Featured The book of Revelation

I just realized I failed to comment on this post in particular. Happy reading. I actually think the preterist presentation was the best articulated, although I'm an idealist when it comes to Rev (primarily an idealist). I have only skimmed through the PD and CD positions mainly because I know those all too well. This will be good for you.

 

No; meant to say apocalyptic. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

So what exactly did you mean, assuming you meant "apocalyptic threats"?

 

Comparison of the tone of Isaiah's declaration of what God will do, vice the tone of Revelation.

 

When had the second coming happened in history though?

And when was the Messianic Age as foretold by the Hebrew prophets actually come to pass?

Just find it really doing a disservice to the scriptures when one takes all futuristic aspects of the Kingdom coming out of the text!

 

You do not see God causing those detailed prophecies to have been literally fulfilled?

His birth place, his manner of death, his resurrection etc?

 

Just remember that they come from the viewpoin tthat prophecy is to be understood in a literal sense, while many others would see it as fulfilled in typology/allogories/symbolism etc!

 

Your issue, in this post and the next one you had, is that you keep referring to prophecy. Prophecy is not the only thing that points to Jesus. In fact, prophecy proper is not even future-telling. Like I pointed to, Matthew 2 sees fulfillment of messianic truth in very NON-literal ways. Most of what the OT points to about Jesus is typological. FACT!

 

Trying to take symbols literally is typically confusing. Try to remember the genre of apocalyptic has a political polemical agenda (they all do)... in this case, the evil of the Roman empire and why Christians should not in any way shape or form participate in the imperial cults (including trade guilds and thus eating meat offered to idols).

 

Again, the issue isn't actually prophecy per se. It is the entirety of the OT revelation like narrative and other portions that we see as typological. The literal prophecy point is a red herring anyways, bc the NT interprets other parts of the prophets very typologically. They also take their cues from the symbolic nature.

 

I find it a disservice to the text to remove all present fulfillment of the Kingdom. The present, evil age continues all the while the overlap of the age to come/the age of life ("eternal life" literally in the Greek means age/aeon of life) has been inaugurated w/ Jesus as the firstfruits of new creation at his resurrection. New creation has begun but much more to come.

And I'm not sure what you are asking about w/ the 2nd coming. I said I'm primarily an idealist when it comes to Rev.

 

That is why we see the coming Kingdom of the Messianic Age as still future, as it came in person of jesus, and is here in us , but that is not the the fullness that was prophecied. as the scriptures do see the second coming as a time of restoration, and that we will be glorified to rule and reign with Him...

Cannot be spiritual sense of reigning with him now, as we have yet been glorified!

 

They follow the contex and genres of the various writers, but they do not impose a spiritual reading where the plain and literal meaning is to be the intended one!

 

I defy you to prove that w/ Matthew 2. They are not contextual and not genre relevant.

And I have not once said a "spiritual reading". I argued for a typological one. Typological interpretation was at the core of the OT ever since Noah was represented as a new Adam and Moses said one like him would follow (Joshua being the first of a long line ending with Jesus).

 

And yet we have been seated with Jesus in the heavenlies. If he is reigning, then so are we.

 

Not until the time of His second Coming though!

 

Just out of curiosity, what is wrong with spiritualizing the scripture? 1 Corinthians 2:14 says "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." I would certainly say that the Scripture counts as the "things of the Spirit of God."

I've read similar Biblical study philosophies in certain literature, specifically in "Revelation Unveiled" by Tim LaHaye, where LaHaye credits Augustine, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Dionysius, as introducing a "dangerous philosophy" of spiritualizing the Scriptures. To me, though, a spiritual interpretation of the Scripture is quite in line with Biblical commandment from Jesus through the Apostles.

 

You mean like when a verse says the time is near?