Saturday, October 12, 2024

NOT HOME YET (Review)

"Not Home Yet: How the Renewal of the Earth Fits into God's Plan for the World" - An easy to read, sane, sensible, and terse distillation of a much-neglected teaching of the Bible of which far too many Christians are ignorant - heaven and earth.

This is Biblical Theology at its best, beginning "In the beginning" with Genesis 1 and in the Garden with God's covenant with Adam and the Cultural Mandate, and ending in Revelation 21-22 with God's covenant with the last Adam in the Garden-City with the Great Commission/Cultural Mandate fulfilled in Christ.

Creation and recreation are solidly grounded in the basic Christian belief of "the resurrection of the body" (see Apostles' Creed). Our bodies don't burn up, but our same bodies are renewed, likewise, neither does creation burn up but this same creation is renewed.
Quite a brilliant book that speaks volumes in an economy of words!

Monday, October 7, 2024

AN OPTIMISTIC ESCHATLOGY

 Excerpted from pgs. 413-17. If not in Australia, check Amazon for copy in your own country  

The Kingdom: Every Square Inch : McKinlay, Neil Cullan, Schwartz, D. Rudi: Amazon.com.au: Books

An optimistic eschatology

Neither the negativity of Two Kingdom Theology nor Dispensationalism nor anything else will stop Christ’s Kingdom from coming. Why? Because His Kingdom, (yes, yet another little trinity!), has come (past tense), is coming (present tense), and will come (future tense). Imperceptible to the naked eye, it progressively expands like the tiny mustard seed that grows into a great tree, and in influence like the yeast in the batch of dough. We cannot stop it because it is not we, but the Spirit of Christ, that is building His Kingdom. Our hastening or our hindering its coming is simply another way of saying that God blesses covenant obedience and curses covenant disobedience. Therefore, it is important that we properly understand the Great Commission as we pray the Lord’s Prayer lest we disobey and disappoint the King.

It is presumed that the reader has a basic understanding of the three main views of ‘end times’, viz., Premillennialism, Amillennialism, and Postmillennialism. There are books aplenty discussing each member of this trinity. Now, when discussing each of these views, it can be difficult for the reviewer to give an assessment unbiased by his own particular perspective. That being said, in terms of Scottish weather, in order of sequence (i.e.., Pre-, A-, Post-) one might describe a) as overcast and raining, b) clouds with intermittent showers, and c) clear skies and sunny. For the first two, one needs to take an umbrella. For the last, sunscreen and sunglasses will do.

While referring to themselves as Optimillennials, those of the Postmillennial view refer to those holding the other two views as Pessimillennials. Should Christians be optimistic or pessimistic about God’s Kingdom promise to Jesus (and to us in Christ)? “But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:23-26). So, we see that it is God who is progressively subduing all of Christ's enemies (and ours). Just as Jesus defeated death by being resurrected from the dead, so will all those that belong to Him at the Last Day, a.k.a. Resurrection Day or Judgment Day.

Though there are trinities within this trinity of views, e.g., Premillennialism’s Pre, Mid, and Post-tribulation, all three views are agreed that Christ’s Kingdom is coming. The Pre- and A- views believe that things will not get better on earth till after Christ’s bodily return. The Premillennialist believes that things will progressively get worse, the Amillennialist believes that things will pretty much continue as they are. The former studies the news for signs of what it believes are supposed to take place before Christ’s return, with a particular fixation on today’s Israel and Jews in general. Some of the latter style themselves as optimistic Amillennialists, which, to all intents and purposes makes them Postmillennial, though they may not like to admit it. Postmillennialism is viewed by the other two as being triumphalist. However, as we have already noted, it is not we by our feeble human efforts, but God by His Spirit who progressively brings in Christ’s Kingdom. As it was for Zerubbabel, so it is for us, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit’” (Zech. 4:6).

Albert Wolters puts paid to an old canard, the false notion that having an optimist eschatology means anything other than a forward march fraught with falling into, but then draining and filling in swamps, ditches, and potholes. It is no smooth triumphalism. Says Wolters,

[T]he coming of Christ introduced an overlap of the ages in which the powers of evil continue to co-exist with the healing and renewing power of the age to come (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). A battle between these two “powers” characterizes this time period. In fact we live in a time when the antithesis between the two kingdoms has been heightened.

