John's Revelation

[keras]

Not quite just “deviously”. If one asserts their misinterpretation (or even if it spreads and others accept it as truth), without even realizing it, we can easily accidentally create lies about God’s words, which could cause someone to misunderstand about something like salvation, about heaven and hell, eternity. It’s not entirely impossible for a lot of us to be in trouble/in danger of this.

Obviously; with the proliferation of theories, ideas and plain speculation about the future, it seems that just about all of us are wrong, at least in some aspect of Bible Prophecy.
I think that God has made it difficult for us to understand, so that when the fiery test comes; 1 Peter 4:12, we will either stand firm in our faith, or fail the test. It will be Jesus doing the winnowing, Matthew 3:12

 

[AdB]

I don't find much to agree with in these charts.

Why are the 2 witnesses in the Seals? Daniel's 70th week doesn't mean anything - what covenant is it? There is no 'whisked away' rapture, but assuming that there was, wouldn't you put it at the 7th Seal? The great tribulation is the 7 Trumpets & Bowls.

It seems I never responded to your post, but you can find the answers to your questions in my pdf.

 

[AdB]

What does a particular chapter or image mean? The Bible Project is very good.

I took the time to go through the 2 video’s in more detail, as I already indicated I highly value these videos from the Bible Project, and in general I fully agree with the message of this one as well.
There are also some very interesting things that are mentioned that I will definitely keep in mind while studying Revelation. For example the notion that the 144000 and the great multitude are actually talking about the same group is very striking. Also the connection of the mark of the beast to the Tefillin (in the video called “anti shema”) is very interesting.

As said in another post, I think a general property of God’s revelations is that it holds multiple levels of explanation. Revelation does hold the message as described in these videos, but that doesn’t negate any other meaning as well. To me it seems it also provides information of actual events leading up to coming of the everlasting Kingdom of Christ.

Regarding these videos I do find some things that I think are not really lining up or are not very well supported by any scripture.

For example the first 4 seals are described as generally occurring events but it is not explained what their place and purpose are… Also that it is indicated that the 6th trumpet is parallel to these 4 seals is kinda farfetched, only based on the quantity “4” and “horses” being mentioned…

Even worse is the attempt to align the first 5 trumps and first 5 bowls to the plagues of exodus, but these are not aligning at all:

Exodus plague 1. Turning water to blood does align with the 2nd trumpet, but also with BOTH the 2nd and 3rd bowl, so both out of sequence and not a one on one relation.
Exodus plague 2. Frogs, 3. Lice, 4. Wild animals, and 5. Pestilence of livestock have no aligning events in revelation whatsoever.
Exodus plague 6. Boils aligns only with the 1st bowl.
Exodus plague 7. Thunderstorm of hail and fire aligns only with the 1st trumpet.
Exodus plague 8. Locusts aligns only with the 5th trumpet.
Exodus plague 9. Darkness for three days aligns with both the 4th trumpet and the 5th bowl.
Exodus plague 10. Death of firstborn again has no aligning events in revelation whatsoever, but this may be excused as this is the completion plague.
Finally, the 3rd trumpet (water poisoned) and the 4th (sun scorching heat) bowl don’t seem to align with any of the exodus plagues.
So there is some correspondence between the exodus plagues and the trumpet and bowl judgements, but overall they don’t seem to be related in any way.
Below table clearly shows how poorly the relation is...

 

[keras]

As said in another post, I think a general property of God’s revelations is that it holds multiple levels of explanation. Revelation does hold the message as described in these videos, but that doesn’t negate any other meaning as well. To me it seems it also provides information of actual events leading up to coming of the everlasting Kingdom of Christ.

ACTUAL EVENTS !!!!
Perish the thought! We might have to face tough times, maybe a shortage of toilet paper!
No; we must place those nasty events in the past, or if that is just too obviously ridiculous, then spiritualize it.

People may be in the dark, 1 Thess 5:4-8, but we who do read and try to understand the Prophesies, should know what the Lord has planned for our future. Things as Written, that can and will happen.

