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Individual Eschatology.....???
- Thread starter Iconoclast
- Start date
In Matthew 25 Jesus gives a description that asks what each person did, not what end time view they promoted.
Perhaps not what view they promoted, but the evidence would support the use of simile in characterizing the times in the first thirty verses.
1“Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable (like unto) to ten virgins,
14“For it is just like a man about to go on a journey
14“For it is just like a man about to go on a journey
Then beginning in verse 31, a statement of fact (no longer a simile or metaphor) about the judgement.
31“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
Ahhhh naaaaa.....New Yoark heareeee
And should you need a map to verify it, here is one that will probably do.
As a Texan told me just yesterday, "We got our problems too but we don't have your taxes!"
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Individual eschatology is just that - individual.
Disps work out a complex system of a future dispensation on the basis that prophecy for the first coming of Jesus was accurately predicted & literally fulfilled. Actually the details of his incarnation, life & saving work are seen in random prophecies mixed in with other prophecies, & often readily understood as near contemporary events.
Those events include judgments, exile & the return from exile - all but 3 OT prophets prophesied before the Babylonian exile.
The NC writers make it clear that OC prophecy refers to these last days - the present Gospel age, & look beyond the Gospel age to the NH&NE. They give no suggestion of a future millennium with a return to OC rituals, & an earthly Jewish kingdom, with Jesus ruling physically from Jerusalem over a largely godless population suppressed by his iron rod.
We can't object to people having a different understanding of prophecy - but we can & should object when the understanding results in injustice & corrupt practice in the present age.
Disps work out a complex system of a future dispensation on the basis that prophecy for the first coming of Jesus was accurately predicted & literally fulfilled. Actually the details of his incarnation, life & saving work are seen in random prophecies mixed in with other prophecies, & often readily understood as near contemporary events.
Those events include judgments, exile & the return from exile - all but 3 OT prophets prophesied before the Babylonian exile.
The NC writers make it clear that OC prophecy refers to these last days - the present Gospel age, & look beyond the Gospel age to the NH&NE. They give no suggestion of a future millennium with a return to OC rituals, & an earthly Jewish kingdom, with Jesus ruling physically from Jerusalem over a largely godless population suppressed by his iron rod.
We can't object to people having a different understanding of prophecy - but we can & should object when the understanding results in injustice & corrupt practice in the present age.
This is true from that perspective that even our Lord reading in the Temple stoped mid stride in a passage that was addressing both the first and the second advent.
He was careful to point out that what He read was fulfilled in their presence. BUT by not reading further, He was in effect marking that not read as yet to be fulfilled.
This is a great amount of the problem with the NC presentation.
The reliance upon "NC writers" in which they had no perspective to bring to the events of the Return of Christ for they did only travel by land, wind, and water.
More often then the perspective of such limited men would have forced them to place events of the future into some storybook formate of subjective analysis rather then comprehending that which modern events show actually can take place in the prophecy making the analysis objective.
Such was the subjective analysis of even the men of the sciences of that day, which dwelt among what was by some observable phenomena that built facts upon opinion, emotion, personal illuminations, or other impressions.
For example: The evil spirit of man was thought to invade through a mole, or the true spirit be cast out briefly in a sneeze, and all manner of superstition abounded. Even the puritans were known for their superstitions centuries later. How very limited is one who cannot perceive of a person being utterly destroyed down to their bones in an instant such as is pictured, or the reestablishment of a nation in one day as is mentioned. Such was like rain before Noah, or a virgin with child, totally out of the realms of possibility and consideration as being but some great figure of speech.
So when it came to the presentation of the Lord Jesus ruling physically, there was nothing of value to such a scheme in these of such limited experiences own living. Crusades had failed, great plagues had no answers, the papists flamed with indulgences and excess, the political presentations were perverted, and fine arts limited, all because the presentation of any other but that perspective in which they could comprehend was not considered viable.
Where the prophets were most evident in assigning future events, the NC writers were obliged, by subjective analysis, to process them as either altered to fit another scheme or having no purpose except in fulfillment in the NH and NE.
Such fulfillment is not even that which the prophets suggested, and objective analysis does not allow for such reassignment.
Rather objective analysis places such in the millennium that takes place in THIS earth, in the presence of a future physically present King of Kings who has brought the will of God to be done on earth as it most certainly is done in heaven.
Therefore, "We can't object to people having a different understanding of prophecy - but we can & should object when the understanding results in injustice & corrupt practice in the present age." For to take the NC presentation as prophecy occuring in some NH and NE rather than "In the present age" is certainly most objectionable for it is not built upon objective reasoning but purely that of subjective.
I believe that the emphasis on Israel is unfounded. I accept replacement Theology which says that with the second covenant Israel as God's favorite nation has now been replaced by the Church. The Jews will be saved in exactly the same way everyone else is saved, by Grace through faith in the true Messiah, Jesus Christ. I think the emphasis on Israel does distract many from our mission as followers of Jesus which is to love and serve our fellow man and to reach them with the gospel.
My own personal belief is also that there is no intermediate time between death and meeting Jesus. One thing that has convinced me of this is the fact that while we reside in a physical space/time environment, God's realm is timeless. However, I believe that immediately after we die we will face the Judgement along with everyone else who lived in the past, present, and future from our current worldly perspective as described in Mathew 25:
[Mat 25:31 KJV] When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
[Mat 25:32 KJV] And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth [his] sheep from the goats:
[Mat 25:33 KJV] And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
I do not believe that perfect Sanctification or Holiness occurs on Earth. Jesus was the only perfect man who will ever live. Through a process which I don't understand, I think we will be perfectly sanctified after the Judgement and then will join Christ in Heaven. The damned will be cast into eternal Hell.
