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Source: (consider it) Thread: Rapture?
Mamacita

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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
No. I am genuinely curious to know whether your adherence to premillenial dispensationalism means you are unconcerned about the welfare of the planet.

Certainly I think such beliefs form a significant part of the reasoning behind resistance to environmental protection in the US.

Anybody remember James Watt?
yes, and I fear it's gonna be déjà vu all over again.

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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
I've been semi-following this discussion, with some degree of interest. But in the end, I am left wondering "Why does it all matter!"

I think what you believe about eschatology matters because like what you believe about anything, it affects the way you live particularly your prayers but also your ethics.
Up to a point, I'd agree. But when it comes details—rapture, pre-millennialism, post-minnelianism, whatever—I still fail to see why it really matters. It is enough for me to know that Christ will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, and that a new heaven and new earth await us. Speculation about details, much less pouring over Scripture to fit puzzle pieces together as though they're what the gospel is about, seems to me to be a huge and unhelpful distraction from what we're supposed to be about now.

I've always like the part of the Ascension scene in Acts when the two men appear and ask the disciples "why are you staring up into heaven?" Get back to work—just be ready for the return to happen any time.

quote:
As an eg someone who believes history is coming to a big climactic implosion is not going to be too worried about saving the planet.
This example makes no sense to me, I'm afraid. Because the earth is doomed anyway there's no point in taking care of it? I might as well say "why worry about my health when I'm going to die one day anyway."*

For me, care of the planet has little do with what's going to happen in the end and everything to do with faithful stewardship of that part of creation entrusted to us while it is entrusted to us.

* As I think about, speculating about ones own death may be an apropos parallel to these end times speculations. We're all going to die, but very few of us know when or how. We can be debilitated by constant worry about it, or we can get on with life, determined to make the most of each day.

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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Stetson
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Nick wrote:

quote:
This example makes no sense to me, I'm afraid. Because the earth is doomed anyway there's no point in taking care of it? I might as well say "why worry about my health when I'm going to die one day anyway."*

Well, if, hypothetically, I knew with absolute certainty, via some supernatural source of information, that I was going to die next month, and that there was nothing I could do to either extend or shorten the duration of my life, I probably wouldn't bother looking after my health. Or at, least, my prioroties would be radically different than if I thought that my actions could have an impact on my lifespan.

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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Nick wrote:

quote:
This example makes no sense to me, I'm afraid. Because the earth is doomed anyway there's no point in taking care of it? I might as well say "why worry about my health when I'm going to die one day anyway."*

Well, if, hypothetically, I knew with absolute certainty, via some supernatural source of information, that I was going to die next month, and that there was nothing I could do to either extend or shorten the duration of my life, I probably wouldn't bother looking after my health. Or at, least, my prioroties would be radically different than if I thought that my actions could have an impact on my lifespan.
So the real reason to try to figure out the timing of the Parousia is to determine if we need to take good care of the planet for a while, or can fuck it all to Hell now because it won't matter soon!

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Stetson
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Nick wrote:

quote:
This example makes no sense to me, I'm afraid. Because the earth is doomed anyway there's no point in taking care of it? I might as well say "why worry about my health when I'm going to die one day anyway."*

Well, if, hypothetically, I knew with absolute certainty, via some supernatural source of information, that I was going to die next month, and that there was nothing I could do to either extend or shorten the duration of my life, I probably wouldn't bother looking after my health. Or at, least, my prioroties would be radically different than if I thought that my actions could have an impact on my lifespan.
So the real reason to try to figure out the timing of the Parousia is to determine if we need to take good care of the planet for a while, or can fuck it all to Hell now because it won't matter soon!
Hmm, I think you might be setting up a straw-man with your "...main reason..." there. It wouldn't be the main reason for determining the timing of the Parousia, but getting that particular bit of information would probably impact how we approach other issues.

The main reason I check the lottery numbers in the newspaper every day is not to determine whether I need to iron my shirts that week. However, if I see that I won 10 Million dollars, I might forego ironing my shirts, simply because I'm not going to be going into the office, or to any job interviews that week, or ever.

(fictional example: I don't play the lottery)

[ 03. December 2016, 15:42: Message edited by: Stetson ]

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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!

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Steve Langton
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I find myself thinking that if the start of the 'Rapture/Tribulation' business in the 1800s had convinced lots of people to stop caring about the planet because "Jesus is coming any minute anyway" we could have been in an even bigger mess now some two centuries later....

As in, if we take such an uncaring attitude now, but Jesus doesn't return for another 200 years... [Help]

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Stetson
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I find myself thinking that if the start of the 'Rapture/Tribulation' business in the 1800s had convinced lots of people to stop caring about the planet because "Jesus is coming any minute anyway" we could have been in an even bigger mess now some two centuries later....

As in, if we take such an uncaring attitude now, but Jesus doesn't return for another 200 years... [Help]

Well, yes, YOU would think that, as would I, because with the benefit of hindsight, we know that the Rapture/Tribulation/Second Coming did not occur in the 1880s.

But I'm talking about the opinions that would be held by someone who thinks the R/T/SC are coming within the next few years, just as surely as most people think the sun will come out after it stops raining. From that POV, it makes perfect sense to not worry about whether our actions right now will have a detrimental impact on the Earth a couple of decades from now.

And, remember, I was responding to a post that compared certainty about eschatology to certainty about death, and saying that the latter WOULD in fact justify abandoning most concerns about one's health, if the death were known with certainty to be occuring within a matter of weeks.

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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!

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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Nick wrote:

quote:
This example makes no sense to me, I'm afraid. Because the earth is doomed anyway there's no point in taking care of it? I might as well say "why worry about my health when I'm going to die one day anyway."*

Well, if, hypothetically, I knew with absolute certainty, via some supernatural source of information, that I was going to die next month, and that there was nothing I could do to either extend or shorten the duration of my life, I probably wouldn't bother looking after my health. Or at, least, my prioroties would be radically different than if I thought that my actions could have an impact on my lifespan.
Okay, I guess I can see that.

Personally, I have trouble reconciling that approach with Jesus's admonition that no one would know when he is coming, but maybe that's just me.

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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Ricardus
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

So if I was to sum your criticism, you seem to object to dispensationalism per se on the grounds that it is an imposed reading involving the cut/pasting of verses together? To which I reply that pretty well every preacher does this in every sermon. The assumption is that one concept will reinforce another so if for instance the subject is faith, Romans 5:1 might be seen in tandem with Heb 11:1.

Why then is to juxtapose say 1Thes 1,2 with Matt 24 so bad when discussing eschatology?

I'd have thought the difference is that faith is an abstract concept that is supposed to be constant in all times and places (at least within a dispensation). So when St Paul and the writer of Hebrews discussed faith, we should assume they're talking about the same thing. Whereas pre-trib dispensationalism seems to be trying to splice together a narrative out of passages that on the face of it are talking about different things, e.g. Antiochus Epiphanes and Nero.

