Posted on 06/21/2005 4:27:46 PM PDT by Buggman
The problem I see with eschatology is trying to fit historical events or future events around scripture. For the historian it tends to be relatively easy but are they getting it right. It takes a great understanding of ancient history to know for sure. And how does one such as myself not steeped in ancient history verify an author's assertions without a great deal of study? I hate to say I'm skeptical but I like to verify things myself.
The futurist path is far easier. Just make predictions based upon your surroundings. But, as we have seen from history, this approach is littered with errors. The "interpretation" one accepts and argue for today may prove to be in error 20 years from now.
I guess I shy away from eschatology because I have neither the time to study ancient history adequately nor am I willing to argue a point that may be out of date in five years.
I agree with you. Such things must be done prayerfully and fearfully and with a healthy dose of honesty. Pastors must carefully point out when they are speculating/supposing.
Nonetheless, we are told to engage in scriptural study to show ourselves approved. We are told by Jesus to "Watch." The Revelation does offer a blessing to those who read & hear that book.
We might not be the 10 talent prophecy guy who gains 10 cities for his efforts, but we shouldn't be the "hide the talent in the ground" guy, either.
Now where did I put that ketchup...
Again, I agree with everything you are saying! I also think it is important for laypersons to be aware of the difference between their own musings and Truth so that they don't get them confused.
Very true. Many Messianics hold that view as well. It's not a millennial issue per se.
However, recognizing that the Levitical priesthood was given as a permanent station to the sons of Aaron and at the same time recognizing that the nature of the sacrifices has changed and the Messiah has become the High Priest forever does clear up one issue that the post- and amillennialist camp have brought up to nominal futurist premillennialism: If sacrifices are truly done away with and it is "crucifying Jesus Christ all over again" to offer them, then how can there be a End-of-the-Age Temple that is truly the Temple of God for the Antichrist to defile and cease the sacrifices in? The answer that I propose based on the Tanakh and a more careful reconciliation with the NT is that they aren't, it isn't, and God still regards sacrifices as acts of obedience and worship provided that they are offered in the right Spirit and for the right reasons.
It also clarifies why "the prince" spoken of in Ezk. 45-46 is prophesyed to prepare and offer the sacrifices. Before Messiah Yeshua, the High Priests who offered the sacrifices were always of Levi, and the rulers always from Judah, but in Yeshua King, Priest, and Prophet are all perfected in one Man, and He will both minister and rule before the people on earth as He does in heaven (cf. the Lord's Prayer) when He does so from Jerusalem in fulfillment of the prophets (cf. Isa. 4:1-5 and 9:7, Jer. 3:16-17, etc.).
Btw, topcat, are you still working on your study of what "binding and loosing" means in Mt. 16 and 18?
Good illustration. "For whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. But whoever does not have, from him shall be taken away even that which he has" (Mt. 13:12) applies to prophecy just as it does to every other gift that God offers us in His kingdom.
That is where the disagreement seems to focus. As best as I can figure out, the historical position of the Church has been that they were all temporary -- the priesthood, the sacrifices, and the tabernacle/temple -- and they all pointed to Christ, the fulfillment.
There is no need to reconcile a future temple since there is no need to reconstruct a future temple and resurrect the Levitical priesthood. Given the entire thrust of the book of Hebrews and other NT portions, this is a much more simple and theologically elegant solution. And it fits biblically unless you impose presuppositions like a forced literal hermeneutical system.
If sacrifices are truly done away with and it is "crucifying Jesus Christ all over again" to offer them, then how can there be a End-of-the-Age Temple that is truly the Temple of God for the Antichrist to defile and cease the sacrifices in?
If you hold to the presupposition of a future physical temple and a future anti-christ just before Jesus returns, then you have to deal with the issue somehow. There are reasonable explanations that are not forced to rely on a rebuilt future temple.
Btw, topcat, are you still working on your study of what "binding and loosing" means in Mt. 16 and 18?
Yep.
Indeed. Pick up virtually any book on the subject from the '70s to see just how wrong folks can be with their predictions/speculations.
It's almost like watching people try to predict where the computer industry will be in 5 years. They almost always get it wrong.
Today you have folks insisting that modern Israel is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy when they haven't a clue (sometimes folks with an "infallible word of knowledge"). Not all the facts are in. In fact they won't be until we see Jesus face-to-face.
Folks, I'm not sure how I rotated back on the ping list for this thread. (I thought I'd worked my way off).
I appreciate your thinking of me. But I'm not following, and I'd just as soon not have the pings.
Thanks.
Unfortunately, all the "signs" we seem to be dealing with today are like the story of Chicken Little. There are lots of prophecy gurus running around telling Christ's Church, "The sky is falling! I must go and tell the king." What these folks need if for King Jesus to give them an umbrella to avoid the theological acorns.
