nOTE: i'M HAVING SURGERY TOMORROW AFTERNOON, mONDAY THE 16TH AND WOULD APPRECIATE ANY PRAYERS IF ANYONE SEES THIS IN TIME. dELICATE SURGERY ON MY THROAT. tHANKS.
cORRECTION: vELOW i SAY THAT THE BEAST OF rEVELATION THIRTEEN IS PREFIGURED IN dANIEL NINE. THAT'S WRONG, dANIEL'S VISION OF THE FOUR EMPRIES OF WHICH THE FOURTH IS THE BEAST OF rEVELATION, IS dANIEL SEVEN.
I know there are some people who read my blog who get driven crazy by my inability to settle into the pre tribulation pre millennianl eschatologt which is wiatin gfor the Rapture , to be followed by the Day of the Lard on earth while we are in heaven. There's a lot about it that seems to make wonderful sense and I want to go with it but I just can't settle some questions that nag at me no matter how I try to brush them off.
It's a very nice scenario. The Church is not destined for wrath and w4e are promised that we will be spared His wrath when it comes on the whole world. That explains our being raptured off the planet before it all starts. And then there is the way the last great tribulat8ion fits into the seventieth week of Daniel. That last week is certainly still dangling unfulfilled and the Day of the Lord fits it like a glove.
It does look beautifully aranged that prophecy of seventy weeks that actually ended at sixty nine with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on the donkey. Beautifully arranged. Jesus goes on to be crucified after the sixty nine weeks and for the next two thousand years we have the Church being built up apparently apart from the history of Israel which is the subject of the seventy weeks prophecy. Daniel's people are the Jews and the prophecy is about their future, but that future is interrupted by the Church. The last week of the prophecy has remained unfulfilled since Palm Sunday before Jesus was crucified. When it resumes, as it must, it makes sense that we are again back in teh times of the Old testament or Danie'l;s people the Jews. Hence the Book of Revelation is about the Jews, the finale of planet earth being ended with God's final dealings with His Old testaemtn people. It all hangs together very nicely.
But but but but but ....
My buts don't challenge that basic scenario, I don't see how it can be wrong, but I nevertheless have lots of questions and buts in my head about how it is understood to play out.
Well, let me not be too hasty, since I may question some of that in the end, I don't know yet. Nevertheless the way the Bible rounds off with a return to the Old TGestament is enormously satisfying, and that isn't just empty rhetoric, the whole overall plan of Revelation is very Old Testament in its design and characteristics, its imagery. The beasts that are symbolic of what is being played out all relate back to the beasts of Daneil's vision in Daniel nine. The tone is not New testament at all, it's entirely Old testament, at least after the letters to the CHurchs in the first three chapters. It's really a jaw droppingly beautiful way to bring God's story to a close.
But but but but but
Forgive me, I have to stop here. I'll either come back to this post and finish it or I'll continue it in another peopst.
Sunday the 15th
I hesitate about all this because I just don't want to be in the position of being at odds with te pre trib pre mill people. I want that system to be true. I have objected to the pre trib view of the antichrist and still have those same objections, but there are other problems I have with it that ar harder to let myself pursue. For one thing I haven't worked them out in any satisfactory way, they pretty much remain quesionts, but they do call into question some cetral tenets of the pre trib view and that makes it hard. But they bother me enough to want at least to toss out some half baed problems with it anyway.
My biggest problem is accepting the idea of two separate groups of saved people. As I read the Old testament and on into the New all I see is that the people who give themselves to the Messiah are the people of God it is all aiming toward, and that is both Jew and Gentile as Paul makes clear. The first believers in Jesus were all Jews, okay with the oaccasional Centurion here and there. The Church was originally Jewish as it was meant to be. When the Jewish leaders rebelled against Jesus as their Messiah it was taken out into the Gentile world and eventually became far more Gentile than Jewish. But That to my mind doesn't make it a Gentile Church. In fact there is no more Jew nor Gentile at all, we are all Christianas whatever our fleshly origina.
