Each Eschatological view.

The coming in the cloud was judgment language used by the Jews. When they read that they knew what it meant, judgment coming upon a city/nation.


The oracle concerning Egypt.
Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt;
The idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence,
And the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
— Isaiah 19:1

Did the Lord literally come riding on a swift cloud or was this judgment language? It is the latter.


Wail, for the day of the Lord is near!
It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp,
And every man’s heart will melt. They will be terrified,
Pains and anguish will take hold of them;
They will writhe like a woman in labor,
They will look at one another in astonishment,
Their faces aflame. Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with fury and burning anger,
To make the land a desolation;
And He will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash forth their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises
And the moon will not shed its light. Thus I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their iniquity;
I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud
And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold
And mankind than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the fury of the Lord of hosts
In the day of His burning anger. And it will be that like a hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep with none to gather them,
They will each turn to his own people,
And each one flee to his own land. Anyone who is found will be thrust through,
And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be plundered
And their wives ravished.

This was concerning judgment upon Babylon prior to being defeated by the Medo-Persian empire. It’s the same exact apocalyptic language used in Matthew 24:29-31. And that language was judgment language upon Jerusalem and the temple.

 

Well, when Satan is depicted as a dragon, that should show you that it is symbolic.

 

Again, there is no break in that Discourse. Everything He told them pertained to what was to happen in AD 70.

 

Another embarrassing situation for Premillennialists is where the early churched condemned them as heretics at the council of Ephesus. And their sloppy eisegesis where they suppose since John mentioned 1000 years, he must be referring to the Pharisee's premillennial scheme. Because it mentions 1000 years too. But to the discerning reader, Jesus totally destroyed the Premillennial kingdom concept with the gospel of the Kingdom in the gospels.

 

Well, I’m bowing out as we are at an impasse, and I’m afraid I may derail it even more. Thanks for the convo and hope I didn’t derail your thread. May He bless you today.

 

To be fair, premillennialism was taught by several of the ECF, it’s just not the dispensational premill view that is taught quite a bit today. That’s why it’s called Historic Premillennialism.

 

Au contraire mon frare…


[Matthew 24:2]”Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.”

His disciples then asked Him, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”[Matthew 24:3]

“These things” are referring to what He said in vs 2. Then He uses ‘you’ and ‘your’ throughout that Discourse, referring to them, not a generation millennia later.

I need to bow out now as I said I would. I will give you the last word.

 

I leaned HP for a time, but places like John 5:28-29 and Matthew 25:31-46 clearly teach both sheep and goats stand before Him in a general resurrection, not two separated by a 1,000 years. That’s why I could never fully invest myself in that eschatology system. I’m leaning post-mill now, but there’s much to learn…much to learn.


Have a good day my Brother.

 

I thought the Lord blessed your sharing. My ignore list keeps growing heeding Jesus' words you can only take things so far.

 

But the Pharisees invented it. Not the Church.
The Millennium is a Pharisee Doctrine.



First, MILLENNIUM: MILLENNIUM - JewishEncyclopedia.com
By: Joseph Jacobs, A. Biram

Table of Contents

Messianic Period an Interregnum.

The reign of peace, lasting one thousand years, which will precede the Last Judgment and the future life. The concept has assumed especial importance in the Christian Church, where it is termed also “chiliasm,” designating the dominion of Jesus with the glorified and risen saints over the world for a thousand years. Chiliasm or the idea of the millennium is, nevertheless, older than the Christian Church; for the belief in a period of one thousand years at the end of time as a preliminary to the resurrection of the dead was held in Parseeism. This concept is expressed in Jewish literature in Enoch, xiii., xci. 12-17; in the apocalypse of the ten weeks, in Apoc. Baruch, xl. 3 (“And his dominion shall last forever, until the world doomed to destruction shall perish”); and in II Esdras vii. 28-29. Neither here nor in later Jewish literature is the duration of this Messianic reign fixed. It is clear, however, that the rule of the Messiah was considered as an interregnum, from the fact that in many passages, such as Pes. 68a, Ber. 34b, Sanh. 91b and 99a, Shab. 63a, 113b, and 141b, a distinction is made between and , although it must be noted that some regarded the Messianic rule as the period of the fulfilment of the prophecies, while others saw in it the time of the subjugation of the nations.


So it is no wonder Millennialism found its way into the first century Church comprised mainly of former Jews.

 

In Matthew 24:30, Jesus says that the sign of the Son of Man shall appear - not that the Son of Man will literally appear. From Acts 1, we know that Jesus will physically return in the same manner that He left - in a cloud. I don't see any problem.

 

Then why didn't Jesus say "that generation", or "the generation that is alive at that time", or something like that?

 

Direct Quote from Walvoord in his first publication of The Rapture Question (Findlay, OH: 1957, p.148),

Ladd, in contrast to Jones, concedes that post-tribulalional rapture is an inference rather than an explicit revelation of Scripture in the following statement: "Nor does the Word explicitly place the Rapture at the end of the Tribulation." The fact is that neither posttribulalionism nor pretribulationisim is an explicit teaching of Scripture. The Bible does not in so many words state either. Pretribulationism is based on the fact that it allows a harmony of the Scriptures relating to the second advent. The separation of the translation from the return of Christ to earth permits each of the two events so different in character, to have its own place. It solves the problem of the confusing and contradictory details in the post-tribulational interpretation llluslrated in the difficulty of the postribulationist's themselves to work out a harmony of prophecies related to the second advent.

Tim LaHaye said;

“One objection to the pre-Tribulation Rapture is that not one passage of Scripture teaches the two aspects of His Second Coming separated by the Tribulation. This is true. But then, no one passage teaches a post-trib or mid-trib Rapture, either.”3 Tim LaHaye, No Fear of the Storm: Why Christians Will Escape All the Tribulation (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1992), 69. This book was later republished as Rapture Under Attack.

“No single verse specifically states, “Christ will come before the Tribulation.” On the other hand, no single passage teaches He will not come before the Tribulation, or that He will come in the middle or at the end of the Tribulation. Any such explicit declaration would end the debate immediately.”4 LaHaye, No Fear of the Storm, 188.