What is your Eschatological viewpoint? [Poll]

RandyPNW said:

Yes, I've heard these things too. It is thought by some that early Chiliasm advocated for Amillennialism in a sense by its "Replacement Theology." That is, the view that Israel went out with the OT Law and was replaced by the NT Church is a feature in Amillennialism.

It was this dominant belief in Replacement Theology that caused Dispensationalists to root themselves with early Chiliasm, thinking that Premill is the basis for their own system. But Chiliasm never contained elements of an any-moment Rapture of the Church, nor is there a trace of Pretribulational Theology, in my opinion.

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Amillennialism has nothing to do with "replacement theology". "Replacement Theology" is a pejorative term used to smear historic and orthodox Christian teaching about who Jesus is.

-CryptoLutheran

I'm a Pan-Millennialist. I'm pretty sure it will all pan out in the end.

Debates over eschatology always strikes me like two soldiers crawling through the mud in the middle of combat, bullets whizzing over their heads, artillery rounds shaking the ground and sending shrapnel all around them...

...and they stop to argue about what music the band will play for the victory parade.

ViaCrucis said:

Amillennialism has nothing to do with "replacement theology". "Replacement Theology" is a pejorative term used to smear historic and orthodox Christian teaching about who Jesus is.

-CryptoLutheran

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Don't agree. I've been arguing this for years with an Amill brother, who has argued that early Chiliasm contains elements of Amill by virtue of its view that Israel failed and was "replaced" by the Church. It may be used as a pejorative term, but it can also be used to prevent any critical analysis of it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Chiliasm in the Early Church set forth "Replacement Theology" as a system as opposed to any preceding biblical theology. Those who believed Israel failed were basing their beliefs on Paul's teaching and on Christ's teaching who suggested Israel failed and would be destroyed. Combined with that was their experience that Jews simply were not converting on mass--not even after centuries of Christian witness.

So Replacement Theology was not, for Chiliasts, a revolt against a fundamental biblical belief that God's covenant with Israel continued. Rather, they defined God's covenant with Israel as the biblical sense in which the Law failed to save, as Paul clearly teaches.

I notice you call yourself "CryptoLutheran." I don't know what this means, but I was raised Lutheran from birth. I left that denomination only because my local church had let me down during my adolescence. I've attended Assemblies of God churches for many years now because I found a better spiritual experience there, although I'm grateful for the doctrinal upbringing I had in catechism.

ViaCrucis said:

John 3:16

The house has been on fire since Adam and Eve. For through one man's disobedience came sin and death to all men, so through one Man's righteous obedience has come justification and the resurrection of the dead.

This is the meaning of the Scripture that says we have not been ordained for wrath. For the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness. Christ tasted that wrath for us on the cross, when He who knew no sin became sin in order that we might be called the righteousness of God: for we have received the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ by grace through faith.

God didn't promise that we wouldn't endure hardships, just the opposite: the Lord Himself said "In this world you will have tribulation, but be courageous, for I have conquered the world." And "If the world hated Me, it will hate you as well."

We have a loving Father who will hold onto us through every fire and storm, for our refuge is in Christ His only-begotten Son, our Lord. Right up until the end, when Christ returns in glory as Judge of the quick and the dead.

-CryptoLutheran

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You did not answer the question I asked.

RDKirk said:

I'm a Pan-Millennialist. I'm pretty sure it will all pan out in the end.

Debates over eschatology always strikes me like two soldiers crawling through the mud in the middle of combat, bullets whizzing over their heads, artillery rounds shaking the ground and sending shrapnel all around them...

...and they stop to argue about what music the band will play for the victory parade.

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Taking middle positions can be a form of escape from the cost required to obtain truth. And getting truth does require a cost, in popularity, in social acceptance, in warfare against darkness. While pursuing truth it is a test to love, to keep ourselves unscathed by carnal attitudes and persevere to find a truth that keeps us in love.

What is the "truth" value in eschatology? If God gave it, it must have value, and we may have to analyze it to find how it is valuable? I find Premill valuable because it roots our faith in real promises God made to Abraham, not just that Israel is saved as a nation but that others nations can be called and chosen as well.

This gives value not just to the individual but also to society as a whole. Rather than just focus on personal salvation we can focus legitimately on social justice, and trust that people can work together to improve a society, as long as they remain connected to God.

What is the value of Postrib to me? It teaches the acceptance of suffering, and avoids idealism that believes we can avoid a fight before the end. Truth always has value. But indeed things need to be kept in perspective, so that we don't kill others over peripheral truths. Those peripheral truths, however, can really help us over the long run.