So I have a big problem with the idea that this body of believers gets raptured while there are millions of Jews and Gentiles in the world waiting to be saved during the Great Tribulation. How can the "times of the Gentiles" be over with the Rapture when there are all those Gentiles out there who will eventually become believers? Just because the Book of revelation is oriented toward the Jews as God brings His dealings with them to a finale, and they are the evangelists who bring in all the Gentiles, doesn't to my mind make these new believers something other than part of the Church. A separete Church? I can't find that in scripture and so far I haven't heard any scribtural justification for the idea from the pre trib people, just an assertion that it is so.
But of course if it is the Church, if all believers are together the Church, the Body of Christ -- and how can He have two bodies anyway? then the Raptaure can't happen until all the Gentiles AND Jews are saved, ALL ODF UIS AS ONE BODY. Nothging else makes any sense to me. Does that mean that we go through the tribulation? I don't know how to think about all that. I believe the pre trib emphasis on our being spared the wrath of God so I suppose I have to think of believers as being protected from God's wrath in some other way or believe in the rapture's occuring at a later date. That is beyond my ability to sort out at this point.
But some other concerns enter into this theme. I notice every time I read Revelation that God's wrath isn't mentioned until the sixth seal and particularly seventh. We are told that the saints will go through harrowing times after we are introduced to the beast freom the sea in Revelation thirteen, and it is mentioned again in chapter fourteen.
That suggests that God's wrath doesn't really begin with the opening of the first seal, but rather with the seventh. or even a later part of the seventh, that I'll have to explore more. And if so then that is the wrath we are to be protected from.
It also seems to me that the first six seals in themselves do not suggest God's wrath but the sorts of tribulations we always encounter from time to tie on planet Earth. False Messiahs, wars, famines, pestilences and so on, are all endemic to life in this fallen world. But of course they are unleashed with the opening of the first seals so something about them puts them in the last days framework, but at least they are the beginning of sorros that jesus talsks about in Matthew twenty four. The beginning of the end, the precursors to the Dayh of the Lord which is the outpouring of God's wrath.
Is that the last half of the seventieth week of Daniel? I think that sneeds some sorting out too. I'm not even sure the first six seals fit into that last week. It's nort necessary. Jesus was qualified to open the seals right after He ascended to the right hand of God or perhaps after the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church. He could have begun opening them back in John's Day, leaving the Day of Wrath for the last week of Saniel which is yet future. Just a bunch of things I hae to muddle my way through.
In all tI've also noticed that we don't hear of the marriage supper of the lamb or the giving of rewards to the saints until the end of Revelation, but according to the pre trib scenario we receive them after the rapture while we are in heaven during the great tribulation which is going on in the world while we are there. I don't reall hearing an explanation of this anyhwayre although it's possible I've just missed it. In Revelation nineteen or twenty or whichever it is where these are mentioned it sounds future, it's about to happen, has yet to happen, and yuet the raptured saints will already be with Jesus in hjheaven supposedly already having experienced those things.
I still like the seventieth week of Daniel as the framework for Revelation, and can'[t think how else it could fit into history. It works beautifully there and so does the return to God's dealings with Isreael rather than the Church. But that doesn't have to mean that there is a strict separation between Church and Israel, it just means that God is dealing with ethnic or fleshly Israel in Revelation and when they are saved they join the Church which is the Israel of God or spiritual Israel. Those are the two different bodies as far as I can see, unsaved and saved, fleshly and spiritual. God can turn His focus to ethnic Israel who were the subject of the Old Testaemtn without treating them as some kind of separate entity from the Chruch. I've alsways been bothered by this idea that those who reject the t=pre trib scenario are committing something called Replacement Theology when I know that they are simply seeing the Old Testament being fulfilled in the New and it's very hard not to look at it that way in my experience. The only division that makes sense to me is the division between fleshly and spiritual or unsaved and saved. Ethnic Israel is unsaved but God is dealing with them anyway in Revelation as He dealt with them throughout the Old Testgament. But then they get saved they don'[t join some other group than the Church, they join the Church as spiritual born again believers in Messiah.
