Posted on 05/29/2014 3:27:32 PM PDT by dartuser
Those who are willing to acknowledge the global context of Revelation have much evidence to support such a view. Those who are determined to shoe-horn Revelation back into the events of A.D. 70 are unlikely to be swayed by our evidence. Thankfully, we need not be overly concerned about the persistence of preterism because the plain meaning of the Biblical text stands opposed to its foundational teachings. As long as Bible students take the text at face value--as it was intended to be understood--then preterism will continue to face an uphill battle. To this fact we owe thanks to the perspicuity of the Scriptures.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiritandtruth.org ...
Still much to come though!!!!
So you believe Christ is “reigning” now?
I don’t see Him on the throne in Jerusalem—do you?
Yes, Raptura in Latin literally translates to “Rapture” or “a snatching away”.
It hasn’t happened yet BTW...
"Biblia" is the Latin word for "Bible."
"Raptus" is the Latin word for "rapture."
WHAT are you referring to?
Thanks!
I see 500 posts in this threads future. Hope everyone plays nice :)
I don’t see Him on the throne in Jerusalem—do you?
Mathew 24
26Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
27For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
He did not come bodily because the vultures would be waiting for him.
John 3
3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Luke 17:20-21
20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
John 14
14 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
John 6
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jesus came to Jerusalem and was crucified as king of the Jews, is how the Romans put it, he will come again at the last day and gather together his elect which is his kingdom.
We are his kingdom on earth.
They do have pure motives ... I will say that. Liberal scholars have ridiculed Christians because Jesus said He would 'be coming quickly' ... and they point the finger and shout 'See, your faith is misguided because Jesus never came back ... its been 2000+ years.'
In the preterists mind they are defending the scriptures from the liberal ... RC Sproul admits this in his writings. I don't fault them there ... but the approach is undermining the words of the Savior in this one area.
An even more interesting question would be who or what entity is behind this?
They are sincere; I would not label them false teachers per say ... as most would have the gospel right; but just wrong on this view.
I do keep a list of those folks who DON'T play nice.
I press the "ignore" button when those folks HAPPEN to post to me. "An ounce of prevention is worth an pound of cure." B. Franklin
He never reigned the first time He came—but He will the next.
There has to be a 1,000 year reign, a physical reign. He says so many times in Revelation 20.
I’m not about to confuse this age of evil with the next age of bliss.
I’m not about to confuse this age of evil with the next age of bliss.
Not trying to start a battle, but It seems Jesus said plainly that he would not come back bodily and that the kingdom of God is within you.
Just repeating what Pastor JD said recently in rebuttal of those who say the word “rapture” never appears in the Bible. See someone else’s answer, above.
We who are believers in Christ as Son of the Living Father and King, will be “taken away” to be with Him, or as some put it raptured before God begins his final wrath against the world. Some say this will last seven years, others say it could be longer. Here’s a brief timeline so to speak as to what Pre-Tribbers believe (I’m one). Just a side-note.....I’m not trying to start a fight either, and whether one believes this or not, or believes in Preterism, it has no effect on Eternal Security which can only be found in Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross (See John 14:6, John 3:16, John 6:29, Romans 10:9-10).
1. Psalm 83 war or Great Mideast War (Israel vs. Palestinians, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Hamas, possibly Syria)
2. Rapture of Church
3. Confirmation of Covenant of God’s land with Abraham
4. Tribulation Begins
5. Gog & Magog War (Seal Judgements) Ezekiel 38 for a Russian, Persian, Turkish, Libyan, Sudan invasion of Israel
6. A/C sets out to conquer the world (Mark of the Beast issued)
7. Mid-Point 3.5 years into the Tribulation, Jews & Christians are slaughtered by A/C’s forces (Zechariah 12-14)
8 Jesus Returns at Armageddon
We who are believers in Christ as Son of the Living Father and King, will be “taken away” to be with Him,
So if you die before the rapture what then?
I believe Jesus himself explains it better
Luke 17
20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
22 And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it.
23 And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them.
24 For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.
25 But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.
26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
John 3
3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is here now, that is what Jesus said but he said you must be born of the spirit to recognize it.
During the kingdom of God only the believers can see the kingdom, because it is within us.
I was taught pretty much the same way you believe, my teachers proclaimed that we would be taken up to meet Jesus but not many of them are still alive, most of them are buried in the grave yards.
So i had to do a lot of thinking and a little reading.
‘They are sincere; I would not label them false teachers per say ... as most would have the gospel right; but just wrong on this view.’
If they have to have the wrong view on something, I think I would prefer they be wrong on something else. I understand your explanation of their thinking but I also see that this view they espouse would negate pretty much all the prophecies concerning the return of Christ. Personally I see no reason to argue with people who are either ignorant of the Bible, or intentionally goading Christians to make excuses for what liberals view as too long a wait for His return. I see the liberals as winning this argument because they have forced Christians to change their entire view of the end times.
