Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
Matthew, I do believe your pure idealism has distorted your view of the eclectic or modified idealist position. It makes your take on it as rigid as the “radical idealism” decried in post #25. It is simply intolerable to full idealism to see any historical referents. This intolerance bleeds into your critique. Though I know you mean well, and are gracious as well as scholarly. It is a matter of truth and fidelity for you, and I take it in that spirit.
At times Puritanboard serves as preliminary peer review for various theological theses; it gives the opportunity for the learnèd here to challenge a thesis, and for the proponent to defend it against challenges.
I will try to keep this “defense” pithy, as we none of us like bloat in a thread. I will respond to your points (in blue) head-on.
Your position is not eclectic, Steve. It is selectively historicist.
It is my contention that, barring the seven letters of chapters 2 and 3, Revelation is essentially idealist until chapter 9, with the exception of the sixth seal and its vision of the brief time of terror just before the Second Coming. At chapter 9 we have two symbolic events, first a demonic darkening of the air, blotting out the sun, with the creatures that make up the smoke coming out of the abyss likened to scorpions that torment men but do not kill them. The commentators agree that this is an image depicting deception by the influence of demons. The second symbolic event is generally understood as a further development of the first deception, more demons entering the human sphere and these causing killing, one third of humankind to be exact. Both of these symbolic events speak of things that take place on earth, among men. I will comment further on this below.
Chapter 10 idealist, and chapter 11 until we get to verse 7, where the beast kills the two witnesses. Some say this is the killing / overcoming of the witnessing members of the church throughout the gospel age, and that may be true in a minor way, yet when we get to vv 11 and 12 we see the witnesses raised to life and then caught up to heaven as a great voice says to them, “Come up here!” And at that command the seventh trumpet sounds, bringing to mind the “last trump” of 1 Cor 15:52, and 1 Thess 4:16, 17—the beginning of the resurrection of the dead, the elect first.
Rev 12 an idealist vision of pre-Christ Israel, His birth, and the age-long warfare. Rev 13 all idealist save one can see the finale in v 7, yet it is basically idealist. Chapters 14 and 15 idealist, and then we come to the bowls / vials of chapter 16. I acknowledge these vials are present through all the age, the wrath of God visited upon men through the centuries, and yet there is the fullness of the wrath of God (Rev 15:1) at the end of time, which is shown in the fifth and sixth bowls—the throne or seat of the Beast darkened—and the nations called, by means of deception, “to THE battle of that great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:14) [emphasis added—commentators all remarking on the importance of the definite article].
Rev 17 we have the vision of the beast and the whore Babylon, Rev 18 the causes of and execution of the judgment of Babylon. Is this to be taken as idealist recapitulation or are we at the end, or very near it? Rev 19 shows THE battle again, as does Rev 20:7,8.9. I’ll tie things together in a moment.
…you repeatedly speak of the fifth and sixth in the series of visions taking place at specific points and periods of history. On this thread you have even said that it took fifty years for the fifth trumpet to fully manifest. There is nothing idealist about this. When you speak like this you have ceased to be idealist in any sense. You have adopted an historicist hermeneutic that eclectics themselves reject.
The amil commentators almost unanimously speak of the sixth bowl in terms of, not as a recapitulated event, but THE battle at the end of time. It is an historic thing. I suppose all these closet historicists have finally been outed, no? To the contrary, this is what the eclectic modified idealist school holds to. To radical idealists no doubt this is blatant historicism, but fortunately they do not call the shots or define the terms.
Okay, do I push the envelope? Yes, I do. And here are some of my reasons: It is understood that the sixth bowl and the sixth trumpet (Beale, Smalley) are connected, “indeed, the sixth trumpet and the sixth bowl seem to depict the same event from different points of view” (Smalley). Beale then says, “this means that the sixth trumpet is an escalation of the fifth by its introduction of death, but the sixth trumpet continues to unleash the affliction of the fifth against all the surviving nonelect.” (citations for quotes in above posts)
So when the commentators view the sixth bowl non-idealistically, but real on the earth, while connecting this bowl to the sixth and fifth trumpets, it says to me that this cluster of symbols are of a cloth, for how can the bowl be connected to the fifth and sixth trumpets, with the former being historic and the latter two idealist? Apples and oranges don’t mix. They are all of the same kind—historic. No doubt I will not convince my radical idealist brother, but perchance those less rigid will see it. There are historic events in the eclectic position, to wit, the sixth bowl, Armageddon; this final battle is not in the ether, but on the earth. I push it a little farther back in time—these earthly doings.
