Eschatology?

Well Mr. EWF, we will hash that out in eternity.

 

Yea, and you better hope there aint no Nuns around. :tongue3:

 

Am I already on ignore? You've responded to everyone else but me.

Makes me sad. :'-( :teardrop:

 

So you feel put out.....I will gladly give up my seat on the bus. :D

 

Well, this once promising thread has been utterly ruined.

 

I'll admit I tried to imagine all these in the same boat, but

I hold firmly to Progressive Covenant Theology and and have found myself stuck in the Pan-millennialist boat where I think I saw Tom Butler across the isle in the back row waving a white flag.

 

Me too..........

 

Hehe I never heard anyone use that one before. Kind of weird.

 

I didn't know you were around 65 million plus years ago. :)

 

Post reported.
Loved that line of yours. It was a good thing a beverage wasn't in my mouth at the time.

 

Thanks.

And Happy Post Reported Day to you, too.

 

As a dispensationalist, I can't rebuke it, because it is the very picture of the church being called into heaven.

Revelation 4, NASB
1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things."
2 Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. ​

This is symbolic of the church at the end of the age, the image of John translated to the throne room in heaven. It occurs prior to the opening of the first seal and the appearance of the rider on the white horse in Revelation 6:2. The command "come up here" is repeated in Revelation 11, when the two witnesses who have been slain by the beast in front of the Temple are resurrected.

Revelation 11
11 But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell upon those who were watching them.
12 And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." Then they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them. ​

So too, in Paul's first letter to Thessalonica's church, he states how the church will be called out of the world.

1 Thessalonians 4
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. [Emphasis added]​

What will "the shout" be? Perhaps "Come up here"? Who knows. But in Solomon's writing, the words also appear.

Proverbs 26
6 Do not claim honor in the presence of the king,
And do not stand in the place of great men;
7 For it is better that it be said to you, "Come up here,"
Than for you to be placed lower in the presence of the prince,
Whom your eyes have seen. ​

The implication, somewhat hidden in Solomon's poetry, is that the man of God not be arrogant about being a man of God, but be humble, and wait to be called by name to the place of reward.

Food for thought.

 

So Revelation can be symbolic when it suits your theology??? Interesting.

Now a literal & consistent interpretation would restrict that to just John. So what hermeneutical rule to you advocate to leave your Dispie sine quo non (if you don't know what this is then you haven't read Ryrie) and take on a hermeneutic that we use in Rev. 20 and you say we shouldn't?

 

I've never said Revelation isn't symbolic. You're thinking of someone else. It is largely "future history" with symbolism necessarily included because much of what John saw, it being 2000 years or more in the future, was incomprehensible to him. That particular instance, however, harkens back to the other events mentioned in my previous post.

Am I to assume you read the Bible through an entirely literalist lens, but nonetheless have come to believe in Christ as Savior and Lord? Because I would submit to you that you cannot possibly adhere to a stricly literalist interpretation of every single word and phrase of Scripture and reach the point of salvation. You would driven mad trying to make the poetry and the imagery of much of the Old Testament fit into a strictly literal reading.

The "necessary element," as you have alluded to, is that we take the whole of the Bible -- the historical, the allegorical, the metaphorical, the parable, the simile, the poetic -- and let it speak to us through the lens of literal interpretation as a whole. Though much of what is written fits into a category other than "literal," you know full well it speaks to a literal truth. God uses the imagery, illustration, the metaphor and the allegory speak literal truth. And we go back to what I just stated about John seeing into a future two millenniums or more distant to his timeframe and having to deliver the overall vision into words that men and women of the soon-to-be second century could understand.

You ask specifically about Revelation chapters 19 and 20. First we must return to Revelation 1:19. We see that John is told to "write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things." The first chapter fulfills this first charge, with John's vision of the risen Christ. Chapters two and three address the "things that are," the condition of the First Century churches and what the Lord has to say to them regarding their strengths and weaknesses. The balance of the book deals with the future, and must be prophetic in nature in order to meet the book's own claim to a prophetic work, as stated twice, in Revelation 22:7 and 10.

