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The 1 Day and the 1000 Years
- Thread starter John of Japan
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Decades ago, before we went to Japan in 1980. Curtis Hutson preached the message for my ordination in August, 1979.
God meets us where we are. Jesus having become flesh gave parables for us to contemplate here in our pilgrimage as well. Personally and in my estimation one could come to the conclusion (and I did as a babe in Christ) that the early church had not only the concept of the immanent return of Christ but the expectation that perhaps even within their lifetime was the general expectancy.
However with the passage of time the promised visible bodily return accompanied by a series of apocalyptic events which every eye would see the Return took on a life of its own.
Christ gave us a hint of this unexpected delay in one of His parables. True He gave it to a Jewish audience (but wern't they mostly all) we should contemplate it.
Matthew 24
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
However with the passage of time the promised visible bodily return accompanied by a series of apocalyptic events which every eye would see the Return took on a life of its own.
Christ gave us a hint of this unexpected delay in one of His parables. True He gave it to a Jewish audience (but wern't they mostly all) we should contemplate it.
Matthew 24
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
49 And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
There are many views of open theism - including Islamic open theism. You need to specify which open theism you are talking about - preferably by stating the name of the open theist you are referring to.
You're quoting vocal opponents of Open Theism to define open theism. This is silly.
No, an open theist would say that God has already planned for unforeseen actions by free agents. So no, he doesn't change plans due to unforeseen actions, he has already made sure of his plan despite them.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
It could be sooner or later. Peter wasn't into Metaphysics. He was just emphasizing that it could be a very long time before Jesus came again. Or it could be tomorrow.
What about John Reynolds?
RE:Open Theism
Marty, this may not apply to your thoughts but many years ago I had an Open Theism time of tension after reading:
Genesis 6:6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
I wondered - if God is all knowing (in fact ALL-Everything) why would He put Himself through this grief?
Didn't He know what would happen?
Then one day as I was headed to the dentist for a root canal I had similar thoughts at my human level.
Why Am I having this done and even paying the dentist to inflict it upon me?
To save my tooth.
See the application? It satisfied me at the time, later it was expanded to "All things work together for good...".
Marty, this may not apply to your thoughts but many years ago I had an Open Theism time of tension after reading:
Genesis 6:6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
I wondered - if God is all knowing (in fact ALL-Everything) why would He put Himself through this grief?
Didn't He know what would happen?
Then one day as I was headed to the dentist for a root canal I had similar thoughts at my human level.
Why Am I having this done and even paying the dentist to inflict it upon me?
To save my tooth.
See the application? It satisfied me at the time, later it was expanded to "All things work together for good...".
It is my opinion but I see no reason to claim or produce other documents. It's just the way Peter is writing. In any case one-off Bible verses have become proverbial e.g. "A little bird told me." Ecc. 10:20
Ian said:
It would be helpful if you considered & replied to what I wrote. Note that I wrote "it is possible .... but I don't think that is the way Peter is writing."John said:
If someone ever takes a proper course called “Reading in the Content Areas”, he or she will learn about how someone’s background influences the way one reads a text.
Sometimes people read what they expect as oppose to what is actually being said. It’s not stubborness, it’s just reading from a limited point of view.
When you were reading Genesis, starting with chapter one and up to 6:6, what part made you think that God knew exactly what what coming up next? Did it say. “On the sixth day, God created man whom he knew in the future would end up failing and murdering one another, so he would send a flood to kill all but a few. And God thought this was very good.” in the first or second chapter?
No, it doesn’t. You have to read something like this into the text. You are reading what you expect as oppose to what is there. This is why you had a crisis on Genesis 6:6. If you had read Genesis without your theology, Genesis 6:6 wouldn’t have even caused you to have a moment’s thought.
So think how a dogmatic viewpoint on God can taint the entire reading of the Bible. This is why I said before that I don’t even read the same Bible as some here do because the theology taints the manner of reading and the interpretation of the Bible so much, I feel we are reading different books.
Do the first six chapters say this? Not really. I guess I could do proof texts like a Calvinists to “show” this is the case. But the Bible isn’t a metaphysics handbook so I would be misinterpreting the Bible if I did.
I know everyone here thinks that Tim Mackie is the Devil in disguise but he discusses this topic in some detail including sovereignity and free-will and I usually agree with his perspective.
Lodic
Well-Known Member
True, God is Master of time, and He does set time periods. That doesn't mean that the "a day is as a thousand years" is a literal interpretation. This illustrates the different viewpoints between man's view of time from God's view.
You are going off the presupposition that these events have not happened yet.
but Peters comparison was a literal time period used by man but that to God was nothing from God's viewpoint
No, actually using your own argument, you are guilty of this "tainting" yourself because what you are alluding to is - God cannot think this way. i.e. "And God thought this was very good".
Isaiah 55
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Lodic
Well-Known Member
I see no correlation between how often it's mentioned and whether it's a literal thousand years.
Lodic
Well-Known Member
Both time periods were "literal" only by way of comparison. It's like saying that the Atlantic Ocean is a drop in God's bucket - it's huge to us, and small to God. Peter wasn't focused on time, but on encouraging his audience to be patient in their trials.
Hmm, is eternal life "eternal"?
Lodic
Well-Known Member
Of course. "Eternal" is a descriptive term for time that will have no end. "One day" and "thousand years" are juxtaposed to show our perspective is not the same as God's.
Peter is alluding to Psalms 90:4. Just saying.
God sits outside of time. I really can't imagine exactly what that means, but it seems that He exists in a boundless 'now' and sees all things, past, present and future as one (Psalms 139:16?). Perhaps being omni-temporal goes with being omni-present.
I would say that 1,001 or 10,001 years would still be like a day to God, and therefore the use of '1,000' is not literal. The fact that just about every other mention of 1,000 in Scripture is also non-literal is what leads me to believe that the Millennium in Rev.20 is figurative and means 'all the years that are' (c.f. 1 Chronicles 16:15; Psalms 50:10 etc.).
Of course and that means not to be doubting God because of the delay of the return of His Son (visibly and bodily, seen by "every eye").
This is rather dreadful on a whole load of bases. If you only read to Genesis 6:6, you would already know that God knew the future because of all the 'will's and 'shall's in Genesis 3:15ff. But why would you stop reading at Genesis 6? Why not read on to Genesis 18:18-19, where God shows an intimate knowledge of Abraham's future? Why not read on to Isaiah 41:18-29 or Isaiah 44:8-13 where God shows that it is He who brings about all things?
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