecies of the Redemption of Zion.
✔ Fulfillment was seen as far off from the OT prophet’s perspective– Hosea 3:4-5 / Daniel 12:9f
✔ They would be fulfilled in the last days - Isaiah 2:2f / Hosea 3:4-5.
✔ They would be fulfilled at “the appointed time” (Kairos– Isaiah 60:22 / Daniel 9:27; 12:3-13).
✔ When the “appointed time” arrived, fulfillment would occur quickly (Isaiah 60:22).
✔ They would be fulfilled at the Day of the Lord in judgment (Isaiah 2:9-11, 19-21; Isaiah 62:10ff).
And now, to make our point:
★ What the OT prophets were told was not for their day and time, the NT writers– and Jesus himself– said that the time foretold by the prophets had arrived in the first century (Matthew 13:17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; cf. Daniel 12:9—>Revelation 22:10).
★ The NT books inform us several times that the first century was the last days (Hebrews 1:1-2; 1 Peter 1:20). In fact, Peter emphatically declared that the first century was the time foretold by Joel, the prophecy of the last days: “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:15). He also said that what the OT prophets had foretold spoke of his “these days” (Acts 3:23-24).
★ The NT writers are equally clear that they were living in the “appointed time” and that the appointed time for “the judgment” of “the living and the dead” had arrived (1 Peter 4:5, 7, 17). The Father Himself revealed to the Son “the appointed time (kairos) has drawn near” (Revelation 1:1-3).
★ Not only did the NT writers affirm that they were living in “the end of the ages” (literally, the goal of the previous ages, 1 Corinthians 10:11) they said that the Lord’s coming was near, coming soon, shortly and without delay (James 5:6-9; 1 Peter 4:5-17; Hebrews 10:37; Revelation 22:10-12).
One has to either totally ignore these facts (in order to maintain a futurist eschatology) or they must, as some do unfortunately, twist and distort and pervert the very clearly statements found in the NT. Some have gone so far as to create a brand new, novel, unprecedented, hermeneutic about the NT time statements. They tell us that when the NT writers spoke of “mundane” non-prophetic, non-eschatological events, and said that they were at hand, coming soon and shortly, that those statements are to be taken as objective indications of temporal imminence, of the actual nearness of the events. However, they then brazenly claim that when the NT writers use the same identical Greek words to speak of eschatological events, that those words CANNOT, communicate actual, objective, temporal imminence. This is a classic case of Argumentum ad Absurdum and Argumentum Ad Desperatum!!
Consider briefly how the OT foretold the outpouring of the Spirit for the resurrection / restoration of all Israel (Joel 2:28f / Isaiah 32 / Ezekiel 37). Think then of how massively important it was when Jesus told his apostles in Acts 1 that they would receive the Spirit-- as promised-- in just a few days (Acts 1). And then, on Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out in fulfillment of Joel, according to Peter (Acts 2:15f). And we then find Paul saying in 2 Corinthians 5, in his inspired commentary on Ezekiel 37-- a prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit-- to raise Israel from the dead, that the Spirit had been poured out to guarantee the resurrection! These texts serve as an irrefutable declaration that the prophesied last days had arrived and fulfillment of Israel's hope was truly imminent!
Try and imagine yourself a good faithful reader and student of the Old Testament Scriptures. You faithfully go to the synagogue every Sabbath. You have heard sermon after sermon on the hope of the Redemption of Zion. You know how Zion encapsulated every tenet of your end time hopes and aspirations, in whatever form you envisioned it. And then, you encounter the story of Jesus of Nazareth who is being called the promised Messiah. You also attend an assembly of followers of this Jesus where an “epistle” called “To the Hebrews is being read. In that epistle, you hear the following in the closing section of the book:
For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
In this reading you learn that this Jesus of whom you have heard, is the promised mediator of the long anticipated New Covenant. The Old Covenant established at Sinai is being shaken so that the eternal, unshakable New Covenant Kingdom might remain. And you learn that the followers of Jesus have come to Mount Zion!!