As a comparison: It wouldn't be obviously unreasonable to take Le Morte Darthur, Tirant lo Blanch, Parzifal, and Cantar de Mío Cid, and use them to write an earnest essay about chivalry in the Middle Ages. But if one picked out, say, all references to a serving-maid, and claimed that they all referred to the same serving-maid, and tried to construct a biography of her life - then I think one would be regarded as eccentric unless one could demonstrate that Malory, Joanot Martorell, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and the juglares were all conniving in this way.

[ 03. December 2016, 20:10: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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Gamaliel
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No, it's not just you.

I once heard a preacher make the point that, as far as he was concerned, fruitless speculation about eschatology was tantamount to the 'dissipation' talked about in the 'do not get drunk on wine' exhortation.

Ephesians 5:18 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+5%3A18&version=NASB

Just as over-doing the alcohol leads to dissipated effort, he felt that over-doing the eschatological speculation also led to dissipated effort - ie. it was a complete distraction.

I have a lot of sympathy with his view.

Sure, a belief in an imminent Parousia can lead to some fervent evangelism, but in my experience and observation it can also lead to a lack of engagement with society with the natural world, with art, culture, sport and a whole load of other wholesome things ...

It can lead us into holy huddles.

It can lead us into extravagant and exotic forms of belief.

It can blunt our witness by making us preoccupied with apparent signs and portents and indifferent to the sufferings of people around us ...

I'm not saying that dispensationalists are selfish gits or any more reprehensible than the rest of us - we all have our faults and besetting sins.

But as a system it seems to me to do far more harm than good.

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Praise the Lord for He is kind.

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Steve Langton
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by Stetson;
quote:
But I'm talking about the opinions that would be held by someone who thinks the R/T/SC are coming within the next few years, just as surely as most people think the sun will come out after it stops raining.
Yes, and that's rather my point. OK clearly the Second Coming must now be nearer than in the 19th C or the first few centuries CE. But that's the thing - as far as anything in Scripture is concerned, everything in Scripture was just as applicable in C1 as in C19 and as now.

The error that turned reasonable watchful expectation of the Coming into the bizarre R/T/SC idea was the assumption that to be constantly watchful for the Second Coming meant an absolutely literal belief that the Second Coming must be 'any minute now' - despite the already 1800 years of waiting!

That error was Irving's, as I understand it. And it was that hyped enthusiasm for the absolutely 'here and now' coming that then led to misinterpretation of prophecy when their ongoing studies revealed awkwardly unfulfilled prophecy that didn't fit anywhere else.

That is, "didn't fit anywhere else" so long as you insisted that it MUST be possible for the Second Coming to be in the next few minutes. As I pointed out, Paul faced with similar ideas back in his time basically said that such unfulfilled prophecy meant "it's not yet"! Irving and his fellow prophetic students ignored that apostolic example and insisted on holding the 'any time NOW' interpretation come what may - and thus trapped themselves. They saw a 'paradox' in Scripture which actually isn't there in the first place; and when a resolution of the paradox was offered which found a 'hole' into which all those awkward unfulfilled prophecies could be fitted, they fell on it gleefully - not to mention hook line and proverbial....

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
From that POV, it makes perfect sense to not worry about whether our actions right now will have a detrimental impact on the Earth a couple of decades from now.

And, remember, I was responding to a post that compared certainty about eschatology to certainty about death, and saying that the latter WOULD in fact justify abandoning most concerns about one's health, if the death were known with certainty to be occuring within a matter of weeks.

I'm not sure either of these are true.

To the first, I have found Luther's "even if the world were to end tomorrow, I will plant my apple tree today" to be a nice good paradoxical maxim that perfectly encapsulates how we should behave.

To the second, I think a lot of people might just carry on as normal even if they knew death was inevitable. We are creatures of habit.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Gamaliel
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Yes.

At the risk of introducing too personal a note, my wife has incurable cancer. It's stabilised at the moment but we're told it will get her in the end. How long she has, we don't know.

Has this knowledge altered our lives? Yes, certainly. Has it changed our habitual patterns? No, not really. Life goes on pretty much as it did beforehand.


Obviously, there will come a time when it can't, but until then it's business as usual for both of us although with the constant awareness of mortality.

I suspect most if our ancestors lived like that. 'In the midst of life we are in death.'

Most OAPs will be the same. If you look at people in their 80s they are very much creatures of habit for the most part.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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Jamat
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes.

At the risk of introducing too personal a note, my wife has incurable cancer. It's stabilised at the moment but we're told it will get her in the end. How long she has, we don't know.

Has this knowledge altered our lives? Yes, certainly. Has it changed our habitual patterns? No, not really. Life goes on pretty much as it did beforehand.


Obviously, there will come a time when it can't, but until then it's business as usual for both of us although with the constant awareness of mortality.

I suspect most if our ancestors lived like that. 'In the midst of life we are in death.'

Most OAPs will be the same. If you look at people in their 80s they are very much creatures of habit for the most part.

Very sorry to hear about that Gamaliel.
[Votive]

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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Gamaliel
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Thanks Jamat. We're doing alright though, but it is early days.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

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Enoch
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I’ve been quite busy the last few days and only just noticed this thread.

Gamaliel, I had realised your wife is seriously ill, and am glad to hear there is a lull in the cancer's progress. [Votive]

Although it feels like a bit of an intrusion to take the thread back to the subject in the OP, I am with you on it, with Eutychus, and with Steve Langton’s historical exposition.

Jamat, I can’t see how one can describe speculation about dispensations and the rapture as a message of “transformative power”. It strikes me that it’s much more likely to become an excuse for not being transformed and not noticing that one isn't being.

I can't help thinking that the emotional roots of speculation about future chronology, the end times and belief in the rapture etc are very, very similar to those that underlie classic heresies like Gnosticism and Albigensianism. Rather than found one’s faith on belief in Christ, seeking to see him formed within us, loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and our neighbours as ourselves, it is founding it in knowledge, having the right opinions and choosing the right expert to depend on. Rather than shape one’s life by seeking to conform it to the nature of Christ, one would be shaping it by conforming it to some favoured munshi’s prescription as to how the future will play out.

I can’t say there won’t be a rapture. I don't know. But nor does anyone else. What I can say, is that I do not see any reason to believe there will be one. As has already been said, it is a doctrine invented in the C19. It is neither part of the universal tradition nor the faith once delivered to the saints. It is only possible to argued from scripture that it might, yet alone must, be going to happen, by mangling the text.

It may be very nice to imagine that we will be whistled up into the sky before things on earth get too nasty, but I also don’t see any reason to be able to deduce that. I’m fairly sure it’s bad theology.

[ 04. December 2016, 21:38: Message edited by: Enoch ]

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Gamaliel
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No, you're not being at all intrusive in bringing things back to the OP, Enoch. I thank you for your concern and I also, of course, concur with your views on the Rapture and dispensationalism being poor theology.

That doesn't mean that I think those who hold to these kind of views as nincompoops and theological illiterates ...

But as you say, it all too readily depends on one or two key teachers or gurus - and I'm always sceptical of anything that smacks of that.

