Itching Ears Pt. 29: So Which View Is Correct?

I have presented several views which Christians hold. These are not views from a cult, but from solid Christian churches. However, if anyone will look through the history of the church, none of these views are exactly in line with what the church fathers believed, although several, if not all, claim the church fathers when giving an account of each held view.

Each view seems to change with time. Even Dispensationalism, which most of our Bibles are printed under, has changed with each passing year. Some, such as Dispensationalism, postmillennialism, fade away as history and time continue to march on. Other long held views rise up to take their place. There are new views that pop up, such as Pre-Wrath, which I don’t think we can trust.

So which view is correct? I’m not sure we can say with 100% accuracy. It’s the reason that Charles Spurgeon, for example, rarely preached on the future events, believing there was enough to preach on the present to last a lifetime. Teaching passages that the Bible was clear on. I agree.

But some argue, the end times are in the Bible, they are important since they are scripture. I agree with this as well. But, I disagree that the Bible is clear on this subject. It’s obvious just from the fact that there are so many views, some close to each other in doctrine, some completely opposite of each other, all held by good solid Christians, who believe the Bible to be God’s Word, whose desire it is to stay true to the scriptures.

I have presented all the differing views in order to point out that some base the spiritual growth of others, even questioning their salvation, based on the agreement of one particular end time view at the exclusion of the others. The word heresy has been thrown at the other views, and the doctrine of eschatology raised to a level that almost excludes other parts of the Bible.

I have named this series Itching Ears, based on the passage in 2 Timothy 4:3, which has been used to point to other doctrines, such as the doctrine of grace, yet I believe could be applied here, for the simple fact that certain eschatological views titilate people, they love to hear of the end of the world, or some Anti-Christ, what happens during the tribulation rather than other parts of the Bible or the Gospel. Eschatology tickles their ears. I have seen it in the first 30 years of my church going. They listen to every tape, message, read every book, visit every website, or have one of their own, that deals with eschatology, even using eschatology to replace the gospel when witnessing to the lost. Yet some sadly, have no idea what other parts of scripture say. This concerns me.

Men, such as Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, Jack Van Impe, John Hagee, Pat Robertson, have dedicated their lives, their ministries, to end time doctrine. Not only these men, but too many Christian churches, ministers, parishioners have too. Everything is seen through end time eyes. We’ve had week long revival meetings which have focused on end times, our tracts on the gospel are mostly a message of our particular end time view, our Bibles are printed with cliff notes, separating verses that were never meant to be separated with captions devoted to a mostly Dispensational view.

Sunday School classes, Wednesday and Sunday nights devote months to the topic of eschatology.  Websites are created, books are written, year after year on the subject of the end of the world, Israel, political scenarios that supposedly point to the end being near, guesses on who the Anti-Christ is. All claiming to be Biblically correct. Churches have split and separated from those who do not hold their particular view. Lives are lived, events viewed, through eschatology. Is this healthy for the church? I don’t think so.

What do you think? How important is eschatology? Can we know what the correct view is or should we be like those who believe it will all pan out in the end? Should we separate from those who believe differently than we do on this particular doctrine? What are some thoughts concerning the views I have presented? Your input as always is valuable, even if you disagree with me.

I agree with Gary DeMar who uses a scripture interprets scripture approach in reaching a conclusion on Revelation, Daniel etc. Scripture speaks for itself, and to study how words, even phrases, are used in other parts of scripture, is useful when interpreting other passages.The Bible never contradicts itself. All the Bible points to Christ. Knowing this will aid in coming to a Biblical conclusion on end times. It will also change how you will study the rest of the Bible. But just because something is in the Bible, does that mean that we will understand end times in this life time? Is it important that we do so? Should we always be willing to change our theology as we mature in our faith, and as the Holy Spirit enlightens?

Itching Ears Pt.28: Postmillennialism

Chart From Blueletterbible.org

Postmillennialism is a view that interprets Revelation 20  as occurring after the Millennium. This Millennium is also known as the Golden Age of Christian Prosperity where Christianity will have dominance. They believe Revelation 20 should not be taken literally. There is not a literal 1000 years, instead meaning a long period of time.

Post means that Christ will return after Christians have established a kingdom on this earth. They believe that as time passes, the earth will get better and better, despite evidence to the contrary, until the entire earth becomes Christianized. Christ is in authority on this earth now.  The forces of Satan will gradually be defeated through the expansion of the Kingdom of God.

The Puritans believed that this would occur not through changing society from the top down, but from the bottom up. In other words through the change of men’s minds and hearts through the spreading of the gospel, and God’s work of grace in lives. A revival that would happen and spread throughout the world.