There could hardly be a more emphatic, pregnant declaration! Every eschatological hope of Israel, from Kingdom, to resurrection, to redemption and reconciliation with God is included in that term. And the non-literal, non-material nature of that Kingdom and city is undeniable. The Christian saints were patently not gathered at a geographical venue of any kind. Nor were they, as several translations, geographically, physically gathered “in a festal assembly” at the foot of this Zion to which they have approached.
The writer is undeniably telling the first century Christian saints that they were on the very cusp of receiving all of their eschatological and soteriological hopes. No longer were they to set their affections on the things on the land (Colossians 3:1-3-- See my book, Minds Misplaced, which is an exegesis showing that Colossians 3 urged the saints not to place their focus on the promised land of Israel, as the Judaizers demanded), with its physical temple, Levitical priesthood, animal sacrifices. They were to set their affection on the things above, to which the typological new moons, feast days and Sabbaths were still pointing as shadows of the “good things about to come” (Colossians 2:16-17). Now, as they stood at “Mount Zion” they were to realize “we have here no abiding city (Greek meno, meaning permanent and abiding) but they were looking for one that is about to come” (13:12). The Old Covenant, earthly Zion was about to perish at the coming of the Lord “in a very, very little while” and without delay (10:37). The heavenly Zion was about to be revealed bringing to fulfillment their salvation hopes. And Revelation picks up on that theme with the promise of the imminent coming of the New Jerusalem.
Revelation is focused on the judgment and destruction of the Old Covenant Zion - now known as Babylon, Egypt and Sodom- that had become– just like her elder sister centuries earlier– a harlot, adulteress generation, doomed to receive her own harvest (Hosea 6:11) of Divorce, and Death before being Resurrected as the body of Christ. At her destruction, the long awaited Wedding took place (Revelation 19:6f). Salvation, the kingdom and resurrection came (Revelation 19:1-2; 11:15-19). When the Old Zion was destroyed, John said, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth... and I saw a New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband” (21:1-3).
The righteous remnant of all twelve tribes, mentioned in Revelation 7 and 14, along with all the nations of the earth, could now fully enter into the Most Holy Place of God’s presence because the Wrath of God was consummated in the judgment of the Harlot.
And make no mistake, the invitation to that wedding was an invitation of imminence and urgency. The Bridegroom was about to come: “Behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me” (22:12). Just as Jesus depicted in Matthew 22:1f, the invitation to the Wedding went out with the message: “All things are ready!” That was not an invitation to something that would not- has not- taken place for thousands of years!
This imminence cannot mitigated or discounted. Take note again that in Hosea 3:4-5 and Daniel 12:9, the fulfillment of those eschatological tenets was emphatically posited as far off. It was not near. But it was for an appointed time. Hosea wrote in the eighth century BC and Daniel wrote in the sixth century BC. Both of those writers, and there are similar OT eschatological texts, emphatically stated, as just noted, that fulfillment of their prophecies was far off. It was not near. It was not at hand. However, remember, we are told that when the appointed time of the end arrived, it would be fulfilled quickly. And when we come to the NT we find, to reiterate, Jesus and the NT writers stating that they were living in the very time foretold by the prophets and that the end was now near. The time had arrived: “You have come to Mount Zion!”
It is to be noted very briefly that in Hebrews 12:22 when it says “You have come” that this is expressed in the perfect indicative active, meaning, literally, has come and is present. And in other NT texts we are told that “the end of all things has drawn near” (1 Peter 4:7) “the appointed time (Kairos) has drawn near”; (Revelation 1:1) also being in the perfect tense. These statements stand in stark, irrefutable contrast to the untenable claim that eschatological time statements are not really time statements after all. What was once far off, what was once not near, had arrived 2000 years ago!
The followers of Christ are no longer simply standing at the foot of Mount Zion in a festal assembly awaiting the Wedding! The Wedding came when those who had been invited were slain, but then they were resurrected as the body of Christ. That New Bride, along with all nations have, can and do enter into the heavenly Jerusalem. It is the eternal home of the saints, the place where we worship, adore and serve Him age without end! What was ‘about to come” in Hebrews
The time for the Wedding at the soon coming, without delay, parousia of Christ had come. All the promises couched in the term “Zion” were coming to fruition. They have been fulfilled!
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