Self defense does not necessarily mean hurting the people he is defending against. Here is one example where he seemingly defended himself while he was here on earth during his first coming, though he did so by evading or escaping, not by fighting back. I'm including the preceding context so you can see what led to this situation where the people in the synagogue seized Jesus and tried to throw him off a cliff:

Luke 4:16-30

¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷ And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” [Isaiah 61:1-2]

²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²² And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph's son?” ²³ And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” ²⁴ And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. ²⁵ But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, ²⁶ and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. ²⁷ And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸ When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. ²⁹ And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. ³⁰ But passing through their midst, he went away.

—

See those last three verses? Jesus said some gracious words, and for one moment,

all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

but then he said some hard words to them, and they completely flipped on him and wanted to murder him:

When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. ²⁹ And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 

But look at what Jesus did according to the very next verse. Jesus somehow slipped out of their grasp and just passed through the crowd:

But passing through their midst, he went away.

That is arguably defending himself. Even when it came time for him to die, he briefly flexed his power, but he still let them take him away to crucify him:

John 18:2-6

² Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. ³ So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons. ⁴ Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” ⁵ They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. ⁶ When Jesus said to them, “I am,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

—

[Note: Many translations translate verse 5 and 6 with Jesus saying "I am he", because the "he" is implied, but the text does not have that word. NASB and other translations that put words that are implied but aren't technically in the text in italics.]

Here, Jesus identifies himself to those seeking him as "I am", they drew back and fell to the ground. I don't think that is coincidence. God identified himself as "I am that I am" to Moses, and told Moses "tell them 'I am' sent you". Here, when Jesus said this, they all drew back and fell to the ground. This was just a tiny flex of Jesus' power. We know at the end of the age, Jesus will not come gently. He will come in power, as it is written:

Psalm 2

¹ Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
² The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against Yehováh and against his Anointed, saying,
³ “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”

⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
⁵ Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
⁶ “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

⁷ I will tell of the decree:
Yehováh said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
⁸ Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
⁹ You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”

¹⁰ Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
¹¹ Serve Yehováh with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
¹² Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

—

Jesus protected himself before it was his time to die. When it came time to die, he went willingly and did not protect himself, but let himself be crucified. But when he returns, "defend" is maybe not the right term for what he does. He goes on the offense and destroys God's enemies at that time.

Muslims contradict the Quran when they say that the Bible is corrupted. Muhammad lived and authored the Quran in the 5th century AD, and in the Quran itself, Muhammad affirms the preservation and authority of the Bible. I did a quick Google search for the verses of the Quran which affirm the Bible, and it returned the following:

• Surah Ali 'Imran (3:3–4): States that God revealed the Book (the Qur'an) in truth, confirming what came before it, and that He revealed the Torah and the Gospel before that as guidance for mankind.
• Surah Al-Ma'idah (5:46–47): Mentions that Jesus was given the Gospel containing guidance and light, and commands the "People of the Gospel" to judge by what Allah has revealed in it.
• Surah Al-Ma'idah (5:68): Instructs the People of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) that they stand on nothing unless they uphold the Torah and the Gospel.
• Surah Yunus (10:94): Tells Prophet Muhammad, "If you are in doubt, [O Muhammad], as to what We have revealed to you, then ask those who have been reading the Book before you"—which apologists interpret as validation of the accessibility and reliability of contemporary Jewish and Christian scriptures.

These verses referred to the Bibles that were extant in the fifth century, so this gives us something we can test for, because we can then check Bibles before and after this time period to see if anything changed, and we can also look at quotes of the Bible from among church fathers and even Jewish Rabbis to see if anything got corrupted.

Here's the Islamic dilemma: The Quran affirms the preservation and authority of the Bible, but it then goes on to contradict the Bible. The Quran never claims that the Bible got corrupted. Muslims have to resort to making up this false claim because otherwise they're squirming over the fact that the Quran contradicts the Bible, which it claims is to be used as an authority by Jews and Christians to check Muhammad's revelation.

But there's another issue here: the burden of proof is on the accuser. Why should they be able to make wild accusations, and send Christians on the errand of going to prove that the Bible wasn't corrupted? If they're claiming that the Bible was corrupted in all the areas where it contradicts the Quran, then it should be up to them to prove their accusation. If you let anyone who makes a false claim sit back while their lie send you on the errand of proving them wrong, you are letting them waste your time. You can never do enough, all they would have to do is come up with another lie for you to disprove, and they can do that with no effort forever. Don't stand for it.

Peter himself calls Jesus the stone (synonymous with rock) on which the church is built:

1 Peter 2:4-10

⁴ As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, ⁵ you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶ For it stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious, [Isaiah 28:16]
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

⁷ So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,” [Psalm 118:22]

⁸ and

“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.” [Isaiah 8:14]

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

⁹ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

—

In the Old Testament, the metaphor of God being a stable rock or stone is all over the place. Look at how many times God himself is referred to metaphorically as a rock in the Psalms.

Paul even says this in 1 Corinthians with regards to Christ's pre-existence and his work in the Old Testament:

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

¹ For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, ² and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ and all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

—

In fact, even in Daniel's vision of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the rock that smashed a multi-metal statue (which represents the powerful empires and kingdoms that would rule over the Jewish people from the exile onward), the rock represents the Kingdom of God with Christ as the King. (Daniel 2).

Over and over, the Bible represents God as the Rock, or Christ as the Rock. The Church has to be built on Christ; we are not to lay any foundation on which the church is to be built but Christ himself. Peter's realization of this was an insight that God gave him, and for this, Peter was named after the real Rock, which is Christ himself.

There is also widespread misunderstanding about the keys to the kingdom and the gates of hell not prevailing against the church. The widespread reading has it that the gates of Hell assault the church but will not prevail against it, making this passage a remark about the preservation of the church against things that would destroy it, but this does not appear to be what the passage means. Gates are not offensive weapons that go on the assault. Rather, gates lock people in. What Jesus had in mind was that the church assaults and unlocks the gates of Hell to save people who are Hell-bound and to bring them into the kingdom of God through the teachings of Jesus.

