By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Sunday Special)
“All the leaders of the EU countries went to the Vatican and listened to the pope submissively. Do you now understand why they have not been taking Turkey into the EU for 54 years? The situation is quite loud and clear, it is a Crusader Alliance. April 16 will also be the day to evaluate this,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at a rally in Ankara on April 2.
Erdogan will change history on April 16th. This is Easter or Pascha. This is the day Christ resurrected from the dead after becoming the sacrificial lamb of God. Resurrection day is the day that Christianity's argument was cemented in history, for without it there is no Christianity.
Instead of commemorating this day for Christ's resurrection, Erdoğan chose it to cement his Ottoman resurrection from the dead. It is also the day, according to Erdoğan, when Muslims must decide on what to do with the Crusaders in what Erdogan termed as the "clash between the Crescent and the Cross".
For Erdoğan's victory over the Cross he is calling on all Turks in his nation and throughout Europe to vote 'yes' and approve his referendum coming April 16th. To Erdoğan, Turkey then will decide whether to continue its attempt to connect with Christendom (join the E.U) or whether it will appoint Erdoğan as "the Prince" then resurrect its wounded Ottoman Empire to war with Christendom in the future. Turkey’s rise to a Caliphate system was explained by Hayrettin Karaman, Erdogan’s main Fatwa giver who stated:
“What this [presidential system] looks like is the Islamic caliphate system in terms of its mechanism. In this system the people choose the leader, the Prince, and then all will pledge the Bay’ah [allegiance] to him”.
Turkey is also enforcing more state control over the church preparing the way for doing what is to come: the Abomination of Desolation.
When will this culminate will take some time, but we already see its beginning phases. Whether Erdoğan is this Antichrist remains to be seen. If so, he will eventually prohibit the temple sacrifices.
This brings up a crucial issue: what entails this abomination of desolation?
THE TEMPLE CONTROVERSY
AND HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION
On the abomination of desolation Jesus in Matthew 24:15 commands we focus on the book of Daniel. But Daniel's prophecy has three fulfillments: the abomination of desolation in Daniel's day involving the first temple; the abomination of desolation in Jesus' day involving the second temple; and then finally the abomination of desolation in the time of the end involving Christ's temple. In other words, the holy of holies, where God's sacrifice resides will be desecrated. So with a New Testament era, the perspective changes forms, especially when it comes to The Temple of God. What is it?
However, there are several controversies on how do we resolve this issue. A recent interpretation is the re-institution of the Jewish sacrificial system in a rebuilt temple which a small cult in Jerusalem called The Temple Institute leads. For decades we have heard about such efforts. To many, the construction of the Third Temple articles seems like a partial fulfillment which to these it confirms a literal temple was what Jesus meant when He referred to Daniel's prophecy.
Chaim Richman, international director of the Temple Institute, standing next to a replica of the holy ark at an exhibit of Third Temple vessels in the institute’s offices in Jerusalem. (Ben Sales/JTA)
This interpretation of course came way later. It is this new rebuilt 3rd temple many believe that will be the one Antichrist desecrates which they see the establishment of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem as evidence of their view. The other interpretation is the traditional one which argues that when such notion came about as a temple building, Christ was speaking from a completely different mindset referring to His Body as the Temple (John 2:19). This body was not only Himself, but included the entire Church in whole as His temple:
"We heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another not made with hands." (Mark 14:58)
So it is obvious, this temple of God is not made by human hands. The historic Christian interpretation was that this involves the perpetual sacrifice of the Eucharist. Lorenzo Scupoli (1530 – 1610) explains from Revelation 12:
"Therefore, when we overcome the enemies, it is the blood of Christ which overcomes, as it is written in Revelation: ‘and they overcame him” (the slanderous devil) ‘by the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev. xii. 11).