On a different tack, I'd take the same line on those hyper-Calvinists who try to make out that the Church Fathers were 'Calvinistic' in tone when Calvin himself seems to have considered them inconsistent and with Augustine as the one who came closest to his particular views on issues like predestination ...

In such instances, the hyper-Calvinists out-Calvin Calvin and start reading their own theology back into the writings of their predecessors in a way that Calvin himself was sufficiently savvy to avoid.

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Praise the Lord for He is kind.

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Jamat
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quote:
I can’t say there won’t be a rapture. I don't know. But nor does anyone else. What I can say, is that I do not see any reason to believe there will be one. As has already been said, it is a doctrine invented in the C19. It is neither part of the universal tradition nor the faith once delivered to the saints. It is only possible to argued from scripture that it might, yet alone must, be going to happen, by mangling the text.
It seems to me to come down to this 'mangling ' of the text.
Paul says in Thessalonians that we shall not all die and then proceeds to give a specific scenario, viz
The trumpet
The dead in Christ shall rise
We that remain shall be caught up to meet him in the air
Thus we shall always be with the Lord.
The word caught up is 'harpazo' usually taken as what is meant by rapture.

The controversy comes from the 18 century idea from Darby that this could refer to a coming before the coming if you like iow the second coming of Christ is a 2 part thing. In Act 1 he comes as it were secretly, for the church that await him; in act 2 he comes to rescue the Jews and judge the Antichrist at Armageddon.

We do have some very confusing messages in scripture and we always have had. We know now for instance that when Jesus came to Earth he was rejected because the Jews on the basis of the scriptures, were expecting a Davidic king and instead got a suffering servant. But BOTH messages were in there.

Now there is a mixed message also about the second coming in Matt 24. The disciples asked Jesus what is the sign of your coming and the end of the age. They got a paradoxical reply. He said on the one hand that as lightening flashes from east to west so shall the coming of the son of man be. This was the climax of huge turmoil in the Earth. However He also said that as in the days of Noah when it was pretty well business as usual then people would be taken by surprise. You obviously can read it yourself but Fruchtenbaum who is a pre everything scholar points out that in, I think, v36, there is a Greek contrastive phrase that is transliterated as 'Peri de'. This indicates a change of emphasis. It translates as ' Now concerning'.

I.e. "Now concerning that day and hour no one knows.".and he carries on with the scenario of the days of Noah and the narrative of one taken and the other left.
Essentially, you have in the first part of Matt 24:30, the second coming then v36, a change of topic signalled in the Greek but less obvious in the English translation. The coming mentioned in v37 is NOT the coming mentioned earlier in v30.
Now this ties in nicely with Paul's teaching in Thessalonians. He also describes apparently 2 scenarios, 1 thes 4:17 describes the Lord coming for the church and the first resurrection of the dead. However in 2 Thes 2, he says that Christ will come to bring an end to Antichist by the appearance of his coming. That is not mentioned in the earlier passage that talks about the coming.

Now obviously not all questions are answered about the second coming as all we're not answered about the first until it happened and I disagree with kooks that set dates etc as Jesus clearly said in the gospels that when it happens, the second coming will be unexpected. However what is unexpected? I think the 'rapture' coming is and thus the doctrine of imminence. The coming as a king is well described in Zechariah 14 :4 where it says all Nations will be gathered to battle against Jerusalem but the Lord will come as rescuer "In that day his feet will stand on the Mt of Olives".

That, essentially is how I see it but of course I do not know much really and some other 'mangling' might make better sense of it all.

[ 05. December 2016, 18:51: Message edited by: Jamat ]

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Gee D
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Paul is writing poetry, not a recipe.

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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The word caught up is 'harpazo' usually taken as what is meant by rapture.

No, it's what dispensationalists take to mean "rapture" in their sense of the term.

"Harpazo" means "caught up" or "snatched", and we have already noted a number of instances of its use in that way in the NT.

What the dispensationalist system means by "rapture", is "Christians are caught up to be with the Lord and non-believers are left behind".

That is a much narrower, if not entirely different, meaning attributed here to the word "harpazo", and it is one imposed on the word by the system, not required by the word itself.

The biggest price you pay for imposing this special meaning is opening up the possibility, unmentioned anywhere at all in Scripture and running counter to several, of there being a possibility of being "saved" after the return of Christ for his people.

You have no real theological answer to this question beyond hand-waving; you certainly can't point to any Scripture that makes provision for this scenario.

As I have said before, this seems a high price to pay in terms of orthodoxy when it comes to making sense of these passages. Much too high a price.

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Jamat
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quote:
That is a much narrower, if not entirely different, meaning attributed here to the word "harpazo", and it is one imposed on the word by the system, not required by the word itself
This really does seem to me to be straining at gnats. there is no imposition of meaning on the word. It says what it says.

As you said, the word rapture is not in the Bible but what is denoted is the snatching away idea contained in the word 'harpazo'. As the story goes, the church is snatched away and unbelievers left.

Without revisiting what I said before, I think that this is not a problem. After the harpazo, people can still come to Christ. In that period of history though, it is likely to result in martyrdom as the left behind ones will need the mark of the beast to buy or sell if they take that they disqualify themselves from faith in Christ.

Interestingly, this is a point of issue for Reformed preacher John McArthur as when asked a question about whether mark takers could be saved, he ad-libbed that he thought they could. ISTM that cannot be correct.

Obviously this scenario does not sit well with the comfortable Christianity many of us presently enjoy. But Revelation does say lots of uncomfortable things.

--------------------
Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Enoch
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Jamat, I regret you have not persuaded me. I agree with Gee D that Paul isn't writing a recipe. He also isn't writing a legal statute. It is misuse of his writings to treat them that way. Theological palaces, however magnificent, cannot be constructed on the single use of a particular tense.

I agree with your statement that,
"We do have some very confusing messages in scripture and we always have had."

However, one can't then make the jump:
'I have pointed out to you a flaw with X's explanation of this.
∴ what I'm now about to say must be right'.

If it did work, it would be a very useful dialectic tool. It would get one out of a lot of holes. It's also something one encounters quite often. That, though, does not rescue it from being a non sequitur.


Nor does not follow that, if when the day of the Lord comes, we who are then alive will be caught up to meet him in the air, then either,
a. that will precede a Great Tribulation which we will somehow escape, or
b. that we can be specific about a sequence of events which will happen after that to those who are not caught up. Paul doesn't mention that in the passage.


I agree with what Gamaliel and Eutychus have said since my last post. And, Gamaliel, it isn't only Calvin and the Fathers that neo-Calvinists treat that way, reading back into the original words what they think the writer ought to have meant, as though they know best. They do the same with Paul.

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Jamat
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quote:
Nor does not follow that, if when the day of the Lord comes, we who are then alive will be caught up to meet him in the air, then either,
a. that will precede a Great Tribulation which we will somehow escape, or
b. that we can be specific about a sequence of events which will happen after that to those who are not caught up. Paul doesn't mention that in the passage.