As for the fifty years for the fifth trumpet to fully manifest: I have spelled that out above in the paper, New Insights in Amillennial Eschatology.pdf. I will defend that also, but later—this is to be pithy!
You have boldly pronounced we are at the end. You have made statements about the destruction of nations. At this point you are not exercising any patience, but are hastily making identifications which have no basis in holy Scripture. You have made yourself a prophet, and it seems to me that time will make a false prophet of you, as it has done in the case of others.
You are getting a bit worked up and carried away here, Matthew. I have surmised that it could be decades, while reiterating the Lord’s warning that we are not to try to figure out the time of the end. It is not wrong—neither against the word of God—to seek to discern the times we are in. What I saw concerning the advent of the age of sorcery back in the sixties I stand by. We are now seeing, fifty years later, more and more killing, as though the spirit of man is becoming filled with it. No big deal nowadays to kill cops, Christians—whoever offends us. And heads of states rattling their sabers also. There is a madness in the air that bodes ill for humankind. And I haven’t even mentioned—concerning this America—the judgment we have called forth by our egregious wickedness.
Hasty identifications? Destruction of nations? Well, one third of humankind, as prophesied by Scripture (unless you want to idealize that into meaninglessness) would likely include nations, unless pandemics of disease were to be the means, though the violence implied by the demonic torrent seems to speak of war. Is Babylon to be destroyed? Of course, it is written. But what is Babylon? Could it be the U.S.? Identifications, yes. Hasty, no.
Do I make myself a prophet? In the larger book, in the booklet, A Poet Arises In Israel, I wrote,
The prophetic office in Israel closed when the last prophet, John son of Zebedee (Matthew 10:2), finished writing the apocalyptic vision and prophecy given him around 95 CE—the culmination of all Old and New Covenant prophecy—so what I write is not “immediate” prophecy given me, yet as a student of prophecies the prophetic word of those who came before us is in my mouth.
I interpret the prophecies; in fairness I think the worst you could rightly say of me is that I am a poor interpreter of the prophecies. The prophecies of Scripture speak for themselves, at least when they are not silenced by effete systems of interpretation. I will continue my defense later. I must sleep.
At times Puritanboard serves as preliminary peer review for various theological theses; it gives the opportunity for the learnèd here to challenge a thesis, and for the proponent to defend it against challenges.
I will try to keep this “defense” pithy, as we none of us like bloat in a thread. I will respond to your points (in blue) head-on.
Your position is not eclectic, Steve. It is selectively historicist.
It is my contention that, barring the seven letters of chapters 2 and 3, Revelation is essentially idealist until chapter 9, with the exception of the sixth seal and its vision of the brief time of terror just before the Second Coming. At chapter 9 we have two symbolic events, first a demonic darkening of the air, blotting out the sun, with the creatures that make up the smoke coming out of the abyss likened to scorpions that torment men but do not kill them. The commentators agree that this is an image depicting deception by the influence of demons. The second symbolic event is generally understood as a further development of the first deception, more demons entering the human sphere and these causing killing, one third of humankind to be exact. Both of these symbolic events speak of things that take place on earth, among men. I will comment further on this below.
Chapter 10 idealist, and chapter 11 until we get to verse 7, where the beast kills the two witnesses. Some say this is the killing / overcoming of the witnessing members of the church throughout the gospel age, and that may be true in a minor way, yet when we get to vv 11 and 12 we see the witnesses raised to life and then caught up to heaven as a great voice says to them, “Come up here!” And at that command the seventh trumpet sounds, bringing to mind the “last trump” of 1 Cor 15:52, and 1 Thess 4:16, 17—the beginning of the resurrection of the dead, the elect first.
Rev 12 an idealist vision of pre-Christ Israel, His birth, and the age-long warfare. Rev 13 all idealist save one can see the finale in v 7, yet it is basically idealist. Chapters 14 and 15 idealist, and then we come to the bowls / vials of chapter 16. I acknowledge these vials are present through all the age, the wrath of God visited upon men through the centuries, and yet there is the fullness of the wrath of God (Rev 15:1) at the end of time, which is shown in the fifth and sixth bowls—the throne or seat of the Beast darkened—and the nations called, by means of deception, “to THE battle of that great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:14) [emphasis added—commentators all remarking on the importance of the definite article].
