Revelation is not about the FUTURE

[JesusFan]

It follows as an inevitable conclusion of the words that you did say. Your exact words (which I quoted) were …


… then you take me to task for DARING to interpret it LITERALLY.

wooden Literalism you are employing there, not what we see prophecy as being

 

[JesusFan]

True. Let me correct that.

I am utterly indifferent to the writings of the ECFs. First, they are not “God Breathed” like the writings of the Apostles, so why allow the “second string” to overturn the “first string”. Second, they got as much incorrect as they got correct. Shall we reject the hypostatic union as some did, or embrace the various heresies that the earliest councils needed to combat? Of course not. Thus, I throw out all their opinions and adopt a “sola scriptura” starting point (right or wrong) as the Reformers did and for the same reason (‘traditions’ of men is unreliable.)


Being familiar with apocalyptic literature as a literary type, they had no need to be told that ‘prophetic’ (revealing spiritual truth through symbolism) visions were not literal.

Jesus fulfilled literally many OT prophecies First Coming, so why not same for Second One?

And while ECF not inspired, they must have learned that premil from Apostles and those right after them

 

[JesusFan]

You appear to have missed the point entirely. It was from church history, not strictly theology. Again my point: the Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation. He had disciples named Polycarp and Ignatius, who presumably he led to Christ. He then discipled them, so that in church history they are known as disciples of John. They then both wrote clearly that they were premillennial. Therefore it follows that John taught them to interpret the 1000 years literally, since he wrote the book of Revelation where we are told about that. As John wrote, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth" (3 John v. 4).

Have you ever won anyone to Christ and then discipled them? If not, you wouldn't know how it works. I'm discipling a man named R. right now. Surprise! He now thinks like I do on many things (hopefully Bible based). If, however, you have never discipled anyone, then you would not know how discipleship works. Get to work, win someone to Christ, disciple them. It's a great joy!


Being familiar with the apocalyptic book of Daniel, they knew that the prophecies of Daniel about the first coming of Christ were fulfilled literally, so they would have assumed that the prophecies of an apocalyptic book would be fulfilled literally.

The Lord Jesus literally fulfilled OT Messianic prophecies, so why samer for Second Coming?

 

[JesusFan]

You are correct--I overestimated your knowledge of literal interpretation. I assumed you knew how we do that. It appears that you have never taken a course on hermeneutics or studied it for yourself, so perhaps I can help you.

The technical term for what I called "literal" is "grammatical historical-interpretation." It involves taking the text for what it directly says in the grammatical sense (according to the syntax and semantics of the original) and its historical sense (understanding the issues of the day in which the work was written). It is literal in the sense that it takes the text directly for what it says, not inserting meaning outside of the syntax and semantics of the original. It is not literal in the sense that it twists figures of speech to interpret them literally, against the nature of such expressions.

The grammatical-historical interpreter interprets figures of speech as just that: figures of speech, not meant to be taken literally. For example, one of those is the metaphor. This is a "Figure of speech in which a word or expression normally used of one kind of object, action, etc. is extended to another" (P. H. Matthews, Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, p. 243). Those who, like me, take the futurist view of Revelation are well aware that the book is full of metaphors and other figures of speech, and interpret those figures of speech accordingly. So the sword coming from the mouth of Christ is obviously a metaphor for the Word of God, which metaphor had previously been taught in several NT passages.

"In contrast to the other approaches to the book of Revelation, the futuristic position allows a more literal [not "completely literal--JoJ] interpretation of the specific prophecies of the book. Though recognizing the frequent symbolism in various prophecies, the events foreshadowed by these symbols and their interpretation are regarded as being fulfilled in a normal way" (John Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 21).

I hope this helps.

Plain sense of the meaning of the scripture, as understanding it in the Genre written in, and in words meant to be used for metaphor, allegory, literal, poetry etc

 

[John of Japan]

The Lord Jesus literally fulfilled OT Messianic prophecies, so why samer for Second Coming?

Absolutely! God did not change His methods between the Old and New Testaments.

 

[John of Japan]

Here is a quote about "literal interpretation" from a classic work on interpretation: "The literal interpretation of Scripture readily admits the very large place which figurative language has in the Scriptures, and Feinberg is correct when he says, 'It is not true that [the literalists] require every single passage to be interpreted literally without exception.' Literal interpretation does not mean painful, or wooden, or unbending literal rendition of every word or phrase. The literal meaning of the figurative expression is the proper or natural meaning as understood by students of language. Whenever a figure is used its literal meaning is precisely that meaning determined by grammatical studies of figures. Hence figurative interpretatiojn does not pertain to the spiritual or mystical sense of Scripture, but to the literal sense" (Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, p. 141. The Feinberg quote is from Premillennialism or Amillennialism? 2nd ed., p. 27).

 

[John of Japan]

Again by Ramm: “The main burden of doctrinal teaching must rest on the literal interpretation of the Bible. (Ramm's italics) In our treatment of general hermeneutics we maintain that the literal meaning of the Bible was the first and controlling principle for the understanding of the Bible” (Ibid., 148).