Featured A study of the "Revelation" - date & significance, then & now

This is not a valid point until you prove that the clouds connected with Christ's second coming are the same as the Shekinah. The Scripture in Rev. 1:7 is not "in clouds" or "veiled by clouds" as in the Shekinah, but meta with the genitive, meaning clearly "with," not "in" (which would be the preposition en). Abbot-Smith has "among, amid." So He will come accompanied by clouds.

You have Jesus hiding in a cloud. Jesus hides from no one.

As for John seeing a vision of Christ, the passage does not call it a vision, though the word for vision is used in Rev. 9. No, John was "in the spirit," walking spiritually, and actually saw the risen Christ. Any other interpretation is allegorical, reading the interpreter's prejudices into the text.

 

Please learn what apocalyptic literature is, then get back to me.

Thank you. I'm taking a break right now so I don't disturb the services with my bad cough.

 

How does it do that? You haven't explained. If all the prophesies were fulfilled in AD 70, what does Revelation have to say to me?

Why do you say that? How is what I wrote not an interpretation of the text?

But if we adopt a Preterist approach, then we can't apply it to ourselves because it's all already happened.

Does that blessing apply only to those who read the book in the two or three years between its writing and AD 70? Is there really no blessing for anybody else all down the ages? The fact of the matter is, of course, that the time was at hand when the book was written, and it is at hand now. Satan is still persecuting the woman and her offspring, the beast from the sea is still making war with the saints and overcoming them, and the beast from the earth is still deceiving those who dwell on the earth, and more and more people in many countries (and increasingly in Britain) are finding that they can't buy and sell or earn their living unless they are prepared to receive the mark of the beast in one way or another.. So it will be until our Lord returns, visibly, in glory.

I'm afraid I see no merit in Preterism. Not to mention that it still seems to be refuted by Acts 1:11.

 

But this didn't happen in AD 70, it happened at the cross. Jewish sacrificial worship became obsolete at that point (cf. Hebrews 8:13) and had no prophetic significance.

Sabbath observance predates the law (Genesis 2:3; Exodus 16:23ff). But Temple observance and Jewish ritual was finished long before AD 70. 'Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.' (Romans 10:4). 'Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law' (Galatians 3:13). The sacrificial law and the associated ritual were done away with in Christ. That is the whole point of the book of Hebrews.

 

Wow.

15 And it came to pass, while they communed and questioned together, that Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. Lu 24

14 When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jn 20

4 But when day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach: yet the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Jn 21

 

Here is one:
Zechariah 14:1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

When did the Mount of Olives split in such a manner?

HankD

 

Is his temple his body? His bride, the New Jerusalem?

BTW I'm just asking for I haven't given it much thought and less prayerful thought.

 

First of all, I am speaking of the end of the age. That was not at the cross. I think you agree with me that there was an overlap between the time of the cross until the destruction of the Temple. Jewish worship did not go overnight from righteous and legitimate to blasphemous. God allowed a certain period for the message of the new age to be proclaimed and accepted.

The Hebrews passage you quote points to this truth.

"In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." Hebrews 8:13

Note the phrases: "...is becoming obsolete..." and " ... is ready to to vanish away."

A good cross-reference here is 2 Cor. 3:11, where Paul refers to the old age as the "ministry of death":

"For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious."

Paul himself - to say nothing of countless other sincere followers - observed some ceremonies according to the Law in this 40 year interim period. It had not yet come to the point of Isaiah 66:3:

"“He who kills a bull is as if he slays a man;
He who sacrifices a lamb, as if he breaks a dog’s neck;
He who offers a grain offering, as if he offers swine’s blood;
He who burns incense, as if he blesses an idol."

Yes, the beginning of the end was at the cross. But it took time for the Message to radiate outward throughout the Diaspora.

 

When did the mountains melt like wax (Psalm 97:5; Micah 1:3)? There are other passages that could be cited that have similar phrases. For that matter if we want Zech. 14:1 to be literal do we also treat the Angel of Revelation 10:1 the same way, the one with 0ne pillar-leg on the sea, the other on the land?

No, these are all metaphorical. It is apocalyptical language.

 

Not really concerned about that. The historical church has had a spotty record for some things: Veneration of idols, celibacy of the priesthood - not to mention the whole blasphemous idea of human priesthood - , primacy of the Pope, etc. The Bible is my guide for orthodoxy and practice.

 

Thank you for this, John. It is an appreciated reminder for me to always extend the same courtesy I would want from others.

 

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Was Jesus born of a virgin in the strict literal sense of the word?
How do you know one way or the other?

HankD

 

The Lord always fulfilled His prophcies in a literal physical fashion, as you showed here!
Mary was not a "spiritual Virgin"

 

The historical Church would be the real Christians throughout history, and all would see full pretierism as heresy!

 

On each occasion, Jesus revealed Himself very shortly.
When did He reveal Himself to the people in AD 70?

 

Jesus will resurrect all of His own at the Second Coming, so when did that event happen?

 

Those things were all way later in history. Church historians put the beginning of the Catholic religion with Gregory the Great in the 6th century. There were no preterists in the early church, not until Jesuit Luis de Alcasar in the counter reformation.

 

Full pretierism has never been accepted by the Christian church, as it has been held as heresy, as it denies the Second Coming as still future!

 

I understand this, but find it so bizarre that I hardly know how to address it. Matthew 28:20. "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." So which is it? Is Jesus with us always, or was He only with Christians until AD 70?

The OC became obsolete at the cross. 'Now where there is remission of these [sins], there is no longer an offering for sin' (Hebrews 10:18). Paul was not asked, and did not agree, to make any sort of sacrifice (Acts 21:23-24).

But this is, to a degree, beside the point. The point is that with the death and resurrection of Christ, the door of salvation opened to the Gentiles (eg. John 12:32). The old Jewish religion was left behind long before AD 70 (Acts 13:46-47). To place the destruction of Jerusalem as the pivotal event of history is nonsense. Temple worship became old and obsolete, and disappeared. But by that time it would already have been an irrelevance to the thousands of Christians living miles away from Jerusalem who were largely Gentile (entirely so in the case of places like Philippi). I have asked this before and received no answer: why would the Christians in Corinth, Thessalonica and Philippi have been 'eagerly awaiting' the destruction of Jerusalem, and the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews? How did it benefit them? How did their lives change? In what sense did they start living in the 'new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells'? Did they see Jesus? And if not, why not in the light of Revelation 1:7? In what possible sense are we living in the new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells today?