End times thoughts - continued

[1689Dave]

What claimant would declare such are not literal?

The Bible states them as real does it not?

What warrant is given to proclaim what the Bible states will happen is to be taken as smoke and mirrors?

If the angel is a symbol, also the chain, and the serpent, and the bottomless pit, why would the 1000 years be literal if not for an inability to understand what it symbolizes?

 

[agedman]

I studied most of the millennial positions over the years and dabbled in each for a while. Eventually believing the Reformed Amillennial position to be closest to the bible. But I had problems with it too. Mainly in the visible, institutional church idea of unbelievers being members. When I realized only believers make up the body of Christ, I replaced their Physical idea of church with the spiritual and things began making sense from that point on.

But all Millennial theories, including the Reformed, call for a physical kingdom. So I reject all of these knowing the kingdom is purely spiritual and heavenly. And unless a person is born again, they will never see it.

The millennial reign is made up of the redeemed as rulers and those ruled (who may or may not be redeemed).

The Scriptures are clear in that.

Not certain where you came into the thinking the millennium was not a blended time, it was never the teaching of the Scriptures, but something some do teach (imo) because they have drifted from the truth and attempting to rationalize what to them is irrational.

Why would Noah proclaim a phenomena that had never been, nor considered rationally possible to the people? Did such thinking prevent the events? We’re not specific “sign” given in which the people ignored, mocked, attempted to refute?

And did not the children wiggle and jiggle in writhing ecstasy while Moses was on the mountain? Did all their worship destroy the purpose of God, or their imagination prevent the design?

Was not the temple destroyed, rebuilt, only to be again destroyed, yet a vast temple complex yet still promised? Would vain imaginations, and rationalizations which cannot purchase the truth of Scriptures have any authority in these matters?

So it is with the deniers of those who hold that the factual millennial reign is misdirection. The reliance upon the fleshly reasoning is ever attempting to conform God’s ways, designs, and purposes.

 

[agedman]

If the angel is a symbol, also the chain, and the serpent, and the bottomless pit, why would the 1000 years be literal if not for an inability to understand what it symbolizes?

Was not the ark both a symbol, a testimony of the truth of future events, and in fact a prediction of events ne er before occurring on earth?

You state “the angel is a symbol, also the chain, and the serpent...”

They are not.

There is no Scriptural reason to take such as less than fact.

John uses no terms in which the reader is given such liberty, and yet the human rationizations and considerations based upon fleshly knowledge in which one must construct some scheme other then what is given is no better than those who confused the delay of Moses with the death of Moses.

Such are not symbols, nor to be taken as such.

 

[1689Dave]

You state “the angel is a symbol, also the chain, and the serpent...”

How can a physical chain bind Satan who is spirit? John says the serpent is the symbol for Satan.

 

[1689Dave]

The millennial reign is made up of the redeemed as rulers and those ruled (who may or may not be redeemed).

The Scriptures are clear in that.

If flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom, then only saints in glorified bodies make up the millennium. So, Satan rallies Gog and Magog from among the saints in glorified bodies to fight against the rest of the saints in glorified bodies according to your scheme. This alone should send you looking for a new theory.

 

[Yeshua1]

The problem is in the literal 1000 years pinpointing the end of the world. That only the Father knows. The symbolic 1000 years alleviates this problem. And it also harmonizes with the rest of the symbols in the context.

Are the 144,000 inRevelation merely symbolic also?

 

[Yeshua1]

How can a physical chain bind Satan who is spirit? John says the serpent is the symbol for Satan.

It stands though a real and literal event, as in Satan being bound and cast down and locked away for an extended period of time. Future event still!

 

[Yeshua1]

If flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom, then only saints in glorified bodies make up the millennium. So, Satan rallies Gog and Magog from among the saints in glorified bodies to fight against the rest of the saints in glorified bodies according to your scheme. This alone should send you looking for a new theory.

There are glorified beings with Jesus, and there are flesh and blood survivors of the end times going into the time of the Millennium.

 

[1689Dave]

There are glorified beings with Jesus, and there are flesh and blood survivors of the end times going into the time of the Millennium.

But, flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom.

 

[1689Dave]

It stands though a real and literal event, as in Satan being bound and cast down and locked away for an extended period of time. Future event still!

This is what we are talking about. Ask what does the symbol represent? And then find it in history or in the present, or expect it in the future. Do you expect to see red dragons floating about in space? Or do you look for what the red dragon represents?

 

[Yeshua1]

The problem is in the literal 1000 years pinpointing the end of the world. That only the Father knows. The symbolic 1000 years alleviates this problem. And it also harmonizes with the rest of the symbols in the context.

How so? As the second coming is imminent to all since time of the ascension of Christ!

 

[Yeshua1]

IF one wants to go down this route, why insist thatth second coming is a literal and real event? Why not a spiritual one, as Pretierists hold with?

 

[1689Dave]

Are the 144,000 inRevelation merely symbolic also?

Jehovah's Witnesses and similar think it is literal. Revelation is a boof of symbols which were "shortly" to begin happening in John's day.

 

[Yeshua1]

Jehovah's Witnesses and similar think it is literal. Revelation is a boof of symbols which were "shortly" to begin happening in John's day.

Nope, some of it happened back them. much of it still left to happen, as John states that when the events he describes are happening, they will come to pass quickly, not that they were all happening right then and there!

 

[1689Dave]

How so? As the second coming is imminent to all since time of the ascension of Christ!

The end of the world is known only to the Father. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. “But as for that day and hour no one knows it—not even the angels in heaven—except the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:35–36)

 

[Yeshua1]

The end of the world is known only to the Father. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. “But as for that day and hour no one knows it—not even the angels in heaven—except the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:35–36)

He can still come back at any time, correct?

 

[1689Dave]

Nope, some of it happened back them. much of it still left to happen, as John states that when the events he describes are happening, they will come to pass quickly, not that they were all happening right then and there!

Can you see the fulfillments in history? Where are we now in Revelation's time frame?

 

[Yeshua1]

Can you see the fulfillments in history? Where are we now in Revelation's time frame?

There has been no Man of sin yet to appear, as the Second Coming event would happen during that time!

 

[1689Dave]

He can still come back at any time, correct?

Yes, even today, but it will involve the resurrection, followed by the rapture, and the end of the world and the beginning of the New Heavens and earth. The "millennium" is the New Covenant era followed briefly by the loosing of Satan and the onset of the post Christian era that I believe we are now in.

 

[Yeshua1]

Is not the rapture either before the Second Coming, or is actually the Second Coming ?