1. This morning at church we had the reading of Matthew 16. In the last verse of this chapter Christ says, "Verily I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the Son of man come in his kingdom." A footnote in my Geneva Bible says "By this kingdom is understood the glory of his ascension, and what followeth thereof, Eph. 4:40 or the preaching of the Gospel, Mark 9:1." My question is does this mean that Christ's kingdom has come in His ascension, not a millennium to come?
I had a dispensationalist read "The Great Tribulation Past of Future?" which is a book by Ice (Predispensationalist) and Gentry (Partial Preterist). I will call him D-Pre as opposed to Part-P. My D-Pre friend has been invited to this blog, but as yet I do not know he has accepted.
2. D-Pre says that the millennium is exactly 1000 years, not a day more or a day less. I tend to believe that we are in His kingdom, an extended period of time.
3. Why do D-Pre have to break up periods of time into dispensations as Earl pointed out in his Millennial Charts post below? Dispensations mean there are different ways to be saved. Yet it has always been Christ the Messiah who saves. This has always been God's plan. We still have the moral laws of the Old Testament, but not the ceremonial laws because Christ came and He is the sacrifice; some say we should have the civil laws of the Old Testament, but that seems problematic to me in our pluralistic society. I can only handle so much theology at one sitting--not all those dispensations!
I don't have to have a sewn up theology (people in the Reformed tradition do not all agree), but I do want to receive the blessings that the study of Revelation affords. It could be that I will be studying Revelation and of course all of Scripture to understand Revelation for some time to come. Look forward to the blessings from Revelation as we mull and ruminate in this blog.
My question is does this mean that Christ's kingdom has come in His ascension, not a millennium to come?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the Geneva Study Bible (using the original Geneva Study Notes rather than the New Geneva Study Bible) is taking the classical "amillennial" view (which was also one of the classical postmillennial view) that Christ's ascension started the millennial reign of Christ. Typically there is a little bit of flexibility of the start of the millennium. Sometimes it said to start at the birth of Christ, or the start of Christ's ministry, or at Christ's death, or resurrection, or ascension.
Also, Postmillennialists vary in their views on the length of the millennium. Most view the millennium is not strictly 1000 years, but a long period probably well exceeding the literal 1000 years. There are a few that believe the millennium is exactly 1000 years. There are Postmillennialists who are not Partial Preterists who think the millennium starts with Christ's death/resurrection (if an older form of Postmillennialism that is very similar to Amillennialism and why these views weren't distinguished as different categories before). The Partial Preterists believe the millennium starts some elapsed time after Christ's ascension, such as 70 AD, and continues until Christ's second coming (I think R.C. Sproul takes this position in his book, The Last Days According to Jesus).
Dispensations mean there are different ways to be saved. Yet it has always been Christ the Messiah who saves.
ReplyDeleteThere are old Scofield Dispensationalists that take that view -- but there are other kinds of Dispensationalists who say that it always has been Christ the Messiah that saves. For instance, if you were to ask Randy Alcorn or John MacArthur they would say that it always was Christ that saves.
The big thing about Dispensationalists is their view of ethnic Israel and the promises to Israel in the Old Testament. Dispensationalists view those promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others in the OT refer to the actual lineage of Jacob. That is why you get this seven year period and the particular Israelite millennial spin for Dispensationalists.