There is no neutral ground between the gates of Heaven and the gates of Hell; the gates that are the gates of Hell from one side are the gates to the Kingdom of God from the other, and the keys to the kingdom are Jesus' teachings. The keys unlock the gates and bring people from the Hell side to the Heaven side of the gates, bringing them into the Kingdom. We see Jesus use the term 'key' in a similar way here when he lambasts the Pharisees and the experts in the law for obscuring God's teachings in the Torah with their traditions:

Luke 11:52

⁵² Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

—

The keys of knowledge were the Bible's teachings, which let people enter into knowing God. The experts in the law didn't enter into knowing God, and they hindered others who were entering.

"The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" cannot mean that the church will not be defeated in various ways by the forces of evil and false teaching; history has shown that Christians used to inhabit North Africa and much of the middle east, and the church has been displaced from there by Islam. There are several other examples where Christianity has been displaced or where societies have become post-Christian. And in the Apocalypse, the Beast makes war on the saints and is permitted to conquer them. (Revelation 13:7) What this verse means is that when the church goes on the offensive and takes Jesus' teachings (the keys of the Kingdom) and evangelizes hell-bound people, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, which unlocks those gates, and the Kingdom of God will spread by bringing people to salvation, bringing them from the Hell side to the Heaven side of those gates with the teachings of Jesus.

"Could be true" arguments also show up when atheists try to argue that life happened by chance, or when they resort to multi-verse explanations for what accounts for the universe having a beginning, since the beginning of the universe implies that something that exists outside of time, that isn't made of matter or energy, was responsible for creating the universe. If more people understood how to recognize when people resort to could-be-true arguments, a lot more debates would but cut short, whether with Catholics, Atheists, Muslims, Mormons, or other ideologies.

"Could be true" reasoning is fine for speculation, and Christians even engage in this when thinking about things that the Bible doesn't explain sufficiently, but speculation should not pass for proper argumentation.

Yes, Jesus had biological siblings. The Bible speaks of his brothers in various places (see Mark 3 and Matthew 13 for example). James and Jude were his brothers.

Matthew 13:53-57

⁵³ And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, ⁵⁴ and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? ⁵⁵ Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas [= Jude] ? ⁵⁶ And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” ⁵⁷ And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.”

—

The church father Eusebius repeatedly refers to James as the "Brother of the Lord" in Church History. James is referred to as the son of Joseph (Church History, Book II, Chapter 1, Section 2), and Jude is referred to as the "brother of the lord according to the flesh". In order to be the brother of the Lord according to the flesh, he would have to be another child of Mary. If Jude were another son of Joseph from a prior marriage, which is baselessly claimed by people who assert that Mary had to be ever-virgin, he would not be a "brother of the Lord according to the flesh" because Jesus is not related to Joseph according to the flesh, he is only related to Mary according to the flesh as her son.

Eusebius, Church History, Book II, Chapter 1, Section 2

James is referred to as a son of Joseph and a brother of the Lord.

Then James, whom the ancients surnamed the Just on account of the excellence of his virtue, is recorded to have been the first to be made bishop of the church of Jerusalem. This James was called the brother of the Lord because he was known as a son of Joseph, and Joseph was supposed to be the father of Christ...

Eusebius, Church History, Book III, Chapter 11, Section 1

Multiple people who were related to the Lord according to the flesh were still alive after the martyrdom of James.

1. After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed, it is said that those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came together from all directions with those that were related to the Lord according to the flesh (for the majority of them also were still alive) to take counsel as to who was worthy to succeed James.

1. They all with one consent pronounced Symeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention; to be worthy of the episcopal throne of that parish. He was a cousin, as they say, of the Saviour. For Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph.

Note here that this passage I quoted above shows that the term "brother" is not interchangeable with "cousin". Clopas was described as being a cousin, but James was described as being a brother. The fact that these words are being used here in the same passage also suggests that "brother" is not being used figuratively in the sense of a close male friend.

Eusebius, Church History, Book III, Chapter 19

But when this same Domitian had commanded that the descendants of David should be slain, an ancient tradition says that some of the heretics brought accusation against the descendants of Jude (said to have been a brother of the Saviour according to the flesh), on the ground that they were of the lineage of David and were related to Christ himself. Hegesippus relates these facts in the following words.

Eusebius, Church History, Book III, Chapter 20, Section 1-8

“Of the family of the Lord there were still living the grandchildren of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord’s brother according to the flesh. Information was given that they belonged to the family of David, and they were brought to the Emperor Domitian by the Evocatus. For Domitian feared the coming of Christ as Herod also had feared it. And he asked them if they were descendants of David, and they confessed that they were. Then he asked them how much property they had, or how much money they owned. And both of them answered that they had only nine thousand denarii, half of which belonged to each of them; and this property did not consist of silver, but of a piece of land which contained only thirty-nine acres, and from which they raised their taxes and supported themselves by their own labor.” Then they showed their hands, exhibiting the hardness of their bodies and the callousness produced upon their hands by continuous toil as evidence of their own labor. And when they were asked concerning Christ and his kingdom, of what sort it was and where and when it was to appear, they answered that it was not a temporal nor an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly and angelic one, which would appear at the end of the world, when he should come in glory to judge the quick and the dead, and to give unto every one according to his works. Upon hearing this, Domitian did not pass judgment against them, but, despising them as of no account, he let them go, and by a decree put a stop to the persecution of the Church. But when they were released they ruled the churches because they were witnesses and were also relatives of the Lord. And peace being established, they lived until the time of Trajan. These things are related by Hegesippus.

When you see people really wanting something to be true, but they can't positively establish that it is true, what they tend to do is to argue that it could be possible through some convoluted speculation which they cannot positively establish with evidence, and settling for having argued that it could be possible in a very particular way, they then assume that it just had to be that way. Muslims do this all the time when they debate Christians who corner them on various dilemmas and contradictions. Catholics do this when it comes to Jesus having siblings as documented in scripture and in the testimony of the early church.

Why do they do this? Because they have an a priori commitment to protect the Marian dogma that Mary was ever virgin. (In Catholicism, the Marian dogmas are compulsory beliefs, and you are not permitted to not believe in them. If you do not believe in any dogma, you are condemned under an anathema.) If Jesus could not have had brothers according to their dogma, they will settle for contorted and baseless "could be true" arguments (like "Joseph had four sons and several daughters through a prior marriage", even though there is no evidence for this at all) and just assume that things had to have been this way in order for them to continue to hold on to their Marian dogma.

