QUESTION: I am wondering if perhaps the moving of the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is part of the disgusting thing on holy ground?
In a word, No. Although it is the central feature of end-times theology for various evangelical sects and cults, the establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948 has nothing whatsoever to do with the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Neither is President Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as the new capital of Israel any sort of fulfillment.
Keep in mind, the evangelicals don’t have anything right. They don’t understand the simplest doctrinal truth. They don’t know the distinction between a father and a son, or what happens at death. They do not know Jehovah’s purpose, much less the deep things of prophecy. How could it be otherwise when the word of truth says Satan the Devil is misleading the entire inhabited earth?
Not surprisingly, Zionism is a creation and tool of the British Empire. After WWI the British awarded themselves oversight of Palestine by means of the Balfour declaration and Sykes-Picot treaty. Then, with the support of the Rothschild banking arm of the British Empire and City of London, Israel gained recognition as a state after WWII. Since then evangelical rapturists —otherwise known as Zionists —have peddled the fiction that Bible prophecy has been fulfilled with the Jews returning to their homeland. Ironically, at this point in time, Israel is serving the Empire by provoking war in the Middle East in an attempt to ignite a global conflagration as a way to prevent China from developing the One Belt-One Road initiative.
For the unfamiliar, C.T. Russel was taken in by British Zionism and the Watchtower used to teach that the Jews still had some special standing before God. But Rutherford saw through that error back in the 1920s —before the Jewish state was established in 1948.
The fact is, Jerusalem used to be Jehovah’s city. The various temples that existed on Mount Zion over the centuries were holy to Jehovah because that is where he had placed his name. The Christian Bible writer, Matthew, twice referred to Jerusalem as the “holy city.” But the only thing that made it holy was because God claimed it as his own. However, when Christ appeared he twice inspected the temple and toward the end of his ministry, he announced that Jehovah was abandoning the city for good. Jerusalem and the temple were going to be completely demolished and the kingdom was going to be given to a nation that would produce the fruitage God desired. The shift was going to be permanent. Israel and Judaism had served their purpose.
Jesus Christ, in fact, became the King of the new nation. And the people who produced the fruitage that God desired in the first century were anointed Christians who are part of the offspring of the woman, along with Christ. That is why Paul called the congregation of Christ the “Israel of God.” (Galatians 6:16) In his opening salutation, the writer of the letter of James even addresses Christians as “the twelve tribes that are scattered about.” He was not greeting circumcised Jews.
Since Jerusalem was once the center of the worship of Jehovah —every Hebrew male being required by law to appear there on a regular basis —the spiritual focal point of the “Israel of God” is a symbolic, heavenly Jerusalem. Again, that is why Paul wrote to Hebrew Christians who may still have had strong religious ties to the brick and mortar city, saying to them: “But you have approached a Mount Zion and a city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels in general assembly, and the congregation of the firstborn who have been enrolled in the heavens, and God the Judge of all, and the spiritual lives of righteous ones who have been made perfect, and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood, which speaks in a better way than Abel’s blood.” —Hebrews 12:22-24
The congregation of the firstborn are persons who have been anointed to become part of the new creation —Jesus being the mediator of the new covenant between Jehovah and the “Israel of God.”
Although the Zionist hucksters dismiss the truth about spiritual Israel —dismissing it as “replacement theology” —the Scriptures reveal that anointed Christians today are the people upon whom Jehovah has placed his name. That is why they, in response, have embraced the name of God. Concerning these, Revelation 14:1 states that the 144,000 chosen ones have the name of the Father written on their foreheads. They belong to Him —just as did Jerusalem and the Israelites up until Christ came. Those who reject God’s name could not possibly belong to him.
Although the Kingdom is heavenly, during the time individual members of Christ’s congregation are on earth in the flesh the “Jerusalem above” is represented by them on earth —especially during the conclusion. It is most definitely not the Jerusalem in the Middle East with its Dome of the Rock. It is the remaining members of Christ’s congregation of the firstborn that are holy to Jehovah; hence, the holy place.
It is Christ’s congregational holy place that is due to be trampled upon by a disgusting thing during the time of the end.