Posted on 11/26/2011 3:33:54 PM PST by Iggles Phan
My problem with the 'Rapture' (pre-millenial; pre-tribulation) teaching is that it forces its adherents to actually REVERSE the Person of Jesus Christ to the Devil.
That's correct.
In the 'Rapture' (or Dispensational) scheme the believer is asked to take the Person of Daniel's 70th Week (Who is Jesus Christ at the Cross) described in Chapter 9, verse 27a:
"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, ..."
... and reverse this 'he' to mean a 'future Antichrist'.
Are you confused?
Is this Jesus Christ or Antichrist?
1. The Historic View.
This view is typified by the 1599 Geneva Bible notes. These are the notes of John Calvin, Miles Coverdale, and John Knox to name a few.
1599 Geneva Bible Notes on Daniel 9:27a:
"By the preaching of the gospel he confirmed his promise, first to the Jews, and after to the Gentiles. Christ accomplished this by his death and resurrection."
It's pretty clear that the Reformers believed that Christ was the Person of Daniel's Great 70th Week.
2. The Modernist View (Dispensational).
In contrast however, compare this historic view to the Dispensational view typified in the Ryrie Study Notes (1978). Look who the modernists assign to this very same Person in Daniel 9:27a:
"The prince of verse 26, the Antichrist previously introduced in 7:8, 24-26, who will make a pact with many (of the Jewish people) at the beginning of the tribulation period. But in the middle of the week (i.e., 3 1/2 years later) Antichrist will break his covenant and desecrate the Temple by demanding worship of himself in it."
The difference couldn't be farther apart.
Historic Christianity says that Jesus fulfilled the 70th week AT THE CROSS, but Rapture Christianity (Dispensationalism) says that the Devil fulfills it in a 're-built' temple.
Therefore, Dispensationalism is no less than a frontal assault on the Cross of Christ. It reverses Jesus Christ to the Devil. It is malicious and a pernicious doctrine.
Remember, this Dispensational view was NEVER known until 1830. That's why it is a Modernist view. It was invented by JN Darby and popularized by CI Scofield, two con-men to Christianity.
In the 20th century, carpetbaggers such as Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Jack (and Rexella) Van Impe, John Hagee and others have made fame and fortune off of this con game. They have marketed this 'Rapture' theology like a cheap box of laundry detergent on TV and radio, and with videos and books.
My hope and prayer is that the Church starts to wake up out of its slumber and starts challenging its pastors, ministries, and teachers. The Cross of Christ is at stake here!
For the Glory of Christ Jesus. Amen.
The one the Mormon's are putting up???
This will be the rebuilt Jewish temple, which will soon be rebuilt and which will fulfill Bible prophecy.
All of this was fulfilled in about 70 AD when the Romans installed a stature of Caeser in the Temple and utterly destroyed Jerusalem.
I'm a Catholic. I never understood why anybody would think that this is going to happen in the future when it was already fulfilled in antiquity. It also goes with Christ's own prediction of the same events. Daniel and Jesus predict the same event that happened in about 70 AD. That's amazing, and it's a cause for great wonder. Why in the world do we need to project that into some imaginary future when we have the glory of the historical proof of prophecy?
The author of this article is correct - dispensationalism is a come-lately reading of the Bible. Nobody read the Bible like that before. It's utterly foreign to Holy Tradition. To read it in such a way would require one to reject Tradition utterly and to assume that the Spirit was not with the Church for preceding 1800 or so years which would directly contradict the promise that Christ will always be with us and that the Spirit will lead us to all truth.
It's a terrible distraction, and frankly it's embarrassing for us more traditional Christians. I mean, Hal Lindsay says that the metal insects in Revelation are Soviet Helicopters. How much more "out there" can one really get? I wish they'd stop.
One post and then a vanity! Oh this is going to be good.
THX 1138
I believe in Jesus and I put my life in His hands.
Aside from that, it doesn’t much matter how God carries out His dispensation. It will all work out.
It sells books and gets you on "Coast To Coast AM." Follow the money.
Because that is part of the Daniel prophecy, as I'm sure you know. God says that the man who confirms a seven-year peace contract with Israel will be the one who stands in the temple and declares himself to be "god". Also, the Scripture makes reference to a "he", not a nation or a kingdom, so we'll need the name of the "he" in the Roman empire that confirmed a seven-year peace contract with Israel.
Can you give me any independent historical record that verifies that the Romans confirmed a specific, seven-year peace contract with Israel in 70AD?