By the "blood of the Lamb" Scupoli explains:
"This most holy sacrament, this all-conquering weapon, or rather Christ present in this sacrament, can be actively received in a twofold manner: first, sacramentally, in the sacrament of Christ’s flesh and blood, with the necessary preparation, that is, contrition, confession, purification by penance and the required fast; secondly—inwardly and spiritually in mind and heart. The first may take place as often as outer circumstances, inner state and the discretion of one’s spiritual Father allow; the second can take place every moment; so you may always have this all-powerful weapon in your hand and constantly wield it against your enemies. So harken to this and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ as often as possible, so long as you have the permission of your spiritual Father. But strive to partake of Christ our Lord inwardly and spiritually without ceasing; I have offered you guidance to this in the preceding chapters on prayer."
So which one is the correct interpretation? The latter interpretation is becoming more rejected by anti-Catholic Christians who would claim that "overcoming by the blood of the lamb" is spiritual which stands for "our faith in Christ".
But to traditional Christians, the Eucharist has everything to do with the unfolding “abomination of desolation” spoken of by Daniel the prophet: “he will stop the sacrifice and grain offering" involves the desecration or the prohibition of the Eucharist for if we knowingly consume what is desecrated or reject to consume the Body of Christ then we have desecrated the very Temple of God.
Others take a completely spiritual view that "overcoming by the blood of the lamb" is simply spiritual which stands for "our faith in Christ". But if the spiritual application is true, that "overcoming by the blood of the lamb" stands for "our faith in Christ", the Jesus-style question is this: how then can Antichrist abolish what only resides in the heart?
This is the Jesus-style question no denier can answer. Antichrist therefore must abolish a substance, this is either the Eucharist including the wine or the Temple animal sacrifices.
But it is here where the prophet Joel predicted this war with Antichrist. Joel debunks both views of 'spiritual' and 'the animal' sacrifices:
“The grain offering [Bread] and the drink offering [wine]. Have been cut off from the house of the Lord [the Temple]; The priests mourn, who minister to the Lord … Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.”
Joel clearly does not speak of either the exclusively spiritual or of the animal sacrifices, for we "drink His blood" ("drink offering") and "eat His Body" ("grain offering") and this prophecy speaks of literal "priests" mourning just before the coming of "the day of the Lord".
This is definitely what sparks the Second Coming "the day of the Lord".
Indeed, this is the crux of the whole battle between chaff and wheat, between heresy and orthodoxy, between the sons of God and the sons of Antichrist. To the traditionalist, it is the Eucharist that Antichrist wants to abolish and it is by the Eucharist we conquer Antichrist.
There is no other way to go around this issue. Rejecting the Eucharist is why many anti-Catholics believe that its all about abolishing a Jewish sacrificial system in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem.
For Scupoli there is the tangible (the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ’s flesh and blood) and for the modern Third Temple promoters, they have the wrong tangible and for all others they must stop applying the tangible to be exclusively spiritual. Sure faith is inwardly and spiritually in mind and heart, but it is also by outward expression through the sacraments of Baptism and Communion.
Therefore, Antichrist attempts to abolish the "daily sacrifice" yet he fails to accomplish this completely because it will continue on being practiced underground.
One other nail in the coffin of naysayers is this Jesus-style question: do you see this "daily sacrifice"?
Jesus comes in the flesh in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which is observed daily in Catholic and Orthodox churches, not weekly, monthly, yearly or never as is commonly done by non-orthodox.
"Daily" means "daily".
So why do all these divisive movements ignore the word "daily" if indeed they 'love and only obey the scripture'?
There is only one way out of this dilemma. That is to claim that such "Daily Sacrifice" is regarding the re-institution of the Jewish sacrificial system.
But such interpretation turns upside down the whole crux of Christian theology; Christ's sacrifice makes null and void the ancient Temple sacrifices. If temple sacrifices are to be re-instituted, the other Jesus-style question would be: was Malachi in error when he predicted that these sacrifices will be done in "every place" and that God will "shut the door" completely to animal sacrifices?
