From Jesus to James

And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

via Passage: Acts 3:17 (ESV Bible Online).

People think Jerusalem was judged with destruction because they killed Jesus.

Not true, exactly.

They were judged beause they killed James the Less.  Or Christians in general.

It took about a generation for their sin to mount to the point of provoking judgment.

Jesus had said that his own sentencing and rejection would not be the provocation of judgment:

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12.10, 11).

So when Jesus is sentenced to death, he forgives his killers.  But after the testimony of the Spirit through the Church, there is no forgiveness: Jerusalem and the Temple are destroyed.

(See my comments on the story in Mark’s Gospel.)

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