I do object strongly to the way the anti pre trib people deny any role at all for Isarel however. It seems like some kind of mental disorder to deny that the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 should just be brushed off as some kind of weird coincidence. Sorry, God does not operate that way, and god is in charge of it all. Israel is certainly God's land and He's using it in some pointed way to bring history to a close. they aren't saved but they will be saved, or "all" Israel will be saved ultimately, but they have a presence in the fallen world as God's people nevertheless and they are the stumbling block He is going to use to make His case against all those who deny Him and violate His commandments. Revelation whos the way all this is going to play out in the end as the world is brought to justice, the Jews are saved and Jesus returns to rule us all.
But of course all this stuff I'm raising here amonst to a sort of theological or eschatalogical catastrophe and I don't know how to resolve it all. All I know is that these questions keep nagging me and I think theyuare important and I don't think pre tribbers are facing them honestly.
I'll be beside myself with joy to find myself going up in the Rapture of course so I can hope I'm wrong about any of this that contradicts such a possibility.
IIt still annoyeds me to hear the pret trib idea that the antichrist has yet to be revelaed and that the reelation will be the removal of the Holy Spirit. the Reformers revealed the Antichrist scripturally as the Pope, he sits in the temple of God as if he is God himself, takes the titles of God and Christ and Holy Spirit to hismefl and that temple is the people of God who have been defined as thaqt temple in many places in the New testament. That's what the Reformers said and hundreds beofre them alwaready identified the Pope as the Antichrist, it isn't as if they were the first. And it is uttery ridiculous to think that Paul would have needed to be so cryptic about the identify of the Restrainer if the Restrainer was the Holy PSirit. there would be no reason whatever tro keep that identity assecret. No, it had to be the Caesars who were still in power in Paul'
s time but who woulde be replaced by the Bishop of rome in some important sense when he, the zanTICHRIST, TOOK ON THAT MANTLE OF POWER AND THE SO CALLED hOLY rOMAN eMPIRE CAME INTO EXPISTENCE. aND FOR PETE'S SAKE THEY MAKEE MARTYRS GALORE OF CHRISTIANS WHO DENIED THEIR RIGHT TO AUTHORITY OVER THEM AND RECOGNIZED THEIR APOSTATE THEOLOGY. mILLIONS OF MARTYRS OF THE cATHOLIC iNQUISITION, THE pAPAL iNQUISITION. tHOSE HAVE TO BE THE MARTYRS OF rEVELATION FIVE IT SEEMS TO ME WHO ARE WAITING FOR NEW MARTYRS TO ARRIVE AND JOIN THEM DURING THE GREAT TRIBULTION WHICH IS ABOUT TO COME UPON THE EARTH.
THE BEAST OF rEVELATION THIRTEEN, THE BEAST FROM THE SEA, IS CLEARLY THE rOMAN EMPRIE THAT HARKS BACK TO THE FOURTH BEAST OF dANIEL'S FISION IN dANIEL NINE. iT CONTAINS THE EMPLEMS OF THE THREE FORMER EMPIRES IN ITS LEOPARD CHARACTERISTICS, ITS BEAR'S PAWS AND IT'S LION'S MOUTH, THE THREE EMPIRES OF dANIE'SL VISION THAT PRECENDED THE FOURTH GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAST WHOME WE KNOW TO BE RTHE rOMAN EMPIRE THOUGH HE CDIDN'T KNOW IT IN HIS DAY. HE COULD ONLY SEE AS FAR AHEAD AS aLEXANDER'S gREECE. bUT THE BEAST FROM THE SEA IS ALSO IDENTIFIED AS A MAN WITH THE NUMBER 666 AND i'LL JUST SAY IT AGAIN, THERE IS NO OTHER POSSIBLE CALCULATION OF THAT NUMBER THAN THE ONE EMBEDDED IN THE TITLE OF THE pOPE WRITTEN IN lATIN, vICARIVS fILII dEI. iT'S THE ONLY NAME IN WHICH THE NUMBERS ARE ACTUALLY A PART OF THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH THE NAME IS WRITTEN. yOU CON'T HAVE TO FOOL AROUND WITH NAMES AND LOOK UP THE NUMBERS THAT ARE ASSIGNED TO THEM SOMEWHERE ELSE, THE NUMBERS ARE PART OF THE LANGUAGE ITSELF. aND THE TITLE ITSELF means aNTICHRIST. sUBSTITUTE FOR THE sON OF gOD? oR iN THE PLACE OF THE SON OF gOD? yOU AREN'T GOING TO FIND A BETTWSER DEFINITION OF THE aNTICHRIST ANYWAYRERE. aND IT IS ANNOTYING THAT i KNOW SOME PRE TRIB PEOPLE READ MY BLOG AND HAVE SENE THIS ARGUMENT A ZILLION TIMES AND STILL IGNORE IT. yEA i GUESS i'M SOIME KIND OF EGOIST, BUT i KNOW i'M RIGHT.
