“In your opinion, what does Day of The Lord / Day of Christ mean? Do you believe it is the period of The Lamb opening the seals thus the seven years of Jacob’s Troubles? Paul had taught the believers in Thessalonika about the coming Day of the Lord. He had also taught them about the ‘gathering together to Him’. The believers were worried that the Day of the Lord seal judgments had arrived and they were not yet gathered to Him.”
The final dispensation/time period before the Millennial Kingdom has several names:
Day of the Lord (term used by Joel and apostles in their writings; it is a time in which the Lord alone will be exalted)
Day of Wrath (refers to the same time period from the perspective of those who experience God’s wrath)
Day of Christ (refers to the same time period from the perspective of believers who are rescued)
Day of God (Peter also calls the Day of the Lord the Day of God)
The End (term used by disciples and Christ at Olivet discourse, and in the book of Daniel)
The Second Coming
But it is not the same as Daniel’s seventieth week. Rather, Daniel’s seventieth week contains the Day of the Lord (the final part of the seven years).
“The phrase a falling away is a later translation, following the DR translation which changed the passage from The Departure to the rebellion. Prior to the DR Catholic Bible the English translations translated ‘apostasia’ as The Departure. We even get our word rapture from what Jerome gave in the Latin for the Greek ‘apostasia’.”
Apostasia is only used in the Bible here and in Acts 21:21, where both times it means apostasy, i.e. a departure or defection from orthodoxy. By orthodoxy I am not referring to a denominational affiliation but to the received doctrines of a faith (in this case Christian). Apostasia is also used 3 times in the Old Testament translation of scriptures into Greek, called the Septuagint. This is significant because about half of the New Testament quotations of the Old Testament rely on a direct quotation of the Septuagint. Paul would have used it in his in-person instructions on this subject to the Thessalonians.
Here is a resource with a more detailed explanation:
I will add one point to the above by citing an extra-biblical passage in 1 Maccabees 2:15-29 which can be read here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Maccabees%202%3A15-29&version=DRA
Pay particular attention to the first verse:
1 Maccabees 2:15 (DRA)
And they that were sent from king Antiochus came thither, to compel them that were fled into the city of Modin, to sacrifice, and to burn incense, and to depart from the law of God.
(No, I am not Roman Catholic and do not consider this to be scripture. It is however a historically accurate book with which Paul was familiar as it was part of the Greek version of the Old Testament called the Septuagint.)
Here, Antiochus Epiphanes committed the prototype of the abomination of desolation (which Christ and the apostles said was yet to come). And here it uses the same Greek word to describe the associated apostasy.
It is very likely that Paul taught the Thessalonians about the events described in 1 Maccabees, which also is in harmony with the idea that the spirit of antichrist/lawlessness was not something new or novel that was merely in the distant future. It has been around for a long time. The passage, for a correct understanding of the meaning of the apostasia, is very relevant because it is about an abomination of desolation that had already occurred.
“The Olivet Discourse was given to Jews in answer to their question regarding the end times, end times that had not included the Body of Christ which would be established outside of Judaism.”
This is what I meant earlier when I said that “our eschatological views can and do influence our dispensational views”. There is nothing specifically in the Olivet discourse that points to the message being for the Jews and not for the Church. The Gospels contain many other teachings of Christ which could easily be dismissed as being for Jews and not the Church unless there is some clear demarcation to indicate otherwise. Such an approach would allow any reader to arbitrarily and capriciously dismiss any teaching of Christ out of hand and claim it simply does not apply. But there are many reasons to believe it does include the Church. For example, the persecutions Christ mentions in it are not targeted toward Jewishness specifically but toward those who identify as followers of Christ. Why are they (Christians or Jews?) going to be hated? For Christ’s name. (See Matthew 24:9.) Further, the Gospel (Great Commission of the Church) must be taken to all the world before the End comes. (See Matthew 24:14.)
Thank you for the work you put in to fashion this post.I will agree to disagree with the several points regarding Matthew 24.