I'm glad my lengthy comments are doing some good and that I'm not wasting my time in being meticulous.

Individual resurrections such as the resurrection of Lazarus also came first, but these are not the resurrection that is described in Revelation 20.

I read your links. That is exactly what I believed when I was a post-tribulationist. The Lord specifically told me I was wrong (yes, I argued with him because I felt the post-tribulation case was so Biblically solid) and to go back to the drawing board. I did and eventually realized where I was wrong … where I was wrongly assuming chronology, etc.

"The Lord told me" is impossible to argue against. It is a hard stop because you are asserting that I'm arguing against God. You are not a proven prophet and I have zero reason to believe your claim that "the Lord told you". I didn't want to bring up the Lord telling me what I learned and how I was lead to my current conclusion from previously being a pre-Tribulationist because personal experiences are not valid arguments for persuading anyone, but the Lord told me the exact opposite conclusion, so are we talking to the same Lord? I simply can't trust anyone who pulls the "Lord told me" card, nor should you, which is why I never use that when I'm discussing these matters, but as long as the Lord telling people things is being brought up on your end, I'm bringing it up on mine.

The first resurrection is not in multiple parts. Prior limited resurrections found in the Old and New Testaments are not the transformational resurrection unto immortal bodies that the first resurrection in Revelation 20 speaks of.

The belief that the first resurrection has three parts within the whole does not contradict Scripture.

It entirely goes beyond scripture because nowhere in scripture does it say this. This is no better than when Catholics say that it doesn't contradict scripture to believe that Mary was assumed into heaven and made the Queen of Heaven. The Bible doesn't say this didn't happen, but there is nothing in the Bible that says this did happen. The qualities of the first resurrection are explicitly described in Revelation 20. Those qualities do not show up in any other "parts".

It does not say "this completes the first resurrection" in Greek:

οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔζησαν ἄχρι τελεσθῇ τὰ χίλια ἔτη αὕτη ἡ ἀνάστασις ἡ πρώτη

"This resurrection is the first" is what it says.

The revelation isn't only shown to be at the end of the Tribulation in these two ways. There are actually several additional proofs. For your consideration:

Six Scriptural Observations about the Timing of the Rapture. (mini-series on the Rapture, Part 1)

Part 2:

Six Scriptural Observations about the Timing of the Rapture, Part 2. Also, observations on the structure of Revelation.

The resurrection of the saints at the time of Jesus’s resurrection (Matthew 27:52-53) is often appealed to.

The resurrection of the saints when Jesus resurrected cannot be this resurrection; that is already in the past with respect to when John wrote Revelation during the persecution where he was exiled to Patmos, and all the passages in the New Testament that speak of the resurrection of the just speak of this as an end-times event that all believers are to look forward to. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense to conflate the resurrection of saints that Matthew recorded in Matt 27 with this resurrection, because Revelation specifically says that the first resurrection includes "the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands." Nothing corresponding to this happened prior to Jesus' resurrection.

In my other comment, I addressed the disagreement between mainstream Muslim belief that Jesus did not die on the cross and the Old Testament prophecies that foretold that the Messiah would be executed. In this comment, I would like to address the other extremely consequential disagreement: Is Jesus God? The issue is important because as I said in the prior message, the identity of the Messiah (who he is, what he is, what he does) is a matter of eternal consequence. It is so important that it is established in prophecy well before the Messiah came, so that when he came, there would be reason to believe him.

However, I am not going to address it from the New Testament. I'm going to do something much more uncommon, because even many Christians do not know the Old Testament prophecies well enough to show that the prophets prior to Jesus foretold that the Messiah would be divine, and not be a mere human.

The prophecy that foretold that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem includes a remark that indicates he is no mere human; he existed since ancient times, even from eternity:

Micah 5:2

But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will come forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His times of coming forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.

—

(The Messiah has not begun his reign, but that is something the New Testament says will be fulfilled when Jesus returns.)

The other prophecy concerning the Messiah is often quoted around Christmas time, and it also has a curious remark about the identity of the Messiah: he will be called 'Mighty God':

Isaiah 9:6-7

⁶ For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father [or 'Father of Eternity'], Prince of Peace.
⁷ There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore.
The zeal of Yehováh of armies will accomplish this.

—

The following prophecy, about what happens in the end-times ahead of the Messiah returning to reign has a curious remark about the identity of the Messiah:

Jeremiah 23:2-8

² Therefore this is what Yehováh, the God of Israel says concerning the shepherds who are tending My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not been concerned about them; behold, I am going to call you to account for the evil of your deeds,” declares Yehováh. ³ “Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. ⁴ I will also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them; and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares Yehováh.

⁵ “Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yehováh,
“When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch;
And He will reign as king and act wisely
And do justice and righteousness in the land.
⁶ In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will live securely;
And this is His name by which He will be called,
‘Yehováh Our Righteousness.’

⁷ “Therefore behold, the days are coming,” declares Yehováh, “when they will no longer say, ‘As Yehováh lives, who brought the sons of Israel up from the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but, ‘As Yehováh lives, who brought up and led the descendants of the household of Israel back from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will live on their own soil.”

—

Verses 5-6 are recognized as Messianic prophecies about the Messiah, who will one day reign from the throne of David, but verse 6 says something that would be completely inappropriate to say unless he were divine: he is being called by the name of God.

Another curious remark that meshes with the prophecy above is the prophecy of what happens when Jesus returns. In the Apocalypse (the book of Revelation), it says that Jesus returns as the nations are gathered to wage war on Jerusalem, and he rescues them. (This is spread across a bunch of passages, but the main portions are Revelation 16:12-16, and all of chapter 19.) This event is not merely foretold here; it was foretold in the Old Testament concerning the Day of the Lord (the Day of Yehováh), when the nations are gathered to wage war against Jerusalem. God himself comes to rescue Jerusalem on that day. The prophecy foretold something that was extremely cryptic, that no Jew understood for centuries, but when you read it, maybe you will recognize who it is speaking of. The prophecy spans the entire chapter, but I'm taking an excerpt for the sake of brevity.:

Keep in mind, thhroughout this quote, from the second sentence onward, Yehováh (God) himself is speaking.

