No, everything Jesus did on the cross was in preparation for Israel's ultimate restoration, giving hope to sinners throughout the world.
No, Jesus wasn't speaking in parables. The restoration of national Israel had real meaning to the Jews, and Jesus did not correct them for having a wrong definition for who "Israel" is!
This is a diversion to another controversial passage. This indicates you cannot justify your misinterpretation of who "national Israel" is in Acts 1.6-7.
Of course I believe Jesus spoke the truth when he said some of his disciples would see the arrival of the Kingdom's power. But this could refer to a temporal form of the Kingdom in the Church, when Pentecost came. Or it could mean something else.
Obviously, I do agree with you that God's heavenly Kingdom can take a form on the earth presently, though I limit it to a temporary form. The eschatological Kingdom will not arrive until the 2nd Coming.
That is absurd. That is what the Jews believed was their final "Hope" at the time of Jesus' ministry. And Jesus never rebuked them for believing that. In fact he said that at his Coming...
Matt 24.30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other."
Israel had already gone through a number of reiterations of this idea in their history, so that there is no question about what it means. It means that Israel will be restored, just as it was promised under the Law.
Deut 30.4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.
That is not "hyper-literalist!" That is what the Bible says! Jesus was *not* a Gnostic, creating a dual world with the Jews and the material world on one side, and a spiritual Kingdom and the international Church on the other side!
Now I'm a "Pharisee?" And you think you take the high road and play the martyr as if you alone are the victim of insults?
The ironic thing is: in keeping with the early Amillennialists, many of the early Chiliasts emphasized the New Testament heavenly spiritual hope rather than an earthly carnal one, as most contemporary Premillennialists promote. They spiritualized the fulfillment of Israel's hope, relating it to the Church, the Promised Land being Christ, and, in doing so, they expose the faulty Premil literalist obsession.
Chiliast Methodius (Bishop of Olympus, Asia Minor) denounces the materialistic approach of the apostate Jews (which sadly many Premillennialists advocate today):
[T]he Jews, fluttering about the bare letter of Scripture, like drones about the leaves of herbs, but not about flowers and fruits as the bee, fully believe that these words and ordinances were spoken concerning such a tabernacle as they erect; as if God delighted in those trivial adornments which they, preparing, fabricate from trees, not perceiving the wealth of good things to come; whereas these things, being like air and phantom shadows, foretell the resurrection and the putting up of our tabernacle that had fallen upon the earth, which at length, in the seventh thousand of years, resuming again immortal, we shall celebrate the great feast of true tabernacles in the new and indissoluble creation, the fruits of the earth having been gathered in, and men no longer begetting and begotten, but God resting from the works of creation (Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse 9:1).
Methodius concludes, showing the feast of tabernacles to be a type of an incorruptible future millennial age:
Wherefore let it shame the Jews that they do not perceive the deep things of the Scriptures, thinking that nothing else than outward things are contained in the law and the prophets; for they, intent upon things earthly, have in greater esteem the riches of the world than the wealth which is of the soul (Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse 9:1).
Justin describes the spiritual nature of the kingdom that is approaching as spiritual and heavenly:
[W]hen you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom; whereas we speak of that which is with God, as appears also from the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians, though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so confesses. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ, that we might not be slain and we should strive to escape detection, that we might obtain what we expect. But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a debt which must at all events be paid (The First Apology of Justin, Chapter XI (11) —What Kingdom Christians Look For).
Justin did not look for a carnal temporary human kingdom on this earth when Christ comes, but a heavenly one. His words seem to dismiss the whole modern-day Premillennialist expectation of a restoration of old covenant practices with natural Israel being elevated above all others nation for a thousand years. He negates the idea of mortals saturating the new earth. Justin strongly responds: “For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ.”