All There Is About Parousia

Well I am glad he ticked you off...because now you will turn loose some of the good study material to consider. Then it will be up to those who disagree to respond to the most solid material and put up or shut up.

 

TC,
Is Ladd your main go to guy, or do you just sort of lay back and just see rom8:22-27 being a main reason for a future physical restoration of this earth, before the final eternal state?
How does your view interact with this OP as far as the ;

 

asterisktom, does this reprsent your position as it concerns the OP? or do you see it very differently?

https://www.preteristarchive.com/Books/1878_russell_parousia.html

 

FOR WHO IS OUR HOPE OR JOY OR CROWN OF EXULTATION? IS IT NOT EVEN YOU, IN THE PRESENCE OF OUR LORD JESUS AT HIS COMING: tis gar hemon elpis e chara e stephanos kaucheseos e ouchi kai humeis emprosthen tou kuriou hemon Iesou en te autou parousia: (2Corinthians 1:14; Philippians 2:16; 4:1) (Proverbs 4:9; 12:4; 16:13; 17:6; Isaiah 62:3; 1Peter 5:4; Revelation 4:10,11) (1Th 2:20; Romans 15:16, 17, 18, 19) (1Th 3:13; 5:23; 1Corinthians 4:5; 15:23; 2Corinthians 1:14; Philippians 2:16; 4:1; 2Thessalonians 1:7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 2:1; 1Timothy 6:14,15; 2Timothy 4:1,2; Titus 2:13; 1John 2:28) (Jude 1:24 ) (Revelation 1:7; 22:12)
Wiersbe comments that…

Paul did not look back and give in to regret and remorse. Instead, he looked ahead and rejoiced. For the Christian, the best is yet to come. Paul looked ahead by faith and saw his friends in the presence of Jesus Christ in glory. In times of trouble and testing, it is important that we take the long view of things. Paul lived in the future tense, as well as in the present. His actions were governed by what God would do in the future. He knew that Jesus Christ would return and reward him for his faithful ministry; and on that day, the saints from Thessalonica would bring glory to God and joy to Paul’s heart. As the familiar song says, “It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.” The fact that we shall one day stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ (see bema) ought to motivate us to be faithful in spite of difficulties. We must remember that faithfulness is the important thing (1Cor. 4:2). At the Judgment Seat of Christ, our works will be judged and rewards will be given (Ro 14:10, 11, 12-note; 1Cor. 4:1, 2, 3, 4, 5; 2Cor 5:9-note, 2Co 5:10-note). (Wiersbe, W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor orLogos)

 

Here is a part of another article he wrote on the parousia;

The chief positions of the work admit of being briefly set before the reader.

The author argues with great force that our Lord declared that his coming in his kingdom would take place during the lifetime of the generation which heard his words; and that this Parousia of his was coincident with the destruction of Jerusalem, in A.D. 70,—an event which brought the Old-Testament Dispensation to a termination.



Further, that according to the testimony of every writing in the New Testament, the entire Apostolic Church considered this Parousia as imminent, that they looked on it as the realisation of all their hopes, and that their great fear was lest they should be excluded by death from a participation in its blessings.


Also, according to the author’s views, the Parousia of the New Testament is a single, definite event, viz., the presence of our Lord in his human personality; and that to speak of it as a spiritual presence, or a coming in the events of history,

is to assign to it a meaning wholly different from the one intended by the sacred writers.

Does this in part agree with the language of 1thess 2:19? or am I misreading it?



No less opposed is he to the idea, so widely adopted by commentators, that it admits of being viewed as realised from time to time in a lower or partial seuse in certain great catastrophes of history, but that it will receive its complete realisation in a personal coming of Christ at the end of the present Dispensation. The author has nowhere laid down his own theory of Inspiration, but one of a very decided character (which we think erroneous) colours the reasonings of the entire work. In conformity with it, and we may say in consequence of it, he maintains that it is impossible that the Apostolic Church could have been mistaken in its anticipations of the speedy coming of our Lord and of its realisation within a short interval of all blessings which are spoken of in connection with it, and he lays down in very strong language that the contrary opinion is subversive of the claims of the Apostles to be received as authoritative teachers of the truths of Christianity. This brings us to the startling positions of the book. Assuming the truth of the above points, the author proceeds to lay down that the Second Coming of Christ in his human personality is not a future, but a past event, and that it was coincident with the destruction of Jerusalem; that at that period of time, all the dead saints were raised, and all the living ones changed, and caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and that the judgment on the wicked actually took place. Further, as all the events which then occurred constitute the great victory of Christ over his enemies, he has already, in conformity with the assertion of St. Paul, resigned his Messianic kingdom (which he seems to consider to form a part of the Jewish Dispensation) to the Father; and God has “become all in all,”—of which, if we understand him rightly, the present state of the Church is the realisation. The author is fully aware that to these positions an objection may be adduced, which most people will pronounce conclusive,—viz., that these most stupendous events have not left a single trace in the history of the past.