The history of this “time between the times,” then, will not be one of smooth progress or an incremental linear development of the kingdom towards its consummation. Neither will our mission be one that resembles a steady victorious march toward the end. Rather this redemptive era is one of fierce conflict with many casualties. Our mission will be one that is costly and will involve suffering. Paul states that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12, NIV; cf. Acts 14:22). How close our understanding of mission is to the New Testament’s may perhaps be in part judged by the place which we accord to suffering in our understanding of the calling of the church.

Now, Two Kingdom Theology belongs in the Amillennial camp, and, like Premillennialism, it does not hold to the progressive Christianisation of nations (and all the sovereign spheres therein) as Christ’s Kingdom continues to grow larger and spread in influence till Christ comes again, i.e., till His Kingdom comes. And so, if the Postmillennial view is triumphalist, then surely the Premillennial and Amillennial views are defeatist.

Like the man who “drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness”, so Premills and Amills think they have found the chink in the Postmill’s armour. It is found among those verses of Revelation from whence those endless disputes about Millennialism come. One is where it speaks of Satan being bound for a thousand years (a millennium). “And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Rev. 20:3 KJV). It is upon that little word “till” (ἄχρι) in the verse just quoted that the doctrine of “final apostasy” or “Satan’s little season” has been built. How can the Postmill position of the progressively increasing Kingdom – even to such a point where the nations will have beat their war weapons into gardening and agricultural implements and study war no more – be true if, in the end, Satan is going to be released to deceive the nations? According to the Postmill view, aren’t all the nations supposed to be Christian nations by then? Nigel Lee responds,

The KJV misunderstands the meaning of the word achri [ἄχρι] and renders Rev. 20:2-3:The Devil…should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled” etc., missuggesting that after the ‘Millennium’ the Devil will again deceive the Nations afresh. This is not so. For, after the visible return of Christ for His saved Nations at the end of the ‘Millennium’ – all the then-unchained Devil will be enabled to do – is keep on deceiving the resurrected dead nations he had previously been deceiving until the start of the ‘Millennium’ some thousand years earlier. Accordingly, we have better rendered Rev. 20:2-3; “The Devil…should deceive the Nations not even when the thousand years were completedetc.[1]      

In an article titled Reconstructing Postmillennialism, Martin Selbrede referred to Postmills who struggled with texts of the supposed ‘final apostasy’ as ‘pessimistic Postmillennialists’. Says Selbrede,

Modern postmils took Boettner’s 1958 ideas and ran with them, while Boettner’s continued scriptural examination of the issue led him to revise his book in 1984, readopting Warfield’s view and rejecting the final apostasy. Somebody surely missed the boat. But who? Today’s optimillennialists? Or Dr. Boettner?[2]

In Nigel Lee’s John’s Revelation Unveiled, (from which we have just quoted above), we find a Commendation by Professor Dr. Loraine Boettner, (which he wrote to Dr Lee in 1978), in which we read,

…I think that you have given a good explanation of that very difficult passage, Rev. 20:7-10. That is a section of Scripture that has been puzzling to me, as on the surface it seems to indicate a future final apostasy of the Church; and yet that seemed so contrary to what I believed would actually take place – no apostasy but rather a smooth transfer or merger into the heavenly kingdom…

Dr. Warfield did not believe that there would be a final apostasy. You have given a good explanation – that there is no actual apostasy, no real danger ever faces the saints, and that the Devil and his followers, are merely exposed before the righteous shortly before their final expulsion into hell. Thank you for it.

Directly after quoting Dr Warfield, says Dr Boettner in his revised 1984 version of The Millennium,

We agree that Revelation 20:1-10 affords no real basis for believing that there is to be a final apostasy in the sense that a large proportion of earth’s inhabitants turn against God, or that the safety of the saints is seriously threatened.[3]

Nigel Lee again,

There is no question of Satan deceiving the Christian majority of all the World’s many inhabitants – in that day! Nor is there then any apostasy from the World-dominating latter-day Church. Thus: Hippolytus, Jonathan Edwards, John Gill, Moses Stuart, Warfield, Stonehouse, Kik, Boettner, Vonk, Rissi, and Rushdoony. Nor is there even a short period of successful renewed Satanic activity to deceive even a portion of any Nation then extant. No! At that time, powerless Satan will need to be enabled, however feebly, to crawl out of his prison. Only Almighty God can and will unlock the door – and then turf out the Devil, unto his Final Judgment.

