Ever heard of midrash? No, it’s not a middle slice of bacon. It’s a Hebrew word denoting a vital truth. For Midrash is the Hebrew understanding that Bible prophecies have more than one fulfilment. Thus, over time there will be several “foretastes” of that which is prophesied to come before the grand finale of its complete fulfilment.

This is so because our God is a merciful God, giving ample warning of judgement to come and urging repentance before finally unleashing the full fury of his wrath. Nevertheless, “all that God has said through the mouth of all his prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21) will come to pass in its fullness. The Lord has said so.

Consider one important example, the “Day of the Lord”. Amos 5:18-20 defines this awful event as “darkness and not light, even very dark and no brightness in it” and pronounces woe on them that seek it (i.e. by not returning to the Lord)”.

Then the Prophet Joel warns of the Day of the Lord being “nigh at hand” in his time and describes it as “a day of darkness and gloominess”. He warns of the coming of “a great people, and a strong” that none can escape and that leave behind them a desolate wilderness. The Lord will utter his voice before this, his army, for “the day of the Lord is great and very terrible and who can abide it” (Joel 2:1-11).

And as Israel continued to disregard and disobey the Lord God down through the pages of the Old Testament, the chosen people and the surrounding nations all suffered further instances of the Day of the Lord. Babylon was vanquished (Is, 13:6-9), along with Edom (Obad. 15) and Egypt (Jer. 46:10). Israel and Judah were also visited each with a crushing conquest that thousands of years ago was their “Day of the Lord”.    

Finally for the Jewish nation God’s patience and long suffering ran out. In AD 70 the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty, the Yahweh and Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Messiah Saviour-King of the New again unleashed the final Day of the Lord, this time to destroy Jerusalem and its temple, slay tens of thousands of Jews, sell even more into slavery and drive the rest from their land.

History and the Lord Jesus Himself record this as arguably the cruellest death tragedy in all human history:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be (Matt. 24:21)

In The Wars of the Jews, Book 6, the contemporary historian Josephus notes that as soon as the walls were breached on the 9^th of Ab in 70 A.D., a Roman military force of about 30,000 troops under the command of Titus marched into Jerusalem and began a systematic slaughter of the Jews and the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem—exactly as Jesus foretold 40 years earlier.

And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies then known that the desolation (destruction) is nigh. Then let those that are in Judea flee to the mountains … for these be the days of vengeance that all things which are written may be fulfilled … for there shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. And they shall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21:20-24).

In AD 70 the Romans brutally slaughtered an estimated 600,000 people in Jerusalem including many of the Passover visitors who had been trapped there for the 143 days during the Roman siege. Many survivors were shipped off to the gladiatorial games, Roman mines, and otherwise exiled from Judea and scattered throughout the Roman Empire and other nations. By the year 73 A.D., all traces of a self-ruling Jewish nation had completely disappeared.

The city and Temple were torched; their fires still burning a month later. Looting soldiers prised the temple’s stones apart to get at the melted gold that had poured into cracks and crevices. Thus they fulfilled the Lord’s prophecy that not one stone would be left upon another.

This much has been said to broach the important question of whether 70 AD was the “Second Coming” of Christ or is it still future. There is little doubt Paul expected the calamity – and the second coming – to occur in his lifetime. For example, he tells the Thessalonians who were already suffering persecution 50-51 AD:

And to you who are troubled rest (i.e. death, see Rev. 14:13) with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power when He shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe … in that day (2 Thess. 2: 7-10).

And, clearly, “that day” is the “day of the Lord”.

Yet, to this day in the year 2025 most Christians hold that the apostle’s teachings here apply to a yet future end-time scenario. Like them I for years believed the Second Coming with its fiery judgement would come only after the consummation of the “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:1-4) and the end of the subsequent long lasting “Day of Christ” (Phil. 1:6 and 10).

Thank God the age of grace still continues and the “Day of Christ”, an era of huge blessing and peace for mankind, is yet to come. Yet this paper poses the question: Are we in error in thinking the judgement of the Day of the Lord is yet future when in Bible fact took place nearly 2,000 years ago?

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Visit the website “Day of Christ Ministries” for further thought provoking study of the Bible.