The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 56

God’s Authority on Earth!

It really is simple.

Christ obeyed the Ten Commandments.

Satan broke them.

Which one should you follow?

Sin is breaking the Ten Commandments, God’s Law.

1Jn 3 World English Bible
4) Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.
5) You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and in him is no sin.

8) He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil.

In Christ is no sin. He who sins is of the devil. Pretty simple.

The old King James translation clearly states verse 4 as “sin is the transgression of the law.” A number of other passages also show that sin is breaking God’s Commandments.

The Greek word translated “lawlessness” IN 1 John 3:4 is anomia. “Nomia” is law and the prefix “a” means “not,” so anomia means not-law, as anemia means not-blood. Anomia is breaking God’s Commandments.

Many Bible translations, especially older translations, do not consistently translate anomia as lawbreaking or lawlessness. Instead they substitute some less specific word like ‘iniquity’ or ‘evil.’ For example, the World English Bible, a generally accurate translation, renders anomia as iniquity (immoral or wicked) in the following passage.

Matt 7
19) Every tree that doesn’t grow good fruit is cut down, and thrown into the fire.
20) Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.
21) Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22) Many will tell me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?’
23) Then I will tell them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity [anomia].’

The KJV also uses iniquity there. The Contemporary English Version and the International Standard Version use “evil.” The Good News Bible just says “you wicked people!”

Such translations do not show specifically what iniquity and evil is — breaking God’s Law. And the word there is anomia – lawlessness!

A number of translations do consistently translate anomia in Matthew 7:23 as lawlessness, or breaking the Law.

Matt 7:23 New English Translation
23) Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’

Matt 7:23 English Standard Version
23) And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Mat 7:23 Modern King James
23) And then I will say to them I never knew you! Depart from Me, those working lawlessness!

Yeshua clearly stated, “Depart from me, you who work lawlessness!” — anomia, the same word used to define sin. Translating anomia accurately throughout the New Testament immediately shows the problem with people — breaking God’s Law.

Law-breakers will be thrown into the fiery furnace.

Matt 13 English Standard Version
41) The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,
42) and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Pharisees, who saw themselves as the ultimate law-keepers, were actually full of lawlessness.

Matt 23 ESV
27) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
28) So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

At the end time, lawlessness — sin! — will increase.

Matt 24 ESV
9) “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.
10) And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.

11) And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
12) And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
13) ​But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Christians can be freed from being slaves to lawlessness.

Rom 6 ESV
17) But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18) and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
19) I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

That was Paul, who was supposed to have done away with the law, writing about lawlessness.

A difference between a believer in Christ and an unbeliever is that the believer seeks to obey the Commandments and the unbeliever doesn’t. One is in the light of Christ and the other is in the darkness of Satan. Therefore a law-keeper must not marry a law-breaker.

2Cor 6 ESV
14) Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

The New American Standard Bible is even more consistent than the ESV in translating anomia as lawlessness.  Hebrews 1:9, NASB, says that Christ hated lawlessness.

Heb 1 NASB
8) But of the Son He says, “your throne, o God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom.
9) “you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.”

Christ himself was without sin – no amonia.

1Pet 2WEB
21) For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps,
22) who did not sin, “neither was deceit found in his mouth.”

On the other hand —

Satan is the very spirit of disobedience, the leader in transgressions and sins.

Eph 2
1) You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins,
2) in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;

Satan is a murderer — breaking the sixth commandment — and a liar — ninth commandment.

John 8
44) You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father.

So, after all that, Yeshua did not sin. Satan does. Which one should we follow?

Easy answer.

Christ.

Yet almost all the world follows the law-breaker instead of the law-keeper!

Even most who consider themselves Christian do not believe in obeying the Ten Commandments, as they were written with God’s finger and spoken with God’s mouth.

Amazing! How can this be?

Rev 12
9) The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Satan is the deceiver of the whole earth. That’s why most of the earth follows his example instead of following Christ’s.

But Satan doesn’t get all these people to follow him by yelling, “I’m Satan! Follow me!” That’s not deception. Deception is getting you to follow Satan — without you knowing it.

The world at large doesn’t even believe in Satan. So when they follow him, breaking God’s Commandments, they think they’re just finding ‘self fulfillment.’

But Christians do believe in Satan. They do believe he is the adversary, going around as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Yet they usually still wind up following Satan’s example of breaking the Ten Commandments instead of following Christ’s example of obeying them.