I cannot see any reason just to please a liberal that a Christian would attempt to contort the word of God to soothe a liberal mind. They are unbelievers anyway, so why worry about what they say or think?
As you know the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Hi, Dartuser. I see you have been poisoning the well. No matter, anyone with a half-decent understanding of the scripture will not be hurt by your poison.
I couldn't get past the first paragraph before finding a serious flaw in Tony Garland's interpretation and reasoning regarding Zechariah 12. A casual study of Zechariah chapters 11-14 reveals the following:
In Zechariah 11 there is an unmistakable reference to Judas and the thirty pieces of silver:
"And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." (Zec 11:12-13 KJV)
This is the fulfillment in Matthew:
"Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in." (Mt 27:3-7 KJV)
Now let's look at a verse in Zechariah 13:
"Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones." (Zec 13:7 KJV)
That was fulfilled when Jesus was crucified, as he explained in Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27.
"And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." (Mk 14:27 KJV)
Next, in chapter 14, we see the day of Pentecost:
"And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be." (Zech 14:8)
That was also prophesied by Joel:
"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:" (Joel 2:28 KJV)
But Joel only mentioned the holy spirit. However, in John, Jesus explains that the holy spirit on the day of Pentecost was the living water:
"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" (Jn 7:37-39 KJV)
The living water was the Holy Ghost, also called "the Comforter," which was received by many on the day of Pentecost: hence the use of the plural in Zechariah: living waters.
This was the fulfillment, found in the book of the Acts, which occurred in Jerusalem, the location specified by Zechariah:
"But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:" (Acts 2:16-18 KJV)
So, in the last days (last days of the age,) the holy spirit (the Comforter) was given to "all flesh."
Notice the allegorical language Jesus used in his prophecy in John 7:38 to identify those who had received the awesome powers of the holy spirit: "out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
Sandwiched between those chapters--which contain clear references to the betrayal of Christ, the scattering of the disciples after the crucifixion, and the day of Pentecost, respectively--is chapter 12.
The most obvious reference in chapter 12 is verse 10, which prophesies the piercing of Jesus by the Roman soldier during His crucifixion, which John 19:34 indicates is the fulfillment of that prophecy:
"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." (Zec 12:10 KJV)
The underlined word "me" should leave no doubt who was being pierced. This is the fulfillment, according to John:
"Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced." (Jn 19:32-37 KJV)
And, so, we see the following prophecies in consecutive chapters:
Chapter 11: Betrayal of Christ
Chapter 12: Crucifixion of Christ
Chapter 13: Scattering of Disciples
Chapter 14: The day of Pentecost
Therefore, any reasonable interpretation of the other verses in Zechariah 12 would be centered around the crucifixion of Christ. Tony Garland's spiritualization of chapter 12 to fit a chiliast agenda is a serious interpretive error.
Philip
Tony Garland needs to get out more. Dispensationalists have been fleeing the fold; and when they do they typically become some of dispensationalism's most vocal critics.
One assumption that Garland makes is that Christ did not mean it when he made these statements:
"But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." (Mt 10:23 KJV)
"For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you,There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." (Mt 16:27-28 KJV)
It is impossible to explain away those verses without spiritualizing the scriptures. Those passages are crystal clear that Christ was to return within his own generation to take control of his kingdom.
And then there are these statements that make it virtually impossible for the Revelation's "Great Whore," Babylon the Great, to be any other city than 1st century Jerusalem:
"That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation." (Lk 11:50-51 KJV)
"Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." (Lk 13:33 KJV)
"Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her." (Rev 18:20 KJV)
"And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." (Rev 18:24 KJV)
We only had a limited supply of prophets to be murdered.
Garland would be do well to learn that there were two Jerusalem's in prophecy: the one that had the children of Israel in bondage--the one that was destroyed; and the heavenly one where everyone is free:
"Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." (Gal 4:24-26 KJV)
Therefore, to better understand old testament prophecies, when Jerusalem is in question, one should weigh the heavenly Jerusalem of freedom with the earthly Jerusalem of tyranny, to determine the better fit.
Philip
I forgot to mention this in my previous post to you; but did you notice that Tony Garland was barely three paragraphs in before poisoning the well with a labelling argument? So did dartuser in his very first post (#1.)
I wanted to make sure you caught that.
Philip
There is also this one:
"But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." (Mt 10:23 KJV)
In context, Jesus said he was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel:
"But [Jesus] answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Mt 15:24 KJV)
And when he sent forth his disciples, he sent them only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel:
"These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." (Mt 10:5-8 KJV)
And after explaining some details of their mission, and obstacles, Jesus made this statement (reposted from above):
"But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." (Mt 10:23 KJV)
It was not until the time Cornelius was converted (after Peter was ordered to "slay and eat" - Acts 10:13) that the disciples added the Gentiles to their mission; but they never stopped looking for the lost sheep until they were dead, or the destruction of Jerusalem. Even Paul, when entering a city, would visit the synagogue first, as risky as that was. He was always seeking to "save some" of "his flesh" (Rom 11:14.)
Philip
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