 

[AdB]

ACTUAL EVENTS !!!!
Perish the thought! We might have to face tough times, maybe a shortage of toilet paper!
No; we must place those nasty events in the past, or if that is just too obviously ridiculous, then spiritualize it.

People may be in the dark, 1 Thess 5:4-8, but we who do read and try to understand the Prophesies, should know what the Lord has planned for our future. Things as Written, that can and will happen.

Sorry, but what's the point you're trying to make?

 

[keras]

Sorry, but what's the point you're trying to make?

Apologies for sarcasm.
You said : it seems that Revelation talks about actual events....

My belief is that it does, excepting for the obvious metaphors.
Cosmic and earthly events which can and will actually happen as described. Why not?
Remember that God did destroy the antediluvian civilization. We are now in a situation very similar to how they were. God rejecting and anything goes. Our Creator will again take action to correct it.

 

[Ralph L]

Want to learn more about the prophecy and fulfillment of the book of Revelation, check out our seminar on Revelation Chapter 6 where we break down every single verse.
Rv 6 Live

English : https://bit.ly/revelations_sf_rv6_live

Tagalog : https://bit.ly/revelations_sf_rv6_tl_live

Spanish :https://bit.ly/revelations_sf_rv6_es_live

 

[eclipsenow]

Want to learn more about the prophecy and fulfillment of the book of Revelation, check out our seminar on Revelation Chapter 6 where we break down every single verse.
Rv 6 Live

English : https://bit.ly/revelations_sf_rv6_live

Tagalog : https://bit.ly/revelations_sf_rv6_tl_live

Spanish :https://bit.ly/revelations_sf_rv6_es_live

What's the church and the basic classification? Amil, futurist?
Premil, postmil?
etc...

 

[eclipsenow]

My belief is that it does, excepting for the obvious metaphors.

Obvious metaphors to you - but the Jews had a vastly different set of assumptions and paradigms we call 'culture' - and you ignore them in your rush to read everything as literal and not study what Jews thought of as symbolic.

 

[keras]

Obvious metaphors to you - but the Jews had a vastly different set of assumptions and paradigms we call 'culture' - and you ignore them in your rush to read everything as literal and not study what Jews thought of as symbolic.

We do not have to have a knowledge of Hebrew and it convolutions to understand what our Bibles say.
The translators have carefully brought out what the Hebrew and Greek writers meant.
It is people like you who want to 'adjust' scripture, who tout "cultural' nuances, to make the Prophesies mean what they don't.

 

[eclipsenow]

We do not have to have a knowledge of Hebrew and it convolutions to understand what our Bibles say.

Not the basic gospel, no.

But eschatology? Yes. You do.
That is all.

The translators have carefully brought out what the Hebrew and Greek writers meant.

You tell yourself that!

They translated the words.
What's the meaning of Jesus having 7 eyes and 7 horns?
What's the meaning of a thousand?
(But why am I trying, when you already rejected 2 dozen PROOF references - from context - that I've shared elsewhere...)

 

[keras]

But eschatology? Yes. You do.
That is all.

Most of the Bible prophesies are Written in clear and understandable language. Only when people like to mess around with them, do they need to make it mean something else.

What's the meaning of a thousand?

This is the prime example.
AMill's like you make the clear statement of there being a thousand years when Jesus will reign as King, repeated six times, into a meaningless, indefinable time period.
Doing that is nothing short of tampering with Revelation.

 

[eclipsenow]

Most of the Bible prophesies are Written in clear and understandable language.

That's your assertion - but just as you would fail basic missiology if you barged into another culture and started manic street preaching without learning the language first - you'd fail basic hermeneutics without understanding how Jews used their own language.

English isn't just about our words - it's our phrases as well.

Only when people like to mess around with them, do they need to make it mean something else.

You think?

This is the prime example.
AMill's like you make the clear statement of there being a thousand years when Jesus will reign as King, repeated six times, into a meaningless, indefinable time period.