How does that happen in the Christian religion?

It happens when people put someone between them and God — a religious authority.

The religious authority says that he or she or it is following God. And when people follow that religious authority, they think they’re following God.

Especially when that religious authority says stoutly and immodestly that people should follow him, her or it, possibly citing this verse.

1Cor 11 KJV
1) Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

Paul already scolded the Corinthians in the first chapter of that first letter to them about following men, so Paul could not mean that people should follow him. Almost all other translations present the verse not as following Paul but as imitators of Paul.

1Cor 11:1 World English Bible
1) Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.

1Cor 11:1 International Standard Version
1) Imitate me, as I do the Messiah.

Paul was saying to do the same things he was doing, not to follow him personally instead of following Christ directly.

Yet this is the deception that repeats itself. A religious authority, either a person or a church, appears to be righteous and doing good. At some point that authority then shifts the emphasis from following Christ directly to following the religious authority as it follows Christ. That emphasis is then shifted further to say that if people do not follow the religious authority, then they are not following Christ at all. And by that point, the religious authority, instead of following Christ – is actually following itself!

With that control, with centralized religious power, the religious authority then leads people into lawlessness, anomia, as they follow him, her or it instead of God.

Presto!

Satan wins.

Jeroboam did that.

We discussed Jeroboam changing the feast a couple of chapters ago, but Jeroboam didn’t really seem like a jerk.

1Kgs 11
28) The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor; and Solomon saw the young man that he was industrious, and he put him in charge of all the labor of the house of Joseph.

37) I will take you, and you shall reign according to all that your soul desires, and shall be king over Israel.
38) It shall be, if you will listen to all that I command you, and will walk in my ways, and do that which is right in my eyes, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with you, and will build you a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you.
39) I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not forever.’”
40) Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam; but Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

So Jeroboam certainly didn’t seem like a jerk. His kingdom could have been as David’s, except over ten tribes instead of just one. But Jeroboam put himself between the people and God. As king, he set himself up as the religious authority.

1Kgs 12
26) Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to the house of David.
27) If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”
28) Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and see your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
29) He set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
30) This thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one, even to Dan.
31) He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.
32) Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; he did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.
33) After this thing Jeroboam didn’t return from his evil way, but again made priests of the high places from among all the people. Whoever wanted to, he consecrated him, that there might be priests of the high places.
34) This thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the surface of the earth.

Yahweh Himself had set Jeroboam up, and promised him a kingdom like David’s. Wasn’t Jeroboam Yahweh’s representative on earth?

So Jeroboam, the religious authority, changed God’s feast, he created worship services with idols, and he consecrated the priests of the high places. He consecrated them. Jeroboam was like the high priest of high places, the authority between the people and God. And the people must have believed that.

Then Jeroboam, even though he didn’t speak Greek, led the people into anomia.

This pattern has repeated over and over throughout the last two thousand years, sometimes by kings, sometimes by religious rulers, sometimes by institutions. People always want a religious authority to look to, a king, a religious leader, a church, etc. So people — not God — set up what is for them a supreme religious authority. Then at some point – not always immediately but always — that authority leads the people into anomia.

When people centralize power in fallible humans, instead of looking directly to the infallible, sinless Son of God, anomia always appears. Kings, popes, chief apostles, archbishops and beatific bigwigs always — at some point — imitate Jeroboam.

This pattern of history culminates at the very end of this age with the ultimate in a human religious authority.

2Thess 2
1) Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Yeshua Christ, and our gathering together to him, we ask you
2) not to be quickly shaken in your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as from us, saying that the day of Christ had come.
3) Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction,
4) he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.
5) Don’t you remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things?
6) Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season.
7) For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way.
8) Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming;

That ultimate human religious authority will lead the world into anomia, and he himself is called “the lawless one:”

The ANOMOS!

Yeshua obeyed the Ten Commandments. Satan broke them. Which one should you follow?

Yeshua.

And only by following Him directly will you avoid Satan’s deception of anomia.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 55

Getting Rid of the Rabbis

“Rabbi?”

In a Messianic meeting, I once heard a lady ask the “rabbi” a religious question. He said he didn’t know the answer, but he would look it up later. Then I wondered —

Why couldn’t she look up the answer herself?

I guess the answer to that is — Because he was the “rabbi.”