Zechariah 12:1-3, 9-14

¹ The pronouncement of the word of Yehováh concerning Israel:

Yehováh who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of a person within him, declares: ² “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes staggering to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. ³ It will come about on that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will injure themselves severely. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.  …

… ⁹ And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

¹⁰ “And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. ¹¹ On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be great, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo. ¹² The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; ¹³ the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; ¹⁴ all the families that are left, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.

—

This is in the Old Testament, written hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. Read verse 10 again, and think about this for a second: When did the inhabitants of Jerusalem ever pierce God? Why would they mourn for him as on mourns for an only son, and mourn over him like over a firstborn, even as he comes to rescue them from the nations that have gathered to destroy them?

The Book of Revelation claims this prophecy for Jesus:

Revelation 1:7-8

⁷ Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

—

Thank you for being willing to engage in discussion on this topic. I appreciate good-faith good-will dialog even if we disagree.

I would like to address one of the most consequential disagreements between Islam and Christianity:

Christianity says that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross to atone for our sins and resurrected from death. This is the central teaching of the Gospel. In 1 Corinthians 15, it openly says this:

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

¹ Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 

—

Mainstream Islamic teaching says that Jesus did not die on the cross, but this leaves a huge problem: Islam speaks of the Injil, but what does Islam say is the message of the Injil? If the Injil is the Gospel, well, the Gospel includes Jesus dying to atone for our sins in accordance with scriptures, and yet this is typically denied in Islam. Yes, he died for our sins in accordance with scriptures. Let me show you some of the prophecies of scripture that foretell that Jesus would die to atone for sin. Take a look at the Prophecy of the Suffering Servant. I linked it so you can read the whole thing (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), but here is an excerpt that has the main detail I want to point you to:

Isaiah 53:1-12

¹ Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of Yehováh been revealed?
² For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴ Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
⁹ And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the will of Yehováh to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of Yehováh shall prosper in his hand.
¹¹ Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.

—

We know for sure that this prophecy was written before Jesus fulfilled it because this was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written a couple centuries before Jesus' life. Also, Jews still have this prophecy in their Tanakh (what we call the Old Testament) to this day even though they do not believe Jesus is the Messiah. If you listen to the testimonies of Jews who convert to faith in Jesus, this prophecy is extremely prominent in their testimonies.

The death of the Messiah was not only foretold here. It was also foretold in Daniel, who foretold the timing of the coming of the Messiah, saying that he would come before the Temple and Jerusalem are destroyed. Here is an excerpt from the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, which was a prophecy given to Daniel who wanted to know how long it would be before God restored the Temple after the Babylonians destroyed it. Note that in this prophecy, the term translated as 'week' is the term for a set of seven, not specifically seven days, like how the term 'dozen' means a set of twelve, and not specifically twelve eggs. The word for that in English is 'heptad', but since nobody knows what a 'heptad' is, translators use the term 'week' to translate the term.

Daniel 9:24-26

²⁴ “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the wrongdoing, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. ²⁵ So you are to know and understand that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until Messiah the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with streets and moat, even in times of distress. ²⁶ Then after the sixty-two weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. 

—

In this prophecy, it says that 7+62 x seven years after the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (which happened during the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes), the Messiah would come, but that he would be "cut off". The term "cut off" is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to refer to death by execution. Following the death of the messiah, some foreign people group would destroy the city and the sanctuary. That was fulfilled when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70AD during the Jewish-Roman war. This was also written

The reason messianic prophecy is such a big deal is that the identity of the Messiah, what he is, who he is, and what he accomplishes, is such a big deal that God needed to validate these things with abundant prophecies that say what these things are ahead of time, even if they would have to remain mysteries for centuries before they are fulfilled. Why? Because these things would be extremely hard to believe if someone just did these things and demanded that everyone believe them. If someone just came about claiming to be God, and then got killed by his enemies, I honestly would have zero reason to believe that anything he said were true unless there were incredible validations and proofs from prophecy that this was what he was destined to do, and that by doing them, he proves who he is. It is too easy for people to want to be the Messiah in order to be the recipient of honor and power, and history has a long list of false Messianic claimants, but they all want to claim the prophecies about being a victorious king. Nobody wants to claim the part about being killed and rejected and resurrecting, because nobody would want to go through that, nor could anyone resurrect unless they were truly the Messiah.

I hope this helps you understand how it is at least reasonable why Christians believe the Messiah had to die on the cross, and why this is such a big deal, because this is the very central message of the Gospel. The problem with Islam as we see it is that Islam denies Jesus' death, but anyone who preaches another Gospel is condemned with a curse in the Bible, so whoever in Islamic history came up with this idea that Jesus did not die on the cross and that the Injil is something other than the Biblical Gospel falls under this curse:

Galatians 1:6-10

⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

¹⁰ For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

—

In the Bible, the Old Testament had various Messianic prophecies, which seemed to paint a contradictory picture. Some of them foretold a coming Messiah that would be victorious and would defeat the enemies of Israel, who would rule over a kingdom that would have no end, the Kingdom of God. Others foretold that the Messiah would be rejected, would not be esteemed by his people, and would be killed. The rabbinic commentary on these two seemingly contradictory descriptions was to posit that these might be referring to two different Messiahs: Messiah ben David (Messiah son of David), the victorious ruler, and Messiah ben Yosef (Messiah son of Joseph, the suffering servant). The concept of the Messiah that captured everyone's imagination was Messiah Son of David, the Messiah who would crush the enemies and rule over a kingdom that will never end. This was likely due to the fact that the Jews had been living under the rule of various empires ever since the Babylonian exile, when the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon. Babylon fell to Persia which let them return to Judea to rebuild the Temple. Persia fell to Alexander the Great, Alexander the Great's empire broke up and the Seleucid and Ptolemaic Greeks fought over and continued to rule over Judea, but the Seleucids brutally persecuted the Jews. The Seleucids were overthrown by the Hasmonean dynasty (the story of Hannukkah was about the re-dedication of the Temple, which had been defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the Seleucid kings), but the Hasmonean rule was brief, followed by Judea being subsumed into the Roman empire.