Critics such as yourself of the futurist view on occasion will accuse dispensationalists of clinging too stubbornly to a literal interpretation and of not recognizing any symbolic meanings. That misses the point, however, that we do, in fact, recognize symbolism in John's last work. For example, the description of Jesus returning with a “sharp sword” coming “out of his mouth” is obviously symbolic of His words of judgment to be spoken on the battlefields of the end times, but that does not make it symbolic in nature. It a literal interpretation of actual events, and this type of imagery is common not only in the Greek, but even more so in the Hebrew. This symbolism speaks directly to the fact that Jesus will return, and He will win the battle by the power of His word.

We as dispensationalist, or futurists, often do make the mistake of what some call "newspaper theology." That is, some of our number read the daily headlines and try to impose them on John's prophecy. That leads to the error of claiming to know when the Rapture, the Tribulation, and the Thousand Year Reign will take place. No one can possibly know those thing. It is a ridiculous effort that makes a mockery of the prophecy and the fact that these events will take place. Revelation is a literal prophecy, on that will be fulfilled in the future, written in the various forms of expression that are visible throughout the Bible, not just in John's work in the book.

 

Are you serious? How in the world, even the world of dispensationalism, do you read that into a simple command to John!

 

My take on Revelation 1:19 is as follows:

John is told in verse 19 to Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. The command is worded so as to indicate the completeness or perfection of the revelation of Jesus Christ to be recorded by the Apostle John. John is to write those things revealed to him, nothing more and nothing less. In Verse 4 John addresses the book in its entirety to the seven churches. There is nothing in this passage of Scripture to indicate that the Book of Revelation is to be divided into parts dealing with totally different sets of events at different periods of time. Furthermore, there is nothing in the revelations made to John that indicate that the book reveals a consistent chronological order of future events. In fact there is evidence of repetitive parallelism in the book.

If we apply a strict literal interpretation, which is indicated for this passage, the things which are could represent only those events that are ongoing during the time that John is writing, not the entire Church age. The things which shall be hereafter would represent those events that occur after the time during which John is writing, not some seven year period in the unknown distant future. It is stretching credibility to argue that the letters to the seven churches of Asia [Chapters 2 & 3] are the things which are and represent the entire ‘Church age’ while the things which shall be hereafter encompass Chapters 4-19 and represent only a ‘seven year tribulation period’ that follows the ‘Church age’. We must not forget the introductory promise of the Revelation that the Apostle John is to record; a promise that applies to all that is recorded by John.

Revelation 1:1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

John is shown those things which must shortly come to pass. It has been noted previously that these things will come to pass on God’s timetable, not ours. However, there is absolutely no rationale for splintering the Revelation that Jesus Christ gives John to record for the benefit and comfort of the Church under persecution. That is exactly what dispensational theology does; splinter the Book of Revelation.

 

No offense, OR, but I hope you read farther than what you quoted, because the rest of it answers your question, as does this post.

It splinters it for good reason. Christ splintered it, in commanding John to write of what was, was is, and what will come. I respect your very good explanation here, but it fails to account for the fact -- as I pointed out earlier -- that the Greek eggus mean near by position, not near by timing. In other words, not much was left to happen prophetically before these things happened. But just because not much had to happen prophetically didn't mean it wasn't going to take a very long time in human terms.

 

That interpretation is in complete conflict with John 5:28, 29 which clearly teaches a general resurrection and judgment.

28. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
29. And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

 

I read it all and I have read it before. The dispensationalist is reading what he chooses into that passage of Scripture rather than let the Scripture speak to him!

Chapters 4 thru 22 tell us what God chose to reveal to John; what he was to write for the Church just as what he wrote in Chapters 1-3.

 

Then how, as I asked earlier, does Jesus speak of a first resurrection in Revelation 20:5, 6? A "first resurrection" requires there to be at least a second. Note that Jesus gives you a clue in the passage you cite, given that He too speaks of a more than one resurrection here. One being the resurrection of life, the second of damnation. The first takes place at the Rapture, as Paul details in 2 Thessalonians 4. The resurrection of damnation comes at the Great White Throne judgment.