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Eschatology

The Revelation: Purpose and Literary Genre

Published: 24 May 2013
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Eschatology

NOTE: This is the first of three posts dealing with the Revelation. My goal in the first two is to pave the way for a third, in which we’ll look together at what may be the most difficult chapter in the whole Bible: Revelation 20, John’s vision of the 1000 year reign of Christ. As you’ll soon see, I like to think of the Revelation as the Grand Finale of All Scripture. I hope and pray these humble preludes will enable you to hear and enjoy that special music as never before.

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The Revelation: Purpose and Literary Genre

 At the beginning of our journey, we identified three fundamental flashpoints of controversy in the Great End Time Debate: The Kingdom of God, the Millennium, and the Consummation. Happily, our close study of the Kingdom supplied welcome insights into the other two.

For example, having learned that the Kingdom enters the world in two simple stages—the Kingdom of the Son (i.e., the heavenly, mediatorial reign of Christ) followed by the Kingdom of the Father (i.e., the glorious World to Come)—we realized that the thousand years of Revelation 20 cannot be a third, intermediate stage of the Kingdom sandwiched between the other two, as premillennarians assert.

Similarly, having learned that the two stages of the Kingdom are separated by a single Consummation at the Parousia of Christ, we realized that the Consummation cannot be fragmented into multiple comings, resurrections, and judgments, as premillennarians also assert.

Thus, our study of NT teaching about the Kingdom of God has gone far towards resolving the End Time Debate in favor of the classic amillennial view of Salvation History.

It remains, however, for us to probe Revelation 20 itself. If it does not describe a future millennial reign of Christ on earth, what exactly does it describe? If, as I have suggested along the way, it is actually speaking of  the Kingdom of the Son, is there anything in the Revelation broadly, or in Revelation 20 itself, to support this view? Our purpose in the posts ahead is to find out.

Let us begin then by getting a feel for the Revelation as a whole. In particular, let us see if there is anything in the purpose, literary genre, and structure of the book that will help us better understand the Millennium of Revelation 20.

(To read the rest of this essay, please click here)

Is the Modern State of Israel a Fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy?

Published: 25 March 2013
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Eschatology

NOTE: This essay is an appendix from my forthcoming book, The High King of Heaven: Discovering the Master Keys to the Great End Time Debate. For further explanation of the ideas found in the essay, please see the book, and also some of the writings previously posted on this blog.

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Many premillennarians confidently assert that the creation of the modern nation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Dispensationalist Thomas Ice says it this way:

There are dozens of biblical passages that predict an end-time regathering of Israel back to her land . . . I believe that modern Israel is a divine work and is in the process of fulfilling Bible prophecy. I believe that Israel, as she is constituted today, is a work of God in progress, preparing the nation for the Tribulation, which will lead to her national conversion, the second coming of Christ, and His millennial reign.1

These words invite careful—very careful—reflection. Certainly all Bible believing Christians would agree with Ice that the creation of the modern nation/state of Israel is a “divine work,” since Scripture clearly teaches that God, by his providence, creates every nation of the sons of Adam, having predetermined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation (Acts 17:26). But is it true that dozens of OT Kingdom prophecies predict this latter-day return of the Jews to Palestine? In God’s sight, are these unbelieving Jews (who make up the vast majority of the modern of Israel) still his people, his “Israel”? In God’s sight, is Palestine still their land? And is God really preparing modern Israel for a seven-year Tribulation, national conversion, the second Coming of Christ, and the inauguration of a millennial reign centered in (a supernaturally transformed) Palestine?

In the body of this book, I have addressed these questions at length. Since, however, many Christians believe that the creation of the modern Israeli state lends credence to premillennial scenarios, a brief review is in order.

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Did the God of OT Kingdom Prophecy Lie?

Published: 19 January 2013
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Eschatology, Theology

The essay linked to this post is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, The High King of Heaven: Discovering the Master Keys to the Great End Time Debate. In essence, the book is a defense of amillennial eschatology.

Now according to amillennarians, when God gave his OT saints prophecies of a coming Kingdom, he was pleased to use language and imagery drawn from the Mosaic Law to speak mystically of spiritual blessings that he would introduce under the New Covenant. In other words, he used veiled, typological language to predict the simple, two-staged spiritual Kingdom that Christ would create when he instituted the New Covenant by his blood.

Needless to say, our premillennarian brothers object to this thesis. They say that it makes God a liar, since God surely knew that his OT saints would receive these OT Kingdom prophecies literally, precisely as we should.

The essay posted here seeks to address this very reasonable objection.

As usual, comments and criticisms are welcome.

The Coming of the Kingdom

Published: 11 January 2013
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Eschatology, Theology

The  essay linked to this post is extracted from my forthcoming book, The High King of Heaven: Discovering the Master Keys to the Great End Time Debate. As the title indicates, my theme in the essay is the coming of the Kingdom of God: the way it enters history, and the the stages in which it enters, until the universe, life, and man reach their final destination in the World to Come.

I regard this as the single most helpful chapter in the book. I believe it shows fairly conclusively that the Kingdom enters the world in two simple stages. The first I call The Kingdom of the Son. The second I call The Kingdom of the Father (or the World to Come). The two are separated by a single Consummation at the Parousia, or Second Coming, of Christ. Thus, the essay is an effort to show that the Amillennial eschatology of the ancient Catholic Church and the classic Protestant Reformation is indeed the true teaching of the Bible.

Though the essay is fairly long, I hope you will persevere in reading it. Unless I miss my guess, it could revolutionize many a biblical worldview! In any case, I do hope you are challenged and blessed by what you read.

Comments and criticisms are most welcome.

To read the essay, please click HERE.

The Day of the LORD Will Come: Understanding 2 Peter 3:3-13

Published: 29 October 2012
Written by Dean Davis
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Categories: Eschatology, Theology

For sheer power and majesty, 2 Peter 3:3-13 stands among the top two or three eschatological texts of the NT. Here the apostle fully unveils his conception of “the end of all things” (1 Peter 4:7). As ever, the Parousia lies at its heart (3:4). Now, however, the accent falls upon the one Judgment that Christ will effect at his return, and also upon the cosmic implications of that Judgment. The result is one of Scripture’s most comprehensive pictures of the Consummation, a picture whose character and unity completely rule out every premillennial scheme. For this reason, it serves as a true bulwark of the classic Reformation eschatology.

A few words of introduction are in order.

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