How Important Is It To Get Eschatology Right?

Remember those great scriptuers of salvation:

Opinions 23:18-19 (EOB = Ed's own Bible, marginal reading):


That if thou shalt confesse with thy mouth
the Lord Iesus; shalt beleeue in thine
heart, that God hath raised him from the dead;
and Get Eschatology Right
there is a fair chance thou mighest be saued.
10 For with the heart man beleeueth vnto
righteousnesse, with the mouth confession
is made vnto saluation, and by Geting
Eschatology Right thou perfecteth thyself for heaven.

Seriously, the Bible really says:
Romans 10:9-10 (KJV1611 Edition):

That if thou shalt confesse with thy mouth
the Lord Iesus, and shalt beleeue in thine
heart, that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saued.
10 For with the heart man beleeueth vnto
righteousnesse, and with the mouth confession
is made vnto saluation.

:jesus: Saves!

Eschatology does NOT save!

 

i should have been clearer. Of course, I believe in the second coming of Christ and the Judgment. Whether or nor there's a Millennium, Rapture (pre-, mid-, or post-) or the details of Revelation aren't that significant to me. If all of these happen consistent with a literal interpretation of Revelation, that's fine. If none of them happen consistent with a symbolic interpretation that's fine.

One thing that is important to me is to take a hard look at the descriptions of the Judgment in MA 25 and Rev 20.

Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Mat 25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink?
Mat 25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]?
Mat 25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.



Rev 20:11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.


These are easily the clearest descriptions of the Judgment in the Bible and yet many people don't accept them. I believe that anyone who don't take these words seriously put themselves in eternal peril.

 

I believe it is of great importance, and being a dispensationalists which has taught me if we haven't got the first 11 chapters of Genesis correct we might be saved but we could be hurting the folks who come after us. Look at B. B. Warfield and Charles Hodge, Christians who were used greatly by God but were mess up on Gen. Hodge said," The church has been forced more than once to alter her interpretation of the Bible to accommodate the discoveries of science. But this has been done without doing any violence to the Scriptures or in any degree impairing their authority." I disagree, look at where Princeton is today on the Scriptures.
In the Scofield Reference Bible it has, "Relegate fossil to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with the Genesis cosmogony remains." Again I disagree and the Scriptures do as well.

Get the first correct then get the Gospel out to a lost world and keep in mind eschatology, will help us remember time could be short, we need to get His Word out to a lost world. It all fits together.

 

Would you please explain how your interpretation of the first eleven chapters of Genesis relates to Salvation?

 

First it tells us what sin is and how it got here, it tell us that death is due to sin and till there was sin there wasn't death. I would say Gen. 3:15 is the Gospel in a nut shell as they say about John 3:16. Christ quoted from Gen., so He believed it. It is the foundation to all that comes later. Yes one can go and not believe Gen. and still be saved as many have but as with many if Gen. isn't correct why should I believe the rest. Could that be what happened to many of the great schools that are no longer Christian schools? One can be wrong on a lot of doctrine and be saved but he is helping to weaken the message.

 

OK, I see, thanks. I thought you were referring to the six day creation in some manner.

 

That is part of it, it is what the Bible tell us.

 

I believe in the six day creation. Others I know do not take the six days literally. Either position says God created the universe. Either position has nothing to do with being elected to salvation.

 

Warfield,and Hodge are two who were saved and didn't believe in the literal 6 day creation. My question is if we do away with 6 literal days of creation, what else do we do away with? As I've been told many times when sharing the Gospel with the lost, I've been ask, why should we believe the Bible, everyone knows it is a myth. They tell me so often we were taught in school that creation isn't correct, so why should I believe any of it if it is wrong at the start? Poor teachings makes it harder for folks to believe the Scriptures.

Did folks like Thomas Huxley put more into the Bible than we Christians. Huxley commented on Matthew 19:4-5,"If divine authority isn't here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? and again Huxley on 1st Cor. 15:21-22. "If Adam may be held to be no more real a person than Prometheus and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive type, comparable to the profound Promethean mythos, what value has Paul's dialectic?"

 

The classic question I am always asked by those who do not hold to the six day Creation is, what about the carbon dating, and how do you explain the dinosaur bones. My answer is that I accept what God says by faith, and worry much more about my life pleasing God than I do about how He created things.

 

I like that answer, sums up my attitude, but I have not yet given it words. Thank you for helping me with the wording for future wittnes.

 

Actually, a lot of dating data contradict a multi-billion year old earth. The problem is that people start with the a-priori assumption that the earth is billions of years old, and then explain away the data that dispute the a-priori assumption. For example, all coal contains carbon 14. This should be impossible, given the half-life of carbon 14, but there it is in the coal. I've seen multiple "explanations" for this, but it all amounts to "we don't want to believe coal forms quickly, so we've decided that the carbon 14 in coal must be an anomaly."

It's not even worth arguing about with people who believe in an old earth, because the evidence doesn't matter - only the conclusion matters. At some point, a lot of science stopped being about "discovering" things, and started being about "proving our assumptions".

 

Yea, I wish MaCarthur would take his own advice.

 

TC,
Not that it really makes a bit of difference to me in substance, but I would be quite interested in hearing your take on the dinosaur bones just for fun.

 

He has.

 

They taste like chicken.