I agree that both of these things are based largely on inference and could be said to be conjectural depending on who is debating whom.
That is why there is so much ink spilt amongst futurists over your a) as to whether the rapture is pre, mid or post, tribulation. To me that actually does not matter very much and your point b) relates to that. Essentially the sequence of events is inferred and people obviously differ.

For me, the scenario I outlined is the one that makes most sense from a futurist stance.
As a Christian, I am not looking for the beast or the tribulation, I am looking for the Lord to come for me. This is what I actually think Paul was telling the thessalonians to do.

If you are a preterist or a Historicist, then you will see eschatology quite differently and certainly both have good points in their favour. I do not think those completely preclude my reading which I got as I say from people like Ironside and latterly, Arnold Fruchtenbaum and Jacob Prasch.(both of whom are within google range) It is obvious, for instance, that AD 70 saw a historical fulfilment of a large part of what Jesus said in Matt 24. To me the discourse includes this but goes beyond it.

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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Steve Langton
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by jamat;
quote:
Without revisiting what I said before, I think that this is not a problem. After the harpazo, people can still come to Christ. In that period of history though, it is likely to result in martyrdom as the left behind ones will need the mark of the beast to buy or sell if they take that they disqualify themselves from faith in Christ.
So the 'catching up/harpazo' is described in I Thess 4; 16-18. In this passage Paul addresses the concerns of the Thessalonian Christians that those among them who have already died may somehow miss out on the subsequent return of Jesus. No, Paul says, when Jesus returns "with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God" (hardly a 'secret rapture'!!), "The dead in Christ shall rise first..." and then those still alive will be "Caught up/raptured together with them... to meet the Lord...."

In chapter 5, Paul moves on to consider how the rest of the world, the non-Christians, are affected by this return of Jesus.

quote:
Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, 2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 1 Thess 5:1-3 (NIV)
That 'the day of the Lord' will come like a thief in the night means it will be unexpected as a thief would hope to be - not 'secret' in the way the Rapture is usually represented in the 'Left Behind' kind of scenario. What Paul goes on to say in v3 makes clear that when the 'thief' arrives, at that moment destruction comes on these people, "and they will NOT escape". This is not a scenario to be followed by a 'second chance' over seven years of 'Tribulation' - this is the final coming, the END.

And then the 'killer' text...

quote:
But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief 1 Thess 5:4 (NIV)
This day that overwhelms the worldly, the unbelievers, with terminal destruction, is the same day that will see the rescue/rapture of the Christians. Paul is clearly talking here about the same day. Of course the Christians will not KNOW about it for sure till it actually happens, but they will be ready, prepared - even the round about a quarter of them who by normal averages will be literally physically asleep when Jesus returns; they'll be spiritually awake and ready.

And in II Thessalonians 2, Paul refers to the same 'day' again when he says it will not come "unless the rebellion comes first" - NOT that the rebellion happens after the 'Rapture' and only affecting the 'Left Behind'.

As I said above, various forms of 'mark of the Beast' are seen in the current era; and I think that where such a thing exists, it can be repented of. It does not appear to be the actual 'unforgiveable sin'.... Again, mangling it into the dubious 'Rapture/Tribulation' scenario distorts the teaching.

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Jamat
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:


In chapter 5, Paul moves on to consider how the rest of the world, the non-Christians, are affected by this return of Jesus.

quote:
Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, 2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 1 Thess 5:1-3 (NIV)
That 'the day of the Lord' will come like a thief in the night means it will be unexpected as a thief would hope to be - not 'secret' in the way the Rapture is usually represented in the 'Left Behind' kind of scenario. What Paul goes on to say in v3 makes clear that when the 'thief' arrives, at that moment destruction comes on these people, "and they will NOT escape". This is not a scenario to be followed by a 'second chance' over seven years of 'Tribulation' - this is the final coming, the END.

And then the 'killer' text...

quote:
But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief 1 Thess 5:4 (NIV)
This day that overwhelms the worldly, the unbelievers, with terminal destruction, is the same day that will see the rescue/rapture of the Christians. Paul is clearly talking here about the same day. Of course the Christians will not KNOW about it for sure till it actually happens, but they will be ready, prepared - even the round about a quarter of them who by normal averages will be literally physically asleep when Jesus returns; they'll be spiritually awake and ready.

And in II Thessalonians 2, Paul refers to the same 'day' again when he says it will not come "unless the rebellion comes first" - NOT that the rebellion happens after the 'Rapture' and only affecting the 'Left Behind'.

As I said above, various forms of 'mark of the Beast' are seen in the current era; and I think that where such a thing exists, it can be repented of. It does not appear to be the actual 'unforgiveable sin'.... Again, mangling it into the dubious 'Rapture/Tribulation' scenario distorts the teaching. [/QB]

Yes, Steve, but I think your comments are answered by the fact that the 'rapture' scriptures and the '2nd coming proper' scriptures must be distinguished.

One never sees the 'Day of the Lord' spoken of except in the 2nd coming proper scriptures. as it always refers to the judgement on the sinful world and on the Antichrist. Sometimes, it is also called the time of Jacob's trouble.

Anyhow, the 1Thes 5:1-9, reference is about the visible coming of the Lord not the secret one that would be the harpazo. It is also unexpected of course but it is a time of destruction IOW quite unlike the 1 thes 4 15-18.

Lest this seem a forced division, there is a 'Peri de' at the start of ch 5 suggesting a translation of "Now concerning.." This suggests a change of emphasis or subject even.

IOW, he speaks of the rapture I 1 thes 4:15-18 but then turns to a comment on The Day of the Lord, in Ch 5. The fact that he is now speaking of the 'Times and epochs' also tends to this view.

So essentially, I do not see the rescue of the church and the Day of the Lord which is a judgement scripture, occurring at the same time.

--------------------
Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
As you said, the word rapture is not in the Bible but what is denoted is the snatching away idea contained in the word 'harpazo'. As the story goes, the church is snatched away and unbelievers left.

Dispensationalists do not simply use "rapture" to denote "snatching away" or "caught up" which is what it means.

The contentious idea dispensationalists include in their use of the word "rapture" is the second part above: "unbelievers left".

This is contentious because it is simply not "how the story goes". It is taking a piece of Matthew, against the text, to inform a piece of Thessalonians. It is a constructed narrative where the Bible doesn't give one; one that posits a group of post-rapture believers who can't be the Church (which has already met the Lord).

Also, I would still like to know whether you think concern about the welfare of the planet is irrelevant given your eschatology.

[ 06. December 2016, 04:51: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Jamat
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
As you said, the word rapture is not in the Bible but what is denoted is the snatching away idea contained in the word 'harpazo'. As the story goes, the church is snatched away and unbelievers left.

Dispensationalists do not simply use "rapture" to denote "snatching away" or "caught up" which is what it means.

The contentious idea dispensationalists include in their use of the word "rapture" is the second part above: "unbelievers left".

