A Doctrine for Cowards

[DHK]

Please don't use hypotheticals involving my handle. When I use your handle it deals with things you have actually said.

Okay, I didn't have to use your name. I will try to remember that in the future. As you said, It was just a hypothetical; no offense was meant.

 

[Rippon]

An unsaved university professor with nothing to lose in this argument was presented with the evidence for the TR and then with the evidence for the CT. He concluded that the evidence for the CT would be laughed "out of court."

I don't know why you place so much confidence in an unsaved man to buttress your case. But in the interest of acquiring more information please fill in the gaps. Elaborate.

Protestant brought Tregelles into this argument. Rippon backed him up.

I commented on Tregelles because you demeaned a man of God by slandering him. I came to his defense.

 

[DHK]

I don't know why you place so much confidence in an unsaved man to buttress your case. But in the interest of acquiring more information please fill in the gaps. Elaborate.

Another example: When Charles Taze Russell was in Canada he was taken to court on the charge of adultery. The point of his ability to read Greek came up at the trial. He was asked if he had that ability as he said he did. He answered in the affirmative. A Greek NT was placed in front of him and he couldn't read a word. He was almost kicked out of the country for fraud and perjury, let alone adultery.
The courts (the unsaved) had no interest in the evangelicals or the doctrine of the J.W.'s. Concerning religion, per se, they were neutral and objective. Their concern was with other matters: adultery, ability to read a foreign language, fraud, etc.
Likewise the professor's opinion on whether or not this so-called text would hold up as a "text" in a court of law. It wouldn't. It is entirely "eclectic." He looked at the evidence and drew his conclusion. He didn't have a bias to start with.
He wasn't like Protestant: prove post-trib by using post-trib sources.
He wasn't like others: "My position is right because I say it is."
He had no reason to take either position. He was completely neutral.

I commented on Tregelles because you demeaned a man of God by slandering him. I came to his defense.

I didn't slander him. My views on the TR are very strong. Such a discussion does not belong here. You can find those discussions in the version forum--plenty of them. So that is off topic. Concerning eschatology his view is post-trib, and therefore not relevant.

 

[prophet]

You have just made your case for a pre-trib rapture. We are not appointed to wrath. We will never face it. Well; all those in the Tribulation will face it. It is a time of God pouring out His wrath upon all the earth without discrimination. There will be no "land of Goshen" for the believers.

The "falling away."
Jesus himself said, "When I come will I find faith on this earth."
It could be gradual, as it is now. Percentage wise fewer and fewer are coming to the Lord. Our nations are becoming more and more wicked, secular and anti-Christian. The falling away is gradual not sudden. It is happening now.

Christians have faced sever persecution ever since the time of the apostles. Read about how they suffer in Islamic nations. Get a copy of "Voice of the Martyrs," and read it. There were more Christians persecuted and martyred for their faith in the 20th century then in all other centuries combined! But that doesn't put us in the Tribulation now, does it?

Again you make the mistake of attributing Biblical truth to Darby. That is wrong. Have you ever heard of Chiliasm? That which the early church fathers believed? It is basic dispensationalism. Some of them also believed in a pre-trib rapture. I keep providing a link that no one pays attention to, probably because they don't want and it goes against their theology.

Dispensationalism has been around well over a thousand years longer than they were born.

Rev 7:3
3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

Mat 24:29-31
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven:and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Rev 6:12-17
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

Obviously this event comes, immediately before the Wrath is poured out.

You have to be educated to be stupid enough to not see that.

Of course, you probably think that the Great Tribulation lasts for 7 years...So this is meaningless to you:

Dan 12:12
12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

 

[DHK]

Rev 7:3
3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

This is in the context of the Lord sealing 144,000 Jews during the time of the Great Tribulation, which, yes does last for seven years.

Mat 24:29-31
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven:and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

This describes the Second Coming of Christ immediately at the end of that Seven Year Tribulation when Christ comes in His glory to defeat the enemies of Israel as described at the end of Revelation 19.

Rev 6:12-17
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

This is one of those passages that is not chronological. Many dispensationalists believe all the seals, trumpets and vials are in order. For the most part they are. But I don't believe the seals are, at least not all of them. This one definitely takes place at the end right before Christ comes. There is terror in the eyes of the world. They know he is about to come and take his vengeance upon them.

Obviously this event comes, immediately before the Wrath is poured out.

You have to be educated to be stupid enough to not see that.

Of course, you probably think that the Great Tribulation lasts for 7 years...So this is meaningless to you:

There is no need for name-calling. I gave you my interpretation and can back it up. There are many reasons to believe it is seven years, not the least that the Bible itself declares it to be.

Dan 12:12
12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

There is an additional time added on. It is there most likely to take time for the Judgment of the nations (dividing of sheep and goats) before the actual reign of the Millennial Kingdom can start. We don't know. It doesn't say. We do know the world will be a mess--physically. A great war will have just taken place. The earth will somehow be turned from this horrible mess into a pristine place like the Garden of Eden. How? We don't know. Is that time related to the preparation of the Millennial Kingdom? I don't know. There are many things we don't know.

Eye has not seen, ear has not heard...

