Theonomy and the Dating of Revelation

In 1989, a well-known spokesman for the theonomist camp, Kenneth L. Gentry, published a work devoted to proving that John the Apostle wrote Revelation during the sixties of the first century A.D. Basing his position heavily on Rev 17:9-11 and 11:1-13, he used internal evidence within the book as his principal argument for the early date. ...

Inconsistency marks Gentry's hermeneutical pattern. Predisposition keeps him from seeing the book's theme verse as a reference to Christ's second coming. His explanation of Rev 17:9-11 is fraught with weaknesses, as is his discussion of 11:1-2. Two major flaws mar Gentry's discussion of John's temporal expectation in writing the book. Besides these problems, five major questions regarding Gentry's position remain unanswered.

It's virtually impossible to interpret the text of the Bible without first overlaying their theological dogmas.

To a much larger degree, the same can be said of your position.

Which is why theological method is the point of divergence between covenantalism and dispensationalism.

As I have said in the past, the covenant theologian begins in the NT, rendering the background of the OT almost irrelevant, especially the prophetic portions. The dispensationalist begins in the OT, and brings the entire context of the OT into the NT. Can the NT expound upon the OT? Yeah ... Can it clarify? Yeah ... Can it replace? No, not if we are going to claim that Gods word is trustworthy and that His promises are to be believed.

Again, it’s rather simple. When Daniel was written there were many years before the time of Christ and the death of all the apostles. Revelation was the last book written by those that were direct students of Christ. Daniels prophecy was sealed because God did not want the people prior to Jesus to understand but those of us after Revelation should know because it was us who it was written for.

It may be simple, but not for the reasons you give.

The phrase “end of the age” refer to the coming of Messiah and the end of the old covenant age of types and representations of Messiah's work. That means the end of the temple, sacrifices, Levitical system. Everything that marks Judaism out as distinct from the religions of the world. There is no more need for these things since the one to whom they pointed, the Messiah of Israel, had appeared in Jesus Christ.

the people prior to Jesus

But you've already told us that Daniel was supposed to be sealed until the tribulation period and earthly reign of Christ. That is what it says, no? Are you changing your tune?

Revelation was written at the end of that age when no more apostolic writing would be available.

It cannot be referring to the end of the apostolic age since that is never spoken of in this way in Scripture.

This verse is talking about the end of the millennium not the “coming in the clouds”. At the battle of Armegedon there will be no doubt about who is coming and what is happening.

There is no “day of the Lord” or “thief in the night” coming at the end of the futurist millennium. I realize your theology forces you to that conclusion, but where is your connection from Scripture?

1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night . 3 For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. (1 Thess. 5)
The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord . (Acts 2:20)
29 "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matt. 24)

Are these passages speaking of time after the futurist millennium? 2 Peter 3:10 fits in precisely with all that language.

We can see that by your theological presuppositions you are forced to not see the connection between 2 Peter 3:10 and the rest of these passages which all are referring to the Second Coming by the common futurist scheme.

Like I said, the external evidence is the pillar that stands in opposition to his entire view. If he can't make his case there, its a hopeless endevour.

I was looking for information on the date of Revelation to make notes for an up-n-coming church study and noticed plenty of pages that support your view. It has been almost 15 years since I have been in a church that has studied Daniel/Revelation and we are starting that study in March.

Most of the people who have online pages assume, quite ignorantly, that the Iraneaus quote is the sole support for the late date. Some of the musings are:

All belief in the late date rests upon one cryptic statment of Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons (130-200AD) who wrote his "Against Heresies" around AD 174.

The late dating (AD 95) of the book of Revelation has its roots hanging on a very slender and precarious thread. This dating is determined from a single source statement by the Bishop of Lyons by the name of Irenaeus (AD 120–202).

Some tradition has up until recent times regarded the date Revelation’s authorship to be around 95AD. This has been based almost entirely on one vague statement by the second century Church Father, Irenaeus.

