Hypothetical question

[eclipsenow]

Gog as cool symbol that ties OT AND NT TOGETHER​

IT’S ALL GOSPEL:
The really cool thing about Gog / Magog is the way this last chunk of Ezekiel leaves the more literal prophesies against Israel back then - and starts to glimpse forward - exploring big changes coming to God’s kingdom. The really SAD thing about Gog is how misunderstood it is when eschatological futurists try to separate it from the gospel message anticipated by Ezekiel.
IT STARTS
Chapters 34 to 37 are prophecies about the RESTORATION of Israel - and more gospel focussed stuff about the future. Remember the end of Chapter 11? There is hope - even though Jerusalem falls during the earlier part of Ezekiel’s ministry.

A NEW HEART
But one day God is going to resurrect this dead nation! A new David (Jesus) will bring a new people of God to life. With a new heart! Just like the promise at the end of Deuteronomy. They’ll have soft hearts. Then there’s the vision of the valley of dry bones – and new humans – a re-created nation is alive! It’s a new act of creation.
This starts as Persia lets the Jews return home to setup the scene for Jesus to arrive. Then Jesus is incarnate, and dies in our place, rises again to show our punishment is paid, and gives us the Holy Spirit to trust in him and being the journey of building those new hearts!

ALL ENEMIES JUDGED
Chapters 38 to 39: God will defeat all the evil in the nations. Gog is from Genesis 10 – a powerful enemy nation – and the way Ezekiel describes Gog is as representative of ALL the enemy nations against God. Ezekiel describes this great ‘Gog’ with bits and pieces of all his previous descriptions of Egypt and Tyre and Ammon etc. Gog is a construct, an amalgamation. Gog represents ALL enemies of God - rolled into one.
Then it happens. Gog gets judged so thoroughly it requires 3 symbolic acts that cannot be literal - because each is so devastating nothing would be left for the next! Trying to put them all end-to-end literally is ridiculous - but each has its own unique description of destruction worth taking to heart. We do not want to be God’s enemies. There is earthquake, fire, and bodies being left in the fields to be eaten by animals for 7 years. The massive earthquake is so utterly destructive that no body would be left to be burned, and the fire so destructive no body would be left to rot in the field. It’s Ezekiel’s vivid symbolism describing the awful judgement against the nations that will fall when the Lord returns.

A SUPER TEMPLE?
The rest of the book explores the SUPER-TEMPLE and the land becoming a new creation. Ezekiel’s heavenly temple is OBVIOUSLY symbolic. What temple could be built in Jerusalem that has a river coming out the front door and down the front steps that brings the Dead Sea area back to life?
But we see that Jesus fulfils this vision in his gospel ministry - but in eschatological tension. In the now but not yet of the Kingdom of God present on earth now - but not ruling. EG: Jesus said HE was the perfect temple! HE would be torn down and raised in 3 days.

A RIVER OF LIFE!
Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman at the well (a place in the OT where a groom meets his future bride!) that HE is the Messiah. (And really the groom come to find his bride - the Samaritans). He says both Jew and Gentile will worship ANYWHERE - in “Spirit and in truth”. HE is the living water that brings life!
Jesus is the perfect temple AND the river that brings new life to the world. Then in Acts we see Peter declaring that the Last Days had started because of this gospel. And by the end of Acts it had gone from Jerusalem to Rome - the ends of the earth. Everything has been fulfilled except the final promise that one day God will return and judge Gog - all his enemies for all eternity.
We see in Hebrews 12 a vision of the super-temple - but it’s Christians worshipping God and Jesus through prayer. In Revelation 20 we see a vision of God’s overwhelming climactic victory against Gog - almost as an afterthought. It doesn’t play to Hollywood’s normal rules of good writing and suspense, with the hero coming through almost by sheer luck. No! God just sends fire on them - and they are gone.
For more detail try these videos - the author has a Phd in Hebrew apocalyptic symbolism.

 

[Erik Nelson]

still think many Christians are being tricked, at least in the west

• "call no man master" (Matt 23:9), yet everyone calls themselves "Mr." and "Mrs." which literally mean "master"
• Gog = bad, yet westerners call themselves "Caucasians" which literally means people of Ma-Gog
• Canaanites = bad, yet westerners call themselves "Europeans" which literally means people of Europa the Canaanite princess

"Japhethite" instead?