This is contentious because it is simply not "how the story goes". It is taking a piece of Matthew, against the text, to inform a piece of Thessalonians. It is a constructed narrative where the Bible doesn't give one; one that posits a group of post-rapture believers who can't be the Church (which has already met the Lord).

Also, I would still like to know whether you think concern about the welfare of the planet is irrelevant given your eschatology.

I've already said what I think is the position of the left behind ones. The main scripture for me is the 1 thes 4 one. Matt 24 is a support to see it in the light of. I am aware of your position i.e. That you consider that contextually, the left behind are the saved ones analogous to the flood story. I do not think your reading is necessarily correct since Jesus here is merely emphasising the suddenness of the change and the fact that there is a sharp distinction between saved and lost. Jesus goes on to the story of the wise and foolish virgins which has a similar theme. There, the wise are taken in to the wedding, the others shut out so there the message is reinforced I think. Once the harpazo occurs, there is no way to reopen that door so be ready, have the oil in your lamp.

If it is a serious question then yes, I care about the environment. I still have to live in it and since the early church thought the Lord was coming in their generation and he did not who knows how long this age of grace will extend. Imminence is not about time it is about possility.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
I've already said what I think is the position of the left behind ones. The main scripture for me is the 1 thes 4 one.

This makes no sense at all. 1 Thes 4 says nothing at all about anybody being left behind.
quote:
Matt 24 is a support to see it in the light of.
No, Matt 24 is where dispensationalists erroneously get the idea of people being "left behind" from and then insert this into 1 Thes 4.
quote:
Jesus here is merely emphasising the suddenness of the change and the fact that there is a sharp distinction between saved and lost. Jesus goes on to the story of the wise and foolish virgins which has a similar theme. There, the wise are taken in to the wedding, the others shut out so there the message is reinforced I think. Once the harpazo occurs, there is no way to reopen that door so be ready, have the oil in your lamp.
I broadly agree with the above. But this contradicts what you have been saying so far and makes my point for me with these scriptures.

Hitherto you have consistently argued that after the harpazo occurs, it is indeed possible to "open the door" and you may not be "lost", since you apparently believe that people can be saved after Christ's return for his Church. I cannot see how you can take this message from the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, for instance.

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Jamat
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[QUOTE] [/his makes no sense at all. 1 Thes 4 says nothing about at all about anybody being left behind.QUOTE]

I really have no idea why whoever is left behind is such a big issue for you. The discussion is about the Rapture, if when and whether it occurs. To me the 'rapture is a term for the harpazo the snatching away of the church. Anyone not raptured is consequently not saved QED.

If I'm 'left behind', I was not a true believer but do I still have hope? Yes, if God grants me the gift of repentance. The gospel is still operative but God has switched gears in his modus operandi. Now his focus is switched to Natural Israel once more. The church age is over. This is the time of the 144k Jewish evangelists whom he will raise up. Up thread you asked if I counted the tribes of Israel in Revelation. Yes, there are 12 and I think Dan is missing? I do not know why this is,just that the number of tribes is always 12. There are 12 apostles but Paul is an apostle. Who knows maybe the number is more important than the name.

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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
I really have no idea why whoever is left behind is such a big issue for you.

Because it introduces theological difficulties far in excess of what it claims to clarify.
quote:
The discussion is about the Rapture, if when and whether it occurs. To me the 'rapture is a term for the harpazo the snatching away of the church.
I can't see anyone arguing with believers being "caught up" to be with the Lord at the end of the age. But you are assuming (at least some of the time) that this "being caught up" is not at the same time as the eschaton. To put it another way, you believe in a "secret" rapture, which necessarily implies some people left behind until the "non-secret" return of the Lord happens. That is what is innovative and unhelpful.
quote:
If I'm 'left behind', I was not a true believer but do I still have hope? Yes, if God grants me the gift of repentance. The gospel is still operative but God has switched gears in his modus operandi. Now his focus is switched to Natural Israel once more. The church age is over. This is the time of the 144k Jewish evangelists whom he will raise up.
Wait, so if God's focus post-secret rapture switches back to Natural Israel, are you saying that only Jews left behind can be saved? Or are you, with the JWs, saying there is a separate category of salvation for believers in the gospel who are not part of the Church?

If you are, why stop at "rightly dividing" (sic) 1 Thes 4 aided and abetted by Mat 24? You might as well joint the JWs in going through the whole of the NT explaining how large chunks of it don't apply to us but to the future "dispensation" of the Kingdom of Heaven - the Sermon on the Mount, for instance. Can you not see why I feel this is creating far more problems than it solves?
quote:
Up thread you asked if I counted the tribes of Israel in Revelation. Yes, there are 12 and I think Dan is missing?
To me that is an indication that the number should not be taken literally, or applied strictly to "Natural Israel". To me it makes far more sense to understand that John first "heard" the 'great multitude' of the people of God (144k) and then "saw" a vision of the same people - from every nation tribe and tongue.

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Gamaliel
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To be fair, both the RCs and the Orthodox also believe that there is some kind of special category of salvation for believers who are not part of the Church (Capital C) as they both consider themselves to be the One True Catholic and Apostolic Church ... yet not the sum total of those who will be saved.

Indeed, you can be a member of the One True Catholic and Apostolic Church and not necessarily be ultimately saved ... witness the Popes, bishops, clergy, monks and nuns being cast into outer darkness and eternal hell fire in the scary medieval frescoes ...

As well as those who are received into Christ's eternal Kingdom of light ...

But I take your point, Eutychus.

For my money, forms of conservative evangelical dispensationalism and emphasis on a pre-tribulation rapture come perilously close to the kind of hermeneutic and exegesis employed by JWs and other 'marginal' groups such as those somewhat closer to home such as the Seventh Day Adventists.

Jamat clearly understands the 144,000 in a literal sense and interprets those references in Revelation to Jewish evangelists in a kind of post-Church age.

I really, really don't get that.

It's a source of complete and utter bewilderment to me how people can take such a literal line on what is clearly apocalyptic literature.

I've already outlined my difficulty with the idea of the Letters to the Seven Churches being in some way predictive. The only explanation/answer I get to that is that we should apply the same hermeneutical principle we apply to Daniel as the OT's example of apocalyptic literature ...

Well, the thing is, I don't necessarily see why we have to apply a literal, predictive element to Daniel either - at least, not at every point - and I'm perfectly comfortable with a late date for Daniel - and I'd be equally comfortable with it if scholars could conclusively demonstrate an early date for it too.

Either way, it makes no odds as it's apocalyptic literature, not a time-table or blue-print for how things will pan out at the end of the world.

If, as Jamat suggests, a belief in a pre-tribulation rapture doesn't lessen a believer's concern about the environment and the here and now, then it begs the question as to what it actually does achieve ...

As far as I can see, reading this thread, all it does is give people who like to have things neatly packaged a neat package into which they can tuck their eschatological speculations. 'There we are, into the nice neat box, sorted.'

Of course, it still leaves room for mystery - 'of that day and of that hour ...' etc. But by and large it simply seems like a way to reconcile apparently contradictory references - as if the purpose of Bible study is to tie-up all loose-ends and as if there is no possible scope for leaving anything dangling as it were.