Not so - have you read on in Isaiah 61? Stopping after referring to Isaiah's prophecy doesn't imply a gap in fulfilment - take it as a reference to an extended prophecy that Jesus would fulfil in the power of the Spirit.
They had already been warned by John of coming wrath:
Luke 3:7 Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 9 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Those were days of repentance; the AD 70 day of vengeance would come on the unrepentant.
I consider that reply to be a rejection of Holy Spirit inspiration of the Prophets & Apostles.
As for your examples, what farcical modern heretic did you get such nonsense from?
You claim "literal interpretation" while asserting the prophets -
Clearly what we need is "spiritual interpretation" guided by the NC writers.
You make an excellent case for the total rejection of premillennialism.
See, again, you take that which is physically lived out in the life of Christ at the first advent, that which was completely evident by multiple witnesses, and then suddenly switch to something that would be fulfilled "In the power of the Spirit."
Such a presentation as you desire would just be great IF there were ANY indication to do so. But neither in Isaiah nor in Luke is such authority expressed.
The Lord stopped reading because (Luke 4)
20And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Just as that portion was fulfilled in the physical, there is no cause not to take Isaiah just as fulfillable in the physical presence of the Lord.
In fact, BECAUSE the first advent was so completely reliable in the presentation of the OT prophecies, that, alone, would be basis of placing the reliability of the physical aspects of the second being even more reliable.
Days of vengeance come on all unrepentant.
But you are assuming that prophecy is fulfilled "spiritually."
I have been trying to come up with some prophecy statement that was not physically fulfilled exactly as it was presented.
Did Noah state a physical rain or spiritual?
Did Joseph dream a physical exaltation or spiritual?
Did Elijah present a physical drought or spiritual?
(and so on through all prophecy)
See, I just cannot come up with a single prophet that made a statement concerning that which was going to happen that it did not happen and that which has not happened will, by the veracity of the fulfillment of that which has happened, also be fulfilled in the physical.
Prophets didn't seem to spiritualize their statements but were given specific statements as to the future that would be evidenced as historical fact.
To take EXACTLY the problem with what you rely upon and show why it is frail, results in your blustering in attempt to distract from that which is faulty by claiming some heretic invention concerning mine?
Prove to me that the long dead NC writers had complete understanding of world wide conflict in which whole contents could be destroyed in a single hour.
Prove to me that the long dead NC writers had complete understanding of self powered vehicles that flew faster then birds, that made noise such as a rushing wind, that would seek the ocean depths, and travel to the stars.
They did not.
They had no concept, no parameters of intellect from which to even consider such was other then fancifulness.
And for over 100 years, folks have clung to the early NC writers, in spite of a great amount of physical evidence that shows how incomplete their views of the future were.
Such thinking as you present is similar to the views of the Sadducees and Pharisees, who knew the Scriptures, yet did not recognize the messiah in their midst. Their limited experience and adoration of folks such as Gamaliel prevented them just as the Lord stated "you prevent (attempt to hinder) others who are entering from entering."
Not everything that the NC writers wrote is wrong. Certainly not.
But when it came to prophecy, and such declarations, because of that which they experienced and expected in life which had been basically the same with very little real modification for centuries, they could not conceptualize anything outside of their own limited understanding. They were as many who expected "nothing new under the sun" meant nothing new of technology, and weaponry. As all teachers, they could only teach from what they knew and had experienced.
So, such resorted to "spiritualizing."
Those that followed resorted to "spiritualizing."
Modern folks are foolish to cling to "spiritualizing" when our own ability to conceptualize is as first hand experienced information.
We know the power of the atom, the force of the thrust of wind in a turbine, the depths of the ocean floor, the outer reaches of space, the intricacies of the human body, and the power of illusion far better then the NC writers ever did.
Centuries of battle field technique was destroyed in WWI
What was entrenched in WWI, could not survive the experiences of WWII
The nights of Korea and jungles south east Asia were not fit for the experiences of the Middle East.
The point being, just in that 100 years worth of conflict, the changes are remarkable in comparison to the conflict presentations from the earliest Egyptians throughout and to the Spanish American war. From the start of WWI dramatic change has modified the battlefield.
So, in like manner, it is not heretical to view the NC writers as presented in my posts.
What was entrenched in WWI, could not survive the experiences of WWII
The nights of Korea and jungles south east Asia were not fit for the experiences of the Middle East.
The point being, just in that 100 years worth of conflict, the changes are remarkable in comparison to the conflict presentations from the earliest Egyptians throughout and to the Spanish American war. From the start of WWI dramatic change has modified the battlefield.
So, in like manner, it is not heretical to view the NC writers as presented in my posts.
May I suggest that you read the Scriptures you are misinterpreting before you post again.
Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
Luke 4:14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. 15 And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
.......
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
Luke 4:14 Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. 15 And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
16 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
.......
And in the previous chapter, John preaches:
3:16 John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”
I don't think John needed to understand nuclear weapons when he made that prophecy. He didn't need them to destroy Sodom nor on the various occasions fire came from heaven in the days of Elijah.
Of course he didn’t understand and wrote to those who did not understand, but that did not mean God did not deliver what was to the assemblies.
Why would you think any writer of prophecy understood with total clarity what God compelled them to write?
How often did God not give the prophecy first in a sign and then express what it meant?
Did not Daniel seek the answer for three days concerning a prophecy?
Did not he have to seek the Lord to gather understanding and interpret dreams?
Why do you think the Lord stopped and pointed out specifically what was and by absence was not fulfilled when He read in the meeting in Nazareth?
See how mighty your “spritualizing” is the driving force rather then the declaration of the Scriptures?