"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"

Is Juliet now a ball of fusing hydrogen millions of miles across?

Doing that is nothing short of tampering with Revelation.

No - it's really reading it. I'm sorry you don't respect those who know how to.
But that really is your problem.

I admire those who try to wipe their minds of our Western Hollywood fascination with self, and narcissistic tendency to see everything as about us our precious generation. (Because we're so special, aren't we, all precious little narcissists like Donald Trump.) It's just revolting.

We need to get back to how the Jews read "a thousand" ... and a bunch of other number symbols and images as well. Horn, eye, 1/3, 6, 7, 12 - all have significance. Or did Jesus just pick 12 at random? Did John just pick 7 eyes and 7 horns at random? Significance at all? Any? Huh?

Below is just a sample of all the times 1000 should be read as "a gazillion" or "the fullest number of". It's like today when people say "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money." It's an uncontested fact that the Hebrews often used a thousand in the sense of "a gazillion times" or "a gazillion men" or "a gazillion years" or even "forever".
Let's take a look.

Psalm 50: "I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills."
(As there are over a million mountains on earth - let alone all the foothills - it would seem very strange for this verse to literally be saying God's abundant ownership of the whole world LIMITS him to just ONE THOUSANDTH of the hills on earth! That would be a VERY strange reading of the passage!)

Deuteronomy 1:11 - "11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!"
(The promise to Abraham was that his descendants would be too numerous to count - are we going to completely nerf that promise and literally say they'd only increase a thousandfold from their exact numbers that day? Of course not!)

Deuteronomy 7:9 - "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments."
(This one basically means forever - a gazillion)

Psalm 105:8 - "He remembers his covenant FOREVER, the promise he made, for a THOUSAND generations"
(What is it? Forever, or only a mere 1000 generations? No - it's Hebrew literary repetition, where forever and 1000 are interchangeable. Conclusion? Not literal.)

Psalm 91:7 - "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." (I mean, is it 1000 or 10,000? How can the author be out by a factor of 10? He's not out - because it's not literal - it's saying "a gazillion will fall, NO, 10 gazillion!" It's literary, not literal.)

Isaiah 60:22 - "The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation."
(You mean there are literal limits on God's people? I thought God promised Abraham that there would be too many, like the sand in the desert or the stars in the sky.)

Psalms 84:10 - "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked."
(This one is saying one day serving God with the righteous is better than a gazillion elsewhere - NOT 2.73 years exactly.)
Judges 15:16 - "Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”

 

[AdB]

Below is just a sample of all the times 1000 should be read as "a gazillion" or "the fullest number of". It's like today when people say "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money." It's an uncontested fact that the Hebrews often used a thousand in the sense of "a gazillion times" or "a gazillion men" or "a gazillion years" or even "forever".
Let's take a look.

Psalm 50: "I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills."
(As there are over a million mountains on earth - let alone all the foothills - it would seem very strange for this verse to literally be saying God's abundant ownership of the whole world LIMITS him to just ONE THOUSANDTH of the hills on earth! That would be a VERY strange reading of the passage!)

Deuteronomy 1:11 - "11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!"
(The promise to Abraham was that his descendants would be too numerous to count - are we going to completely nerf that promise and literally say they'd only increase a thousandfold from their exact numbers that day? Of course not!)

Deuteronomy 7:9 - "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments."
(This one basically means forever - a gazillion)

Psalm 105:8 - "He remembers his covenant FOREVER, the promise he made, for a THOUSAND generations"
(What is it? Forever, or only a mere 1000 generations? No - it's Hebrew literary repetition, where forever and 1000 are interchangeable. Conclusion? Not literal.)

Psalm 91:7 - "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." (I mean, is it 1000 or 10,000? How can the author be out by a factor of 10? He's not out - because it's not literal - it's saying "a gazillion will fall, NO, 10 gazillion!" It's literary, not literal.)

Isaiah 60:22 - "The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation."
(You mean there are literal limits on God's people? I thought God promised Abraham that there would be too many, like the sand in the desert or the stars in the sky.)

