Posted on 09/12/2002 7:19:20 AM PDT by xzins
1. It is NOW before the Return of Christ.
2. It is in the New Heavens and the New Earth (it doesn't matter whether the NHNE of the amillennialists or premillennialists.)
3. It is in the millennial reign of the premillennialists. "
I'll take #2 for $1000, Bob!</i.
What you choose, then, is to advance the position that there is human death in the new heavens and the new earth. You are certainly free to propose that, but what's the point of death in the new heavens and new earth? Did someone sin? After Christ destroyed death, did He just decide to bring it back? What??? Why does the New Jerusalem passage in Revelation say, "and death will be no more?"
The correct answer is number 3. The word "but" makes it possible in that chapter. The rest of bible revelation makes it necessary.
To answer your question, no, His will is not done on earth as in heaven, and not even the mellenialists believe that will be the case in the mellenium, at least not as far as I have read in mellenial literature.
In heaven, God's will isn't imposed on unwilling angels.
I'll just post it for you again, so you can see them more easily.
| Revelation 5:9-10 | 9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; 10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. | Christians Serving as Kings & PRIESTS who SHALL (FUTURE) reign with Christ on the EARTH |
| Revelation 20:4-5 | 4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. | Resurrected saints (along with those in fine linen Rev 19: 8, 14 same as Rev 5:10) REIGN with Christ a THOUSAND YEARS. |
| Revelation 20:6 | 6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. | Christians serving as priests reign with Christ a thousand years |
| Revelation 20:7-9 | Revelation 20 7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.. | After 1000 years those in Holy City ON EARTH are attacked but enemy is destroyed |
| Summary | 100% Scripture from the Book of Revelation.. | Irrefutable 1000 Year Reign of Christ on Earth. Christians serving as priests with Christ for 1000 years ON EARTH. This is the definition of Premillenialism. Anyone who says premillennialism is NOT a valid biblical position is unfair with SCRIPTURE. |
There's the invisible church which is united. It is the spiritual body of Christ and is composed only of the elect (the physically dead and physically alive regenerate) all down through history.
Then there's the visible church which is NOT united because it is composed of both the wheat and the tares; the sheep and the goats; the elect and the NON-elect, all physically alive today.
There can never be unity in the visible church for the simple reason that there can never be unity between light and darkness.
(This is not an accident. The various passages covering the topic of the Lord’s return are intended to be encouraging for God’s people. They are intended to keep us thoughtful about His return.)
Ah, but it turns out that God reserves the right to define “soon.” That’s one of Peter’s main points. That’s why he chose to quote from a Psalm which spells out the fact that God is not like us, that God’s very eternality should be a warning to the scoffers who were ULTIMATELY just scoffing about the fact of the Lord’s DELAY (and trying to use the DELAY as a basis for insinuating that He is NOT GOING TO COME BACK).
This is what the full-preterists have never faced squarely. They ignore 2 Peter 3 while pretending to interpret it.
So, in a peculiar way, the passage is ultmately a warning about today’s full-preterists. Like the scoffers in Peter’s day, they say the Lord is NOT COMING BACK. To be more specific, they say that if God never had any intentions of sending His Son back to earth in a way which was HUMANLY soon, then God is a LIAR.
So, don’t be fooled by the full-preterists’ smarmy arguments invoking a Bodily return by Christ in 70 A.D. They have to be disfellowshipped. They are scoffers who are just hiding behind the intepretive difficulties inherent in the Olivet Discourse. At the bottom-line, they really are calling God a liar while pretending to interpret His words. My goodness, they are DEFYING the ENTIRE POINT of 2 Peter 3.
(I would use basically the same argument in applying to them Paul’s condemnation of Hymenaeus and Philetus. As you know, the full-preterists say that the warnings against the doctrine of Hymenaeus and Philetus don’t apply to them in view of the events of 70 A.D [i.e., shortly after Peter’s epistle]. But we mustn’t be spiritually naive. We musn’t be fooled by the Satanic shell-game which the full-preterists are playing. We need to notice that their position renders Christianity essentially MEANINGLESS. We need to notice that they are trying to DESTROY the hope of the Church.
We don’t have to understand the Olivet Discourse to realize that. On the contrary, we ought to realize that the full-preterists’ interpretation of the Oiivet Discourse is the very first one which we can rule OUT!)
Getting back to 2 Peter 3, I would say that 2 Peter 3 is important in warning us that goofball eschatology is not to be coddled. Considering Peter’s scathing characterization of the scoffers as "walking after their own lusts," we need to notice that a sinner’s bad eschatology can amount to a revelation that he is just plain LOST.