This becomes a major dilemma since Malachi is clear:
“Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of hosts “nor will I accept an offering from you." (Malachi 1:10)
Here God speaks clearly that He will no longer accept these offerings. No other offering is accepted except the one that God describes so clearly in Malachi:
"For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations [gentiles], and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations [gentiles],” says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 1:11)
This confirms with absolute certainty that it is this "Daily Sacrifice" of communion "grain" (not animal) which is done "daily" "from the rising of the sun even to its setting" and its done amongst the "nations" (gentiles) and it is "in every place" and not just in a single location as in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and that it has "grain" and "incense", tangible substances that also represents spiritual meanings.
Christ warned that even a virgin will enter hell for slumbering on such issues. This "daily sacrifice" which is a "grain offering that is pure" is practiced "in every place". This is in every true assembly in His Temple which is a grander scale than just a single building in Jerusalem.
So crucial was this that Christ Himself warned to heed Daniel's warning regarding this issue when He warned of "the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet" which is clearly explained in Matthew 24: 15, 16, 21 Daniel 8:13; 11:31; and 12:11. The scripture calls this a "daily sacrifice". And by this, it eliminates all these divisive interpretations by many whose religious institutions do not observe this perpetual sacrificial system "daily". Again, "daily" means "daily".
So if this "daily sacrifice" happens "in every place" this alone destroys the arguments that this practice happens in a single rebuilt Jewish temple exclusively in Jerusalem. Therefore, small cult like groups like the Temple Institute is not ordained by God, but is influenced by the spirit of Antichrist. This is done in order to undermine Christianity and to deceive Christians to abandon the true sacrificial system.
This “pure grain offering” links directly to the same “grain offering” in Daniel’s prophecy which Christ instructed us to carefully pay attention to, where Antichrist will stop the “grain offering”.
If this is not the Eucharist and is regarding the re-instituted temple sacrifices, the other Jesus-style question would be this: how could Malachi's prophesy, which biblical scholars agree, these verses make null and void Jewish sacrificial system all of the sudden allow a re-construction of a cancelled system?
"One among you who would shut the gates" of the temple, that is, God will do away with the old sacrificial offering and that He will reach out to the “nations” with a new system observing a “grain offering that is pure” and even including “incense” which will be accomplished “daily” from “the rising of the sun even to its setting” and is a practice which is done as a perpetual “sacrificial” offering in many places and not just in a single building.
But this interpretation will instantly gain us an accusation that Catholics re-sacrifice Christ.
However, such an accusation digs the accusers own grave. If such sacrifices happen in a rebuilt temple, isn't killing animals and shedding their blood also symbolic of re-sacrificing Christ?
How then do these justify their own claim where Jews will be re-sacrificing the Messiah via animal sacrifices? Can one degrade Christ's blood to be as low as an animal? The Catholic and the Orthodox would cry out BLASPHEMY!.
The Messiah had already come! How can He be re-sacrificed?
So which is it? Are the Catholics re-sacrificing Christ or are the anti-Catholics simply re-sacrificing Christ with animals and misinterpreting Scripture? God no longer dwells in temples made by the hands of men. How could communion, this "daily sacrifice" be a metaphor, while Israel, so they say, will re-institute temple sacrifices with a literal application and from an old covenant perspective?
But to answer this dilemma, the naysayers will argue that while Israel will rebuild the temple, which Antichrist enters to stop the animal sacrifices, that such sacrifices are by no means acceptable to God. It is just that Ezekiel predicts what will happen as prophecy, thats all.
Really? In order to answer this question, we must first understand what is meant by "the Temple of God". It is here were the reader will understand the limited scope he has in understanding God's grand plan. When it comes to God's plan, God is not interested in a building, but a mega operation that encompasses heaven with earth.