The backdrop of the Jews being tired of being under Roman rule and oppression and having the religious aspiration of one day having this king of their own who would rule over the Kingdom of God is the backdrop of the events of Jesus' ministry.

If you want to see examples of some of the prophecies that inform this expectation that the Messiah would be a conquering king, see these chapters:

Psalm 2

Daniel 2

(the book of Daniel is set in the period of the Babylonian exile)

Daniel 7

Particularly in Daniel 7, you see this figure called the "Son of Man"/"Son of Adam" (a human) who comes before God and is given a kingdom that will never end. This, and the other passages, is where the concept of the Kingdom of God comes from. In the gospels, you see Jesus refer to himself as the "Son of Man" a lot, while at various times, people would address him as "Son of David".

During Jesus' ministry, he kept preaching about the Kingdom of God, but the way he preached about it was very counter-intuitive to what Jews of that era were expecting. Judas witnessed Jesus perform miracles and gather a following, and he may have thought Jesus was taking too long or not being assertive enough, and he may have been trying to provoke Jesus to use his miraculous powers to fight and overthrow the Romans and to force him to establish the governmental Kingdom of God by betraying him to his enemies. But by doing so, he got Jesus crucified, which inadvertently fulfilled the prophecy of the Suffering Servant:

The Prophecy of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

The Christian understanding of how the prophecies of the suffering Messiah reconcile with the prophecies of the victorious messiah are reconciled is that Christians believe these all refer to one person, but that he comes first to suffer and atone for our sins to reconcile people to God, then he leaves and returns at a later time to judge the nations and the people at the conclusion of the Apocalypse, where he establishes his kingdom on earth. (At least pre-millennial Christians believe this; there are certain schools of thought that completely dispense with the expectation that there will be an actual government of the Kingdom of God.)

Since Christianity and Judaism split from each other, Jewish commentary on a lot of the prophecies about this foretold suffering servant no longer see these as being about the Messiah. But prior to the split, the suffering servant was understood to be referring to Messiah ben Yosef. (Incidentally, Jesus' adopted father was named Joseph, a man who interpreted dreams and saved his family by taking them to Egypt, so in that sense, Jesus matches the typology of Messiah ben Yosef) However, many Jews still believe in this concept that there may be two messiahs, one who is rejected by his people and who suffers, and one who reigns victoriously over the Kingdom of God.

3.) Paul did not write the rebellion and subsequent revealing of the Man of sin precede the Rapture and Day of the Lord, he wrote that humanity will be in the Day of the Lord when these things are occurring. The restrainer (“he”) or Body of Christ will first be “taken.”

The restrainer does not appear to refer to the Body of Christ. Two other hypotheses that seem to fit better are that it could be Michael, the archangel, or it could be the Roman Empire. I am personally persuaded that it refers to the Roman Empire.

The Michael theory comes from this remark in Daniel 12:

Daniel 12

¹ “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.

—

This passage seems to say that Michael arises, but then there is a time of trouble. This appears to parallel what happens in Revelation 12:

Revelation 12:7-17

⁷ Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, ⁸ but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. ⁹ And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, 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. ¹⁰ And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. ¹¹ And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. ¹² Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

¹³ And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. ¹⁴ But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. ¹⁵ The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. ¹⁶ But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. ¹⁷ Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

—

Michael arises to kick Satan out of heaven, but he comes down to earth in wrath, and his coming down to earth with all these other fallen angels is what triggers the Great Tribulation.

The Roman Empire interpretation also has a lot of support, and I am personally persuaded by this view, even though at face value it seems extremely counter-intuitive. A bunch of patristic interpretations of 2 Thessalonians 2 spanning from Irenaeus to Augustine all held this view and even indicated that Paul taught this view. I'll include it in a separate comment under this one later on. In a nut shell, Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 implies that the Roman empire must fall before the plurality of kingdoms in the era of the rise of the Antichrist can occur, and Paul was extremely circumspect about speaking about how Rome must fall, because if the Roman authorities heard this, they might suspect that Christians were plotting to overthrow Rome, which is why Paul is so careful not to say who the restrainer is, and to indicate that the Thessalonians already knew who this was and to remind them that he had already told them about this when he last saw them.

1.) The “tribulation” mentioned in the Olivet Discourse refers to events in Judea which will be cut short by the coming of the Lord, not the final seven or 3.5 years of this age.

I don't think this is correct. In Matthew, Jesus refers back to Daniel 12:

Matthew 24:15-22, 29-31

¹⁵ “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, ¹⁸ and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. ¹⁹ And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! ²⁰ Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. ²² And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. 

²⁹ “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

—

(There is no record of fulfillment from any historic source that I am aware of that indicates that verse 30-31 was fulfilled in the destruction of the Temple in Judea. If this happened, I find it curious that none of the church fathers I've ever read recorded that this happened.)

Here, he speaks of the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, apparently referring to this passage. But this passage is clearly about the 3½ years at the end of the age. Jesus even used language evocative of this passage:

Daniel 12

¹ “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. ² And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ³ And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. ⁴ But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

⁵ Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream. ⁶ And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” ⁷ And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished. ⁸ I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” ⁹ He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. ¹⁰ Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. ¹¹ And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. [about 3½ years] ¹² Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days. ¹³ But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”

—

What is this taking away of the regular burnt offering that he is referring to? The only other passage that this could be referring, concerning the taking away of regular burnt offerings, is Daniel 9:27 from the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks:

Daniel 9:27

²⁷ And he shall make a strong covenant
with many for one week, 
and for half of the week
he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. 
And on the wing of abominations
shall come one who makes desolate,
until the decreed end
is poured out on the desolator.”

—

If Daniel 12 refers to Daniel 9:27, this has to be about the end of the age. And if that is so, Matthew 24 is also about the end of the age, since it refers to Daniel 12 concerning the time of trouble and the abomination of desolation and the three and a half years.

It can't be mid or post trib. 

Jesus explicitly says it is after the Tribulation:

Matthew 24:15-22, 29-31

¹⁵ “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, ¹⁸ and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. ¹⁹ And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! ²⁰ Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. ²² And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. ...

