Posted on 09/09/2006 4:04:19 AM PDT by xzins
Second, note a literal interpretation of prophetic figures, and an overestimate of the importance of the Jewish people and the holy city as the centre of that kingdom
Well, that is what the Scripture teaches.
What the early church theologians weren't was Amillennial.
That only came into dominance in the 4th century, with Augustine,and the rejection of the literal hermeneutic.
Symbols, figures of speech, and types are normal literary tools that are used to clarify or emphasize thoughts and ideas (Dict.of Pre-Mill.Theology, p.94)
In other words, we call Christ the lamb of God but know that expression is figurative, pointing to a literal scriptural truth.
Thus, figurative language must be rooted in what the literal truth of scripture teaches, not the personal thoughts of what someone wants something to mean, like Ezek. Temple really being the temple in the Christian believer.
Christ doesn't reign over the earth-yet.
But, you are correct, we are to be about God's business, occupying until He decides to return for His Bride.
The Orthodox don't ignore Revelation; they just don't wish to make doctrine off of something that is so jumboed up. If what I'm being told is correct, they pull it out once a year, read it, say, "Hmmm...how interesting.", and put it back on the shelf until next year. Personally, I can't say that I blame them. If people for one moment took God's command seriously that teachers will be judged more strictly, I think most of us would bite our tongues on things we really don't understand.
Harley, please tell me that you're not trying to read back five-point Reform theology into Polycarp--or at least tell me that you've got more than one sentence which is pretty much just repeating Ephesians 2:8, and which not the most "Arminian" of us here disagree with in the slightest.
While there is also much we do not understand, there is much we do.
Revelation, combined with Old Testament prophecies (it is really a completion of the Old Testament promises) is not as difficult as many make it out to be.
As Mark Twain once quipped, 'it is not the things in the Bible that I don't understand that bother me, but the things that I do'
I don't see anywhere that the Thessalonians were aggrieved that they thought they missed the "Rapture". I see where they were wondering about the return of Christ and our gathering together with Him (2 Thess 2:1). I see where lawlessness was already at work in Paul's day (2 Thess 2:7). And I see where the Lord will slay all those who did not believe at His appearance (2 Thess 2:8-12). I don't see Paul mentioning anyone being "left behind".
BTW-I also see where "God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, (2 Thess 2:11-12)". One has to wonder if God is sending a "deluding influence" how this will affect their ability to understand the Rapture and what is precisely the point of the Rapture?
I don't wish to get off point here since this is a thread about eschatology and not the 5 points. I will only say this, Polycarp statement is a expansion of Eph 2:8,9-not a quote. Please note the difference:
"...though ye saw Him not, ye believe with joy unutterable and full of glory; unto which joy many desire to enter in; forasmuch as ye know that it is by grace ye are saved, not of works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ." - Polycarp
In any case, there is no mistaking that Polycarp believed Christians are saved by the "will of God".
That's what the enemies of Christ want you and me to believe.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." -- Matthew 28:18-20"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Christ reigns today at the right hand of the Father.
"You meant 19th century. JN Darby and his vision-inspired Irvingite friends in Scotland were not that old."
Well actually no, from this article the idea of dispensations predated the amil theory.
"From the first century, writers believed in different economies or administrations. Bible instructor Larry V. Crutchfield, of Baumholder, West Germany, has written an article titled Ages and Dispensations Of The Ante-Nicene Fathers. In it he points out that the Fathers of early church history believed in divisions of history based on God's dealings with man. He states, "Among those whose doctrine of ages and dispensations has survived from the Ante-Nicene period are Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Methodius, and to a minor degree Victorinus of Petau."
Crutchfield says that "Barnabas' year-day tradition is the earliest budding of the dispensational understanding of God's dealings with man."
Justin Martyr (AD 100-165): according to Crutchfield, Justin believed in four phases of human history in God's program. The first was from Adam to Abraham; the second was from Abraham to Moses; the third was from Moses to Christ; and the fourth was from Christ to the eternal state.
Irenaeus (AD 120-202): The dispensational scheme of Irenaeus is four in number. They are: 1. From the Creation to the Flood. 2. From the Flood to the Law. 3. From the Law to the Gospel. 4. From the Gospel to the Eternal State. He taught that there were four zones of the world and of mankind. He saw a connection between these zones, the faces of the "four living creatures", the four gospels and the four dispensations.
"Some Fathers set forth only four such dispensations, others came very close to making nearly the same divisions modern dispensationalists do," says Crutchfield."
I'll get the cites from the persecuted sects in the 12th and 13th century for you but I thought you might want to study these while I get them.
It's a paraphrase, with a little of Eph. 1:5 thrown in. So? How does that indicate that Polycarp believed in what is now called Calvinism? I too believe that we are saved "not of works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ"--but I do not attach the Calvinist sense of "the will of God" to that sentence. Likewise any "Arminian."
To say that just because someone combines "grace" and "will of God" in a sentence they are a proponent of five-point Calvinism or any other variant of Reform Theology is nothing more than an inductive fallacy.
The claim is easy to make. The hard part is backing it up with actual quotes from these folks that can reasonably be read "dispensationally". No one has successfully done that yet to my knowledge.
Crutchfield's article was published in Bibliotheca Sacra, the mouth organ of Dallas Seminary.