WHAT IS THE TEMPLE OF GOD
The Temple with both its spiritual and tangible substance is built on the foundation of Christ as described in Ephesians 2:19–22 which its citizens are 'saints' its foundations are 'prophets' with Christ as 'chief corner stone', a temple 'fitly framed together':
“Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God: And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone [of this Temple]; In whom all the building [of this Temple] fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the [Holy] Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19–22)
This is no building structure. This is an amazing corporation, a partnership between heaven and earth as "fellow citizens" and "with the saints" in heaven with a "foundation of the apostles and prophets" and with "Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone" which all this is the "holy temple".
So why make Ezekiel's temple to simply be a literal building with animal sacrifices?
It is because all who follow the spirit of Antichrist, they only want to denounce the Catholic and the Orthodox priesthood. Such grasshoppers reject the very Temple of God, its authority, its hierarchy and the corporate responsibility.
This is why the grasshopper insists that Ezekiel's Temple is simply a prophecy about the Jews re-instituting the sacrificial system. If so, how does the anti-Catholic justify his own argument that animal sacrifices are unnecessary?
But to answer this, they state that it is simply the Jews who are confused about Christ's sacrifice and that the Bible simply prophesies the re-institution of the old sacrificial system, and not that God approves of it.
If such a flimsy answer is true, why would God Himself then support these very sacrifices:
"where the priests that approach unto the LORD shall eat the most holy things" (Ezekiel 42:13)
They "shall eat the most holy things". God calls these sacrifices "holy" and acceptable. This alone debunks such arguments.
What holy things? Here they are:
"there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meat offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; for the place is holy."
Again, God approves of this sacrificial system. So what is this "meat offering" and this "sin offering" and this "trespass offering"?
God addresses "meat" and "grain" as if the two are the same sacrificial substance. The only interpretation is to heed to Christ when He broke the bread while stating : "For my flesh [meat offering] is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:55). This is a perpetual sacrifice:
"For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come." (1 Corinthians 11:26)
To "shew the death of the Lord" is an everlasting perpetual sacrifice. This "showing" is not done once but "as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice" which reveals His death for us. This "chalice" and this "bread" is tangible substance that represents a spiritual meaning.
Divorcing the tangible from the spiritual is the crux of the whole issue of Antichrist which is done in order to deny that "Christ came in the flesh".
On a side note, combining the meat with grain is tradition which stems from ancient Judaism. Traditional Christians of the east, from Armenians to Roman Orthodox including even Muslims from Saudi Arabia to the Holy Land practiced the custom of combining lamb's meat with grain called Harrisah or Jarish as an offering for the souls of the departed. Our family used to cook this on a fire pit in a huge copper pot while Christians had their patriarch make a blessing over the meal. Such practices were a reminder of God's offering which many are too blind to see where even the name Bethlehem where Lehem is both meat and bread. Indeed, that village was the house of the Bread of Life and was also the house of the Lamb of God, both in one.
Once we understand the tangible substance that represents a spiritual meaning it all fits. One cannot ignore the tangible:
"When the priests enter therein, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the outer court, but there they shall lay their garments wherein they minister; for they are holy; and shall put on other garments, and shall approach to those things which are for the people."
These are literal garments (tangible substance) which represent a "spiritual meaning".
God Himself even supports not just this sacrificial system mentioned in Ezekiel, but the carving of images (icons) and of vestments and garments just as Catholic and Orthodox priests do:
In the space above the outside of the entrance to the inner sanctuary and on the walls at regular intervals all around the inner and outer sanctuary were carved cherubim and palm trees. Palm trees alternated with cherubim. Each cherub had two faces: the face of a human being toward the palm tree on one side and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the other. They were carved all around the whole temple. From the floor to the area above the entrance, cherubim and palm trees were carved on the wall of the main hall. (Ezekiel 41:17-20)
If this temple had carved statues of angels and even human beings, why then does the grasshopper hate icons? When it says in Ezekiel: "but there they shall lay their garments wherein they minister" is this tangible or symbolic of things spiritual?
It is both.
If this was only symbolic, why then aren't these 'sacrifices' and 'offerings' also symbolic? Christian priests use their vestments only when they are officiating. These follow scripture to the letter. And if one claims this is a literal temple built by human hands and they hate carved statues, they must also hate Ezekiel's temple.