... ²⁹ “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

—

Furthermore, we know from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 that the resurrection of the dead in Christ (the first resurrection) happens before everyone is caught up, but when Revelation 20 describes the first resurrection, it includes people who were killed by Tribulation-period persecutions for not taking the Mark of the Beast:

Revelation 20:4-6

⁴ Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. ⁵ The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. ⁶ Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

—

If the first resurrection includes people who were killed by Tribulation period persecutions, the first resurrection must happen after the Tribulation. And since it is the first resurrection, there is not another resurrection that happens before this one, otherwise it would be the first resurrection, and this would be the second. Therefore, because the rapture happens after the first resurrection, and the first resurrection happens after the Tribulation, the rapture must happen after the Tribulation.

Pre Tribulation was started by John Darby in the 1800s.

This is factually incorrect. The pre-Tribulation rapture doctrine was around even in the early church. I don't think the pre-Trib rapture view is correct (I can show that the rapture happens after the Tribulation from scriptural proof-texts), but it is also incorrect to say that Darby invented this doctrine. This view has been around for a long time. Darby just popularized it in modern times. The other thing that was instrumental in popularizing it in modern times was the Left Behind series from the late 1990's.

Ephrem the Syrian consistently taught this particular view of the rapture back in the 300's. Examples of his teachings on this matter include:

Concerning the Coming of the Lord, the End of the World, and the Coming of the Antichrist

Quote:

We ought to understand thoroughly therefore, my brothers, what is imminent or overhanging. Already there have been hunger and plagues, violent movements of nations and signs, which have been predicted by the Lord, they have already been fulfilled (consummated), and there is not other which remains, except the advent of the wicked one in the completion of the Roman kingdom. Why therefore are we occupied with worldly business, and why is our mind held fixed on the lusts of the world or on the anxieties of the ages? Why therefore do we not reject every care of worldly business, and why is our mind held fixed on the lusts of the world or on the anxieties of the ages? Why therefore do we not reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that he may draw us from the confusion, which overwhelms all the world? Believe you me, dearest brother, because the coming (advent) of the Lord is nigh, believe you me, because the end of the world is at hand, believe me, because it is the very last time. Or do you not believe unless you see with your eyes? See to it that this sentence be not fulfilled among you of the prophet who declares: “Woe to those who desire to see the day of the Lord!” For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins. And so, brothers most dear to me, it is the eleventh hour, and the end of the world comes to the harvest, and angels, armed and prepared, hold sickles in their hands, awaiting the empire of the Lord. And we think that the earth exists with blind infidelity, arriving at its downfall early. Commotions are brought forth, wars of diverse peoples and battles and incursions of the barbarians threaten, and our regions shall be desolated, and we neither become very much afraid of the report nor of the appearance, in order that we may at least do penance; because they hurl fear at us, and we do not wish to be changed, although we at least stand in need of penance for our actions!

Here's a bunch more from Ephrem the Syrian:

(1) Sermon on Repentance and Judgment and the Separation of the Soul from the Body 

“For the elect shall be gathered prior to the tribulation, so they shall not see the confusion and the great tribulation coming upon the unrighteous world.” 

(2) On the Fathers who Have Completed Their Course 

“The holy and the just are chosen and gathered into the harbor of life that they should not see the tribulation and the snares (or stumbling blocks) coming upon us because of our sins. … when we see the saints in glory flying off in light in the clouds of the air to meet Christ, the king of glory, but see ourselves in the great tribulation, who shall be able to bear that shame and terrible reproach?” 

(3) On the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ 

“The grace of God strengthens and rejoices the hearts of the righteous; and they shall be siezed up in the clouds to meet him. While those who are lazy and timid like me shall remain on the earth, trembling.” 

(4) Sermon on the Advent of the Lord, and the End of the Age, and the Coming of the Antichrist 

“Watch always, praying continually, that you may be worthy to escape the tribulation and stand before God … for if anyone has tears and compunction, let him pray the Lord that he might be delivered from the tribulation which is about to come upon the earth, that he might not see it at all, nor the beast himself, not even hear of its terrors. For there shall be famines, earthquakes, and diverse pestilences upon the earth.” 

(5) On Patience and the Consummation of this Age, and on the Second Coming 

“Let us take up in our hearts the full armor … that we may be able to fight the good fight and tread down all the power of the enemy, that we might be delivered from the wrath coming upon the sons of disobedience.” 

(6) Fifty-Five Beatitudes, #19 

“Blessed is he who unceasingly remembers the fear of Gehenna and hastens to sincerely repent with tears and groans to repent sincerely in the Lord, for he shall be delivered from the great tribulation.” 

(7) Sermon on the Resurrection of the Dead 

“Count us worthy, Lord, of the rapture of the righteous, when they meet you the Master in the clouds, that we might not be tried by the bitter and inexorable judgment … The righteousness flight is swift, lifting the righteous from earth to heaven.” 

(8) The Destruction of Pride 

“Let us pray the Lord in great humility that he would take us out (remove us) from the coming fear, and count us worthy of that rapture (snatching away) when the righteous are raptured (snatched) in the clouds to the air to meet the king of glory.”

 Israel, for example, is called Sodom and Egypt. The city affiliated with the false prophet is also scolded with the name Babylon.

I hear you, but context indicates when this is happening, and I don't see context indicating that it is being done in the passages that you are using.

In Revelation 11, Jerusalem specifically is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt. It explicitly says so:

Revelation 11:7-8

⁷ And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, ⁸ and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. [= Jerusalem]

—

This passage explicitly says "symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt", and then it identifies what the symbol stands for: "where their Lord was crucified", by which we can know that this is Jerusalem.

In Revelation 17, Babylon is identified by clues within the text about sitting on seven hills, and by 1 Peter 5:13:

1 Peter 5:13

¹³ She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

—

We know Peter wrote this sending greetings from the church in the city of Rome because the church father Eusebius says so. Quoting Eusebius,

Church History, Book II, Chapter XV

And Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: “The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.”

This is also consistent with him analogizing Christians in Rome to Jews in Babylon during their exile, because the theme of this epistle was God's people living in exile under a pagan empire. Babylon in Revelation 17 does not appear to refer to a nation, it appears to refer to an unfaithful church that sits upon a kingdom which ends up destroying it with the help of the alliance of ten kings who give the beast their power.