Psalms 84:10 - "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked."
(This one is saying one day serving God with the righteous is better than a gazillion elsewhere - NOT 2.73 years exactly.)
Judges 15:16 - "Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”

Your argument for reading "a thousand" as "a gazillion" is quite strong and very well underscored by scriptural examples.

However regarding Rev 20, one characteristic of that "thousand years" will be that satan will be "out of the game" as per Rev 20:4
And he threw him into the Abyss, shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he could not deceive the nations until the thousand years were complete. After that, he must be released for a brief period of time.
So the question is in which period in history that has ever been the situation? I think there is none, so that would place the "millennium" in our future. It is also a fact that it is not "forever" because also in Rev 20:4 it is clearly stated that it will be a limited timespan...

Whether it will be exactly 1000 years, or a "very long time" is not relevant at this point, but a literal 1000 years (more or less) does make sense in relation to the already passed 6000 years (also more or less) which parallels with the creation week...

 

[eclipsenow]

Your argument for reading "a thousand" as "a gazillion" is quite strong and very well underscored by scriptural examples.

Thanks - it's just the way the Hebrews used it!

However regarding Rev 20, one characteristic of that "thousand years" will be that satan will be "out of the game" as per Rev 20:4
And he threw him into the Abyss, shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he could not deceive the nations until the thousand years were complete. After that, he must be released for a brief period of time.
So the question is in which period in history that has ever been the situation? I think there is none, so that would place the "millennium" in our future. It is also a fact that it is not "forever" because also in Rev 20:4 it is clearly stated that it will be a limited timespan...

I really do hear your concerns, and when I was new to all this winced at the suggestion that it was something else. But as I have become more used to the way apocalyptic symbolism works, I can see that Revelation is an extremely practical, gospel focussed book that urges us Christians to get on with the job - no matter what this life throws at us. And this life between Jesus Resurrection and Return (the millennium we are now in) will throw all sorts of stuff at us - sickness and natural disasters and tyrants and even temptations to replace our Shema (prayer on forehead and right hands) with the quest for wealth and security (the "Mark of the beast" in Rev 13).

So, let's get into it. What is Satan in the Abyss? Is there anywhere else that the New Testament refers to this concept? As I'm not a professional theologian, I'll hand you over to someone who is:

When the seventy returned from their preaching mission, they said to Jesus, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name." Jesus replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:17-18). These words, needless to say, must not be interpreted as suggesting Satan's literal descent from heaven at that moment. They must rather be understood to mean that Jesus saw in the works his disciples were doing an indication that Satan's kingdom had just been dealt a crushing blow—that, in fact, a certain binding of Satan, a certain restriction of his power, had just taken place. In this instance Satan's fall or binding is associated directly with the missionary activity of Jesus' disciples.

Another passage which relates the restriction of Satan's activities to Christ's missionary outreach is John 12:31-32: "Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." It is interesting to note that the verb translated "cast out" (ekball) is derived from the same root as the word used in Revelation 20:3, "and threw (ball) him [Satan] into the pit." Even more important, however, is the observation that Satan's being "cast out" is here associated with the fact that not only Jews but men of all nationalities shall be drawn to Christ as he hangs on the cross.
The binding of Satan described in Revelation 20:1-3, therefore, means that throughout the gospel age in which we now live the influence of Satan, though certainly not annihilated, is so curtailed that he cannot prevent the spread of the gospel to the nations of the world. Because of the binding of Satan during this present age, the nations cannot conquer the church, but the church is conquering the nations.
The Millennium of Revelation 20 | Monergism
​

Sort of related is the concept of Christ's reign. When does it start? A hypothetical millennium in the future? No - it started with his gospel ministry, death and resurrection, and the explosion of the church after Pentecost. Who can unseal Daniel's prophetic scroll about the last days? Only Jesus death and resurrection can - because that's what the whole bible has been pointing to all along.

