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evangelist6589

I apologize. I had no intention of derailing your thread!

 

I used to believe pre-mil, pre-trib, now I have no idea. Maybe a better way to ask the question is, how does believing in the millienium take away from the work of Christ?

 

It doesn't. It simply steps on the pride of those who do not accept the teaching.

 

It doesn't. I have said many times that I will debate eschatology with dispensationalists but the biggest problem I have with their doctrine is the teaching that:

Jesus Christ came to establish the Messianic kingdom, He failed to do so, and established the Church instead. The Church according to dispensational doctrine is an interruption in God's plan for Israel. It is simply unreal. It is false as shown in the following Scripture.

In John 17: 4-6 Jesus Christ tells us:

4. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
5. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
6. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

Now did Jesus Christ finish the work or not? If He came to establish a Messianic Kingdom He did not. But that is false doctrine. Jesus Christ came to establish the Church! He died for it!

 

What in the world does pride have to do with that issue? How often when dispensationalist doctrine is questioned do they respond: You don't believe the Bible. That is a farce. There is not one verse of Scripture in the Bible teaches a pre-trib rapture; that the Church for which Jesus Christ died is a failure and God has to "snatch" it out of the world to complete His program for the Jews. You dispensationalists glorify the Jewish people more than you do Jesus Christ and His Church!

 

You prove my point, it is about pride.

 

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

Believing in the millennium means believing there will be a time when when God will undo the work of Christ.

Christ broke down the middle wall of partition (Eph.2). The Mill. puts it up again.

Christ's Melchizeddekan priesthood made the priesthood of Levi obsolete. The Mill. puts it back in control. (Zadok is a part of the Levitical tribe).

You must also believe in a return to circumcision.

These sacrifices BTW are not memorial, as the Dispies claim. They are defined with the very same words as the other OT sacrifices. Even the Prince has to sacrifice for his own sins and of his people.

Christ said "It is finished". Mill. returns us to the same nightmare of sin and remembrance of sins.

I really believe that the vast majority of those who believe in a Millennium have never read the lengthy section in Ezekiel that (purportedly) describe it. It would be a wretched anachronism and, yes, would certainly take away from Christ's work.

 

A good rule of thumb for me is to notice those who so quickly resort to insults. It very often shows that they are holding their views emotionally, not critically. It also shows that they have no proof for their position.

 

Thanks for your response. I never thought of the mil that way. A lot of my younger thinking was influenced by Hal Lindsey books and other similar ones as a teen and young adult. One day, we got a new Pastor who challanged us to prove with Scripture the Rapture. No one could prove or disprove it. In the thirty some odd years since, that has been one area (end times) that I seem to be able to get a good grasp on. Again, thanks for the response and give one something to think about.

 

You are welcome, SN. You and I seem to have traveled the same way, at least partly. In the 70s I would just eat up the books by Lindsey and others. Later it would be Chuck Missler and Rosenthal as well.

But at one point the red flags would just be too hard to ignore. About this time I made a concerted effort to just read lots and lots of Scripture, trying my best to keep my favorite authors on the shelf for a while.

I would strongly recommend to anyone to. not only read the OT more thoroughly, but to carefully notice the cross-references. That has been an ongoing eye-opener for me.

Concerning the Millennium the challenge would be to read those last chapters of Ezek., stifling the urge - at least for a good period of time - to even look at any Bible "helps". This allows you to use your own sanctified common sense and come to a more unbiased conclusion.

BTW, eschatology is not really a subtopic. It can really affect much of one's belief, effectively neutralizing other areas of faith - like Christ's work on the Cross.

 

Tom

I believe that only the millennium of the dispensationalists would undo the cross work of Jesus Christ. That millennium is a Jewish dominated millennium with the restoration of temple sacrifice. The whole thing is, to me, an abomination. In an earlier post I said, in response to S/N, that believing in the millennium did not affect the cross work of jesus Christ. I was wrong. It depends on what you believe about the millennium.

I am amillennial and do not see how that view affects what Jesus Christ did on the cross. I believe the same about postmillennialism. As for covenant premillennialism I suppose it depends on any deviations from my understanding.

Covenant Premillennialism

Covenant premillennialism is, along with amillennialism, one of the oldest theologies of the events associated with the Second Coming. In fact, people who hold this view will insist that it was the view of the early Church and predated amillennialism by several hundred years. [Some claim that Augustine {354-430 AD} was the first writer to present the amillennial view.] There is much in common between the covenant premillennial and amillennial viewpoints.

The major difference is the covenant premillennial belief in a separate resurrection of the believers followed by a literal 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ on earth with His Saints. This millennial kingdom, however, is a kingdom in which the Church, not the restored Jewish nation, rules with the glorified Saviour. Covenant premillennialists, like many amillennialists and postmillennialists, believe in a large scale conversion of the Jews prior to the Second Coming. Covenant premillennialists also believe that prior to the return of Jesus Christ there will be a period of increased tribulation on the earth. and that the Church is present during this period. To bring this tribulation to an end Jesus Christ returns with the souls of the deceased Saints at which time the first resurrection would occur.