To this he has a ready answer,— that the Parousia, the Resurrection, the Judgment, Ac, are events which have taken place in the invisible world.

his answer is, that our Lord and his Apostles have distinctly affirmed that they would happen in connection with his Parousia, that this Parousia was to occur during the life-time of the existing generation, and that the exact fulfilment of our Lord’s predictions respecting the destruction of Jerusalem,
and the divine judgments which were to be poured out on the apostate Jewish nation—events which have indubitably taken place on the visible sphere of things—are a sufficient guarantee of the fulfilment of the remainder; and consequently, that these events, respecting which history is silent, have taken place in the “Unseen World.” Such is the author’s theory.


I cannot embrace this position and do not see it as viable. It leaves too much unaccounted for.

 

Although I reject the other portion of that article, this portion zeroes in on the concerns the language presents;

We shall now, as far as our space will permit, notice a few of its most important positions. We consider that the author has the Synoptic Gospels, our Lord declared that a Parousia,—or manifestation of his presence,—would take place during the lifetime of the existing generation; and we concur with him in the opinion afforded the strongest proof that, according to the affirmations of that the habitual rendering of such expressions as in our Version, by the “end of the world,” instead of, what they manifestly mean the “end of the age,” or dispensation, has involved the whole subject in hopeless confusion. We are anxious to pee whether those who are engaged in the Revision of the New Testament will have the courage to make this necessary correction, for its absence will greatly shake our faith in the value of the Revisers’ labours. We think also that he has successfully made out that expressions such as “the last times,” “the end,” and other kindred ones, which so frequently occur in the New Testament were, for the most part, intended to refer not to the end of the world, but to the last period of the Jewish Dispensation.
It will be impossible for us to put the reader in possession of the mass of evidence by which these positions are supported. We must content ourselves with giving a few brief illustrations of the author’s line of reasoning. Both John the Baptist and our Lord commenced their respective ministries by the proclamation that ” the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.” Such a declaration must have been intended to convey a definite meaning to those to whom it was addressed. As all these persons were eagerly expecting the speedy manifestation of the Kingdom of the Messiah, to them these words could have conveyed only one meaning,—that this Messianic kingdom was going to be immediately set up. This idea runs throughout the whole of the Synoptic Gospels, the contents of which may l>e briefly described as an explanation of its nature, an enunciation of its laws, and a correction of the popular errors which were entertained respecting it, united to an account of those actions of our Lord which, in the opinion of the writers, established his claim to lie its King.

This character he directly claimed at the termination of his ministry, and his doing so was the ground on which he was condemned by the authorities of the Jewish nation, whom, while in the act of condemning him, he assured that, “from that time” (not “hereafter,” as in our Version), ” they should see him sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,” these words could have been only understood by those that heard him as affirming a Parousia of some kind, which his adversaries would live to behold. So completely does the idea of this kingdom underlie the New Testament that Christianity may be correctly described as the proclamation of a kingdom, rather than the institution of a religion, or, to adopt the words of St. Mark, it is ” the Gospel of the Kingdom.” Taking therefore, the Gospels as a whole, we fully concur with the author that the only natural meaning which the hearers of our Lord could attach to his teaching, was that the Kingdom of Heaven was going to be set up as a visible institution within a short interval of time.