So we find in Revelation 5 that the Lamb that was slain opened the scroll, and history continues to unfold as he reigns. The moment the scroll is opened what happens? The heavenly creatures go nuts!

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”

This is a BIG deal - because believe it or not - we are reigning now. By his blood we are not just one ethnic group - the Hebrews - but are instead a KINGDOM of PRIESTS. That's amazing. We give God glory by spreading the gospel, increasing his KINGDOM (and decreasing Satan's kingdom as we do so - giving Satan the "ekball" as we spread God's kingdom) by BEING PRIESTS - by being the interface between God and man.

It's simple.
He reigns because we share the gospel.
Satan is 'ekballed' because we share the gospel.
The two are one.

John is reminding us to get on with our gospel kingdom-growth - not giving us material to make up fake end-times-tables like some here do, that are going to fail very soon and embarrass Christianity with. Oh the terrible irony of this passage being read as some sort of end-times-table to navel-gaze over when it's actually telling us to get on with the job! Oh the terrible irony if young people should read all the end-times tables here and put their hopes in them unfolding, and then LOSE THEIR FAITH as these 'prophecies' fail. Oh the terrible irony if Satan's kingdom should INCREASE because of the misuse of this passage!

 

[AdB]

Thanks - it's just the way the Hebrews used it!


I really do hear your concerns, and when I was new to all this winced at the suggestion that it was something else. But as I have become more used to the way apocalyptic symbolism works, I can see that Revelation is an extremely practical, gospel focussed book that urges us Christians to get on with the job - no matter what this life throws at us. And this life between Jesus Resurrection and Return (the millennium we are now in) will throw all sorts of stuff at us - sickness and natural disasters and tyrants and even temptations to replace our Shema (prayer on forehead and right hands) with the quest for wealth and security (the "Mark of the beast" in Rev 13).

So, let's get into it. What is Satan in the Abyss? Is there anywhere else that the New Testament refers to this concept? As I'm not a professional theologian, I'll hand you over to someone who is:

When the seventy returned from their preaching mission, they said to Jesus, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name." Jesus replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:17-18). These words, needless to say, must not be interpreted as suggesting Satan's literal descent from heaven at that moment. They must rather be understood to mean that Jesus saw in the works his disciples were doing an indication that Satan's kingdom had just been dealt a crushing blow—that, in fact, a certain binding of Satan, a certain restriction of his power, had just taken place. In this instance Satan's fall or binding is associated directly with the missionary activity of Jesus' disciples.

Another passage which relates the restriction of Satan's activities to Christ's missionary outreach is John 12:31-32: "Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." It is interesting to note that the verb translated "cast out" (ekball) is derived from the same root as the word used in Revelation 20:3, "and threw (ball) him [Satan] into the pit." Even more important, however, is the observation that Satan's being "cast out" is here associated with the fact that not only Jews but men of all nationalities shall be drawn to Christ as he hangs on the cross.
The binding of Satan described in Revelation 20:1-3, therefore, means that throughout the gospel age in which we now live the influence of Satan, though certainly not annihilated, is so curtailed that he cannot prevent the spread of the gospel to the nations of the world. Because of the binding of Satan during this present age, the nations cannot conquer the church, but the church is conquering the nations.
The Millennium of Revelation 20 | Monergism
​

Sort of related is the concept of Christ's reign. When does it start? A hypothetical millennium in the future? No - it started with his gospel ministry, death and resurrection, and the explosion of the church after Pentecost. Who can unseal Daniel's prophetic scroll about the last days? Only Jesus death and resurrection can - because that's what the whole bible has been pointing to all along.

So we find in Revelation 5 that the Lamb that was slain opened the scroll, and history continues to unfold as he reigns. The moment the scroll is opened what happens? The heavenly creatures go nuts!

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”

This is a BIG deal - because believe it or not - we are reigning now. By his blood we are not just one ethnic group - the Hebrews - but are instead a KINGDOM of PRIESTS. That's amazing. We give God glory by spreading the gospel, increasing his KINGDOM (and decreasing Satan's kingdom as we do so - giving Satan the "ekball" as we spread God's kingdom) by BEING PRIESTS - by being the interface between God and man.

