But I would have thought that the complete fulfilment of the promise is still to come - there are still plenty of ‘enemies’ needing to be become the messiah’s ‘footstool’.

Yes, and the last enemies to be destroyed will be death and Hades. What I am arguing for, though, is the option of a rather ‘shortsighted’ reading that sees no further than it is realistic for us to suppose that the New Testament saw - not an exclusive option necessarily but one that I believe we can learn a lot from. The language of the New Testament, I think, places certain constraints on how we interpret the ascension - it is the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God, above all other powers and authorities (Eph.1:21-22), but not yet over those powers and authorities - because the reality was that on the ‘political’ level, the level of ‘kingdom’, the people of God were still under oppression. All I’m saying is that this political dimension has to be taken into account, that the apocalyptic language relates to the real circumstances of the church.

The problem as I see it with attaching these references to a ‘return’ of Christ in A.D.70 is that there is a threefold event: return, rapture and resurrection. A great deal in your approach is made to hinge on the appearance of Christ, the rapture of the living and the resurrection of the dead being invisible, or purely spiritual events.

All good points which really require a more detailed response than I want to give here. I would stress, though, that the parousia motif must embrace not only AD 70 but also judgment on Rome. The argument in my book, when it eventually sees the light of day, will be that Paul’s account of the ‘coming’ of Christ is shaped by language in Daniel which describes the impact of pagan hostility towards Israel and the eventual victory of the righteous in Israel over that oppression (much clearer in 2 Thess.1-2). From the perspective of the early church both in Judea and in the pagan world, this must have been interpreted in terms of the threat posed by Rome and the church’s hope of overcoming (to use John’s word) that threat.

Am I right in thinking you relate this also to the destruction of Jerusalem/Rome, and that thereafter it ceases to be of on-going significance?

Not quite. I would say that much of the language of the kingdom in the NT refers to a decisive transfer of sovereignty from the satanically inspired oppressor to Christ and those who will ‘reign’ with him (who are not to be equated with the whole church, which is why we can still read Matt.25:34 historically). I think one might argue that this is what ‘thy kingdom come’ refers to - not a progressive or end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it coming of the kingdom, but the overcoming of the enemy of the people of God. But ‘kingdom’ is not an event, it is a state of affairs, a condition. If the kingdom has come, then it is evident in the fact that we now freely and publicly acknowledge the lordship or reign of Christ over the people of God: we experience the ongoing reality of the fact that Christ has been enthroned in place of Caesar.