RandyPNW said:

Taking middle positions can be a form of escape from the cost required to obtain truth. And getting truth does require a cost, in popularity, in social acceptance, in warfare against darkness. While pursuing truth it is a test to love, to keep ourselves unscathed by carnal attitudes and persevere to find a truth that keeps us in love.

What is the "truth" value in eschatology? If God gave it, it must have value, and we may have to analyze it to find how it is valuable? I find Premill valuable because it roots our faith in real promises God made to Abraham, not just that Israel is saved as a nation but that others nations can be called and chosen as well.

This gives value not just to the individual but also to society as a whole. Rather than just focus on personal salvation we can focus legitimately on social justice, and trust that people can work together to improve a society, as long as they remain connected to God.

What is the value of Postrib to me? It teaches the acceptance of suffering, and avoids idealism that believes we can avoid a fight before the end. Truth always has value. But indeed things need to be kept in perspective, so that we don't kill others over peripheral truths. Those peripheral truths, however, can really help us over the long run.

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Did Jesus rise from the dead? Yes, He did. And none of us here argues about that.

Why don't we argue about the resurrection of Jesus?

Because scripture makes it clear by multiple witnesses that Jesus rose from the dead.

"Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. " That important principle of hermeneutics is itself proclaimed by at least 10 different scriptural witnesses, the oldest witness being explained by Joseph to the pharaoh.

Scripture makes it so clear that Jesus rose from the dead because it's an essential belief that He rose from the dead. If someone doesn't get that, his salvation is questionable.

Every essential truth is proclaimed by multiple scriptural witnesses, so that there is no honest disagreement to be made over them. God does not make essential truth something must be divined through clever debates and arguments about nebulous verses here and there. If any eschatological theory were a specific point of essential truth that must be grasped to be saved, then scripture would say it clearly....several times.

All these theories of eschatology...not so much.

RDKirk said:

Did Jesus rise from the dead? Yes, He did. And none of us here argues about that.

Why don't we argue about the resurrection of Jesus?

Because scripture makes it clear by multiple witnesses that Jesus rose from the dead.

"Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. " That important principle of hermeneutics is itself proclaimed by at least 10 different scriptural witnesses, the oldest witness being explained by Joseph to the pharaoh.

Scripture makes it so clear that Jesus rose from the dead because it's an essential belief that He rose from the dead. If someone doesn't get that, his salvation is questionable.

Every essential truth is proclaimed by multiple scriptural witnesses, so that there is no honest disagreement to be made over them. God does not make essential truth something must be divined through clever debates and arguments about nebulous verses here and there. If any eschatological theory were a specific point of essential truth that must be grasped to be saved, then scripture would say it clearly....several times.

All these theories of eschatology...not so much.

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As I said I believe there are fundamental, essential truths, and there are peripheral truths. All truth, however, is important. Paul claimed that differences among believers must take place to separate the truth out. Truth is selective and belongs to the virtuous. Those who wish not to argue are not virtuous except that properly they wish for peace. Understanding takes time. Anybody who says otherwise hasn't lived long enough.

RandyPNW said:

As I said I believe there are fundamental, essential truths, and there are peripheral truths. All truth, however, is important. Paul claimed that differences among believers must take place to separate the truth out. Truth is selective and belongs to the virtuous. Those who wish not to argue are not virtuous except that properly they wish for peace. Understanding takes time. Anybody who says otherwise hasn't lived long enough.

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Paul also told believers not to create divisions over disputable matters. (Romans 14)

ViaCrucis said:

Amillennialism has nothing to do with "replacement theology". "Replacement Theology" is a pejorative term used to smear historic and orthodox Christian teaching about who Jesus is.

-CryptoLutheran

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Replacement theology is just the belief that all the prophecy that was directed about Israel regarding the second coming of Christ is now for "the Church" and God is "done" with Israel, having rejected them (to which Paul would admonish "God forbid!")

Dispensationalism creates a hard line separation between Israel and the Church, and designating that God can only deal with 1 or the other at a time (which I disagree with).

I don't know what I'd call myself, I don't track with either of those. I follow Romans 11, the gentiles have been "grafted in", we are co-heirs and share the same fate, including the great tribulation as Revelation 12:13-17 show, but there still are some distinctions, I mean they're still the genetic descendants of Abraham and we are not. Revelation 7 marks that difference. There's 144,000 from the 12 tribes of Israel.. and an uncountable multitude of all nations, kindreds, and people.. So yeah.. shared destiny but there is still something of a difference. We're grafted in but don't replace. God still has plans for National Israel.