Rabbi!

A prestigious position, an exalted title, a religious ruler. Even Christians who should know better sometimes like to follow “rabbis.”

Or should I say “rabbanim?”

“Rabbi” article on Wikipedia, 1/24/19
While speaking about a superior, in the third person one could say ha-rav (“the Master”) or rabbo (“his Master”). Later, the term evolved into a formal title for members of the Patriarchate. Thus, the title gained an irregular plural form:  rabbanim (“rabbis”), and not rabbay (“my Masters”).

Well, it’s all Balonay…

When the real Rabbi showed up on earth, the rabbis and chief priests joined Rome to get rid of Him. Then they thought their problems with Him were over.

Nope. Not over.

After Peter told a lame man to walk —

Acts 4
1) As they [Peter and John] spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them,
2) being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Yeshua the resurrection from the dead.
3) They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening.
4) But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

15) But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,
16) saying, “What shall we do to these men? Because indeed a notable miracle has been done through them, as can be plainly seen by all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we can’t deny it.
17) But so that this spreads no further among the people, let’s threaten them, that from now on they don’t speak to anyone in this name.”
18) They called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Yeshua.
19) But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge for yourselves,
20) for we can’t help telling the things which we saw and heard.”

That’s what people do with rabbis. They listen to them, rather than to God. Peter and John wouldn’t do that.

So the rabbis continued their battle against Yeshua by attacking His flock. But that flock did spread farther among the people, as the rabbis feared. The flock grew.

But what happened to the rabbis?

The religious rulers — and Christ’s biggest adversaries — were the priests, scribes and Pharisees.

Matt 27
41) Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said,
42 )“He saved others, but he can’t save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him.
43) He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he wants him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Priests —

The priesthood was begun by God with the first high priest Aaron. In Christ’s time, John’s father Zechariah was a Godly priest but the chief priests — the high priest and those close to him and the priestly party of Sadducees  — were corrupt.

Scribes —

Scribes were copiers and students of the Hebrew scriptures. Ezra was a priest from the line of Aaron, and he was said to be a scribe in the law of Moses.

Ezra 7
6) this Ezra went up from Babylon: and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which Yahweh, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of Yahweh his God on him.

10) For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of Yahweh, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances.

The Hebrew word for scribe means to mark, and the scribes did a meticulous job of copying and protecting the Hebrew scriptures. Ezra humbled himself to obey that law. Later scribes did not but, with their knowledge and position, exalted themselves.

Pharisees —

The Pharisees were separated by their ‘purity,’ and they created an almost endless stream of religious rules, to separate themselves. “A member of the society of Pharisees was called chaber; those not members were called “the people of the land”; compare Joh 7:49, “this people who knoweth not the law are cursed”; also the Pharisee standing and praying with himself, self righteous and despising the publican (Luk 18:9-14),” Fausset’s Bible Dictionary, “Pharisees.”

The law that the Pharisees prided themselves on knowing was the “oral law,” which was written down in the Talmud and Mishna.

“The Mishna lays down the fundamental principle of the Pharisees. “Moses received the oral law from Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and these to the prophets, and these to the men of the great synagogue,”” Fausset’s Bible Dictionary.

Yahweh gave the written Law through Moses. The “oral law” was added to the written law, in direct violation of the written Law, which said not to add to or take away from it. Christ upheld the Father’s Law and rejected the Pharisees’ laws and traditions.

The chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, the religious rulers of the Jewish people — the rabbis — led their nation in rejecting the King of the Jews. But right before his execution, Yeshua had given this warning.

Luke 23
26) When they led him away, they grabbed one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it after Yeshua.
27) A great multitude of the people followed him, including women who also mourned and lamented him.
28) But Yeshua, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
29) For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’
30) Then they will begin to tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell the hills, ‘Cover us.’

Forty is the number of trial in the Bible. Forty years passed from that time until 70 AD, when the daughters of Jerusalem did weep. Jerusalem fell, the Temple burned, and a million or so Jews were slaughtered by their chosen king, Caesar of Rome.

John 19
15) They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”

At Yeshua’s death in 30 AD, the earth turned dark and trembled.

Matt 2
45) Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
46) About the ninth hour Yeshua cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
47) Some of them who stood there, when they heard it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.”
48) Immediately one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him a drink.
49) The rest said, “Let him be. Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”
50) Yeshua cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.
51) Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.
52) The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;
53) and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.
54) Now the centurion, and those who were with him watching Yeshua, when they saw the earthquake, and the things that were done, feared exceedingly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God.”