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

still think many Christians are being tricked, at least in the west

• "call no man master" (Matt 23:9), yet everyone calls themselves "Mr." and "Mrs." which literally mean "master"
• Gog = bad, yet westerners call themselves "Caucasians" which literally means people of Ma-Gog
• Canaanites = bad, yet westerners call themselves "Europeans" which literally means people of Europa the Canaanite princess

I wonder why anyone would focus so terribly on literal meanings, when real and practical meanings are the important ones. I wonder why any claimant of the above, would accuse so many of labelling themselves "master", "Gog", or "Canaanite" when that same many has no such thought. Perhaps the goal is to find and invent curses upon people for which those curses do not in fact exist?

 

[eclipsenow]

It causes confusion. Reliance on the KJV, is a bad mistake, as many scholars have proved from modern knowledge of Hebrew and Greek.

This is one area where I really agree with Keras!

(It's a shame he calls the same scholars swine in other posts when they also happen to be Amil.)

The terrible Day of the Lords fiery wrath,

It's such overdone language to describe this Sci-Fi story of yours I'm almost hearing hip hop - or rap.

But - as your favourite passage with the stars falling etc shows - the Lord DOES return in Revelation 6.
It's what the kings are all hiding from.
But that then ends the story right? What's with all the chapters after Revelation 6? Isn't that more linear future history or 'end times table' to unpack?
That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the genre.

It's not a timeline, but a waltz around certain themes.

 

[eclipsenow]

I wonder why anyone would focus so terribly on literal meanings, when real and practical meanings are the important ones. I wonder why any claimant of the above, would accuse so many of labelling themselves "master", "Gog", or "Canaanite" when that same many has no such thought. Perhaps the goal is to find and invent curses upon people for which those curses do not in fact exist?

Man - I hear you!

Gog in Ezekiel different to Rev​

​

CONFLICTING DETAILS BETWEEN EZEKIEL AND REVELATION:
There are huge inconsistencies between Ezekiel and Revelation's account of Gog. It just doesn't work literally - which is kind of the whole point of Revelation that many futurists have missed! (It being the most symbolic book in the bible and all.)

John often plucks various OT images out of their original context to say something theological about the theme he is covering in his chapter. In Revelation 20, we have yet another picture of Judgement Day. It’s after the 1000 years (a Jewish symbol which means ‘gazillion years’). This is the church age between Jesus Resurrection and Return, and shows the martyred saints safe with Jesus before the elder’s heavenly thrones.

EZEKIEL - Gog is a symbolic amalgamation of bits and pieces of Ezekiel’s previously identified local enemy nations. It’s like Ezekiel is saying Gog represents all these local enemies combined.

JOHN scales this up - amalgamating all God’s enemies from the four corners of the earth!

EZEKIEL has a symbolic over-judgement occurring in 3 themes: a great earthquake with the mountains overturned, the sword and bloodshed, and natural disasters of hailstones and burning sulfur. There’s seven years of burning old weapons for fuel - and seven months of burying the dead. These are highly symbolic numbers - the perfect number 7 meaning the perfect judgement. Animals eat the dead - but how there’s anything left after the earthquake and sulfur etc I don’t know!

JOHN uses the imagery differently. It’s almost anti-climactic. There Gog is - an amalgamation of all the enemies of God. All lined up to do battle. And fire just falls on them and they’re gone. Boom. Just like that! THEN we're straight into the Great White Throne and opening of the books of life and the Judgement and the New Heavens and New Earth. Fire from heaven, and then Judgement Day. Just like that.

I mean - if a futurist can try and reconcile all that and somehow make a coherent timetable with epic, 7 year gaps in one missing from the other etc etc etc - go for it - but just don't turn around and pretend you are doing so literally!

MEANING? What does it all mean? What we see in the last chunk of Ezekiel is the hope that Israel will go back to her land and eventually a super-temple will be made that has living water rushing out of it and making a New Eden!

HISTORY DISAPPOINTING? OR IS IT?
Israel does eventually return to the land, but never quite as grand as before. A new temple is built, but it's not what Ezekiel drew up. And the land is not restored either.

But then Jesus turns up and says HE is the temple - and undoes the temple system! In Hebrews 12 we read that every time we pray we have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem and thousands upon thousands of angels. There are other ways the New Testament fulfils Ezekiel's super-temple. Jesus tells the woman at the well that HE is the living water. Then Acts has that message of the 'living water' pouring out into all nations. But I’ll hand you over to Dr Riddlebarger for more on the temple.
Amillennial Interpretation of Ezekiel 40-48 | Monergism