Our space will only allow us to adduce one or two striking proofs of this position. All three Synoptics concur in affirming that six days before Christ’s Transfiguration, our Lord made the following solemn affirmation :—” 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,” or, as St. Mark has it, ” till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” This, and other kindred declarations which are scattered throughout the Gospels, such as, ” Verily, I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel until the Son of Man be come,”

the author truly argues, could only have conveyed to those to whom they were addressed the idea that the Son of man would come in his kingdom during the life-time of some of those who were then present; and we think that the last of them is a deliberate affirmation, that he would thus come before the greater part of those who heard him would have passed away from this earthly scene. Several attempts have been made to get rid of the natural meaning of such language by referring it to the Transfiguration, which occurred six days afterwards.

We have carefully weighed the reasons by which such an interpretation has been attempted to be supported, and we confess that we think them wholly unsatisfactory. Is it credible, we ask, that our Lord introduced such an announcement as that some of the persons then present would be alive to witness an event which was to occur only six days after, by a solemn, ” Verily, I say unto you?” But further, in no natural sense of the words did ” the Son of man come in his kingdom,” or did “the kingdom of God come with power” at the Transfiguration; in fact, our Lord afterwards repeatedly spoke of the coming of the kingdom of God as an event yet future.


The Transfiguration was in reality a very transient event, and our Lord deliberately rejected Peter’s proposal to make it a permanent one. We by no means wish to deny that it was intended to be a foreshadowing of Christ’s future glories; but, to our mind, it is clear that in no event which occurred prior to his Resurrection can it be truly said that the Kingdom of God came with power.

 

John, I am exercised in the statement that “parousia” can be other than physical and spiritual presence not one or the other.

The only other use I recall is the announcement or anticipation of the presence arriving.

There is a nudge in the back of my mind about some ownership of land, rings, garments, that would stand in for or have authority as if the ruler was present, but there is nothing other than a flicker of that memory.

Comments?

 

RE: The reference of parousia in Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament is Volume 8, pages 858-871 (parousia, pareimi).

A.The General Meaning 1. Presence e.g the presence of troops; 2. Appearing e.g The visit of a dignitary (pg 859).

There are a plethora of Greek documents (far to many to site) concerning these words
(Reading Kittel's works as a sleeping pill for me).

The usage of parousia in Hellenistic literature is exactly the same as in the NT (An appearing or the actual presence of an entity or person).

Of interest to us would be pg 862, The Coming of the Messiah.

Apparently some Hellenistic documents (commentaries?) exist which make an allusion to parousia regarding the passages below
Under the title 4. The Coming of the Messiah pg 862. which might be of interest to us:

Genesis 49:10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
Daniel 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

I only had one semester of German over 50 years ago so I am mostly at a loss as to the document references.
example - reference 17:
:...Acc. to L, Durr. Upsprang u. ausbau der isr .-jud. Heilandserwartung (1925)...

HankD

 

Poorly worded post may have been confusing.

But, are you saying that the anticipated arrival of one who is to arrive as anticipated is not a use of parousia?

But of course there is.

As I have been pondering this, I wonder if I am thinking of the "promise of his coming" (2 Peter 3:4) and that until then the believers carry that promise in them, despite the mocking.

But I agree that the use assigned to some symbol of authority (ring, robe, scepter) that a ruler may send to signify his presence may only be found in the classical and not koine.

 

Yes the Hebrew word BOW was the point they made as an allusion to the Greek word parousia and one would have to have and be able to read the German reference documents pointing to the Hellenistic documents to determine how they came to that conclusion.

Also concerning the meaning of the word parousia

1 Thessalonians 2:19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming (parousia)?
1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming (parousia).

parousia indeed has multiple meanings (presence, appearance,coming).

But the two passages above prove that the meaning of parousia is given to "coming" because in each case the meaning of parousia as "coming" is used in contradistinction to the other nuances (IMO).

HankD

 

I wonder if the “coming” is the issue or if it is the presence that is the issue.

As I’ve been working along in this, and just can’t come up with any use that excludes an actual physical being present in relation to the use of coming.

I can’t find any time presence is stated as spiritual or imagined; rather, all statements indicate an actual body is in attendance. Sort of like the teacher taking role, expects the body present to respond as, “Here”, rather than a ghost, ”Oooooo.”

 

what passage in the NT connects the coming/appearing/returning of jesus other than in a physical sense? That is what preterists need to locate, as i cannot find any!