The blackout lasted three hours, the earth quaked hard enough to split rocks, and the veil in the Temple was torn in two.

In today’s English, veil often means a covering over a woman’s face, so thin she can see through it. The Temple veil was not like that! That veil — the curtain between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies — was about sixty feet high and thirty feet wide. Jewish commentary said it was as thick as a man’s hand span.

Only God could rip that curtain.

The high priest alone went behind that curtain into the Holy of Holies, only once a year on Atonement. When God ripped the veil, the Holy of Holies was opened. The high priest had lost his job. Those priests still served for another forty years but ultimately Caiaphas and his kind were replaced by Christ.

Look at all the things that happened forty years before the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.

Besides the darkening, the earthquake, and the torn curtain, jewishroots.net quotes the Talmud about another miraculous event of that time.

“Interestingly, one of the signs that Israel was to be forgiven, when represented by her High Priest on the Day of Atonement was that they would tie a scarlet thread where it could be observed, at the start of the holiday and by the end of the day the scarlet thread would change in color from scarlet to white, showing all Israel her sins had been forgiven.

For forty years before the destruction of the temple the thread of scarlet never turned white but it remained red.” Talmud- Mas. Rosh HaShana 31b http://jewishroots.net/library/miscellaneous/high_priest_corruption.html

That red thread was not a good sign.

Alfred Edersheim in his well known book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, chapter XV, wrote of four independent testimonies of miraculous events at that time, forty years before the Temple fell in 70 AD.

“…[New Testament account] records the rending of the Temple-Veil in two from the top downward to the bottom; as the second, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves. . . while the rending of the Veil is recorded first, as being the most significant token to Israel, it may have been connected with the earthquake, although this alone might scarcely account for the tearing of so heavy a Veil from the top to the bottom. Even the latter circumstance has its significance. That some great catastrophe, betokening the impending destruction of the Temple, had occurred in the Sanctuary about this very time, is confirmed by not less than four mutually independent testimonies: those of Tacitus, of Josephus, of the Talmud, and of earliest Christian tradition. The most important of these are, of course, the Talmud and Josephus. The latter speaks of the mysterious extinction of the middle and chief light in the Golden Candlestick, forty years before the destruction of the Temple; and both he and the Talmud refer to a supernatural opening by themselves of the great Temple-gates that had been previously closed, which was regarded as a portent of the coming destruction of the Temple.”

The Jewish Talmud, Yoma 39b, describes the Temple gates opening by themselves this way.

“Forty years before the Temple was destroyed . . . the gates of the Hekel [Holy Place] opened by themselves, until Rabbi Yohanan B. Zakkai rebuked them [the gates] saying, Hekel, Hekel, why alarmist thou us? We know that thou art destined to be destroyed . . .”

Josephus, who wrote of the candlestick in the Menorah going out and of the large Temple gates opening by themselves, was a Jewish historian who lived through the fall of Jerusalem. He described the gate opening in his book Wars of the Jews.

”Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner, [court of the temple] which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now, those that kept watch in the temple came thereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared, that this signal foreshewed the desolation that was coming upon them” (IV,5,3).

Jerome, c. 347-420, is best known for the Vulgate, a Latin translation of the Bible. In a letter to Hedibia, Jerome wrote that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew said that a huge lintel in the Temple fell (Littell’s Living Age, 1857.) Edersheim, in his book cited above, wrote “it would seem an obvious inference to connect again this breaking of the lintel with an earthquake.” A lintel is a horizontal structural support that spans an opening. When the stone lintel fell — thirty feet long and weighing thirty tons — that was a big event. Not just because of the noise, but because it may have bounced the rabbis out of the Temple.

“Forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the Sanhedrin was banished (from their meeting place in the Chamber of Hewn Stones) and sat in the trading-station (on the Temple Mount but not in the Temple),“ (Talmud, Shabbat 15a).

Ernest Martin, now deceased, is well known for a theory that the second Temple was not on the Temple Mount but was in the City of David. Excavations in the City of David since Martin’s death have shown that to be apparently impossible. However, in an earlier book Secrets of Golgotha, Martin insightfully speculated on why the Jewish rabbis left the Chamber of Hewn Stones in the Temple.