It's simple.
He reigns because we share the gospel.
Satan is 'ekballed' because we share the gospel.
The two are one.

John is reminding us to get on with our gospel kingdom-growth - not giving us material to make up fake end-times-tables like some here do, that are going to fail very soon and embarrass Christianity with. Oh the terrible irony of this passage being read as some sort of end-times-table to navel-gaze over when it's actually telling us to get on with the job! Oh the terrible irony if young people should read all the end-times tables here and put their hopes in them unfolding, and then LOSE THEIR FAITH as these 'prophecies' fail. Oh the terrible irony if Satan's kingdom should INCREASE because of the misuse of this passage!

It is true that since the resurrection of Christ the Gospel has been conquering the world, but I find it quite a stretch to read "could not deceive [πλανήσῃ (planēsē) 4105: To lead astray, deceive, cause to wander.] the nations" as "could not prevail over the Church".

Also, the next verse clearly talks about the same period, so you suggest this has already happened at the start of the current age?
Rev 20:4
Then I saw the thrones, and those seated on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

 

[eclipsenow]

It is true that since the resurrection of Christ the Gospel has been conquering the world, but I find it quite a stretch to read "could not deceive [πλανήσῃ (planēsē) 4105: To lead astray, deceive, cause to wander.] the nations" as "could not prevail over the Church".

Also, the next verse clearly talks about the same period, so you suggest this has already happened at the start of the current age?
Rev 20:4
Then I saw the thrones, and those seated on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

Exactly - of course I do! The message is clear.
Even if you are killed for Christ in these Last Days (2000 years and counting since Acts 2 and Hebrews 1) - we will be safe in Christ. These guys are pictured as in heaven. Note they didn't come to true RESURRECTION life after the last day - as they are before the heavenly thrones we saw earlier in Revelation. They also escape hell - the second death. So they're pictured as safe in Christ in between this life and the next. "heaven" - safe. Somehow. Personally I think the rest of the bible presents the afterlife as a glorious reanimating of this physical universe - that being human is not to 'have' a soul connected to a body but to BE a soul in a body. That is, we're physical. So I'm not even sure how literal being in 'heaven' is - this might just be a picture of our safety in Christ and our deaths calling out for the justice of God. I sometimes think when we die we go straight to the Last Day and wake up in our new bodies. But there might be an in-between VR state of being in 'heaven' - but it's not our permanent home. It's just not very human.

More on the martyrs here

A Present or Future Millennium? by Kim Riddlebarger

 

[AdB]

but I find it quite a stretch to read "could not deceive [πλανήσῃ (planēsē) 4105: To lead astray, deceive, cause to wander.] the nations" as "could not prevail over the Church".

You haven't responded to this assertion...

I basically was asking for you to show that the texts clearly indicate the a-millennial position, instead all I've seen so far is a lot of gymnastics to make the texts fit the narrative.

Even if you are killed for Christ in these Last Days (2000 years and counting since Acts 2 and Hebrews 1) - we will be safe in Christ.

The texts reads: "They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years." So this is clearly saying that at ALL these saints came to live together, and then reigned the full 1000 years.
Another argument the "millennium" can't be the current time is this. The texts says about the saints that are resurrected: "those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands." The mark of the beast is clearly connected to the time of the outpouring of the wrath of God which can't be happening while there are still believers on Earth because of God's promises

Note they didn't come to true RESURRECTION life

This notion of a multi-stage resurrection is not supported by any Biblical text.

Personally I think the rest of the bible presents the afterlife as a glorious reanimating of this physical universe - that being human is not to 'have' a soul connected to a body but to BE a soul in a body. That is, we're physical.

We are created to be a spirit having a soul and living in a physical body, but that doesn't mean we aren't able to "be" with one of the parts "missing. The spirit of the unbeliever is (already) dead, yet people are "alive and kicking". The saints in Rev 6:9-11 are dead, their body not present, yet they are petitioning for justice.