But if you're into "the sky is falling" theology, there are some great deals on CBD, e.g.:
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Left Behind could have been a decent movie, but I thought it was put together pretty poorly. JMHO.
I have not been a fan of the LBehind series....better known as "The Never-ending Story-Line"
At one time the "historical position of the Church" was that receiving the sacraments from a properly ordained Roman Catholic priest, going to confession, and doing every pennance they prescribed was necessary for salvation, and even then you'd have to serve a sentence in Purgatory unless you had enough indulgences to your account. Should we have stayed with the historical position of the Church, or was it better that the Reformation chose instead to make the Bible alone the final arbiter of theology and morality?
If sola scriptura was right for the Reformers, why are we now back to citing the traditions of men as authoritative over the plain wording of the Scriptures?
There is no need to reconcile a future temple since there is no need to reconstruct a future temple and resurrect the Levitical priesthood.
Sure . . . so long as you throw out Exodus, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Olivet Discourse, and 2 Thessalonians, there's no need at all.
There are reasonable explanations that are not forced to rely on a rebuilt future temple.
Again, they are reasonable only if you consider outright tossing out or ignoring large segments of Scripture in order to uphold traditional interpretations of men to be reasonable. I personally don't.
Isaiah 2:1-5,3 "And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
We will have to throw out portions of Isaiah also.
I'm not sure why you jump to these sorts of conclusions. I said nothing about the authority of the church fathers (tradition) over the Scriptures. I merely pointed out that the sense of the church fathers in this area seems fairly uniform. More uniform than with some of the errors you mentioned.
Christ promised to lead his church into all truth. The church has identified certain doctrines based on a systematic study of the Bible. The church fathers have been helpful to later generations in determining the likely correct view of a particular text or doctrine of Scripture. Not infallibly, but helpful nonetheless.
Charle Hodge wrote:
"... the common faith of the Church for which Protestants contend, is faith in doctrines plainly revealed in Scripture. It does not extend beyond those doctrines. It owes its whole authority to the fact that it is a common understanding of the written word, attained and preserved under that teaching of the Spirit, which secures to believers a competent knowledge of the plan of salvation therein revealed. ... Protestants do not regard "common consent" either as an informant or as a ground of faith. With them the written word is the only source of knowledge of what God has revealed for our salvation, and his testimony therein is the only ground of our faith.I think it is very helpful to examine everything, especially the nouveau theologies like dispensationalism and messianic Judaism, in light of the historical teaching of the universal church.
To suggest that doing so is equivalent to placing tradition over Scripture is absurd.
You really must get a grip on that plain words spoken by others. It strikes at your credibility to run off with things that are not in the text. :-)
Again, they are reasonable only if you consider outright tossing out or ignoring large segments of Scripture in order to uphold traditional interpretations of men to be reasonable. I personally don't.
No, they are reasonable if one does not subscribe to a hyper-literalist methodology of interpreting the Bible, which, btw, is not supported by the Bible itself.
To interpret one portion of Scripture in the light of the rest of Scripture and come to a different conclusion does not amount to "tossing out" anything.
What is uncalled for is to take a verse of Scripture and isolate it from the rest of the Bible and then draw conclusions that many respectable theologians would laugh at.
If, as many suspect, there are 2 groups following Armageddon, (1) Those who believe after the rapture (many of whom are Jewish), (2) Those of enemy nations who were not part of the destroyed armies themselves (certainly women and children), then what would be the lesson to them EXCEPT a looking back at a sacrifice that they had either ignored or rejected?
What better way to REIFY that sacrifice than by life-costing sacrifices that illustrate the most costly sacrifice in history?
We will have to throw out portions of Isaiah also.
"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven." Now this, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire." (Heb. 12:22-29)
Setting aside for a moment physical locations, which is the point of contention, what elements are missing from Isaiah in Hebrews 12? "Zion", "Jerusalem, "mountain of the Lord", "the word of the Lord". They all seem to be there, albeit spiritualized to fit with the more complete understanding of God's redemption program that we find in the NT.
"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;" (Heb 1:1,2)
"Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith." (Gal. 3:24)
So nothing needs to be thrown out, just properly interpreted in the light of the rest of the Bible, especially in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Well, a couple problems with this.
First, Christ's sacrifice is not an abstraction or imaginary concept that needs to be reified. It is the reality, the very thing to which the old covenant sacrifice pointed. We have testimony of that sacrifice in the Bible.
Second, we have a remembrance of Christ death on our behalf in these post-atonement days. It's called the sacrament of Lord's Supper.
"Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.'"
With your approach you still end up taking a step backwards.
In that regard, no interpretation of prophecy can be said to be without fault.