They base their view on Matthew 16:18; Matthew 6:9-13; Matthew 13; The Abrahamic Covenant; Acts 13:47; The Westminister Confession of Faith(1647).

Those who hold, held, a postmillennial view: Jonathan Edwards; B.B. Warfield; Loraine Boettner; RJ Rushdoony.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Postmillenniallism

Gotquestions.org: Postmillennialism

Jeremiahproject.com: Postmillennialism

Postmillennialism Introduction/ Loraine Boettnner

Itching Ears Pt. 13: Pre-Wrath Rapture

The first time I ever encountered the view of Pre-Wrath Rapture was on a Christian forum I was involved in approximately five years ago. Having not heard of it before, I asked more questions than I gave answers. What I learned is that it is relatively new, coming in the last couple of decades. This view began to be promoted by Marvin Rosenthal, a former business man and former director of Friends of Israel, in his book The Pre-Wrath Rapture Of The Church, published by Thomas Nelson in 1990. To give a little more detail to this view, Gary Vaterlaus, taken from Pre-Wrath Ministries, writes:

“The Prewrath position teaches that the true church will be raptured when the great tribulation by Antichrist, inspired by Satan, is cut short by God’s day-of-the-Lord wrath, which will occur between the sixth and seventh seals of Revelation, sometime during the second half of the seventieth week. The persecution associated with the great tribulation of Antichrist is viewed as the wrath of Satan, whereas the events that follow, beginning with the seventh seal, are considered the wrath of God. There is another term that is sometimes expressed, “historical premillennialism,” which refers back to the teaching of the early church fathers before 325 A.D. They believed that the church would face the persecution of Antichrist and Christ would then reign for 1000 years upon the earth. With the exception of two, Origen and Clement of Alexandria, who were allegorists, they all taught this view.” -Gary Vaterlaus, Sola Scriptura

Those who hold to the Pre-Wrath view take a little bit of all the Premillennial views, discarding what they believe to be the error in these views, and holding to what they believe are correct in the views. As the other views that I have mentioned, the Pre-Wrath view claims the church fathers held the Pre-Wrath view.

The Pre-Wrath method of interpretation is to take all the prophecies written literally, place them side by side, compare them, putting them together until they get a full picture. This they use as their time line, until a logical end time view comes together. The one noticeable difference of the Pre-Wrath view as compared to the other views so far, is their belief that there will be a day of Satan’s wrath and a day of God’s wrath, both separate from the other.

The time period of Satan/AntiChrist’s wrath will be against the church, according to the Pre-Wrath view. This will end when the object of Satan’s wrath is removed, namely the church through the rapture, and by putting Israel under supernatural protection.  Here is a comparison chart from Pre-Wrath Rapture dot com.

From Prewrath Rapture dot com

What do you think? Is this view possible? I will be discussing more concerning this view in my next post.

*Sources
Pre-Wrath Ministries

Religious Tolerance

Prewrath Rapture dot com

Itching Ears Part 8/ End Times

As I was researching this particular topic, just doing a google and putting the words end times in the search box, came up with over one hundred and twelve million results. It’s been a topic that has caused some heated discussions for as long as I have been a church goer, over 40 years, and it’s still a hot topic. People, especially many Christians, are fascinated by this particular topic, and again I think, most, to the exclusion of the rest of the Bible, and what the Bible actually says. It’s another doctrine that has been used to bang people over the head to make a decision for Christ. It’s been used on signs, bumper stickers, lapel pins, etc.

It’s also one of those topics that everyone has a view. Even those without Christ.

Micah Fries recently posted quotes by Charles Spurgeon that best illustrates my own view toward this topic. I would like to look at some of the more prevalent views still taught today, but I would also like to take the careful step of going to the Bible for what answers we do have on eschatology.

Again, I am willing for those who disagree with me to disagree. I am prayerfully hoping that this will get many to think critically. My view on this is just that, my view. I was raised on the book of Revelation, and speak from experience as to those week long revival meetings, where the topic was always, always, always, the end of the world. Jack Van Impe, Tim LaHaye, and Hal Lindsay books were sources sermons were made of. I had problems accepting that this should be something worth a week of revival meetings both then and now.

This post is an introduction, with more detail coming in the posts ahead. Again, my ultimate goal in these posts is not to cause dissension nor to place one view ahead of another as correct, but to simply point out that our view of eschatology does tend to guide how we live, how we look at, respond, to the secular world around us, and I believe how we read, interpret, the rest of the Bible.