Still, the Devil will then indeed make a feeble and desperate attempt “to deceive” his previous dupes once more. Yet in doing this, he thus deceives not God’s elect – but only Satan’s own servants.[4]

And so whatever the real or imagined chink in the Postmill’s armour was, it has now been expertly repaired and our optimistic eschatology is fully intact.

Christ has already defeated death, and even though we are still in the ‘not yet’ aspect, we have confidence because of His resurrection as firstfruits. And because Christ has already ascended to receive His Kingdom, though we are still in the ‘not yet’, it is as good as having arrived! And though we have only received tokens of the ‘not yet’ (such as the Holy Spirit, regeneration, salvation, new hearts, new natures, new records et al), we are as good as having been resurrected as we await the redemption of our bodies.

So, after that brief but necessary digression in which we have stated, using the broadest of terms, some of the stumbling blocks and aversions some Christians have towards cultural engagement. It has to do with your view in eschatology, your view of last things from the perspective of your own day. Premillennialism says, why bother engaging culture when Christ is coming back at any moment? And Two Kingdom Theology Amillennialism says, engaging culture it is not the Church’s remit. But here’s what Henry Van Til says,

Through sin man fell away from God and his religion became apostate, but through Christ man is restored to true religion. It is therefore more correct to ask what the role of culture is in religion than to put the question the other way around … Man, in the deepest reaches of his being, is religious; he is determined by his relationship to God ... Hutchison … says, “For religion is not one aspect or department of life besides the others, as modern secular thought likes to believe; it consists rather in the orientation of all human life to the absolute.” Tillich has captured the idea in a trenchant line, “Religion is the substance of culture and culture is the form of religion.”[5]



[1] Francis Nigel Lee, John’s Revelation Unveiled, (Lygstryders, Lynnwoodrif, South Africa, 1999), 273, fn. 911.

[2] Martin G. Selbrede, 160 Journal of Christian Reconstruction / vol. 15.01, in an article titled Reconstructing Postmillennialism, 159-60.

[3] Loraine Boettner, The Millennium, (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1957, Revised edition 1984), 74.

[4] Francis Nigel Lee, Ibid, 278.

[5] Henry Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, (Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, 1959, Re[5]print 2001), 37.

Saturday, October 5, 2024

HORSES

                                                                            Horses

Image from Net
Horses play large in our vocabulary: Horseplay, horsepower, horse sense, flogging a dead horse, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, wild horses wouldn’t drag me away, get off your high horse, hold your horses, etc. It seems that we are always talking about horses. One of my hobby horses is the Bible and talking about the King of kings, which for me means that politics and religion go together like a horse and carriage. Yet, today’s society tries hard to unhitch the horse (Christianity) from its carriage (politics). It teaches that talking about these things is verboten. Thankfully, I don’t live in that world. For me it’s horses for courses. 

Politics has to do with governance, whole nations and every aspect thereof. Government is God’s minister to promote good and discourage evil (Rom. 13:1-5). Therefore, they are accountable to Christ, the King of kings for implementing His instruction (Matt. 25:32; Acts 17:31; Phil. 2:9-11). ‘Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people’ (Prov. 14:34). Speaking of horses…

Everyone has heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rev. 6:2-8). Each rides a differently coloured horse – white, fiery red, black, and pale, each horse and rider symbolising something. Though the Book of Revelation is seen by sensationalists as the motherload to mine for material for their bestselling books, they invariable are putting the cart before the horse. They interpret Revelation from the daily news rather than the rest of Scripture (See, e.g., Zech. 1:8-17; 6:1-8).

Revelation is all about the construction of Christ’s Kingdom while at the same time Satan’s kingdom is gradually being destroyed. In other words, it’s all about Jesus, the King of kings, progressively conquering the nations by His Spirit and His Word, i.e., with His Law and Gospel working in the hearts of men, women, and children. ‘And I looked, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer’ (Rev. 6:2). This rider has been identified as everything from Christ to His opposite, viz., antichrist. Scary videos are legion promoting their aberrations. We’ll let the sane and sober Bible commentator Matthew Henry give us a brief description of this verse: ‘The Lord Jesus appears riding on a white horse … The successful progress of the gospel of Christ in the world is a glorious sight, worth beholding. Christ’s work is not done all at once.’ Christians know how difficult it can be at times sharing the gospel with friends. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. However, lest we be discouraged we must remember that the Spirit must work with the Word, the sword of the Spirit, otherwise they will not drink the water of life. The Rider of the white horse must slay them before they will live.    

'Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS’ (Rev. 19:11-16).