Continuing the eschatology

I am leaving the place where I have Internet so I must be brief for now. My one question is why did you dare to add to the verse you quoted? Nowhere does Acts 1:11 say "physical".

That is a fact.

Yes, He rose physically from the grave. But not a single verse in Scripture says He was to return physically.

 

Aw shucks. I guess so.

A true scholar. We knew his boy Peter when we lived in Wheaton in the '50's and early '60's. He's got a pretty good apologetics ministry to college students nowadays.

I'll check it out. Thanks.

 

This does not answer the question. All you are saying is that the first coming of Christ was physical but the second coming is spiritual, you are not telling why. And you are conflating the doctrine of the Kingdom of God with the 2nd coming. That's poor theology.

Nice try, but I've read some of Clement and I've read the Didache. J. R. Lightfoot (The Apostolic Fathers, p. 11) and plenty of other scholars put Clement's epistle to the Corinthians at AD 95. You stated your date for Clement as if it were fact, with no proof whatsoever. As for the Didache (likewise dated to AD 100 or after), the author was a literalist, writing, "The Lord shall come and all His saints with Him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of Heaven" (ibid, 129).

I do care, and you've never said this in all of our discussions of the past. If you have someone in the early church who said Christ came in AD 70, trot them out and I'll listen.

That goes without saying. I'm a Baptist: "The Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice."

To be a preterist, one has to abandon the Biblical teaching of the vast majority of believers of all the ages of Christianity. If your preterism is correct, it is very strange that you are in such a tiny majority when so many of the rest of us love the Word of God and study it daily. Seems like the Holy Spirit would illumine the Scriptures to more than just a tiny minority of believers.

 

Jesus said, "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 14:3). Now, if hyper preterism is correct and Jesus came spiritually in AD 70, we have a huge problem: Jesus left His physical body in Heaven!

Do you believe that Jesus rose bodily, physically, from the grave? If so, since He rose bodily, physically from the grave, why would He not fulfill the promise of John 14:3 and Acts 1:11 in a bodily, physical way?

 

1After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. 2And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. 3“For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts ofimmorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.” ...

20“Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her.”
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Did this actually ever occur at 70 AD, or anytime before or after?


Or what of this?

11And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. ...

20And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. 21And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh.“

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How can large passages even greater in length be so easily assigned as having happened when there is no factual evidence to show the events took place?

 

I am still looking for where in recorded history Jesus returned , and had the resurrection of the saints, and Him reigning here on earth in paradise restored!

 

You brethren know me I've been on here awhile, as the old saying goes you cannot teach an old dog new tricks... Well this old dog learned some... While I do agree with the Preterist Camp of what befell the Jews and believe it according to the writings of Josephus and others, according to those Vespasian paused during the onslaught and let those who didn't want to fight escape... The Christians to my understanding escaped to Petra... To me this is important because the fight was with the Jews not the Christians... I agree with TC on John writing the Revelation during the reign of Domitian. Although some want to point to Nero and say this is definitely him... Nero was long gone from the scene having committed suicide in 68 AD... Out of his death came The Nero Ricidivism Myth that Nero would return from the dead at the head of the Parthian army who The Roman Empire never defeated in battle... I will not insult your intelligence on here go look into it for yourselves.

Now I very seldom get into these discussions but you are probably asking yourself, what changed my view?... A friend of mine who has been a minister over 60 years posed this question in one of his articles... He said in Revelation 1 thru 3 we are introduced to the Seven Churches Of Asia and what each of them are facing... In Chapter 4 a new drama is presented as a door is open in heaven... When that door is open do you suddenly open our mind to a new view or is John still addressing the 1st Century Christians under the demonic persecution of the tyrannical Emperor Domitian and the Roman Council which gives him his power... Another interesting side note is that John used a style of writing that is used in the OT... Apocalyptic Symbolic Style, which is used in Ezekiel, Isaiah, Zachariah, and Daniel... I don't know about anyone else on here but Revelation has The Roman Empire written all over it... So that is where I stand now and like I say check it out for yourselves... Some on here will still think where did this nut job come from?... I've been on here off and on for 16 years and I think I've heard it all... Very few things surprise me now... Brother Glen

 

So the Angels that told them that this SAME Jesus would come back in same way that he left were wrong?