mIGHRT NOT BE fRACIS OF CORUSE, HE'S GETTING AWFULLY OLD, BUT i FIND IT HARD TO GIVE UP ON HIM JUST BECAMESE WE ARE SO CLOSE TO THE END, WE ALL FELEL IT, AND HE HAS BETTER QUALIIFCATIONS THAN MOST OTHER PEOPES, BEING A jESUSI AND BEING SELECTED ON THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF mARCH IN TH YHEAR TWENTY THIRTEEN, AND HAVING A SEAGULL, AN UNCLEAN BIRD, SITTING ON THE CHIMSENEW WHERE THE SMOKE ROSE TO ANNOUNCE HIS ELECTION. aND HE'S A jESUIT, A jESUIT pOPLE OF ALL THINGS. hE'S ONLY TOO WELL QUALIFIED FOR THE ROLE OF aNTICHRIST, BUT MAYBE SOMEONE ELSE WILL COME ALONG WHO IS EVEN ETERRER QUALIFIED. wHO KNOWS?
lATER: i WAT TO TRY TO SAY IT AGAIN. tHE cHURCH CAN'T replace iSRAEL, THE cHURCH IS MADE UP OF SAVED PEOPLE AND iSRAEL OF THE bOOK OF rEVELATION IS unsaved iSRAEL, FLESHLY iSRAEL, eTHNIC iSRAEL. tHE cHURCH IS THE BODY OF BELIEVERS, MADE UP OF BOTH gENTILES AND jEWS BUT TRANSFORMED, BORN AGAIN. eTHNIC OR FLESHLY GENTILES REMAIN UNCHANGED, AND SO DOES ETHNIC iSRAEL OR ALL UNSAVED jEWS. i DON'T THINK i'M GETTING THIS SAID AS CLEARLY AS IT NEEDS TO BE SAID BUT THIS WHOLE BUSINESS OF TWO SEPARATE BODIES IS WRONGHEADED AND HAS TO BE ANSSWERED IN SOME SUCH WAY.
lATE sUNDAY: aNOTHER QUESTION OCCURS TO ME. iF jOHN WAS WRITING THIS VISION OF REVELATION AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF 70 ad, WOULD HE HAVE PRESENTED THE TEMPLE IN THE VISION AS INTACT AS HE DOES WITHOUT SOME KIND OF QUALIFICATION THAT IT WOULD HAVE TO BE REBUILT? bUT THERE'S NOTHING ALONG THOSE LINES. iN rEV 11, i HOPE i GOT THAT RIGHT, HE'S GIVEN A REED FOR MEASURING THE TEMPLE AND TOLD TO LEAVE OUT THE OUTER COURT WHICH BELONGS TO THE gENTILES UNTIL THE TIMES OF THE gENTILES ARE AT AN END. aND HERE i HAV ETO NOTE THAT SUPPOSEDLY ACCORDING TO THE PRE TRIB SYSTEM THE TIMES OF TEH gENTILES END WITH THE rAPTURE BUT DOESN'T THIS OCCUR YEARS AFTER THE rAPTURE? aND THE OTHER MENTION OF THE TEMPLE IS WHEN THE aNTICHRIST SETS HIMSELF UP IN IT. THAT'S THE PHYSICAL TEMPLE, NOT THE TEMPLE AS THE PEOPLE OF GODE IN THIS CASE. aNYWAY, QUESIONS CONINUE TO MULTIPLY AND i DON'T SEE ANY OF THEM ADDRESSED ANYWHNERE THAT i KNOW OF.
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