Do you have any books or websites you can link so that I can read more on the “historical” view?
Technically, the "historical view" has all the prophecies up to and in some heretical versions, including, the Parousia. This view was rather popular for most of the Church Age but has fallen out of favor for the Post Millennial view which borrows heavily from the "historical" view.
An excellent author who gives names, dates and places to the OT prophecies is a gentleman named Isaac Newton who also wrote "Observations on Daniel and The Apocalypse of St. John". While he wrote far more on theological matters, the secular world only recognizes him for his mathematics and scientific articles (outside his favorite hobby alchemy).
Gary DeMar has pretty much taken up the role these days as the apologist for Post Millennialism, which while far more faithful to Scripture than pre-millennial pre-tribulation eschatology, has its own problems. DeMar, in one of his books has a chapter on the 70 weeks of Daniel and shows, from historical documents, how the Reformed view has long been held as orthodox while this insanity of the Dispensational camp is new and heretical in its treatment of the OT prophecies.
If you would rather hear lectures on Realized Millennial thought, there is always Kim Riddlebarger, a man who came out of Dispensationalism and now fully embraces what is called "Amillennialism".
Its an investment in time, but well worth it.
***The argument goes that the abomination of desolation would have been the Roman armies, with their pagan symbols, surrounding the Holy City. Check out Josephus’s War Of the Jews.***
Let’s look at what the various MARGIN NOTES say in the KJV.
1611 KJV has PRINCE with a capitol P in Dan 9:..And the people of the Prince that shall come...
All the later KJVs have “prince”.
verse 27: Margin note...with the abominable armies.
English Oxford KJV
Dan 9:26 Margin note; Or, and the Jews they shall be no more his people.
And the people of the prince (small ‘p’)that shall come...or And the prince’s (Messiah’s) future people.
Verse 27:And for the overspreading of abominations...Margin Notes: OR and upon the battlements shall be the idols of the desolator....with the abominable armies.
Cambridge KJV does not have the above margin notes.
Collins & Sons KJV (Now WORLD BIBLE) same notes as the Oxford bible.
Except that we MUST be prepared for what’s coming and the pre tribulation rapture mindset says we’re going to be swept out of here and won’t have anything to worry about.
Read the parable of the 10 virgins and how 5 only had enough oil because the other 5 thought Christ (bridegroom) was coming sooner than he was.
I wonder if they know that? Nah, just kidding.
Will be fun to watch... I hope there is popcorn in Heaven!
So what your saying is we will live through the tribulation and face God’s wrath upon the earth and its inhabitants?
The Great Tribulation spoken of in Matthew by our LORD was against the Jews around 70AD. If you are longing for persecution, you don't have to jump in a time machine, you can simply go to any number of places around the globe right now and faithfully preach the Word of God. You will then get as much Tribulation as you can bear - and then some.
If you are speculating on some sort of future "God's Wrath upon the Earth" in the form of a seven year Tribulation, then you need to form your own cult - or hang out at your local Big Box American Religion. The Disciples, and our LORD all taught the Last Day Judgment as being very quick where the earth and heavens would melt in a fervent heat. If you think Jews need to be slapped around more by God, then you should really consider your anti-Semitic views as clouding understanding of the Doctrines of Redemption and Grace.
It will work out eschatologically, but in the mean time the Kingdom languishes because too many believers are looking forward to the rapture and not building the kingdom now. The post mill eschatology of the reformers provides a foundation for Christians to bring God's order and law to His kingdom here and now. The damage done by the church leaving the world to prince of the air and not declaring the crown rights of Christ over all institutions and every square inch of the globe has been catastrophic.
Well, since everything is ready to go, including the fact that men from the priestly tribe of Levi have been trained in what they will be doing in the rebuilt temple, and the fact that all the sacred utensils that will be used in rebuilt temple have been collected, I have no doubt that the Jews are well aware of their soon-to-be-rebuilt temple, and the rebuilding of that temple is just waiting for God’s perfect timing.
The insidious thing about dispensationalism is that adherents get to chop the Scriptures up into many pieces.
Those pieces are then assigned to as many different people and times as necessary to preserve the initial assumption of a pre-trib rapture.
I think it was people like Hal Lindsey who wrote “Late Great Planet Earth” that brought it back into vogue. I remember reading about the frenzy in Fundamental churches that preached it almost hysterically. They had pre, mid, and post Tribulation Rapture theories and if you were in one camp you were laughed at by the others. I say it’s not when Yashua comes but that He comes.
IBTZ
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