That's why I'm suspicious of it.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To be fair, both the RCs and the Orthodox also believe that there is some kind of special category of salvation for believers who are not part of the Church (Capital C) as they both consider themselves to be the One True Catholic and Apostolic Church ... yet not the sum total of those who will be saved.

Temporal Churches may have provisions for those who do not form part of their temporal Church, but that is hardly the same as having an entirely separate dispensation of salvation after the return of Christ for some who are explicitly not part of his people or the invisible Church universal.

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Steve Langton
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by Jamat;

quote:
Yes, Steve, but I think your comments are answered by the fact that the 'rapture' scriptures and the '2nd coming proper' scriptures must be distinguished.
I basically don't accept that those two categories exist; Jesus comes once both to gather the Church and to bring judgement/destruction on unbelievers. I'm not aware of a single text that categorically shows these are separate events. Only of a history 19 centuries after Jesus in which some people made a bad interpretation which then led them to unnecessarily separate the 'catching up' of the Church from the coming in judgement.

Yes, on that day some are 'caught up' to meet their returning Lord and join his triumph, while others are 'left behind' - briefly, not for several years - to await the judgement. The several years of post-rapture tribulation are an artificial imposition resulting from the mistaken interpretation by Irving and his followers, not something from Scripture itself.

quote:
Anyhow, the 1Thes 5:1-9, reference is about the visible coming of the Lord not the secret one that would be the harpazo. It is also unexpected of course but it is a time of destruction IOW quite unlike the 1 thes 4 15-18.
Hummm? In the view you seem to be presenting, then, the 'day of the Lord' happens years after the supposed day of Rapture. Yet in a straightforward natural reading of I Thess 5, Paul writes as if the Church will still be on earth to be potentially surprised by the 'day of the Lord'. Just look at it

quote:
1 And concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need of my writing to you, 2 for yourselves have known thoroughly that the day of the Lord as a thief in the night doth so come, 3 for when they may say, Peace and surety, then sudden destruction doth stand by them, as the travail doth her who is with child, and they shall not escape; 4 and ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day may catch you as a thief; 5 all ye are sons of light, and sons of day; we are not of night, nor of darkness, 6 so, then, we may not sleep as also the others, but watch and be sober, 1 Thess 5:1-6 (YLT)
Look, Paul says, I don't need to discuss the date of this, the 'times and seasons' because you know that the 'day of the Lord' will be unpredictable like a thief in the night.

That is a natural phrasing if he is writing of an event his readers may be on earth to see; and not at all natural if he's referring to an event that they won't be around for but rather will already be with the Lord and returning with Him.

He points out how 'the world' will be carrying on as usual only to be unexpectedly overwhelmed by the destruction of Jesus' return in judgement. Then in v4

quote:
and ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day may catch you as a thief;
Again, a natural wording if his readers might potentially be on earth to be caught by the event; but strange wording if those readers are supposedly long 'raptured' and absent from the earth.

Put simply, if Paul is talking about the scenario Jamat and pre-tribulation-rapturists generally believe in, he's making somewhat of a confused dog's breakfast of it. But if he is portraying a single day in which both the Church is 'caught up' to meet their Lord, and the world is faced with unexpected destruction, then his words are completely appropriate....

And if we can't find the pre-tribulation-rapture in THE passage that clearly talks of the church being 'caught up' to meet the Lord, I can't see how we'd find it elsewhere....

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Martin60
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There are those who can shave and the one who can't.

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Gamaliel
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@Eutychus, yes, I get that ...

@Steve Langton, again, agreed on all points.

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Martin60
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Why use the utterly non-intuitive complexities of particle physics in very simple textual analysis?

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Steve Langton
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Why use the utterly non-intuitive complexities of particle physics in very simple textual analysis?

I'm not sure if it's me you're getting at there; but I'm being elaborate because I'm not only having to interpret the original text but also unpick or unravel an absolute mountain of twisted and re-arranged stuff going back to that 19th C misstep - and I've previously learned that you have to do that unpicking pretty thoroughly to convince those caught up in the tangle and confused by it.
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Martin60
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# 368

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No Steve, not you. Sorry. You're not making up complexities where simplicity is staring you in the face.

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Jamat
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# 11621

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quote:
I basically don't accept that those two categories exist; Jesus comes once both to gather the Church and to bring judgement/destruction on unbelievers. I'm not aware of a single text that categorically shows these are separate events.
In that case Steve you have quite a bit of dissonance to deal with. Take for instance the accounts of the parousia in Matt 24 that I referred to above. You also, though as you say they are not categorical, references like John 14. "I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again to receive you to myself"
There are passages like this that are consistent with a rapture idea.

There is little that IS categorical in this whole area when we are discussing subjects that extend into apocalyptic scripture. The knock down argument that comes up time and again is the fact that Darby invented the 2 stage parousia in 1832. It was never taught by any early Christian authority. While this is true, when one thinks of the weird and wonderful heresies that arose then, it is possible that this teaching did not come up because it was not controversial. It is also possible it was unknown as you and others say but maybe it was like many ideas such as baptism by immersion, lost in the mists of Catholic corruption of basic doctrine. How on earth did, for instance, the Lord's supper become the mass? Who knows how these beliefs evolved or what was lost. It still seems to me that a lot depends on the hermeneutics one adopts and sometimes, that is a matter of choice, sometimes preconceived ideas have a lot to do with it. If you decide you are NOT a literalist, for instance, then this frees you from the meaning and as Etychus said above, 1thes 4 the dead in Christ will rise first and we who are left will meet the Lord in the air, need not actually mean what it says, it can become a mere comfort scripture about the security of believers.

It is true that fashion is also a factor in hermeneutics and futurism does go in and out of fashion. However, as one who is in the minority of literalists on this forum, I still find that the Darby rapture, does make convincing sense without going through all the detail I.E., the 70th week of Daniel being held in abeyance till the church age is completed. For ages I was dismissive of all I heard about prophecy till I stumbled on someone who actually understood the viewpoint thoroughly. Since then, ISTM that many scriptures are comprehensible if seen in that light.

[ 07. December 2016, 18:35: Message edited by: Jamat ]

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Enoch
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# 14322

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But if, as you say, and I don't think anyone in this argument will disagree with you on this,
quote:
There is little that IS categorical in this whole area when we are discussing subjects that extend into apocalyptic scripture.
why should any of the rest of us be persuaded that your particular gnosis is the right one? And even if it were, why should that matter? How does that bear on how you, me or any of the others of us posting on this thread live out our Christian lives in fear and trembling?

If, for example, you were to say with confidence that "a king of fierce countenance" in Dan 8:23 or the "vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom" in Dan 11:21 who comes in "peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries", is not Antiochus IV but Donald Trump, why, when you have already accepted that there is little that is categorical in this whole area, should that interpretation be any more persuasive than any other? What gives one bundle of gnosis any more weight than any other?

