But shouldn't we interpret the Bible spiritually instead of literally?

....wow, thought it was gonna be a cloud, no wait, maybe it was a bolt of lightning.....

 

M

Why couldn't He be on a horse, coming thru the clouds?

 

I believe that when Peter wrote 1K years is as i day to God, and vice versa, that he was using a figure of speech saying God isn't limited by time, but that the millenium will be a literal 1K years.

 

Peter says NOTHING about what you call the millennium.
He has only two applications for the day/thousand years - the time before the day of judgment & destruction of Jerusalem & the scoffers who were accusing Jesus of being a false prophet;
and the time to the final day of the Lord/day of God which will end the present day of grace & bring about the NH&NE.

You can't read a yet future millennium into Peter's letters.

 

I find it very strange that there is a desire to "spiritualize" rather than to seek the actuality of the last day fulfillments.

Why is there some great avoidance and actual psychological hindrance in embracing a literal millennium, a literal return of Christ as the Scriptures clearly teach?

Here is my personal opinion.

The early church taught a literal physical time in which Christ would rule this whole world.

What changed?

Two.

One the sacking of Rome, and the other the desire to deceive in order to hold control and hold authority.

In both events, the truth of the Scriptures were brought into question. Rather than clinging to that truth, humankind invented other schemes alien to the typical rendering of Scriptures and then deceitfully propagated the scheme(s) to cause confusion and therefore the dependence of reliance that only a select few really knew the truth.

In this day, the lie continues, because it is God's desire that the deceiver be allowed to deceive. That the folks will be confirmed in their own righteousness and not in that of the Son.

Therefore, there is mocking, and shrewd (even cunning) designs to belittle the truth of the Scriptures and bring doubt to the statements of Christ.

 

Really?? Literalists ignore the genre? This shows a complete ignorance of the grammatical-historical method.

Again, figures of speech are always recognized by the grammatical-historical method.

Every one of these examples are metaphors, which is not spiritual interpretation, but normal exegesis.

I have tried over and over again here on the BB to make this plain. You guys just don't get it. Spiritual/allegorical interpretation does not mean figures of speech.

 

Even covenant theologians recognize dispensations, because they are Biblical. Berkhof had a system of two dispensations (cf his Systematic Theology, pp. 292-293).

 

I suppose this has already been mentioned. maybe not.

Do we interpret the Virgin Birth spiritually?

The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as spiritual?

How about His Title - "Christ" is that spiritual?

Before Abraham was I AM? Spiritual?

Do that and it won't be long until we can make the Bible say anything we want.

His visible and bodily return to the earth at which time every eye will see him?

HankD

 

This is the worst misunderstanding of dispensationalism I've ever seen on the BB. "Schizophrenia within the Godhead"?? Really?

Your idea that dispensationalists only read the OT to moralize or interpret Revelation is the worst kind of false charge. I read the OT every single day of the year, and am blessed greatly by truths in the OT: God's care for us, His love for us, His plan for the ages, fulfilled prophecy in OT times (Isaiah is full of this), etc., etc. I taught through Isaiah in a Tokyo Bible school for what was supposed to be a 2 credit class, but was so blessed I couldn't get through the book in one semester, but with the president's permission taught a second semester of it.

I really hope you withdraw this ridiculous false charge.

 

You are describing hyper-dispensationalism, not the normal kind.

 

I remember riding horses with my grandfather, who rode a white Tennessee Walking Horse named "Mac." He always looked regal on Mac. Why in the world could Jesus not ride a white horse? It's a kingly, regal thing to do. Do you suppose he'll come in a VW or something?

Why do those who "spiritually" interpret and oppose the literal view of the text always mock things that are clearly written in Scripture? I sincerely don't understand this practice. White horses are completely normal.

 

Why do you insist on mocking literal interpretations over and over? You are proving nothing except your own attitude.

Riding a white horse is a completely normal thing to do. When I rode with my grandfather, I rode a bay while he rode a huge, powerful, white Tennessee Walker.

 

I hold to Covenant theology, but of the reformed Baptist premil variety!

 

Isreal was a type of the church to come, but the fullness of it was at time of the Messiah.

 

Literalists do indeed see the necessity to take into account genres and figures of speech!

 

If the 1000 years of Rev. 20 is a figure of speech, why is it repeated six times in the chapter? That is not how figures of speech are presented in literature. So, that means that if you take the 1000 years as a figure of speech, you have to prove how it is one six times in a row. Got any proofs? What type of figure of speech is it?