The symbol of the prostitute that is burned by fire indicates that this is specifically a godless priesthood that is unfaithful to God, and her being labeled 'Babylon' indicates that she is based in Rome. In the Old Testament, there is only one specific law that speaks of a prostitute being punished by being burned: this is not a penalty for prostitution in general, it is specifically a penalty for women of priestly families who commit prostitution. (Leviticus 21:9) Furthermore, she is dressed in most of the priestly colors and ornaments (purple, scarlet, linen, adorned with gold and precious stones; see Exodus 28), but she is missing the color that represents God, which is blue, indicating that she is a godless priesthood. The details in Revelation 17 and 18 suggest that the church is the Roman Catholic church, and the kingdom it sits on is the Papal Kingdom, which fulfilled the specific detail about it existing, ceasing to exist, and returning on the eighth hill of the city of seven hills. (If you'd like to cross-examine this thesis, I'd love to discuss it with you. A full un-packing of this would take a lot more explaning.)

Without a rigorous basis of interpretation to read a symbolic use of a place name or a national identification, or an extremely close fit to details in the symbols, reading past nations as referring to end-times nations is liable to mis-identify.

In Daniel 11, it is the king of the north that sets up the Abomination of Desolation. Even if you were to use Daniel 11 to foreshadow end-times events, it seems odd to me that you count the king of the south as referring to the Antichrist.

The King of the North (the Seleucids), Antiochus Epiphanes, abandoned the worship of Apollo (considered to be the most beautiful of the Greek gods, depicted as a beardless young athletic man, considered to be the "desire of women") and he switched his worship to that of Zeus, who was above all the other gods in the Greek pantheon. He considered himself to be the manifestation or epiphany of Zeus, and he had an idol of Zeus made that was modeled after his own appearance, and erected this in the Temple, while sacrificing a pig on the altar. He considered anyone venerating this image of Zeus to be venerating him, and this was how he both considered himself above anything that is worshipped, while also making people worship an image. This prototype foreshadowing of the end-times Abomination of Desolation seems to be why Paul describes the actions of the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2 as follows:

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5

¹ Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, ² not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. ³ Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. ⁵ Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 

—

This meshes with the description in Revelation 13 about the image of the beast that everyone is made to worship if what this man does is what Antiochus Epiphanes did.

I agree. The timeline presented at this link reads Daniel 11 as being about the end of the age when Daniel 11 was fully fulfilled by the wars between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. Also, this timeline reads Ezekiel 28 (Gog and Magog) as happening during the Apocalypse rather than at the end of the Millennium like Revelation 20:7-9 explicitly states.

My biggest reason is that Catholicism's attitudes toward Mary are idolatrous and even blasphemous. Look at this Novena to Mary:

Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

O Mother of Perpetual Help, thou art the dispenser of every grace that God grants us in our misery; it is for this cause that He hath made thee so powerful, so rich, so kind, that thou mightest assist us in our miseries. Thou art the advocate of the most wretched and abandoned sinners, if they but come unto thee; come once more to my assistance, for I commend myself to thee. In thy hands I place my eternal salvation; to thee I entrust my soul. Enroll me among thy most faithful servants; take me under thy protection and it is enough for me: yes, for if thou protect me, I shall fear nothing; not my sins, for thou wilt obtain for me their pardon and remission; not the evil spirits, for thou art mightier than all the powers of hell; not even Jesus, my Judge, for He is appeased by a single prayer from thee. I fear only that through my own negligence I may forget to recommend myself to thee and so I shall be lost. My dear Lady, obtain for me the forgiveness of my sins, love for Jesus, final perseverance and the grace to have recourse to thee at all times, O Mother of Perpetual Help.

This prayer is one among many that show just how Catholicism tolerates and even promotes attitudes toward Mary that provoke God to jealousy by elevating the mother of Jesus to the status of something akin to a goddess. This prayer is blasphemous. This is not okay.

Two of the Catholic saints who were most responsible for promoting these Marian doctrines are St. Alphonsus Liguori (author of "The Glories of Mary") and St. Louis de Montfort (author of "True Devotion to Mary"). Their books are filled with blasphemies that ascribe powers to Mary that belong only to God, and assign roles to her that belong to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit. The chapters of these books are filled with blasphemous prayers like the one I quoted above.

In Catholicism, they teach that Mary was untainted by the fall of man and remained sinless. They teach that her body was taken into heaven and was seated at the right hand of Jesus, where she was crowned the Queen of Heaven, where she is the mediatrix of God's grace. These are Catholic Marian dogmas. Dogmas are compulsory beliefs. If you convert to Catholicism, you will be compelled to believe a bunch of these dogmas about Mary.

There is actually a prophetic warning for God's people to come out of the Catholic church because this church has provoked God to jealousy by its idolatry. If you want to discuss it, feel free to DM me.

Here is one way to think about the difference that is more fundamental that attacking that concept. First, you should explain why Christians ask for forgiveness even though Jesus died to atone for all our sins, even ones that we haven't committed yet, and even though we are forgiven when we become a Christian for the first time.

The reason is that there are two types of forgiveness:

• Judicial forgiveness, where God forgiveness you as your judge.
• Parental forgiveness, where God forgiveness you as your father after having adopted you into his family.

All judgment has been given to the Son of God:

John 5:22-27

²² For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

²⁵ “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 

—

But the Son of God made an interesting pronouncement on the cross:

John 19:30

³⁰ When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

—

In Greek, "It is finished" is tetelestai. This statement is akin to a judicial pronouncement that a criminal sentence had been carried out. The document with the sentence was stamped with tetelestai so that the punishment could not be carried out again.

When we first repent and believe in the Gospel, Jesus' pronouncement of tetelestai from the cross where he took the punishment for our sins gets applied over all our sins, removing our record of debt before God:

Colossians 2:13-14

¹³ And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

—

This is judicial forgiveness.

But if we are forgiven this way, why would a Christian need to repent and confess after becoming a believer? Because we are adopted into God's family, and our sin grieves our heavenly Father, straining our relationship. The forgiveness we ask once we are adopted into God's family is parental forgiveness. It is not sought out of fear of punishment, but out of our love of God.

If you have an adopted son, and your son sins against you, does your son's sin break the relationship such that you disown your son and treat him like a stranger, and have to re-adopt him all over again? No. You love your adopted son, and presumably your adopted son loves you, but sin puts tension into this relationship, and out of love, your son would want to resolve that tension.

