jerry kelso
Food For Thought
Of course i do not know exactly when we enter that season or when Jesus is coming, that is why I put a forward slash. What i believe is that the signs of the times are there. We might be in that season where Satan is given a final throw before Jesus comes. Satan’s little season corresponds with the release of the beast / antichrist / mystery of iniquity. This is speaking of the last battle before the climactic coming of Christ. We are in the kingdom period now, it will come in all its final and eternal glory at the second coming.
That is your opinion. But it is not in the text. I have been asking for years: show me this in Rev 20? The reality Revelation is mainly a heavenly scene. It is a picture of the disembodied spirits reigning now with Christ. The dead in Christ in total ("the souls") are depicted here (both those that die through natural death and those that die through martyrdom). Collectively this redeemed host reign with Christ in glory until the physical resurrection. This therefore is a picture of the immediate state.
How?
The old temporal OT kingdom was simply an imperfect shadow and type of the true and real NT heavenly eternal kingdom. We are not going back to the old. It is gone forever!
The Jews were wrong in their expectation. They missed it. They had the same faulty hyper-literal expectation of an earthly ethnic territorial political system that Premils have today. Premils are simply repeating the error of history. They rejected Christ's spiritual kingdom and it was redirected to the Gentiles. Millions of Gentiles have now entered that kingdom by faith.
The kingdom Jesus spoke of was spiritual and heavenly. This did not fit in with their carnal expectation. Sadly, Premils still seek after such a faulty expectation in order to justify their flawed future hope. What is more, the natural, physical, earthly ceremonial aspects of the old covenant are obliterated in the New Testament by the new covenant reality. This was presented by the legalistic religious Jewish leaders as evidence of Christ phony credentials.
I believe Premils make the exact same mistake that the Pharisees did with their belief of an earthly political kingdom and a physical material throne of David. Christ is not coming to reign for a thousand yrs over a subjugated bunch of rebels, He is Coming to destroy the wicked.
The reality is, one needs eyes to see in order to grasp the spiritual, heavenly and eternal nature of the kingdom. Jesus told us that. Unfortunately, the hyper-literalist Judaizing Pharisees did not see this with their misguided hyper-literal racist physical carnal earthly kingdom. Premil makes the same mistake. The Pharisaic expectation was completely different from God’s plan. Christ brought a spiritual heavenly kingdom to this earth not a physical natural kingdom as some imagined from their understanding of Old Testament readings.
Premil does not take text, context, and co-text into consideration. They force their hyper-literal pretext into all Scripture. The Pharisees did the same and look how that worked out for them. They misunderstood, misapplied and misinterpreted the First Advent, the kingdom and kingship of Christ.
Premil explains away clear and repeated NT Scripture with their opinion of typical and obscure OT Scripture.
I used to use this passage as a proof-text for Premillennialism, when I held to that school of thought. However, I believe a closer examination of the narrative shows a different story to that argued by that belief. Many Premillennialists advance the disciples question to Christ in Acts 1:6 relating to the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, as evidence that Christ is going to set up a future physical temporal kingdom on this earth for 1000 years after His Second Coming. I believe such an interpretation emanates more from a partial preconceived idea of the word “kingdom” rather than any direct or indirect allusion to, or a clear description of, a post-Second Coming earthly physical millennial kingdom in this passage.
The only problem is: there is no mention here of a future thousand years. Premils must force that into the sacred text. They do that a lot!!!
Such an interpretation is definitely not in keeping with the context of the narrative or the actual subject matter under discussion relating to the spiritual empowerment of the Church at Pentecost in order to effectively take the Gospel to the nations. Neither is it consistent with our Lord’s clear and continuous teaching on the kingdom as a spiritual entity, which was ushered in with the commencement of His earthly ministry.
This is a typical Jack Van Impe tactic. Make a false statement and then throw a load of scriptural reference along with it (without actually quoting them) in the hope that the rest of us are naïve enough to not check it out and just swallowed it up as fact. That is not the way it works. That is misleading. That may have worked 30 years ago, but people can think for themselves today. Those who don't just follow the party line without question.
The fact is there is nothing in the text that even mentions a future millennial kingdom here. Not only that, but the text actually proves Amillennialism.
Paul confirms the finality of the return of Jesus, in 1 Corinthians 15:22-24, stating, “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his Coming (parousia). Then cometh the end (or télos), when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.”
The “coming” of the Lord, described in this reading, is here carefully located at “the end.” In fact, the whole tenure of the passage is distinctly pointing to a climactic time in history when God separates righteousness and wickedness forever. It is the occasion approaching when Christ finally presents “up the kingdom to God” and will have, as He promised, “put down all rule and all authority and power.” Simultaneously, the glorification of the kingdom of God sees the destruction of the kingdom of darkness. It is the end-game for Satan and the conclusion of his evil efforts to obstruct the plan of God for mankind. Wickedness has finally and eternally been abolished.
1 Corinthians 15:22-24 tells us that “all rule and all authority and power” are finally “put down” or katargeésee or abolished at the “Coming” or parousia of the Lord, which is, as we have established, confirmed in the next sentence as “the end.” The kingdom of God is finally and eternally presented “up,” whereas the kingdom of darkness is finally and eternally “put down.” It is this all-consummating last day that ushers in the end (or completion) of all things.
Jacob’s trouble
It is so hard engaging with this position is because you have to deprogram them from all the false teaching that they have been taught over the years. Dispensationalists boast often about the need for a literalist approach to Scripture. But when their theology is tested by the Word of God it is seen to fall short. When we analyze their boast, we find truth after truth and passage after passage that they butcher in order to facility their doctrine. Not only do they not take a literal approach but they also repeatedly fail to acknowledge context or setting. The subject of Jacob’s trouble is a case-in-point.
Pretribbers rip Jacob's troubles from its historic old covenant setting in the book of Jeremiah, and its clear description of the Babylonian exile, and translate it to some imaginary seven-year period at the end, to support their end-time beliefs.
A careful and unbiased analyze of the biblical and contextual evidence relating to the book of Jeremiah will prove that Jacob’s trouble was an historic occurrence that has been long fulfilled in the Babylonian captivity. Also, it has absolutely nothing to do with the end of time. It rather describes a time when Jeremiah lived and when he was rebuking the rebellion of Israel that caused him to be driven from their homeland.
Daniel's 70 weeks
Daniel's 70 weeks has been long-fulfilled.
Daniel 9:24 predicts, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to (1) finish the transgression, and to (2) make an end of sins, and to (3) make reconciliation for iniquity, and to (4) bring in everlasting righteousness, and to (5) seal up the vision and prophecy, and to (6) anoint the most Holy” (Daniel 9:24).
It is these six things alone that are clearly and deliberately predicted (in Daniel 9) to occur within the 70 weeks – thus “seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to…” Therefore, for one to apply this plain Messianic prophecy to anti-Christ (as Pretribbers do) could justifiably warrant the unenviable charge of peddling with full-blown apostasy. After all, applying something to anti-Christ, which evidently relates alone to the Savior, is gross error.
All these predictions were perfectly fulfilled in the person of Christ and in His wonderful earthly ministry. He spent 3 ½ years fulfilling every expectation that the Father demanded, from His arrival on the public scene (and His heavenly vindication from the Father after He was baptised) to His atoning death and His victorious resurrection for the grave. All of these predictions have been met in one man – the man Christ Jesus.
How could anti-Christ or any other mere mortal fulfil all or even one of these awesome Divine demands, such an idea is total blasphemy.
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