God demanded "vestments" and not Hawaiian shirts and jeans. Vestments are liturgical clothing worn by Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Deacons and other clergy in orthodoxy which follows Scripture to the letter, adhering to a hierarchy, indeed, a Temple which is built on the foundation of Christ as described in Ephesians 2:19–22 which its citizens are 'saints' its foundations are 'prophets' with Christ as 'chief corner stone' working in corporation as a unit.
So when we read the word "temple" one needs to decide, which meaning do we choose, a rich meaning fitting for God or a simple meaning fitting to a cult in Jerusalem called the Temple Institute who adhere to things prior of the "greater things to come"?
This is no simple building. This temple unites earthly saints to heavenly Jerusalem, where angels and heavenly saints reside with Christ, the "chief corner stone".
All this is not simple to comprehend.
Therefore, to re-interpret Ezekiel's temple as a Jewish sacrificial system would be an interpretation of an Antichrist, for Islam still continues animal sacrifices which God abhors. Islam has Judaising elements in its religion. Antichrist will abolish the "daily sacrifice" which is exactly what anti-Catholics call to do, for their “grain offering” is no sacrifice. It is a gnostic sacrifice for it simply becomes grain without the substance of Christ. If God resided in an Ark why can't Christ also reside in His Communion bread? You can easily believe that electricians can have energy reside in a central location and such energy is distributed to your light socket, why can't you believe that God can also be omnipresent in a way that He too can reside in Eucharists?
People need to think. Antichrist would not mind abolishing all sacraments. He would make the sacrament of marriage a non-sacrament and divorce a minor sin so that every Tom would marry Harry's wife and every Dick marries both; Tom's and Harry's ex-wives. This would be closer to Islam not Christianity where marriage is portrayed between husband and wife as Christ and His Church. This is a corporate relationship which only the true faith has.
Antichrist would not mind abolishing the sacrament of confession. He will re-interpret the confession of the disciples to one another to mean the reverse opposite so when Jesus "breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit' If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven” to mean the opposite of what it simply says.
Seriously, what other interpretation is there for "If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven"?
Therefore, in the New Testament, the sinner would have to confesses to one of these twelve priests (disciples) in order to get their sins "forgiven".
Does that need a rocket scientist to interpret? A child can easily read this to see what it means. What we have here, in the primitive church, are twelve priests listening to confessions and forgiving the sins of the people. And so how can one forgive a sin of another if the other does not disclose this sin? Would this not be confession as in "confess your sins to one another" (James 5:16)?
Better yet, how can the disciples forgive sins? Where the disciples gods? Is it not only God Who can forgive sins?
But Jesus used this same example to such priestly authority:
“I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High” (Psalm 82:6).
“Gods” and “sons of the Most High”?
Even Christ confirms it in John 10:34–36: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”?
It is here where the devil enters and confuses. Unless one understands the meaning of 'Temple' from a new testament perspective they would not get it. It is the temple of Ephesians 2:19–22, an entire hierarchy with heaven above meeting earth below in this heavenly mount Zion where the Church cooperates with heaven above.
The process of achieving this is completely missing in today’s Protestant systematic theology, forgetting that God wants to mold us into perfection where we reflect and cooperate in God's plan in a corporate way. It is called Corporate Responsibility which completely stems from the Bible. It is the concept of one for all and all for one. This is a theme that is well etched from Genesis to Revelation. For example:
“Just as sin entered the world through one man, death through sin entered all men” (Romans 5:12).
This one man is Adam. So from Genesis we see this. Adam caused all the damage for the corporate others to suffer and it is one man (the new Adam, Christ) who does the fix for all the corporate others to heal.
This is indeed, the crux of the whole Christian theology.