Regarding the link you shared, just one thing...
"According to Scripture, the resurrection of both the just and the unjust occurs simultaneously." > This is refuted in the very same chapter (Rev 20:5) "The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended."
This obliterates the main argument for the two age narrative...

One more remark about Satan isn't bound in the current time, below texts indicate that Satan actually has a lot of authority in the world today.
- 1 John 5:19
- Eph 2:2
- Col 1:13
- 2 Cor 4:4

 

[Douggg]

That's your assertion - but just as you would fail basic missiology if you barged into another culture and started manic street preaching without learning the language first - you'd fail basic hermeneutics without understanding how Jews used their own language.

English isn't just about our words - it's our phrases as well.


You think?



"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun"

Is Juliet now a ball of fusing hydrogen millions of miles across?


No - it's really reading it. I'm sorry you don't respect those who know how to.
But that really is your problem.

I admire those who try to wipe their minds of our Western Hollywood fascination with self, and narcissistic tendency to see everything as about us our precious generation. (Because we're so special, aren't we, all precious little narcissists like Donald Trump.) It's just revolting.

We need to get back to how the Jews read "a thousand" ... and a bunch of other number symbols and images as well. Horn, eye, 1/3, 6, 7, 12 - all have significance. Or did Jesus just pick 12 at random? Did John just pick 7 eyes and 7 horns at random? Significance at all? Any? Huh?

Below is just a sample of all the times 1000 should be read as "a gazillion" or "the fullest number of". It's like today when people say "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money." It's an uncontested fact that the Hebrews often used a thousand in the sense of "a gazillion times" or "a gazillion men" or "a gazillion years" or even "forever".
Let's take a look.

Psalm 50: "I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills."
(As there are over a million mountains on earth - let alone all the foothills - it would seem very strange for this verse to literally be saying God's abundant ownership of the whole world LIMITS him to just ONE THOUSANDTH of the hills on earth! That would be a VERY strange reading of the passage!)

Deuteronomy 1:11 - "11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!"
(The promise to Abraham was that his descendants would be too numerous to count - are we going to completely nerf that promise and literally say they'd only increase a thousandfold from their exact numbers that day? Of course not!)

Deuteronomy 7:9 - "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments."
(This one basically means forever - a gazillion)

Psalm 105:8 - "He remembers his covenant FOREVER, the promise he made, for a THOUSAND generations"
(What is it? Forever, or only a mere 1000 generations? No - it's Hebrew literary repetition, where forever and 1000 are interchangeable. Conclusion? Not literal.)

Psalm 91:7 - "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." (I mean, is it 1000 or 10,000? How can the author be out by a factor of 10? He's not out - because it's not literal - it's saying "a gazillion will fall, NO, 10 gazillion!" It's literary, not literal.)

Isaiah 60:22 - "The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation."
(You mean there are literal limits on God's people? I thought God promised Abraham that there would be too many, like the sand in the desert or the stars in the sky.)

Psalms 84:10 - "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked."
(This one is saying one day serving God with the righteous is better than a gazillion elsewhere - NOT 2.73 years exactly.)
Judges 15:16 - "Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”

The reason your argument of a thousand being used to denote a large number and not a literal thousand in those verses fails when applied to the 1000 years in Revelation 20 - is that the thousand in those verses do not have a beginning and an end.

7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

Look at your driver's license, it has an expiration date on it. It is not a symbolic expression.

 

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The reason your argument of a thousand being used to denote a large number and not a literal thousand in those verses fails when applied to the 1000 years in Revelation 20 - is that the thousand in those verses do not have a beginning and an end.

7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

Look at your driver's license, it has an expiration date on it. It is not a symbolic expression.

Excellent remark!
And Rev 20 also clearly states the starting point with the binding of Satan.

All the verses eclipsenow mentioned are either speaking about generations to come in general, are clearly metaphorical because of the context or are in one line with a different number indicating it's not about a specific quantity.