 

[prophet]

Humpty-Dumpty dispensationalism.

You divide up so much, you can't get it back together again.

 

[DHK]

Humpty-Dumpty dispensationalism.

You divide up so much, you can't get it back together again.

I didn't divide history into various periods of time. The Lord Himself did.
The Bible is a book of history, in fact it is His Story.
Historically he starts with Creation, and then the Fall, and then the Flood, and then on to Moses and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and so on. Most of this history is given by Stephen in a very good summary in Acts 7 as he preached to the Israelites, and then was stoned as Christianity's first martyr.
The Church Age had just begun and will end when Jesus comes for his own.
The entire OT is a history of the nation of Israel.
Do you have something against history? Something against those periods of time in history where God deals with his own that we call dispensations?

 

[prophet]

I didn't divide history into various periods of time. The Lord Himself did.
The Bible is a book of history, in fact it is His Story.
Historically he starts with Creation, and then the Fall, and then the Flood, and then on to Moses and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and so on. Most of this history is given by Stephen in a very good summary in Acts 7 as he preached to the Israelites, and then was stoned as Christianity's first martyr.
The Church Age had just begun and will end when Jesus comes for his own.
The entire OT is a history of the nation of Israel.
Do you have something against history? Something against those periods of time in history where God deals with his own that we call dispensations?

I have something against our fascination with calling the passing of time "periods".
Where does God tell us to divide the world's history into periods?

Sure , the Flood is a Marker, we just about started over that year.
But, why is anything before or after that a period?

Who decides what qualifies as a period, and where it starts and ends?

The Darwinists like "periods", and, hmmmm, they also were getting pretty popular in Darby's day.

 

[DHK]

I have something against our fascination with calling the passing of time "periods".
Where does God tell us to divide the world's history into periods?

Sure , the Flood is a Marker, we just about started over that year.
But, why is anything before or after that a period?

Who decides what qualifies as a period, and where it starts and ends?

The Darwinists like "periods", and, hmmmm, they also were getting pretty popular in Darby's day.

The Lord divides the time:
Heb 1:1-2
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

"in times past" he spoke
"In these days spoke to us"

He tells us here about dispensations. When he spoke, how he spoke, to whom he spoke, why he spoke, etc. This is the basis of dispensationalism. It is just one of many, many verses.

 

[prophet]

The Lord divides the time:
Heb 1:1-2
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

"in times past" he spoke
"In these days spoke to us"

He tells us here about dispensations. When he spoke, how he spoke, to whom he spoke, why he spoke, etc. This is the basis of dispensationalism. It is just one of many, many verses.

Times past does not equal "periods".

 

[DHK]

Times past does not equal "periods".

Combined with "sundry times" or various different times, it does.

 

[prophet]

Combined with "sundry times" or various different times, it does.

No, no it still doesn't.
It means "at many different times and manners".

 

[DHK]

No, no it still doesn't.
It means "at many different times and manners".

(CEV) Long ago in many ways and at many times God's prophets spoke his message to our ancestors.

(ESV) Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

 

[prophet]

(CEV) Long ago in many ways and at many times God's prophets spoke his message to our ancestors.

(ESV) Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

Divers is synonomous with different.
I could care less what the ESV says, and the only Common English Bible I know, is the Authorized one.

Heb 1:1
1 God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets,
(Darby)

Your guy put "parts" in there. Look familiar?

I work in a field, where the word "sundry" is used regularly.

"Diverse" is being whined about daily, in our society.

I know these two words.

Heb 1:1
1 God, that spak sum tyme bi prophetis in many maneres to oure fadris, at the
(WYC)

Heb 1:1
1 God in tyme past diversly and many wayes spake vnto the fathers by Prophetes:
(TyndaleBible)

These guys are at least in the lineage.

 

[Protestant]

So, what is you point?

The Plymouth Brethren are generally dispensational, pre-tribulational, premillennial in their theology. (Article, Plymouth Brethren, Wikipedia)

I might also add ‘Arminian.’

The point in using Tregelles as a witness against the ‘Secret Rapture’, which somehow escaped your comprehension, is the fact that, as a sincere Plymouth Brethren, he was once a die-hard Pre-Tribber, but changed his view upon serious study of the Scriptures, whereby he became a recognized authority on the Greek texts.

 

[Protestant]

The Scripture you have been posting has to do with Christian living; not final warnings. They are out of context. Learn to rightly divide the Word of truth.

I will review a few of the many Scriptures I have quoted.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

This Scripture speaks to martyrdom for one’s faith, not Christian living.

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.

This Scripture speaks to martyrdom for one’s faith, not Christian living.

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

This Scripture warns of losing one’s soul through believing the lies of Antichrist. It is not about Christian living.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

This Scripture speaks to martyrdom for one’s faith, not Christian living.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

This Scripture warns of losing one’s soul through believing the lies of Antichrist. It is not about Christian living.

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

This Scripture speaks specifically to the impossibility of a pre-tribulation Rapture for the purpose of escaping the evil that shall come. It says nothing about Christian living.

Not so. Do you think with millions of Christians missing world wide it will be "secret"?