And Jesus still has His nail scarred hands even in heaven today!

 

Many base this concept of Jesus having a spiritual body, and us also, and so he came back spiritually from 1 Cor 15, with Paul telling us of the spiritual body. The problem with that is that Paul did NOT mean that Jesus and ud were no longer in a physical form, but that iur normal flesh stae had to become glorified in order to get to and stay in heaven, and that was still a pjysical body!

 

You and I have remarkably similar hand writing.

Are you using an iPad like device, too?

I am always having to correct what the iPad has assumed was what I wanted to type.

 

Exactly! Preterism says Christ came spiritually in AD 70. But Christ now has a physical body--this is a fundamental of the faith. So in order to come "spiritually" Christ had to split Himself. Furthermore, if Christ came spiritually, that would be His deity, would it not? The doctrine of the hypostatic union mitigates against splitting the deity and humanity of Christ. Christ comes physically or not at all.

 

prophecy70 told me some time ago that I had to prove that the early church "fathers" (pastors) were premillennial. It wasn't enough to him that I said that all scholars agree on this. Today in between meetings of our youth summit I've been tracking down some of those original sources, and will share them here.

Dwight Pentecost gives literally dozens of men in the first 3 centuries who were premil (Things to Come, pp. 374-375), pointing out that in those three centuries not a single writer was anything else. Augustine (354-430) was the first amil type. And there were no preterists at all!

Here is the Didache, from about AD 100 (J. R. Lightfoot's translation, par. 16):

"And then the world-deceiver shall appear as a son of God; and shall work signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands; and he shall do unholy things, which have never been since the world began. Then all created mankind shall come to the fire of testing, and many shall be offended and perish; but they that endure in their faith shall be saved by the Curse Himself. And then shall the signs of the truth appear; first a sign of a rift in the heaven, then a sign of a voice of a trumpet, and thirdly a resurrection of the dead; yet not of all, but as it was said: The Lord shall come and all His saints with Him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of Heaven."

 

Here is Clement's 2nd Epistle (Schaff's translation, I believe, accessed through Bibloi 8.0)

"4 For the Lord said, I come to gather together all the nations, tribes, and languages. Herein He speaketh of the day of His appearing, when He shall come and redeem us, each man according to his works. 5 And the unbelievers shall see His glory and His might: and they shall be amazed when they see the kingdom of the world given to Jesus."

2 Clement 17.4-5

 

This concept of Jesus shedding off his physical form to go back to heaven and then to earth sounds more like JW seeing him as being raised spiritual as Michael again, and having an invisible return!

 

Polycarp (69-155) was a disciple of the Apostle John. He wrote:

“For if we be well pleasing unto Him in this present world, we shall receive the future world also, according as He promised us to raise us from the dead, and that if we conduct ourselves worthily of Him we shall also reign with Him, if indeed we have faith.” (Epistle to the Philippians, Lightfoot trans., par. 5).

 

Think that pretty much all church historians would agree that a solid majority of them held to a premil view, and that was prominennt until, time of Augustine and his allegorical prophetic system coming into place!

 

How did you make out in the Judgment? Or don't you believe that everyone who ever lived (past, present, and future) will be judged by the Lord? Is there a heaven? Was there a second covenant? Just curious.

 

Polycarp was martyred around 155AD if I recall correctly. He was over 86 years old, which using 2nd grade math skills would make his birth somewhere near the year 69 AD.

The point being that being a student of John would have placed him after the supposed return of Christ, yet he was pre-mill.

Something is wrong with my math, or something wrong with preterist scheme.

I was promoted out of 2nd grade.