THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

88 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
words : "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude
came together." And the predicted "Voice from
the temple" was fulfilled when "Peter standing up with
the eleven lifted up his voice, and said unto them"
(v. 14) ;
and when, by the miracle of tongues, they all
spake in different languages, as the Spirit gave them
utterance, proclaiming the wondrous truth of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead.* Then it was
that a nation was "born at once."
Moreover, there is a striking significance in the
words, "Before she travailed she brought forth"; for
the earthly Zion's real "travail" did not come upon her
until about forty years later ; God in His mercy, and in
answer to our Lord's prayer on the cross for His murderers,
having granted a reprieve for that space of
time. Those distresses, which our Lord Himself foretold
that "great tribulation, such as was not since the
beginning of the world" (Mat. 24:21) were termed
by Him, "the beginning of sorrows," literally birth
pangs (Mat. 24:8). Hence this prophecy of our Lord
strikingly confirmed and also helps interpret that of
His servant, Isaiah.
The "Jerusalem" with which the prophet in this
passage bids us "rejoice" (v. 10), and concerning which
God says, "Behold, I will extend peace to her like a
river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing
stream" (v. 12), is the heavenly Jerusalem. This appears
from various indications in the context, particularly
from the fact that the passage is a prophecy of
the "new heavens and new earth" (65:17) ; in which
In Chap. XII of this volume it is shown that all this occurred
in the Temple at Jerusalem (see Lu. 24:53; Acts 2:1, 46; 3:11;
5:20, etc.).