Now as far as amillennials go.. I'm not sure that every amillenialist is a replacement theologist.. but it does seem to be a common view. Once you start allegorizing prophecy it tends to go all the way, to allegorizing Israel and replacing it with the Church.
I've certainly never seen a dispensationalist amillennialist.
and most that I've talked to stressed "spiritual Israel" and not really had anything for any of the prophecies having any room for actual physical descendants of Abraham anymore.

RandyPNW said:

Don't agree. I've been arguing this for years with an Amill brother, who has argued that early Chiliasm contains elements of Amill by virtue of its view that Israel failed and was "replaced" by the Church.

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Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Nobody replaced anybody. There is one Church, holy, universal, and apostolic. And there is one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Andrewn said:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Nobody replaced anybody. There is one Church, holy, universal, and apostolic. And there is one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

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There is also only one Holy Spirit in all and through all.
1 Corinthians 12:13
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
Ephesians 2:18
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Ephesians 4:4
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

Andrewn said:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Nobody replaced anybody. There is one Church, holy, universal, and apostolic. And there is one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

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Who disagrees with Paul here? What Paul is saying, however, is open to interpretation. Some read it as "Races don't exist, DNA doesn't exist, nations don't exist." Obviously, that is absurd, and what is actually meant is that "Christians can no longer be grouped by nations as races by God's prophetic intent."

I find this also to be absurd in a sense, because we actually do find that God has grouped Christian groups by race and nation, and that His plan from the start (Abraham) has been to group into these categories.

So I interpret Paul to mean, more reasonably, that "God does not save by race or by nation." What this means is that God does not save on the basis of your nationality and race. Rather, He saves by recognition of your faith, love, and obedience. That is, you have chosen to adopt the nature of Christ, and thus evidence being "born again."

These are vastly different ways of interpreting Paul. But they are based on the same passage of Scripture. I'm confident that Paul would confirm my position, but you have to decide for yourself. Paul speaks in "shorthand," and thus he is often subject to misinterpretation.

"There is no nation" really means, "God does not save on the basis of nationality." That is, with God there is no nation in mind when He considers who to save. But He is concerned to save people in each nation.

And thus, nations do exist in the mind of God and are important to confirm the integrity and specificity of His promises. He did promise Abraham *nations" quite specifically. And so He must take nations and races into consideration when considering who to offer faith to.

RDKirk said:

Paul also told believers not to create divisions over disputable matters. (Romans 14)

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I agree. Deciding what matters are "disputable" are key, however. And it is critical to recognize whether someone is arguing in order to *be* critical or argumentative.

Handmaid for Jesus said:

You did not answer the question I asked.

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I did. The house is on fire, and what did God do? He sent His only-begotten Son.

That doesn't mean that we won't avoid scrapes and bruises and sufferings while in this life. Our Lord said, "Take up your cross and follow Me". Sometimes that cross means persecution.

-CryptoLutheran

RandyPNW said:

Don't agree. I've been arguing this for years with an Amill brother, who has argued that early Chiliasm contains elements of Amill by virtue of its view that Israel failed and was "replaced" by the Church. It may be used as a pejorative term, but it can also be used to prevent any critical analysis of it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Chiliasm in the Early Church set forth "Replacement Theology" as a system as opposed to any preceding biblical theology. Those who believed Israel failed were basing their beliefs on Paul's teaching and on Christ's teaching who suggested Israel failed and would be destroyed. Combined with that was their experience that Jews simply were not converting on mass--not even after centuries of Christian witness.

So Replacement Theology was not, for Chiliasts, a revolt against a fundamental biblical belief that God's covenant with Israel continued. Rather, they defined God's covenant with Israel as the biblical sense in which the Law failed to save, as Paul clearly teaches.

I notice you call yourself "CryptoLutheran." I don't know what this means, but I was raised Lutheran from birth. I left that denomination only because my local church had let me down during my adolescence. I've attended Assemblies of God churches for many years now because I found a better spiritual experience there, although I'm grateful for the doctrinal upbringing I had in catechism.

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The name "CryptoLutheran" is what I originally called myself when I joined Christian Forums back in 2010 or 2011. At the time I had not formally joined a Lutheran congregation, and thus was a "secret" Lutheran, or a "Crypto-Lutheran", so that's what I called myself. When I changed my name to ViaCrucis I kept signing my posts off as "CryptoLutheran" so people knew it was still me and so nobody would think I created a sock puppet account. It's simply something I've continued to do for about a decade now, it's why people on here call me "Crypto" and "Via" interchangeably.