(I will grant that we can’t always tell the difference between a lost person and a genuine Christian who has lapsed into carnal stupidity in matters such as eschatology. But this fact is automatically a warning that a lot of folks who get pronounced saved are not saved. And in movements where stupid eschatological positions are exalted at the expense of the gospel and the True Hope of the Church, a lot of folks will be discovered on Judgment Day as having been lost the whole time. They will be revealed as idolaters.)
In short, 2 Peter 3 is an extraordinarily serious text!
More later.
So who was Paul admonishing in the letter to the Corinthians?
Your answer doesn't fly because it is impossible to assemble any group of people without both tares and wheat, and large groups do come together in unity all the time. The disunity is not a matter of tares amongst wheat, but exactly as it was with the Corinthians: People forming sects and divisions based on what they wanted to believe and who they want to follow.
So either Christ prayed for something to happen that hasn't (wouldn't be the only instance) or the true physical manifestation of the spiritual church is united.
Are you admitting that you believe there is DEATH in the New Heavens and New Earth? Why would there be death in the NHNE?
As I see it, this is one of the important warnings against the premill position. It is a warning that something has gone carnally haywire in the souls of the premills. Their interpretation of the millennium doesn't fit what we know about God and Christ.
It seems to me that a spiritually thoughtful person would balk--to say the least!--at the notion that God would make His Son live in such a CRAPPY world for ANOTHER THOUSAND YEARS.
(Remember: Sin GRIEVED the Lord Jesus when He was on earth.)
Furthermore, the premills' claim that some folks will literally die during the materialistic millennium to be (supposedly) ushered in after the Lord's return does not square with the Bible's rather clear revelation that the Lord's return is the consummation of His defeat of physical death.
You are hung up on looking at the carnal/physical *temporal* church as if it is composed only of the elect. It isn't.
The catholic (universal/invisible) church is the only one that is composed of the elect (both alive today and dead).
Christ lives in the regenerate --- only the regenerate are HIS BODY of which HE IS THE HEAD.
He does NOT live in the unregenerate. They are NOT His body, even though they sit in church pews every week.
When He returns the second time, He will separate out of the temporal church all the pretenders from the real mccoy; all the tares from the wheat; all the sheep from the goats.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
| Text | Scripture | Associated Resurrection | Time |
| 1 Co 15: 23a | 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; | Jesus’ Own was the First Resurrection | Time Point: Resurrection Sunday, approx 33 AD |
| 1 Co 15: 23b | 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. | Those who are Christ’s (those who are dead in Christ + the rapture of those who are alive …1Th4:16-17) | Time Point: At the 2nd Coming of Christ |
| 1 Co 15: 24-26 | 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. | The Remainder Resurrected at the End | TIME SPAN Beginning at THE RETURN "He MUST REIGN" UNTIL All enemies, INCLUDING DEATH, destroyed. |
No! Isaiah 65:17,18 ~SPECIFICALLY~ and ~EXPLICITLY~ identify this as the New Creation.
Now, the passage does identify death, but I am under no more REQUIREMENT to view this passage as a LITERAL description of the New Heavens and the New Earth than I am REQUIRED to view all the beastly creatures in Revelation as LITERAL creatures!
The context, of course, indicates that I do not. We know from other parts of Scripture that the New Heavens and the New Earth will be without death! Therefore, we undestand that Isaiah 65 is a spiritual description of the reality of the New Heavens and the New Earth.
Your interpretion would tell that we will have "no more crying" even when the young shall die! What? Are the mothers of those young who die at 100 be rejoicing? There shall be no sorrow in their hearts that their sons died early?
Leave it to x! He has people dying in this wonderful 1000 year millennium kingdom, but no sorrow of their death! The mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of these who die will rejoice in their death! How sad!
In otherwords, the intent of Isaiah 65 is ~not~ to tell us that there a man dies at 100 he will be considered to be young, but that there will be a drastic change from our current reality of death and destruction where a babe will die at 1 month old. That earth will be no more.
"The correct answer is number 3."
No! Isaiah 65:17,18 ALREADY and EXPLICTLY has informed us that this is the New Heavens and the New Earth!
The word "but" makes it possible in that chapter. The rest of bible revelation makes it necessary. "
No! Word "but" does not require a contrast. It is not intended to 'change the topic under discussion'. It ~is~ meant to reiforce the gladness and joy we are to have in all that God will create -the New Heavens and the New Earth!
"But" here is used as it is in Isaiah 5:12. It is used as "for", "moreover", "now", "yet" -all legitimate and real definitions of the word "but"!
Jean
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