Rev 17 we have the vision of the beast and the whore Babylon, Rev 18 the causes of and execution of the judgment of Babylon. Is this to be taken as idealist recapitulation or are we at the end, or very near it? Rev 19 shows THE battle again, as does Rev 20:7,8.9. I’ll tie things together in a moment.
…you repeatedly speak of the fifth and sixth in the series of visions taking place at specific points and periods of history. On this thread you have even said that it took fifty years for the fifth trumpet to fully manifest. There is nothing idealist about this. When you speak like this you have ceased to be idealist in any sense. You have adopted an historicist hermeneutic that eclectics themselves reject.
The amil commentators almost unanimously speak of the sixth bowl in terms of, not as a recapitulated event, but THE battle at the end of time. It is an historic thing. I suppose all these closet historicists have finally been outed, no? To the contrary, this is what the eclectic modified idealist school holds to. To radical idealists no doubt this is blatant historicism, but fortunately they do not call the shots or define the terms.
Okay, do I push the envelope? Yes, I do. And here are some of my reasons: It is understood that the sixth bowl and the sixth trumpet (Beale, Smalley) are connected, “indeed, the sixth trumpet and the sixth bowl seem to depict the same event from different points of view” (Smalley). Beale then says, “this means that the sixth trumpet is an escalation of the fifth by its introduction of death, but the sixth trumpet continues to unleash the affliction of the fifth against all the surviving nonelect.” (citations for quotes in above posts)
So when the commentators view the sixth bowl non-idealistically, but real on the earth, while connecting this bowl to the sixth and fifth trumpets, it says to me that this cluster of symbols are of a cloth, for how can the bowl be connected to the fifth and sixth trumpets, with the former being historic and the latter two idealist? Apples and oranges don’t mix. They are all of the same kind—historic. No doubt I will not convince my radical idealist brother, but perchance those less rigid will see it. There are historic events in the eclectic position, to wit, the sixth bowl, Armageddon; this final battle is not in the ether, but on the earth. I push it a little farther back in time—these earthly doings.
As for the fifty years for the fifth trumpet to fully manifest: I have spelled that out above in the paper, New Insights in Amillennial Eschatology.pdf. I will defend that also, but later—this is to be pithy!
You have boldly pronounced we are at the end. You have made statements about the destruction of nations. At this point you are not exercising any patience, but are hastily making identifications which have no basis in holy Scripture. You have made yourself a prophet, and it seems to me that time will make a false prophet of you, as it has done in the case of others.
You are getting a bit worked up and carried away here, Matthew. I have surmised that it could be decades, while reiterating the Lord’s warning that we are not to try to figure out the time of the end. It is not wrong—neither against the word of God—to seek to discern the times we are in. What I saw concerning the advent of the age of sorcery back in the sixties I stand by. We are now seeing, fifty years later, more and more killing, as though the spirit of man is becoming filled with it. No big deal nowadays to kill cops, Christians—whoever offends us. And heads of states rattling their sabers also. There is a madness in the air that bodes ill for humankind. And I haven’t even mentioned—concerning this America—the judgment we have called forth by our egregious wickedness.
Hasty identifications? Destruction of nations? Well, one third of humankind, as prophesied by Scripture (unless you want to idealize that into meaninglessness) would likely include nations, unless pandemics of disease were to be the means, though the violence implied by the demonic torrent seems to speak of war. Is Babylon to be destroyed? Of course, it is written. But what is Babylon? Could it be the U.S.? Identifications, yes. Hasty, no.
Do I make myself a prophet? In the larger book, in the booklet, A Poet Arises In Israel, I wrote,
The prophetic office in Israel closed when the last prophet, John son of Zebedee (Matthew 10:2), finished writing the apocalyptic vision and prophecy given him around 95 CE—the culmination of all Old and New Covenant prophecy—so what I write is not “immediate” prophecy given me, yet as a student of prophecies the prophetic word of those who came before us is in my mouth.
I interpret the prophecies; in fairness I think the worst you could rightly say of me is that I am a poor interpreter of the prophecies. The prophecies of Scripture speak for themselves, at least when they are not silenced by effete systems of interpretation. I will continue my defense later. I must sleep.