I became Lutheran after many years in a spiritual desert after leaving the church I had grown up in when I started reading Scripture more, and studying theology and Church history. I started to question many things I had been raised to believe but couldn't find biblical and historically theological support for them. I spent most of my 20's wandering and without a church home, but spend a lot of time studying and learning. Ultimately it was Lutheranism where I found biblical, faithful, sound theology that uncompromisingly preached the Gospel to me. And now it's home.

-CryptoLutheran

Handmaid for Jesus said:

As a father, what would you do?

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ViaCrucis said:

I did. The house is on fire, and what did God do? He sent His only-begotten Son.

That doesn't mean that we won't avoid scrapes and bruises and sufferings while in this life. Our Lord said, "Take up your cross and follow Me". Sometimes that cross means persecution.

-CryptoLutheran

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The question was what would YOU DO? Answer the question pretty please.

RandyPNW said:

I agree. Deciding what matters are "disputable" are key, however. And it is critical to recognize whether someone is arguing in order to *be* critical or argumentative.

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The church has long ago determined what the indisputable matters are; they are contained in the Nicaean and Apostle's creeds.

Everything else is disputable and not worth dividing ouselves over.

ViaCrucis said:

The name "CryptoLutheran" is what I originally called myself when I joined Christian Forums back in 2010 or 2011. At the time I had not formally joined a Lutheran congregation, and thus was a "secret" Lutheran, or a "Crypto-Lutheran", so that's what I called myself. When I changed my name to ViaCrucis I kept signing my posts off as "CryptoLutheran" so people knew it was still me and so nobody would think I created a sock puppet account. It's simply something I've continued to do for about a decade now, it's why people on here call me "Crypto" and "Via" interchangeably.

I became Lutheran after many years in a spiritual desert after leaving the church I had grown up in when I started reading Scripture more, and studying theology and Church history. I started to question many things I had been raised to believe but couldn't find biblical and historically theological support for them. I spent most of my 20's wandering and without a church home, but spend a lot of time studying and learning. Ultimately it was Lutheranism where I found biblical, faithful, sound theology that uncompromisingly preached the Gospel to me. And now it's home.

-CryptoLutheran

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Yes, I still have a number of friends from my Lutheran heritage. We were all affected by it. I happened to be raised in a time of youth revolt against war, social disconnections, and the status quo. Lutheranism then, for me, was not strong enough to keep me from being swept away with the current.

I do look back on it now and find a greater doctrinal depth in my Lutheran upbringing than in the Pentecostal tradition I came to be associated with. I am not given much responsibility in my Pentecostal church because they know I have a mind of my own, and will not compromise what I believe to be biblical truth. I am no longer swayed by emotionalism, nor by social pressures...at least I try not to be.

I'm happy you've found a solid foundation for your Christian experience. It doesn't really matter the denomination as long as your local church is sound, and there is good leadership in it.

One of my best friends is a Lutheran pastor. I have no wish to have one denomination compete with another. They have the name "Christian," and that's good enough for me.

Thanks for the explanation...

RDKirk said:

The church has long ago determined what the indisputable matters are; they are contained in the Nicaean and Apostle's creeds.

Everything else is disputable and not worth dividing ouselves over.

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I agree. The Creeds are the foundational truths we should all agree on, if we wish to call ourselves genuine Christians (of the orthodox kind). However, there are matters of Christian behavior that are equally important--not just doctrine about systematic theology but also doctrine about acceptable Christian behavior.

It's this doctrine of Christian behavior that touches upon what I see as refuting an "argumentative character." If a person is argumentative, you might as well quit before you start. Such a person will argue over anything because that's who he's chosen to be.

RandyPNW said:

So I interpret Paul to mean, more reasonably, that "God does not save by race or by nation." What this means is that God does not save on the basis of your nationality and race. Rather, He saves by recognition of your faith, love, and obedience. That is, you have chosen to adopt the nature of Christ, and thus evidence being "born again." These are vastly different ways of interpreting Paul. But they are based on the same passage of Scripture. I'm confident that Paul would confirm my position, but you have to decide for yourself.

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This is common sense that I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with.

RandyPNW said:

And so He must take nations and races into consideration when considering who to offer faith to.

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Are you contradicting yourself????