Saying that something is what Darby says, or that it was possible that this teaching was lost because it was controversial, or got 'lost in the mists of Catholic corruption of basic doctrine" - for which, there is no evidence - or that you happen to have stumbled on somebody who you think "actually understood the viewpoint thoroughly", really doesn't take the rest of us any further. And the claim that we don't accept this because we're temporising non-literalists doesn't work either, because these interpretations do not automatically follow from a literal reading of the scriptures.

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Martin60
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# 368

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A perfect, and I mean perfect, waste of breath our Enoch.

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Brenda Clough
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# 18061

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If this gal is right you guys won't need to debate this much longer. Also, it casts a new and fearful light upon the election of the Tiny Fingered One.

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Eutychus
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# 3081

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
John 14. "I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again to receive you to myself"
There are passages like this that are consistent with a rapture idea.

Please explain how this passage is consistent with a twofold return of Christ.

quote:
The knock down argument that comes up time and again is the fact that Darby invented the 2 stage parousia in 1832. It was never taught by any early Christian authority. While this is true
I rest my case.
quote:
maybe it was like many ideas such as baptism by immersion, lost in the mists of Catholic corruption of basic doctrine.
The root meaning of baptizo is to immerse. I think there's a bit more precedent there than for harpazo meaning "to snatch up prior to coming back to judge those left behind"
quote:
Etychus said above, 1thes 4 the dead in Christ will rise first and we who are left will meet the Lord in the air, need not actually mean what it says
Even if it means precisely and literally what it says, it says nothing at all about anybody being left behind, still less about them being evangelised by 144k Jewish evangelists (to form part of saved Natural Israel? You are silent on this point).
quote:
ISTM that many scriptures are comprehensible if seen in that light.
Indeed they are, but just because a theory makes some parts comprehensible does not mean it is right and says nothing about the parts it tramples all over.

I entreat you to consider whether the collateral damage of the hermeneutic - such as for starters, how people can be saved after the "rapture" in defiance of the teaching of parable of the wise and foolish virgins (which you yourself brought up!) and which salvific category into which those saved from among those left behind might fall into - is worth the candle.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Jamat
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# 11621

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
But if, as you say, and I don't think anyone in this argument will disagree with you on this,
quote:
There is little that IS categorical in this whole area when we are discussing subjects that extend into apocalyptic scripture.
why should any of the rest of us be persuaded that your particular gnosis is the right one? And even if it were, why should that matter? How does that bear on how you, me or any of the others of us posting on this thread live out our Christian lives in fear and trembling?

If, for example, you were to say with confidence that "a king of fierce countenance" in Dan 8:23 or the "vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom" in Dan 11:21 who comes in "peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries", is not Antiochus IV but Donald Trump, why, when you have already accepted that there is little that is categorical in this whole area, should that interpretation be any more persuasive than any other? What gives one bundle of gnosis any more weight than any other?

Saying that something is what Darby says, or that it was possible that this teaching was lost because it was controversial, or got 'lost in the mists of Catholic corruption of basic doctrine" - for which, there is no evidence - or that you happen to have stumbled on somebody who you think "actually understood the viewpoint thoroughly", really doesn't take the rest of us any further. And the claim that we don't accept this because we're temporising non-literalists doesn't work either, because these interpretations do not automatically follow from a literal reading of the scriptures.

Regarding the Antichrist, I'd agree that Antiochus IV was certainly a type of the one who will appear at the end of the age. I also realise that If I'd been alive in the 1930's I might well of thought this was Hitler. This is why I do not set dates or suggest identities. In my living memory people were saying names like Kissinger. This is pretty dumb thinking IMV as the Bible does not cue us on that.

Regarding my particular 'gnosis', I have tried to explain how I think it is Biblical. The gnostics including all the modern ones all claim revelation beyond scripture but theories of eschatology are mainly based in scriptural inference. I am not a gnostic.

How you go forward is not for me to comment except perhaps to consider looking at the non negotiables that we all have. If Everything Biblical is to be interpreted as poetry or as historically past,for instance, then you hit the wall pretty early in trying to make sense of stuff like the book of Revelation.

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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Jamat
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# 11621

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
John 14. "I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again to receive you to myself"
There are passages like this that are consistent with a rapture idea.
________________________________________
Please explain how this passage is consistent with a twofold return of Christ.

It is often used as forshadowing the rapture but is not also inconsistent with the parousia as a whole
quote:
maybe it was like many ideas such as baptism by immersion, lost in the mists of Catholic corruption of basic doctrine.
________________________________________
The root meaning of baptizo is to immerse. I think there's a bit more precedent there than for harpazo meaning "to snatch up prior to coming back to judge those left behind"
quote:

You of course are entitled to your view.
quote:
Etychus said above, 1thes 4 the dead in Christ will rise first and we who are left will meet the Lord in the air, need not actually mean what it says
________________________________________
Even if it means precisely and literally what it says, it says nothing at all about anybody being left behind, still less about them being evangelised by 144k Jewish evangelists (to form part of saved Natural Israel? You are silent on this point).

But I never said it did. My point was always that the living can rise to meet the Lord in the air..literally. As always, when exploring doctrine we join scripture with scripture as alredy discussed above. The left behind ones are your preoccupation for some reason known only to yourself. IMV they are not Christians and not relevant .

--------------------
Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Gamaliel
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# 812

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No, that's far from the case. You don't hit a wall at all by treating the Book of Revelation as it should be treated - as Apocalyptic literature.

Why do you have this assumption that the NT is going to tell us whether Hitler, Kissinger, my next door neighbour or some geezer living in a third floor flat in downtown Manila, Montevideo or Melbourne is or isn't the Antichrist.

Just because something is allegorical or poetic doesn't mean it isn't true.

Of course, I'm suggesting we understand everything in the NT in some kind of allegorical or metaphorical sense - I do believe in the Resurrection as an historical event for instance. Nor am I dismissing the possibility of predictive elements, but by and large that's not how scripture operates, it seems to me.

The NT isn't there to provide a blue-print for how we work out how and when the world will end, it's there to make us 'wise unto salvation through Christ Jesus.'

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Eutychus
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# 3081

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
John 14. "I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again to receive you to myself"

is often used as forshadowing the rapture but is not also inconsistent with the parousia as a whole
It might be talking about the parousia, but it says absolutely nothing about a twofold return. It talks pretty unequivocally of one. Your view requires two and this is what the rest of us are disputing.
quote:
quote:
The root meaning of baptizo is to immerse. I think there's a bit more precedent there than for harpazo meaning "to snatch up prior to coming back to judge those left behind"
You of course are entitled to your view.
It's hardly just my view. Whatever we believe about baptism now, the root meaning pretty incontrovertibly includes to submerge. Harpazo may mean "to snatch" or "catch up", but there is nothing at all in the word to indicate anyone being left behind or a second return after the "snatching".

