Featured Who Gave the Right to Interpret "Spiritually"?

No. He does not.

 

20 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world Mt 28.

Literalize that. Make it physical and visible, something that can be seen with the eye and touched with the hand, as all you futurists narrow mindedly do with Acts 1:11.

 

Will this be a literal return or a spiritual return?

 

We also know that His kingdom is "not of this world", that it wasn't to "come with observation", and we've come to "Mt. Zion that can't be touched".

Do we now have a kingdom without a king?

King's gonna come later?

"I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"

 

Rev. 8.7 sounds much like Ex. 9. If one is literal and one is symbolic, I fail to see the consistency. There are many symbols in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and they are interpreted for John either by Jesus or an angel. If everything John saw symbolically represents something else, we might as well be at sea without rudder or compass and forget about the beatitude in Rev. 1.3: Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. It must forever remain a closed book shrouded in mystery.

 

Well we've established one thing: a strictly literal interpretation does not exist, except perhaps in the Church of Rome's understanding of Matthew 26:26. It's like the Loch Ness Monster. Some people claim to have seen it, but when you look more closely, it's not really there. There are metaphors, there are similes, there is imagery, hendiadys, anacoluthia, and all the other figures of speech, and these have to be interpreted, and you can buy books that set out principles of how you do that.

With regard to 'spiritualizing,' it is true that the Scriptures are not a wax nose to be pushed into any shape one might desire, but we are told, 'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judges all things......' (1 Corinthians 2:14-15). We must read the Bible with spiritual eyes, not to invent weird and outlandish interpretations, but to understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches (Matthew 13:9; Revelation 2:29).

One of the things that are helpful is to find a simple, straightforward statement and to use that as a template to understand more difficult passages. One, in relation to eschatology, is Acts 1:11. That seems to me to be very simple: the Lord Jesus will return in just the way He left. Therefore I cannot accept an invisible Return, whether to destroy Jerusalem or to 'rapture' the saints. So the two interpretations I am left with are Amil and Historic Premil. For various reasons I have plumped for the former.

I was saved at the age of 38, with very little knowledge of the Bible, and when I first read Revelation, I tried to do so literally and it didn't work. The world kept coming to an end and then starting up again (6:17; 11:15-19; 14:14-20 etc.). The interpretations people gave me didn't seem to square with other portions of the Bible like 1 Thes. 5. Someone recommended William Hendricksen's More than Conquerors to me and that was the key that opened the book up to me. It's quite an old book now (1945), but I strongly recommend it to understand the structure of Revelation.

One last thing. Anyone who believes in the physical return of our Lord in glory is my brother in Christ and is welcome into membership at my church, so long as they are orthodox in other respects and can put up with Amil being preached from the pulpit.

 

So you do believe that the beast of Rev 13:1-2 is a literal creature? Be sure and let me know when you see it.

 

Read Daniel chapter 7 and you will have your answer. Specifically verse 23.

 

Daniel 7 speaks of four beasts which are actually not beasts but four kings. You are thinking of the fourth one because it has ten horns. That also is not a beast, but a kingdom. Whatever that interpretation is, it's not literal, but figurative.

Many interpreters take that fourth beast to be Ancient Rome.

 

There you go. I also might let you know that I know of zero dispensational authors who claim that the Bible must be interpretted "literally" 100% of the time. That's not what the OP is about either.

 

Don't forget about the whore decked out in the high priest's attire riding his back.

 

No animosity. It's a fact that he stated himself. He's not looking to understand but to cause mischief.

Correction:
<mayhem>

 

Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. -Ac. 1.11

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. - Th. 4.16, 17

We must all confess some ignorance on this subject, but can we not all agree that these are precious promises to be fulfilled at the appointed time?

 

So are you seriously, for real, expecting me to believe JoJ started this thread to 'learn'?

 

I did not accuse him of being a "bomb thrower" nor have I borne any "animosity". I simply replied to another poster that JoJ did not start this thread to "understand" him, and then you butted in with this "animosity" stuff.