Posted on 08/06/2008 6:58:58 PM PDT by Making_Sense [Rob W. Case]
God’s plan is like the trilogy of a movie. They are all inner-connected with each other, but each one has its own individual set of stories to tell, and own set of purposes, providing encouragement for those who need encouraging, but to also show God’s power and grace for the benefit of those who follow him. But the common denominator in each of these stories leads to one final result.
The Contents of this Trilogy are… 1. The Old Testament 2. The New Testament 3. God’s Kingdom on Earth
(Excerpt) Read more at makingsense.proboards27.com ...
I notice that you quote some from Matthew 24 regarding the coming of the Son of Man, but you leave out the fact that the whole chapter’s prophecy is tied to a timeline. Matthew 24:34 says, “I tell you the truth, this generation[e] will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”
Was Jesus mistaken, or did those things all happen before that generation passed away?
No need to apologize in the slightest for proclaiming the words of God’s prophets. Fulfilled prophecy had an overwhelming role in convincing me to put my faith in the entirety of God’s Word. Nice summary, too.
Matthem 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days [Note, THOSE DAYS] shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: [The Son of Man was standing there/sitting there teaching them about 'those days', days to come when He returns and is seen in Heaven] and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. [This generation is in the parable of the fig tree and points to the generation alive to see the sights He spoke of indicating the point of end times.
The last real prophet died before the time of Alexander. The first paragraph of Hebrews describes prophets as a thing of the distant past at the time of Christ and takes pains to point out that Christ himself was not a prophet. That would be like the boss’s son working as a clerk or something.
The terminologies that Christ is using is the same as Day of the Lord, proving in my opinion that He is a post triber.
I’ve heard that view, of course, but I think it’s a mutilation of the text. To say that the generation that’s around at the end times won’t pass away until the end times is a tautology and nothing more. “Those days” is a reference to the time of the end, indeed; the time of the end of the Old Covenant temple sacrifices (”Heaven and Earth”) and the coming in fullness of the New Covenant (”New Heaven and New Earth,” “New Jerusalem”). In my view that has indeed happened, and did so in the years around 70AD, less than one generation (40 years) after Christ spoke these words.
• The Heaven that awaits us Christians is not harps, white robes, and never-ending boredom which is the perception that many people have, because that is what movies, cartoons, and paintings have showed us what it is like.
The Heaven John wrote about in the Bible is so full of wonders and mysteries that in our wildest dreams we could not imagine it. Certainly Heaven contains many surprises which we will never be able to comprehend in this life. And it will not be boring.
Think back to the one single best day of your whole life. Maybe it was your wedding, the birth of your child, your first trip to Disneyland, the anniversary cruise with your spouse, whatever. Now imagine each day in Heaven being that multiplied 100-fold, and the number of those days will be endless. That is what I firmly believe Heaven will be like. Is it no wonder that John saw All the Heavenly host worshiping the creator of it all.
I heard it said once that, - “as a Christian, the day I die will be the best day I’ve ever lived. But it won’t be the best I will ever live.”
I don't see it that way.
Another poster mentioned the parallel between David and Christ as filling all three offices: prophet, priest and King.
Paul said in Ephesians 3 "...my knowledge in the mystery of Christ -- which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit..."
And again, Paul, in Ephesians 4, speaking of Christ's gifts to the Church, said, "...and He gave some apostles, some prophets some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers -- for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ..."
We haven't arrived at that point yet, so the Lord made sure we had real prophets until we do.
I'm not sure what your angle is. I find it intriguing.
AMEN!
You know, C.S. Lewis regrettably brought up that exact point in an essay he wrote entitled, “The Efficacy of Prayer,” which is located in a collection called “The World’s Last Night.”
In it, Lewis said, “Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”
Lewis wrote that article in 1959, 11 years after Israel became a nation, and before Jerusalem was taken back by the Jews from the Jordanians. Remember what Jesus said about the fig tree. He said in Matthew 24:32-34, “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”
The fig tree is obviously Jerusalem. Jerusalem was under control of the Romans in that Generation and beyond. Jesus said in Luke 21:24, “..... Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” This event did not occur until 1967, 8 years after C.S. Lewis made the same point you made. This was the starting point that initiated the promise that this generation will certainly not pass away until everything, including the coming Kingdom is fulfilled.
Some say that 1948 started the clock. Sure that can be argued, but the only thing becoming a nation did was provide the Jews with the sovereignty and power so that they could have a better political opportunity to take Jerusalem back for the first time since 586 B.C. For years, Jerusalem was practically a barren, wasteland with no sign of life. It was not until the Jews recaptured Jerusalem that Jerusalem prospered. It was a radical turnaround that signified resurrection rather than death, hope rather than despair, and truth rather than human interpretation.
Your pulling the texts you cite out of context tortures the plain meaning of the passages. It's as clear as it can possibly be to me that both Matthew 24 and Luke 21 are prophecies of what Josephus called "The Jewish War" in which forces led by Titus and Vespasian utterly destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. Everything predicted in these passages happened during that seven-year [ahem] span (66 to 73), including the permanent end of the sacrifices at the temple, which was the core of the Old Covenant.
The current nation of Israel, beacon of freedom and prosperity in the middle east though it is, has no significance whatsoever in Biblical prophecy.
As I understand it, Revelations got included in the Bible by something like a 5-4 vote; I’d have voted against it. Read the NT carefully and you’ll notice that Jesus’s ministry was in this world. You don’t read anything about him flying to heaven on a magic carpet, dreaming that he was in Jerusalem and demanding anybody build a big warehouse because of the dream, claiming to translate a formula for brewing beer into a holy book with “prophecy stones”, or sitting around in a cave until he started to hallucinate.
What? John The Baptist was the last prophet before Christ, and prophets are mentioned in Acts and the Epistles of Paul. They didnt’ go anywhere.
CHAPTER 1 1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son...
If there was such a thing as seeing into the future you’d find most of the people who could do it at places like Pimlico and Hialiah, and trifectas would not be rare. You’d only need to be able to see about fifteen minutes into the future...
What great faith you have! /s
God does not operate outside of the laws of mathematics and physics. If you want wholesale violations of mathematical and probabilistic laws, you need to be talking to the evolutionites; they specialize in that sort of thing.
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