“If an earthquake of the magnitude capable of breaking the stone lintel at the top of the entrance to the Holy Place was occurring at the exact time of Christ’s death, then what would such an earthquake have done to the Chamber of Hewn Stones (a vaulted and columned structure) no more than 40 yards away from where the stone lintel fell and the curtain torn in two?

There is every reason to believe, though the evidence is circumstantial, that the Chamber of Hewn Stones was so damaged in the same earthquake that it became structurally unsafe from that time forward. Something like this had to have happened because the Sanhedrin would not have left this majestic chamber (to take up residence in the insignificant ‘Trading Place’) unless something approaching this explanation took place.”

The Sanhedrin had to move out of their meeting room in the Temple, and Jerome said that the nearby lintel was broken. No record exists of the Romans forcing the Sanhedrin out, which would have caused a rebellion among the Jews. The rabbis and priests certainly would not have voluntarily moved out of the Temple. To go from the Chamber of Hewn Stones in the magnificent Temple to the “Trading Place” where ordinary commerce was done was like moving from Westminster Abbey to a flea market. So it seems likely that the lintel broke because of the earthquake at Christ’s death; and because the lintel broke, the Sanhedrin had to move out of the Temple.

Martin reaches this conclusion about the earthquake and broken lintel expelling the Sanhedrin: “If this is actually what happened (and I have no doubt that it did), we then have a most remarkable witness that God the Father engineered every action happening on the day of Christ’s trial and crucifixion. It means that the judgment made by the official Sanhedrin against Jesus within the Chamber of Hewn Stones, was THE LAST JUDGMENT ever given by the official Sanhedrin in their majestic chambers within the Temple! It would show that God the Father demonstrated by the earthquake at Christ’s death that the sentence of the Sanhedrin against Jesus would be the last judgment it would ever make in that authorized place!”

What does all this show about the Jewish religious rulers?

God was done with them dudes.

God did not continue the human priesthood.

Heb 7
23) Many, indeed, have been made priests, because they are hindered from continuing by death.
24) But he, because he lives forever, has his priesthood unchangeable.
25) Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make intercession for them.
26) For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
27) who doesn’t need, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For he did this once for all, when he offered up himself.
28) For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.

The priesthood continues, not in flawed humans, but in the Messiah.

Further, as discussed in Chapter 37 of this work, “Ruin, Ruin, Ruin,” God did not continue the human kingship, either.

Eze 21 English Standard Version
(25) And you, O profane wicked one, prince of Israel, whose day has come, the time of your final punishment,
(26) thus says the Lord GOD: Remove the turban and take off the crown. Things shall not remain as they are. Exalt that which is low, and bring low that which is exalted.
(27) A ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it. This also shall not be, until he comes, the one to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him.

Acts 15
13) After they were silent, James answered, “Brothers, listen to me.
14) Simeon has reported how God first visited the nations, to take out of them a people for his name.
15) This agrees with the words of the prophets. As it is written,
16) ‘After these things I will return. I will again build the tabernacle of David, which has fallen. I will again build its ruins. I will set it up,
17) That the rest of men may seek after the Lord; All the Gentiles who are called by my name, Says the Lord, who does all these things.

The throne of David fell to ruin and continues only in the Messiah. It will not be until He comes, and the Father will give it to Him then.

Now, if God did not continue the human priesthood, and if He did not continue the human kingship, would He continue the institution of the rabbis? Did Yahweh continue using the Pharisees as religious rulers?

No way.

God set up the priesthood, beginning with Aaron. He did not want His people ruled by kings, but when the people demanded a king, He accepted their kings, for a while. But the rabbis, scribes and Pharisees? There are no Bible commands setting up the rabbis. They set themselves up.

The human priesthood is gone. The human kings are gone. And the human rabbis are —

Gone.

After having Yeshua killed, the rabbis continued their battle against Him by attacking His flock. That flock grew. So what happened to the rabbis?

When the Son of God died, the earth quaked, the veil in the Temple ripped, and the rabbis had to move out to the flea market. Forty years later, the women of Jerusalem wept, and the most blessed of them were those who never bore children, as the city fell, the Temple burned and the Jews perished.

The rabbis and Pharisees were kicked out as religious rulers. God forever uses His Son as High Priest, coming King, and righteous Rabbi.