Your theory hypothesises those things, and includes them in its understanding of "rapture", but (unlike getting the concept of "immersion" from "baptizo") it does not and cannot get them from the Greek word. These hypotheses are incontrovertibly recent in a way the lexical pedigree of baptism by immersion is not.
quote:
My point was always that the living can rise to meet the Lord in the air..literally.
The argument here is not predominantly about whether this is literal or not and if so at what altitude, but whether this meeting in the air, whether literal or figurative, is part one of a two-stage return of Christ in which stage two happens much later, after at least half if not a whole Tribulation. This two-stage return of Christ is the contentious aspect of dispensationalism and it is arrived at, not as you claim by a process whereby
quote:
we join scripture with scripture
but by injecting one piece of scripture slap into the middle of another with no regard for the integrity of the text.
quote:
The left behind ones are your preoccupation for some reason known only to yourself. IMV they are not Christians and not relevant.
Your comment encapsulates the reason for my preoccupation which I have stated multiple times.

They are my preoccupation because aside from a back-to-front interpretation of Matthew 24 according to which the saved are "taken", there is no mention of this body of people anywhere at all in Scripture, let alone their fate, despite which you blithely assure us that, notwithstanding the parable of the foolish virgins et al, once the door is closed it can somehow spring open again, they can be saved (they're just not Christians [Paranoid] ), and to make sure some of this "irrelevant" group are saved according to some soteriology on which Scripture is entirely silent (I'm still waiting to hear from Mudfrog on what it might mean to be "saved by covenant and not by grace"), you conjure up an army of 144k Jewish evangelists from a list consisting, if my sums from Revelation are right, of 132k Jews.

If you think all that's an irrelevant detail that can simply be brushed over, I'm left wondering what other irrelevant details you might be prepared to accommodate in defence of your position.

[ 07. December 2016, 22:00: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Steve Langton
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# 17601

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by Jamat;
quote:
But I never said it did. My point was always that the living can rise to meet the Lord in the air..literally. As always, when exploring doctrine we join scripture with scripture as alredy discussed above. The left behind ones are your preoccupation for some reason known only to yourself. IMV they are not Christians and not relevant .
I'd accept the idea that the living can rise to meet the Lord in the air literally; after all the angels told the apostles at the ascension that Jesus would return as they had seen him depart - ie, rising into the air. It is perhaps symbolically rather than absolutely necessary but it's a great symbol and will be a great experience for all of us (given that Paul says the dead in Christ will rise first and all then meet the returning Jesus!

The problem of the 'left behind' is a mix of "for what?" and "for how long a further history?" - and the answers to those questions are quite important in all kinds of ways - so our next question for you, Jamat, is how do you answer those questions....

In the view I espouse, and it seems also Eutychus and others discussing here, those 'left behind' are only left for a brief time before Jesus and the attending resurrected-and-still-living Christians will arrive on earth to summon the unbelievers to judgement - following which, the new heaven and the new earth. 'History' is ended, Eternity has begun.

In the common 'Left Behind/pre-Tribulation-Rapture scenario, the 'Rapture' is followed by Jesus with the Church going away for some years (usually seven) during which lots of 'left-over' prophecies about the 'man of lawlessness' and the conversion of at least most Jews are fulfilled, and it seems the 'left behind' get a further chance at repentance and faith before Jesus returns a second time, with the church, to initiate the Millennial kingdom - and even that isn't quite the End....

It seems to me quite important to be clear which of these options we follow - or perhaps Jamat is offering a clear third option...? Simply how the Jews are differently viewed in these different interpretations clearly makes important here-and-now differences in human politics.

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Gamaliel
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I think I might start another thread about hermeneutical assumptions.

Earlier on this thread, Mudfrog suggested that we interpret the Seven Churches of Revelation in a futurist sense because that is how we tackle the apocalyptic sections of Daniel, despite there being no textual indication within the Letters to the Seven Churches that they are to be understood that way.

That's the nub of the issue, I think, an insistence on trying to tie up apparent loose ends and to make things fit. If they don't, then we try to force them.

The Book of Revelation was written to encourage beleaguered believers - 'Hang on, this current world system will pass away ...'

It uses allegory and symbolism. The idea of interpreting the stuff about the 144,000 and so on literally makes as much sense to me as understanding the OT reference to God owning 'the cattle in a thousand halls' literally. What does this mean? That God doesn't own the cattle on the 1,001st hill or the 3,000th hill?

Taking these things in a literal way throws up all sorts of anomalies and only serves to illustrate the extent to which literalists misunderstand the apocalyptic genre or find it difficult to cope with allegory and symbolism in those places where it is clearly being applied.

Not only is it a faulty hermeneutic, it is one which fails to understand how ancient texts function.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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Jamat
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# 11621

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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:


.. an insistence on trying to tie up apparent loose ends and to make things fit. If they don't, then we try to force them.

The Book of Revelation was written to encourage beleaguered believers

It uses allegory and symbolism. The idea of interpreting the stuff about the 144,000 and so on literally makes as much sense to me as understanding the OT reference to God owning 'the cattle in a thousand halls' literally.

Taking these things in a literal way throws up all sorts of anomalies and only serves to illustrate the extent to which literalists misunderstand the apocalyptic genre or find it difficult to cope with allegory and symbolism in those places where it is clearly being applied.

Not only is it a faulty hermeneutic, it is one which fails to understand how ancient texts function.

But Gamaliel apocalyptic is a term only invented for convenience so we have a category to pigeon hole stuff that deals with the spirit world and Revelation deals with things both on earth and in the spirit world and the interaction of the two. To say that a door is opened in heaven for instance is metaphor for some worm hole that John perceived but he did perceive it so his experience is literally what happened. He says he was 'in the spirit on the Lord's day.' Well OK,he was literally praying and in touch with the world of spirit guided by the Holy Spirit. His experience was literal.

If you want to distinguish literal ie real tangible from metaphor figure used to understand or contextualise an idea, then you confuse the reality of the idea with the mode of communication which is what a figure of speech is.

Allegory is different as it is not a means of understanding something real but an interpretive device that uses analogous narrative, Spenser's Fairie Queene is an allegory of The cosmic battle behind British politics of the time. His Gloriana represented the queen but was not the queen. If we say the spiritual forces depicted in Revelation are allegorical, then we are saying they are not real I.E. there was no angel who put his foot on the ocean and the land and blew a trumpet. (Or would do so in a future event.)

The problem is that Spenser knew exactly what he was doing, inventing a fiction with a moral lesson. I do not think John was doing this at all. He was recounting a literal experience where the spirit world interacted with him, where the glorified Jesus stood before him and spoke a message for him to write down.

A symbol is again a means of signifying something real. To the Jewish mind the trumpet blast was significant. The trumpet is a symbol because of what it communicates kind of like the PE teacher' s whistle. You don't here the whistle you hear the noise it makes and that communicates the message stop go or end or seat. But the teacher will say when you hear the whistle which is to say when this noise happens,I want you to react in a particular way. So once again, something symbolic suggests a literal reality, time to do something. If then the trumpets and the seals in Revelation are symbols then they are signifying real things.

My overall point is that It is overly simplistic to juxtapose literal and figurative in apocalyptic writing.

--------------------
Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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