Thomas and others have documented, in critiquing the early view, a larger body of evidence that is mostly ignored ... perhaps Gentry will reverse that trend in the rebuttal that you mentioned is forthcoming.

In the end, I have to agree with one poster out there ...

Preterists attempt to get around this interpretation by asserting that it was John, not John's vision, that was seen towards the end of Domitian's reign. In doing so they allow for a more confusing grammatical structure of this passage in which "that" refers not to the immediately preceding noun "vision," (which would be the most natural reading of the text), but instead they insist "that" refers to the next closest preceding noun, "John."

This is a solid example of circular reasoning. One wonders how Preterists would read this statement if the phrase Domition's reign were replaced with Nero's reign. The point of this exercise is to demonstrate a very simple truth. One wonders what it is that the Preterists find so compelling to cause them to disagree with scholars traditional dating?

On this point we cannot ignore the fact that the entire Preterist doctrine hangs in the balance on this one simple question. With that in mind, there is little doubt that what Preterists find so compelling to cause them to disagree with the traditional date is the fact that their theory cannot survive so long as the traditional date stands."

To a much larger degree, the same can be said of your position.

Actually, not at all. Generally speaking, the non-dispensational view is to see Scripture as a basic unity. Aso when we want to understand one part of the Bible we read all we can from the rest of the Bible to help us get to the meaning of the individual texts.

The dispensational view is radically different. It is based on a fundamental disunity of Scripture. The Bible must be read dispensationally in order to be properly understood.

For example, the non-dispensatonalist might use Isaiah 13:10 and the idea of temporal judgment to help understand Jesus' use of similar language in Matthew 24. The dispensationalist doesn't do this because they already know that Matthew 24 is about far future “great tribulation.”

Somehow ... I knew were going to come back with that.

Yes, but at least I gave valid reasons for my position, as opposed to this nonsense.

As I have said in the past, the covenant theologian begins in the NT,

Name a CT theologian who “begins in the NT.” I'm not even sure what that means. Do you mean starts with Jesus Christ, as opposed to ancient Israel? Perhaps that is true. The Bible is Christocentric.

Why would you say it is a bad thing to start with Christ in order to properly interpret the Bible?

Where does the Bible teach that it must be read “dispensationally” in order to be properly understood?

Like I said, the external evidence is the pillar that stands in opposition to his entire view.

Who decided human tradition is a pillar in this matter? The futurists?

As Gentry makes clear, one can paint their biases back into tradition just as they do with the Bible. Of course a confirmed futurist will read their views into the ECF.

Thomas and others have documented, in critiquing the early view, a larger body of evidence that is mostly ignored ... perhaps Gentry will reverse that trend in the rebuttal that you mentioned is forthcoming.

Documentation is not proof. It can only go so far. It is subject to scrutiny like other historical records. And the interpretation is also subject to scrutiny.

Of course Gentry spends some almost 30 pages looking at “other external evidences” besides Iranaeus and Clement of Alexandria. I'm sure you've reviewed that as well.

You are correct in one respect. A dispensationalist doesnt use a single verse as background into Matt 24. We use the entire OT as background.

The disciples questions in Matt 24 come directly out of Zech 12-14. In their mind the nations coming to destroy Jerusalem, the coming of the Messiah, and the Messianic kingdom with all its Jewish and universal blessings are all related events.

After His resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days teaching the apostles about the kingdom. Even after that, the apostles were still expected Him to set up kingdom that they perceived had not arrived as of yet. The non-dispensationalist argues the apostles didnt understand the nature of the coming kingdom, the dispensationalists argues the apostles knew exactly what the nature of the coming kingdom was.

And again, whether you realize it or not, we are quibbling over theological method now ... which is where the foundational differences lie ... and where there is unlikely to ever be a "bridge of understanding."

Wow, I sound like Nancy Pelosi in that last phrase lol.

My weekend chores await ...

NO. There is a good discussion of the definition of generation here.