In Logic this is called ‘begging the question’….assuming the 'Secret Rapture' which has yet to be proved.

I will, however, admit that millions of Christians have gone missing.

They were slaughtered by Antichrist.

Their blood cries out for vengeance.

How is it you cannot hear their cries?

There is no such promise. He will come for his own--a coming of comfort (1Thes.4:16-18--comfort one another)
He will come in vengeance for the unbeliever (2Thes.1:6-10). You can't reconcile those two passages can you?

Your method of prophetic Scripture interpretation has a name: Eisegesis.

When Jesus comes once, visibly, personally, and very loudly to Earth in wrathful Judgment at the end of the Age true believers alive at that time need not fear because God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

BTW, the ‘nasty’ doctrine of Predestination is taught in this verse.

God’s ‘appointments’ are all eternal before the foundation of the Earth….without the counsel, works, or faith of men or angels.

Protestant: 'Antichrist comes first then comes Jesus Christ.'

Yes, but not the rapture.

Alas, more eisegetical question begging.

There will be no believers in the Great Tribulation, also known as Jacob's Trouble. They will be raptured before that time begins.

Yet more eisegetical question begging.

God has not appointed us to wrath.

Exactly. Jesus took our wrath-filled punishment upon the Cross.

Therefore, Christians should not fear the killing of their body done by Antichrist.

"The trump of God" in 1Thes.4 is not necessarily the last trump. Do you have solid evidence that it is?

So glad you asked!

Solid, biblical, historical evidence is what I am all about!

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

This is a classic ‘Rapture’ Scripture.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Another classic ‘Rapture’ Scripture.

In both verses the dead in Christ are raised in glorified bodies. This is the first resurrection. (Cf. Rev. 20:5)

In both verses those alive in Christ will be translated into their glorified bodies. This is the second phase of the first resurrection.

Ergo, since both verses teach the same event, i.e. the first resurrection, so then the trump of God in 1 Thess. MUST be the last trump of 1 Cor. 15.

 

[Protestant]

But who is that referring to? Do you really think that is referring to the Bride of Christ? Or are you part of the Bride?

The wheat represent the sheep, the true Christians, the Bride of Christ.

The tares (similar in appearance to wheat) represent the goats, the false Christians, the Bride of Satan.

Ergo, the Lord’s command to His angels at the end of the Age: Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

By God’s grace alone I am a member of His Body, the Bride of Christ.

So the first resurrection is the resurrection of the unsaved. That is not what my Bible teaches. You are so confused.

The Scripture cited says nothing of a resurrection.

Instead, it speaks of a separation; a categorizing of those alive at Christ’s one-time, visible, personal, very loud Return in Judgment.

In Ephesians Paul teaches that we are all one in Christ.
In 1Cor.10 Paul teaches that we are all one in Christ.
In 2Cor.5 Paul teaches that we are all one in Christ.
Do you have a problem with Paul's teaching?
Don't make false accusations.

Futurism and Dispensationalism go hand in hand. Are you denying you are a Dispie? If so, Praise the Lord!

Protestant: 'The historical truth that a very real Great Tribulation has been ongoing for centuries.'

That is absurd.

Allow me to quote the respected non-Christian historian, Edward Gibbons, who has no bias toward Christianity:

We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth which obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that, even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, assumed the popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by the proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, a man of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and country at a time when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of intelligence and increased the danger of detection. If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed that the number of Protestants who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman empire.

(Source: http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap16.htm#conc )

The central theme of the mystery of iniquity perpetrated by Mystery Babylon and Antichrist is that of an ongoing life and death struggle and war between Satan’s false Roman church, posing as true Christianity, and Jesus Christ’s true church of the Elect, comprised of both Gentiles and Jews.

This war was announced in the Garden: Genesis 3:15, and will continue until the one-time, visible, personal, very loud Return of the Lord in Judgment.

The Coming Tribulation will come after the revealing of the Antichrist and will last for 7 years--Daniel's seventieth week.

Antichrist has come and has been with us for at least one thousand years, as Martyrs and Reformers have testified with their blood.

The fact that you and millions of other professing Christians do not recognize the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, The Beast from the Abyss, is proof of the true nature and efficacy of the mystery of iniquity.

Unless the Lord reveals it by His Spirit (‘Revelation’), the mystery of iniquity will remain just that……a mystery.

Protestant: 'The united truthful Holy Ghost testimony of the saints and martyrs of centuries past as to the identity of Antichrist.'

That is the heretical teaching of allegory introduced by the heretic Origen.

I will be posting an in-depth treatise on this very subject which has the Word of God for its authority.

You are one confused person.

As confused as the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith?

I will be posting another in-depth treatise concerning the impossibility that the Pope of Rome could have fulfilled the prophecies by ‘mere coincidence’…..much like it is impossible Jesus Christ could have fulfilled the prophecies by ‘mere coincidence.’

 

[Yeshua1]

The Church of Rome, or the papacy were NOT the foretold Antichrist to come, as a sure sign would be that IF either of them were, the Lord Jesus would have returned in His second coming, and there would be a Millinual reign going on right now, and all of us would have been glorified by now!