The first thing that started to bother me was why we have different groups of martyrs. Those revealed under the altar at the opening of the 5th seal seem to have been waiting quite a long time for God to avenge them, but within the Tribulation time frame it's all within the seven years, and probably fewer than that since they are waiting for a new group of martyrs to join them.
Presumably those martyred over the two millennia up to the Rapture would have gone in the Rapture and be in heaven with the Lord Jesus as the seals are being opened, not treated with any special distinction from the Church as a whole. But those shown in the fifth seal are treated as a special group. Why is there a separate special group of them presumably coming after those martyred over the last two millennia? What makes this group different from some fifty million who were tortured and killed by the Roman Church over 600 years during the Middle Ages for instance, who would now be in heaven with the raptured Church? I can't see any reason to divide them. Those under the altar are "souls," evidently not yet in their resurrected glorified bodies, which means they aren't part of the raptured Church.
I'm thinking that at least the first five seals were already opened throughout previous history. When we get to the sixth seal, we are now getting what sounds like prophecy for the first time, NOW comes the Day of the LORD, so the opening of that seal could be yet future. In fact that might be the starting point of the Seventieth Week of Daniel or the Great Tribulation, instead of the opening of the first seal. However, this plays havoc with the Pretribulation time frame.
It would put the martyrs in the Raptured Church and since they are not yet glorified that can't be the case. These things are not fitting together with the Pretrib scenario. And it is during the Tribulation that the multitude pictured standing before the throne of God in Revelation 7 were martyred, and they must be those the martyrs under the altar are told to wait for. But although the first four seals judgments are dreadful in their own way they don't point to the killing of believers, yet this is what is assumed in the Pretrib scenario. It seems to me more likely that they represent all those martyred in the previous two millennia, now waiting for the final martyrs of the Great Tribulation that is about to occur to join them. If that is the case, of course, the Rapture has not yet happened.
And that is hard to reckon with after accepting the Pretrib eschatology. When DOES it happen then? I am still persuaded that it doesn't make sense for it to occur at Jesus' Second Coming, but I don't see any place for it before that if I remove it from the Pretrib frame of reference. The Pretrib timing is still the most logically satisfying, but then the time possibilities for the first six seals, and especially the fifth, seem to me to undo it.
In his vision of Revelation John saw Jesus open the seals. The Pretrib timing has this beginning after the Rapture of the Church, but the timing is only because of that interpretation and otherwise there are no other clues to the timing. It could have started in John's time. Jesus had ascended to Heaven and had earned the right to open the scroll, and there is no clue given as to why there would be any delay. Unless we equate the opening of the seals with the Great Tribulation or Day of the LORD itself, but then that is what I'm now finding problematic given the seven-year period it all has to fit into.
It certainly seems necessary that the Great Tribulation be the seven-year period of Daniel that has yet to be fulfilled. There are many reasons for that besides the fact that the seventieth week is still unfulfilled, a major one being the Old Testament imagery and context of the middle part of the Book of Revelation, very specifically the beasts which reflect those of Daniel and certainly his fourth beast which is now revealed to be the Roman Empire, though described as including the characteristics of the first three empires. We see the Roman Empire and we see the Roman Church as the historical context of the Antichrist.
Revelation reflects history as well as representing events yet to come. In John's time he would of course recognize the Roman Empire in the beast that incorporates the beasts of Daniel's prophecy, and therefore identify the final Antichrist and the Harlot Church as related to that beast but the Roman Catholic apostasy did not yet exist so he wouldn't know about that. However, she's "Mystery Babylon" and all the symbolism points back through the empires to Babylon and the original religion of Nimrod and Semiramis, which was well tracked in the book "The Two Babylons." All the False Christs track through that line, which is characterized by the image of mother - Queen of Heaven, and child -Savior which became emblematic of the Roman Church, placing it squarely within that Babylonian lineage and outside Christianity. The Antichrist would surely represent that system rather than some unknown modern nation, and since he is also a civil power the Pope is a great candidate, the Vatican being a secular state in its own right thanks to Mussolini.
Anyway, all these symbols point to ancient facts as well as currently existing entities as well as entities prophesied to play a future role in the End Times drama as spelled out in Revelation. It all ends conclusively in the Day of the LORD. Nimrod was Satan's first Antichrist stand-in (the word "vicar" will do) for the Messiah , though there are many antichrists in small and every false religion has its own version. The Pope is put in the place of Christ too, that's what makes him the best candidate for the Tribulation Antichrist. The vision represents that which was, which is and which is to come. Although some teachers present this as a chronological sequence through the seven-year Tribulation, much of it appears to overlap. It could nevertheless be a simple chronology anyway, except now I'm wondering about some elements that don't seem to fit, and that wondering MAY throw off where I end up placing the Rapture..
I also have a problem with the spiriting away of the Woman of Revelation 12 into the wilderness for 1260 days which is the equivalent of the "time, times and half a time" allotted to different events in the Tribulation period, both in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. (Later: Decided to go back to John MacArthur's study of Revelation to find out what he says about the woman's flight into the wilderness and of course he solved my problem: this occurs at the midpoint of the Tribulation as the last three and a half of the seven years, considered to be the GREAT Tribulation, begins. The Abomination of Desolatioin is just now set up in the temple and as Jesus warned in Matthew 24, those in Israel who know the scripture flee into the wildneress for the duration. Works nicely. By the way, this particular sermon in his Revelation series is especially fascinating for a lot of reasons:
.https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/66-42/the-war-of-the-ages-part-2 )
Well, I'm probably mostly trying to distract myself from other things that could drive me even crazier if I let them. I'm far from having arrived at any conclusions about all this but I think the questions are valid and need more thought, maybe in a less crazy time, if that's even possible now.. (If I continue listening to the parts of MacArthur's Revelation series I've missed, and especially if I go back to earlier parts I may have failed to grasp, I may very well find he answers it all anyway.)
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