Seems so to me, too, paladin1_dcs.
And yet I also see the sense of Mind-numbed Robot's observation:
...I am always amused by the modern day Nostradamuses who read the Biblical tea leaves, do their own calculations, as many others have, and determine they know the timing of God’s plan. This despite Jesus saying no one would know the hour of God’s return, that it would come suddenly and unexpectedly. To me, that trumps anything in Revelations.Indeed, Christ says that no one knows the timing of His return, not even the Son, but only the Father. So I'm a little bemused when people pore over the scriptures in order to make accurate descriptions of the future, i.e., the End Times. As if we had any idea of what time even is, from God's perspective, Who is not in time.
Modern man seems to have a mania for analyses of this type. He seems to have forgotten that "we see as if through a glass, darkly." Our modern analytical methods can never remove that condition, nor compensate for it in any way. We crave certainty, but cannot have it.
Having said that, I very much admire the account titled "How the Peace of Jerusalem Will Be Established." It is a cogent story, well-grounded in citation of the prophets and the gospel accounts. It also seems well supported by breaking events in the Middle East/Arab world....
Do some people think the Book of Revelation is NOT equal with the other books in the Canon? I wonder why they would think that.
It seems to me the Book of Revelation is the capstone of the entire biblical revelation from first to last (Alpha to Omega), the final cause that draws all of biblical history, OT and NT, unto itself.
So I guess there is a sense in which it could be said that Revelation is "not equal" with the other books of Holy Scripture. Moreover, in it Christ personally guarantees its inerrancy — and as you point out, paladin1_dcs, this is the only book of the Holy Canon in which this happens.
Thank you all for this fascinating discussion!
I absolutely agree that we will not know the day or hour of His return, however, we are told to watch for His return and we're told that we will know it's growing close due to how current events will unfold. Christ mentioned this in His parable of the Fig Tree, stating that when the tree blooms, the time of the harvest is near, meaning that the time for Christ to come for His Bride is close. This is not to say that we can know the day and hour, just that we will be able to discern the general season.
Also, I would also like to point out that you raise a very, very good point in regards to the fact that God is not subject to time. I suspect, due to clues provided in Scripture stating that God knows the end from the beginning, that Time, as we know it, is actually not only finite but already completed as well. From our point of view, Time is still progressing, but from God's point of view not only does it have a beginning and an ending, it has already ended and we, presently, are merely playing out our parts in it. This theory would seem to fit with the paradoxical Scriptures which seems to state that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, yet the dead in Christ rise again in the resurrection at His second coming.
It would also neatly fix the perception issue we have of free-will versus election and a few other, interesting ideas that have come out of quantum mechanics. All in all, it's an incredibly interesting subject that I'm looking forward to understanding more once this mortal finally puts on immortality and I'm given my resurrected body and all knowledge is finally made known to us.
I agree. bttt