If you look at Crutchfield's criteria for defining "dispensationalism":
Perhaps the best recent definition of dispensationalism which incorporates the essential features of 1) the distinction between Israel and the church, 2) the hermeneutical principle of literal or normal interpretation, and 3) the purpose of God in history as the glorification of Himself, is that formulated by Robert P. Lightner.You will see that only 2 of the 3 are distinctive to dispensationalism. Item (3) is non-controversial as far as anyone can tell.
So how does Crutchfield go about trying to prove his point?
What about "literalism" and Israel vs. the church? One need not go very far in church history to see the fathers view of "literal" is very different from what is supposed by modern dispensationalists. The most telling case of this is that they almost universally viewed the church as the fulfillment of OT Israel. They came to this conclusion by spiritualzing many of the OT prophecies and applying them to Christ and His church.
Even Crutchfield admits:
The prevailing view among the millenarian fathers was that Israel as a nation had been set aside by God because of her idolatry and unfaithfulness in Old Testament times and her rejection and crucifixion of Christ in the New Testament. Consequently, according to these early fathers, God’s favor was transferred to those among the Gentiles who believed in Christ. Thus as the “new Israel,” the church inherited the promises made to the old Israel.Crutchfield attempts to minimize this fact with the following:
Lest covenant amillennialists claim premature support for their system from these fathers, we hasten to point out the following. In the first place, though not systematically presented, the early fathers recognized three categories of the seed of Abraham in Scripture: 1) the physical seed (descendants) of Abraham, particularly through Jacob; 2) the physical/spiritual seed of Abraham, i.e., those among the physical seed who like Abraham were justified by faith; and 3) the spiritual seed of Abraham who are not of his physical seed, i.e., Gentile believers also justified by faith like, Abraham. With these distinctions in view, the fathers nowhere made Israel the church or the church national Israel.But unfortunately his support for this three fold distinction in the early church fathers is very slim. In reality the language used by the early fathers to describe physical Israel and God's promises is very much in line with later Augustinian and covenant theology. The carnal expectation of national Israel found in modern dispensationalism is nowhere to be found in the fathers. As Schaff has said:
The Jewish chiliasm rested on a carnal misapprehension of the Messianic kingdom, a literal interpretation of prophetic figures, and an overestimate of the importance of the Jewish people and the holy city as the centre of that kingdom. It was developed shortly before and after Christ in the apocalyptic literature, as the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, 4th Esdras, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Sibylline Books. It was adopted by the heretical sect of the Ebionites, and the Gnostic Cerinthus.It's apparent that "Jewish chiliasm" is much closer to modern dispensationalism than what was common with the orthodox fathers.
Sounds like double talk, but let me ask again, when the Bible says, "For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not give their light; The sun will be darkened in its going forth, And the moon will not cause its light to shine," is that "literal" or "figurative" language?
IOW, as far as figures of speech are concerned what's the diffference between:
"For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light"
and
"The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."
or
"His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth."
I'm curious to see if you can explain the difference (if any) without resorting to brute force method.
Read more carefully. Actually he does not assign Justin to that group. Crutchfield writes:
It was of course true then, as now, that the basic division between the Old and New Testaments—God’s programs before and after Christ—were recognized. But it is also true that several of the fathers held to the concept of a multi-staged (or dispensational) dealing of God with humanity based loosely upon a cycle of failure and the consequent need for new revelation which aided an individual’s endeavor to please God in obedient faith. Some fathers set forth at least four such dispensations while others come very close to making nearly the same divisions proposed by modern dispensationalists. In the writings of Irenaeus, Victorinus of Petau, and Methodius, the number of dispensations is artificially restricted to four because of the quadriplex types adduced from both nature and Scripture which they felt required it.IOW, when you scratch the surface you discover that these men arrived at a four-fold division in God's economy by spiritualizing and allegorizing the "quadriplex types adduced from both nature and Scripture". They did not arrive at such divisions by a "literal" approach to the Scriptures.
Crutchfield does not identify who he means when he says "while others come very close to making nearly the same divisions proposed by modern dispensationalists."
I didn't want you to miss that one.
Thanks much for the ping, keep them coming.
During the tribulation period that tribulation is not of God. During the wrath period following the tribulation period it is of God.
Now then you have plucked a verse out of Revelations in which Christ is talking to the churches, now is this historical or is it figuratively speaking to the Church throughout the ages? You tell me. I will tell you this it is not during the 3.5 years of the tribulation period in which we were talking about.
Then let's take another aspect of Dispensationalism-the reign of Christ. While some of our dispensational friends would like to say the early church fathers were dispensationalists, none of their writings support the belief that Christ is not presently reigning on earth. Even Irenaeus, who everyone seem so fond of throwing out as a dispensationalist, believed Christ was presently and actively reigning.
B-D, would YOU agree that Christ is reigning as King over the universe or, do you believe as our Pre-dispensationlist friends do that Christ is waiting for some "future" event in time to reign?
Excellent post. It is clear that irenaeus liked the word "dispensation." I noticed it myself.
I suspect, since it's a bible word, that there have been others in church history who have used the word itself or synonymous language for the same.
A dispensation is simply "God acting with humanity a specific way in a particular era."
Garden of Eden, Ante-diluvian, Law, Grace, Millennium, New Heavens/New Earth.....these seem to be obvious candidates.
Eph 1: 9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
Eph 1: ...That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church,
Just because a king reigns does not mean there cannot be a rebellion and resistance. (Resistance, incidentally, is the basis of lostness.)
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