Upon His coming the Lord Jesus Christ will destroy the antichrist, bind and cast Satan into the bottomless pit, and establish the millennial kingdom, ruling with His Church. During this period people will be born and die, some saved and some not. At the end of the millennium Satan will be released for his “little season” and will suffer final defeat. At this time the resurrection of the all unbelievers and those believers who died during the millennium will occur followed by the Great White Throne judgment. Satan and his followers will then be cast into the lake of fire and the new heavens and new earth will be created [2 Peter 3:10-13; Revelation 21:1]. ​

 

I thought all this was transferred to the Revelation thread, and have spent my time over there.

Sorry to not be back, but let's see how this all goes.

To answer your John quote.

There is no disagreement with the typical dispensation view and that of what John wrote.

Jesus came to die. He fulfilled the Father's will.

He will return just as the prophets state as King of Kings, just as the angels told the apostles He would - "why are you standing about - get busy..."

Your attempt is but "proof text" in attempts to show the correctness of your view, but not understanding that it really supports more favorably the view of the dispensation folk.

 

What Scriptures do you have to support this statement?

Again, you make a statement that needs Scriptural or at least some authority statement that shows the "mill." folks have such a view or ascribe to such thinking.

I repeat!

Again, you make a statement that needs Scriptural or at least some authority statement that shows the "mill." folks have such a view or ascribe to such thinking.

Again, you are making assumptive statements that are unfounded and unsupportable.

Just because YOU didn't read Ezekiel, and then when reading refused engaging appropriate and scholarly help, didn't mean the rest of the mill folk didn't examine the book very carefully.


Online you can get J. Vernon McGee work as an audio recording of the book. Perhaps you would do good to listen to it. Perhaps you would also enjoy his translation of the Revelation, too - at least then you might find mill folks do NOT subscribe to your picture of them.

 

The problem isn't that the people could prove or disprove the rapture, the problem was that the people could be so ignorant of Scriptures as to not see the truth long before the pastor questioned them.

Hal Lindsey is a good writer - popular and writes to about a fifth grade reading level.

Though a Dallas Theological graduate, he has a life that is not an example for the believer, in my opinion.

He has lost much of his credibility by writing fictional depictions which has garnered great wealth and status, but provide little systematic doctrinal work in which a true student of Scriptures would take as other than easy fluff reading.

That the new pastor would engage the conversation is hopefully to make folks aware of their need to begin feasting upon the real meat and to leave behind the easy reading fanciful writings.

Let's see.

According to your own testimony in the post, you were caught up with popular writers and then when reading for yourself a very difficult portion of scripture thought you had enough foundation to make an educated decision.

That is tantamount to allowing a toddler to drive a car and not expect it to be a successful journey.

Let's get very specific.

John lays out a specific time line in Rev. 20.

The a-mill view denies that time line in the way John lays it out.

Which view is the readers of the BB supposed to agree?

The a-mill view - or John's.

If you think I am wrong in my attributing the a-mill view to such a picture, then it is extremely important that you lay out all of the Revelation 20 chapter and verse by verse destroy any mill. consideration.

In the essence of openness, I personally am undetermined as to the timing of the rapture (really don't care one way or another), but in agreement with Marvin Rosenthal in that it will occur before the wrath of God is poured out upon the earth. Frankly, I think the argument is rather silly, for none know of the hour, day, ... of the Lord's coming for the bride. We are to set the candle in the window, aglow and in hope, knowing and trusting that His Father will soon say "your home for her is ready - go get her"

Should Rosenthal or others be wrong - it doesn't effect my assurance of Christ's return at all.

 

I have been trying to read over what is being said and it gets difficult to follow, but here you make yourself more clear. So here is my question. If there is no Mill rule of Christ then what age to come was He speaking about in Mat. 12:32?
"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the [age] to come.

It cannot be the age you just mentioned because only the saved will be there so what age is He speaking about?

 

Agedman, You answer nothing. Proof text is the standard dispensational response and they abuse them more than anyone.

 

Your last statement is correct. The age to come would have to be between the time Jesus Christ was speaking and His Second Coming.

 

Lindsey and Lehaye?:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Agedman, You present nothing as far as exegesis, but a lot of bias, and the expect everyone to respond to your comments. Are you writing a book or something. You expect Scripture to be a cookbook. It really is not!

 

Let me clarify, that I don't know of any millennium writers that ever held the view that the millennium destroys the work of the cross.

That is a claim that frankly is unsupported and will need to be documented before it can be stated as factual and not an assumption.

So, you are not even a covenant mill thinker?

There are certain aspects of discomfort with the dispensation and covenant thinking.

When first encountering the covenant mill thinking - it seemed attractive because it seemed as an attempt to rectify the glaring problem being discussed (the lack of a millennium when the Scriptures state there will be a millennium). Then when further work of investigation exposed the glaring inconsistency in which agreement is still held to covenant theology - to generally or completely ignore or refute the restoration of Israel placing all importance upon Spiritual Israel as having replace the political Israel - it stood at odds with the Scriptures.

God is very capable of removing the blinders imposed (as the apostles state) upon the political Israel and restoring them to the Spiritual Israel. Scriptures indicate that is to take place, and it is not in any authority for it to be denied.

This has not been discussed, but brought up here just as a side issue; there is certainly the aspect of the thinking that strikes as being largely antisemitic, which is also a personal affront rarely considered by the a-mill folks toward Israel. To the other side (dispensation) they would run to extreme and not hold accountable or even make excuse for the sin of the political Israel. Both are just wrong in this matter.

Both the covenant and dispensation views have aspects that can be held because they are Scriptural, but where they are not - need soundly rejected.