Futurism: The sky's about to fall!
Historicism: The sky's been falling, and the last little bit is about to fall!
Preterism: The sky already fell! But it'll fall again someday!
You're right in one regard: Too many keep looking at the non-signs and declare them to be signs of the end. They look at wars, false messiahs, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and other disasters, ignoring what Yeshua said: "See that you are not troubled, for all these things must occur; but the end is not yet" (Mt. 24:6).
The Bible gives only a handful of signs that are not simply general descriptors of trouble and which we could pin down to a unique event in history, or future history. One, I would argue, is a functioning Jewish state in Israel, since that serves as the backdrop for most of the eschatological prophecies in Scripture, and which is prophesied in Isa. 11, Ezk. 36-37, and elsewhere. Others include:
- The 70th Week Covenant (Dan. 9:27). I've already given the reasoning behind supposing the 70th Week to be yet future earlier in this thread.In addition to these and other definite signs, there are a number of what I'll call "prerequisite" signs that we see occuring in our day, things that have to be done before the prophetic scenario described in Scripture can take place. I've already mentioned the rebirth of Israel, which is the major one. Others include:
- The restoration of a functioning Temple with sacrifices and offerings in Jerusalem as a necessary prerequisite to those sacrifices and offerings being interrupted. This could happen before or after the covenant.
- The interruption of those sacrifices, and the setting up of the Abomination of Desolation (Dan. 9:27, Mt. 24:15), which Sha'ul tells us will this time be a man, not an idol, declaring himself to be God in God's Temple (2 Th. 2:4).
- A Great Tribulation that begins from that point which is worse than any before or after (Dan. 12:1 and Mt. 24:15-22). Those who speculate that the Great Tribulation was the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem have to explain how the loss of two million Jews (and very few Chrisitans/Messianic Jews) was greater than the Holocaust murder of six million Jews or the Soviet persecution of the Church, to pick just two recent examples.
- And after that, the signs in the sun, moon, and stars that are described throughout Scripture and which I showed in chart-form earlier in this thread.
- An increasing "coziness" between Europe, Russia, and the Middle East to line up all the players in the Gog attack of Ezekiel 38-39.Now, a note of caution: The "prerequisite" signs are fascinating, especially since we see not one or two but pretty much all of them either fulfilled or moving towards fulfillment in our day. However, they cannot be used to say, for example, "The Lord will definitely return in this generation." I personally believe He will, mind you, but I by no means claim that this belief is anything but an inference and personal feeling. If He tarries for another century, that's fine with me. If things suddenly accelerate and we find ourselves in the 70th Week next year, that won't surprise me at all either. The great lesson of the 20th Century is that world events can seem to completely stabilize for two or more generations (like the Cold War), and then be overturned in a week.
- A European superstate which "shall be in it the strength of the iron [of Rome] . . . partly strong and partly brittle . . . [but which] shall not cling to one another, even as iron is not mixed with clay" (Dan. 2:41-43) and which will survive until the time of the Second Coming (v. 44).
- Jerusalem being "a cup of trembling to all the peoples all around . . . a burdensome stone for all peoples" (Zec. 12:2-3), this despite having no strategic importance whatsoever.
- The Gospel going to all nations--indeed, to all ethnos, ethnic groups--and the fullness of the Gentiles being brought into the Messiah's Body so that Israel's blindness may be lifted (Mt. 24:14, Rom. 11:25-28) and so those standing before God's throne will truly be "of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues" (Rev. 7:9). The last time I checked with some of the world missions organizations, we weren't quite there yet, but we're getting darn close.
- A worldwide audio/visual communication system (i.e., TV) so that those in their fields and in their houses may personally see the Abomination of Desolation take place (Mt. 24:15, 17-18) and so that within a three-and-a-half day period, "many of the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations" may look on the bodies of the Two Witnesses (Rev. 11:9). (Until the 20th century, nobody outside of Israel would have even had time to hear about their deaths, let alone come and see the bodies in 3.5 days.)
We watch because we are commanded to watch (cf. Tit. 2:13), and we study to show ourselves approved (2 Ti. 2:15), but what we have to be careful of is to not get so bogged down with prophecy (or, indeed, any other area of study) that we forget to work while the sun is still high.
We've got work to do, and if the Lord is truly coming in our lifetimes, then we need to be all the more busy, not sitting back waiting for it to happen. That's not a rebuke to anyone in this discussion in particular, just a general Word for neeners, GRPL, and lurkers alike.
That work, IMHO, includes holding onto as much of the freedoms and Christian heritage in this country as we can until the end.
You'll have to pardon the LOTR quote, but I find it apropos:
"Three hundred lives of men I've walked this earth and now I have no time."
--Gandalf, The Two Towers
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