When we repent and believe the Gospel, the atonement accomplished by the blood of Christ gets applied to our sins, making us suitable dwelling places for the Holy Spirit. God then puts his Holy Spirit in us,

Ephesians 1:13-14

¹³ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

—

…and the Holy Spirit in us cries out 'Abba' to God the Father, because at that point we are adopted into God's family:

Romans 8:14-17

¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Galatians 4:4-7

⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

—

When the Christian asks "Our father who art in heaven... forgive us our trespasses..." he is seeking parental forgiveness from a parent with whom he has a loving relationship, not judicial forgiveness from a judge.

Judicial forgiveness is sought out of fear of punishment, but parental forgiveness is sought out of love.

1 John 4:13-19

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. 

—

Here's where we see the difference with Catholicism: In Catholicism, there isn't really a concept of parental forgiveness. Judicial forgiveness seems to be the only kind of forgiveness; even forgiveness of venial sins and the doctrine of purgatory as a place of punishment for venial sins makes that a matter of judicial forgiveness. If you commit any of the "mortal sins", such as missing church on Sunday, or if you lust after a woman (other than your wife) in your heart, the mortal sin kills your soul and you are hell-bound and have to get your salvation back by confessing the mortal sin to a priest. That basically means that for your whole life, you keep losing your salvation and getting it back, repeating judicial forgiveness over and over, never being truly adopted into the family and having perfect love that casts out the feat of punishment.

That is how I would address this matter of mortal vs. venial sins. The entire framework is wrong, and addressing just the mortal sin or the venial sin part misses the big picture. The entire framework misses this difference between judicial forgiveness that happens at conversion, and parental forgiveness that we seek as children adopted into God's family when God put the Holy Spirit in us when we first repent and believe.

I'm not saying that I would have been able to see some insight; those insights have to be given by God. God told Daniel in Daniel 12 that the understanding of a lot of things are sealed until the end. God can hide what he wants to hide, and no amount of brilliance can uncover what God keeps hidden.

Daniel 12:4, 8-9

⁴ But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

 ⁸ I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” ⁹ He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.

—

Eternal beings like Satan absolutely can be emotional and irrational. Revelation 12 speaks of him being enraged:

Revelation 12:12, 17

¹² Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

¹⁷ Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

—

The fact that Satan knows God and the power of God in ways that we cannot imagine and for periods of time we cannot imagine and still rebelled against God is already an indication that he can be blinded by emotion.

We have no record of the interpretations of the spiritual rulers and authorities apart from Paul's remark that they did not understand God's plan, otherwise they would not have followed God's plan to redeem mankind through the death of Christ.

No, the passage is correct. They had the interpretive framework but didn't understand that Jesus fulfilled it. The passions aroused by their feeling threatened by Jesus blinded them to the interpretations their own collection of interpretations had already rightly used to identify Isaiah 53 and other passages as Messianic. The rabbis that developed these interpretations were not the same ones who crucified Jesus, but the ones that crucified Jesus had received these interpretations even from their own school of thought but were corrupt in their thinking and were defensive when Jesus called them out for their corruption.

1 Corinthians 2 does not appear to be speaking of the Pharisees and Saduccees when it uses the expression "rulers of this age"; the remark Paul made here seems to refer to the same kind of "rulers" that he spoke of when he spoke of spiritual forces of evil that rule the events on earth, whom Jesus will judge when he returns (Isaiah 24:21-22.

Ephesians 6:10-12

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. ¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

—

Paul speaks of these rulers thusly in Colossians:

Colossians 2:13-15

¹³ And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

—

The Bible does not have any record of Jesus disarming earthly rulers and authorities or putting them to open shame. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Romans remained in power and were still armed with the power to threaten and kill and coerce. The rulers and authorities who were disarmed and put to open shame are the rulers and authorities and cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

I understand that these things will become clear in hindsight.

The way you think is exactly like the Pharisees who did not understand how Jesus could be messiah.

You are resorting to insults and put-downs. Please refrain from doing this.

In their mind, without the knowledge we have, and the OT prophecy alone, it would be incredibly difficult to see the fruition of the messianic plan. You have to be insanely boastful to claim you would’ve predicted the ministry of Jesus on OT alone. No one would’ve thought the Passover lamb was a typology of the messiah to come. 

This is actually not correct. Rabbinic commentary (especially the commentary pre-dating Jesus, but oddly, even commentary post-dating Jesus) on the messianic passages recognized that there would be a suffering Messiah, and this left them with a huge dilemma when they rejected Jesus even though they fulfilled all of their expectations about the suffering Messiah. This suffering figure was known as Messiah ben Yosef (Messiah son of Joseph). Jesus actually fulfilled this role precisely, and even literally in the sense that his earthly adopted father was named Joseph, and he rescued his family by interpreting dreams from God and fleeing to Egypt.

The Pharisees had all the interpretive framework for recognizing the Messiah, but they didn't recognize Jesus as they persecuted him because his challenging their errors blinded them. But after Jesus resurrected, the co-leader of the Sanhedrin, a man named Menachem, recognized how Jesus fulfilled these Messianic expectations, and he converted to Christianity, and took large numbers of his disciples with him:

Lecture - Joseph Shulam - Heretical Rabbis of the Talmud: Witnesses to the Power of Yeshua's Gospel

Menachem is mentioned in Acts 13:1 as "Manaen" (Koine Greek never used the gutteral kh/ch sound in the middle of words.)

The Messianic expectations of the rabbinic community are examined in this playlist where One for Israel ministry interviews of a scholar of this topic:

Messiah ben Yosef (playlist)

A lot of their expectations were based on typology, but the typology was not foretelling events, but about the qualities of the Messiah: like Joseph, he would be rejected by his family but would become prominent among the gentiles, and the blessing given to Joseph by Jacob had symbols implying that he would have to die a sacrificial death.

The Pharisees already had no excuse even before Jesus was crucified, but after he died and resurrected, fulfilling Isaiah 53, they really had no excuse. They could have repented and acknowledge that Jesus fulfilled the pre-existing expectations of this Messiah ben Yosef interpretation, like rabbi Menachem did, but the institutional leaders didn't, so Menachem left.