Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."
The Book of Revelation is to be understood cyclically and figuratively. That is, its symbols remain symbols, and the judgements are reinforced by repetition. If we take the book chronologically, then we reach the end of the story at 11:14-18.
The [dispensational] methodology itself prevents the interpreter from looking at all the data with any semblance of objectivity. Carried through in other instances, this would ... force us to argue that because the Bible reveals that there are three persons called God in the Scriptures, there must be three Gods.
At stake in distinguishing the two kingdoms is the distinction between law and Gospel. Those who confuse civil righteousness with righteousness before God will be likely to confuse moral reform in society with the kingdom of God.
When Jesus spoke with the two disciples on the day of his resurrection, did Luke say, "And beginning with the New York Times, CNN, Jewish dreamers, scientists, Pat Robertson, and John Hagee, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Israel, the millennial kingdom, and the Temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem" (see Luke 24:27)?
"How many points?" Surely there are more than five. And when that larger number of points taught by the Reformed confessions is not respected, the famous five are jeopardized, indeed, dissolved —and the ongoing spiritual health of the church is placed at risk.
Who are these two witnesses with supernatural powers, who are resurrected and ascend into heaven after they are killed? Who are their enemies who want to kill them? Are they past, present, or future personalities?
Why are dispensationalists so vulnerable to datesetting? I believe that their eschatological system breeds datesetting. They see God's plan for the world as subservient to his great plan for saving national Israel.
There are, therefore, more than five points and ... there cannot be such a thing as a "five-point Calvinist" or "five-point Reformed Christian" who owns just those five articles taken from the Canons of Dort and who refuses to accept the other "points" made by genuinely Reformed theology.
the pagan Gnostic impulse of evangelicalism—"a quest for secret knowledge apart from the text of Scripture (gnosis), a disparaging of matter, including an aversion to things physical and intellectual"—finds an effective beachhead in many evangelicals today through this tripartite view.
How is it possible that perfected, heavenly humans who are unable to sin can produce people who will later fall into sin?
Because they are so used to listening to the latest dispensational prophecy seminars, most evangelicals are disappointed and baffled when they hear that the "last days" and most chapters of Revelation encompass the period between the two comings of Jesus Christ, and not the seven-year tribulation period before the Rapture. Even more baffling to them is the teaching that the "signs of the times" are to continue within the inter-advental period, now over 2,000 years in duration.
7:06 PM Wednesday, June 19 2013