Just as sin entered through one man in Romans 5, the redemption thereof is through one man:
“God made him [Christ, single seed] who had no sin to be sin for us [plural seeds], so that in him [one man] we [all of us, plural] might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Corporate Responsibility is how scripture is fulfilled. When it comes to Christ or His mother, the relationship with their seed is corporate, as if between the saints and the King. Corporate Responsibility uses the common old maxim derived from Matthew 25, that a blessing or an attack on one of the king’s officers (the saints) is an attack on the king himself (God). This principle is so clear when Christ in Matthew 25:40 says:
“Since you have done it unto one of the least of these [plural] my brethren [the King’s soldiers], you have done it unto me [the King]”.
This is the Temple of God. An attack on a saint is an attack on the King of Kings Himself and His Temple.
This verse is only explained and completely understood in the apostolic succession theology and without this, the scoffers, the grasshoppers would always quote only parts of the biblical texts arguing over Mary, the Saints, Confession to a priest, the Eucharist ... it never ends.
They will keep doing this till kingdom come until they are arrested by Christ as chaff and thrown into the dungeon burning with fire and brimstone while the wise virgins who comprehend enter the barn with their Bridegroom.
The grasshopper can never comprehend Théōsis. This can never be unless the Christian continually partakes of Christ’s literal body through communion and continually confessing their sins before they do this:
“if we confess our sins [continually], he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Without confession to Christ, that is, to the corporate body of Christ, His Temple, to His heavenly Mount Zion, there is no remission of sin.
Yet the spirit of Antichrist has his demonic disciples, the grasshoppers and the locusts, repeat a question: how could anyone "forgive sins" since Jesus is "the only mediator" and "intercessor"?
But this is not a Jesus-style question. In ancient Israel, the prophet was the mediator between Man and God as he cooperates with God. Moses begged God to show mercy unto the children of Israel as they were worshipping the golden calf. He was a mediator. The people exhorted Samuel to “Pray for thy servants to the Lord thy God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for a king.” (1 Samuel 12:19)
However, the grasshopper will answer that these were types of Christ, that when Christ came, it was He alone Who could forgive sins.
However, the people of Judea and Jerusalem flocked to St. John the Baptist, “confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:5) And again, Jesus Himself told the Disciples that “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” (John 20:23)
And then we have St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Even St. Paul spoke of confessing to a priest:
“And to whom you [the priest] have pardoned any thing, I also. For, what I [as a priest] have pardoned, if I have pardoned any thing, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 2:10)
What part of "I have done it [forgiving sins] in the person of Christ" do you, the grasshopper, not understand?
This is Christ's Temple.
And even amongst the grasshoppers, the pastor who believes in no sacraments, while he stomps on the Altar with his shoes dressed up in Hawaiian shirt and jeans, he is allowed to become an intercessory agent between the sinner and Christ and he is accepted to do "intercessory prayers" for his flock.
Is this not intercession?
If aiding or abusing Christ's "brethren," Christ says "you have done it unto me” then forgiving sin is also "done it in the person of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 2:10). So when we read "temple" we must not view these words in tunnel vision for language is limited. Christ residing in His Temple and Christ forgiving, is magnificent, complex, mysterious, miraculous, corporate and is un-comprehendable to man for the things of heaven are never fully comprehended by man that an eye can see while the spirit cannot be understood by human faculties.
The things of the spirit are not mere wind, but substance of unfathomable things. How can one fully and truly explain "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." How can I, the weak man explain “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"? If this "me" (Christ) involves hurting or contributing to a saint it is because this "me" involves the corporate Temple of God.
This leads us to the grasshoppers. What do we make of them?
THE GNOSTIC CHRISTIAN
It is in fact the gnostic who rejects all this. Why? He believes that the blood of Christ, vestments, carved images, incense, Eucharist ... are abstract, intangible thought, idea or teaching.
Again, the conflict between Christians and grasshoppers is the conflict between the tangible and the abstract. To believe in the abstract while ignoring the tangible is the crux of the whole issue of Christianity.
This is why in every dialogue between Christian and grasshopper, that whenever you quote verses with the tangible, they will always counter with the spiritual.