It's not a good discussion because the writer concentrates on the word “generation” and virtually ignores the phrase “this generation.”

This is how dispensationalist Thomas Ice tries to reconcile the fact that everywhere else “this generation” is speaking of Jesus' contemporaries.

"While it is true that other uses of "this generation" refer to Christ's contemporaries, that is because they are historical texts. The use of "this generation" in the Olivet Discourse in the fig tree passages are prophetic texts. In fact, when one compares the historical use of "this generation" at the beginning of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 23:36 (which is an undisputed reference to A.D.70) with the prophetic use in 24:34, a contrast is obvious." [Ice and Gentry, The Great Tribulation Past or Future (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 103-104.]

Ice's contrivance is historical vs. prophetic language, as if there is no prophecy in Matt. 23. But still admits that everywhere else in the words of Jesus, “this generation” is a reference to His contemporaries.

And, of course there is the well-known Hal Lindsey rationalization:

"What generation? Obviously, in context, the generation that would see the signs -- chief among them the rebirth of Israel. A generation in the Bible is something like forty years. If this is a correct deduction, then within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place. Many scholars who have studied Bible prophecy all their lives believe that this is so." (The Late Great Planet Earth, p. 54)

Other scholars have been more straightforward:

"The meaning of 'this generation' is now generally acknowledged. While in earlier Greek genea meant 'birth,' 'progeny,' and so 'race,' in the sense of those descended from a common ancestor, in the LXX it commonly translates the term dor, meaning 'age,' 'age of man,' or 'generation' in the sense of contemporaries. On the lips of Jesus 'this generation' always signifies the contemporaries of Jesus, but at the same time always carries an implicit criticism. For Mark the eschatological discourse expounds the implication of the prophecy of judgment in verse 2, and so implies the perversity of 'this generation,' which must suffer the doom predicted. (G.R. Beasly-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 1954, pp. 333-334).

"Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, etc. Not the generation of men in general; as if these sense was, that mankind should not cease, until the accomplishment of these things; nor the generation, or people of the Jews, who should continue to be a people, until all were fulfilled; nor the generation of Christians; as if the meaning was, that there would always be a set of Christians, or believers of Christ in the world, till all these events came to pass; but it respects that present age, or generation of men then living in it; and the sense is, that all the men of that age should not die, but some should live till all things were fulfilled; see Matt. xvi.27-28, as many did, and as there is reason to believe they might, and must, since all these things had their accomplishment, in and about forty years after this: and certain it is that John, one of the disciples of Christ outlived the time by many years; and, as Dr. Lightfoot observes, many of the Jewish doctors now living, when Christ spoke these words, lived until the city was destoryed; as Rabbi Simeon, who perished with it, R. Jochanan be Zaccai, who outlived it, R. Zadoch, R. Ishmael, and others: this is a full and clear proof, that not any thing that is said before, related to the second coming of Christ, the day of judgment, and the end of the world; but that all belong to the coming of the Son of man, in the destruction of Jerusalem, and to the end of the Jewish state." (John Gill, Commentaries, vol 2, 1809, p. 240)

You assume they were asking a valid question. The evidence is otherwise. For one thing, you believe that Jesus taught them for 40 days about the kingdom but apparently He never once mentioned the timing of the futurist kingdom. Either that or the disciples were stupid in not recalling what He taught them, and then they come back and ask questions that He already answered. Based on this then He refuses to answer their question directly.

So why in 40 days teaching about the kingdom would Jesus not have said, “Hey, the restoration won't happen anytime soon, but it will happen. After the rapture and my second coming.” That's certainly as much as the futurists claim. If you guys can figure it out, why couldn't Jesus tell those folks?

The fact is Jesus did not answer their question as they expected, but He did answer it nonetheless:

7 And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

The answer is the gospel. The answer is Jesus Christ, not a carnal kingdom with an earthly king. The truth that restoration has come to Israel was the preaching of the gospel throughout Judea and even to the ends of the earth.

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