# The High King of Heaven by Dean Davis



## Stephen L Smith (Oct 27, 2014)

Has anyone read The High King of Heaven By Dean Davis. What did you think of it? It looks like one of the most extensive works on eschatology on the market.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Oct 27, 2014)

Hi Stephen,

You beat me to commenting on this! So I’ll just post what I have written:

A heads-up on a new book, Dean Davis’ *The High King of Heaven*, of which Dr. Sam Storms said, “The most sweeping and comprehensive book on eschatology that I've ever encountered. The scope of this book is simply breathtaking.” (It was fourth in Storms' "Best Ten books of 2013".) One of the beauties of this book is the simplicity of language and ease of access to the reader (and not just the highly educated). Storms himself is a world-class author on eschatology (study of the last things, which commenced with the first coming of Jesus Christ).

If you’re interested in considering the different end-time views and making sense of them, understanding what Scripture actually says without the spin of someone’s agenda, this is a great book to get into.

Looking at the various schemas used to interpret Revelation, I myself have settled upon the one that includes *all* the churches from John’s day to the end of the age, excluding none. This means that the book and its vital – *urgent* – counsel was as much for the church in Smyrna in 100 A.D. as it was for the churches of the Waldenses in the mountains of Europe in 1,000 A.D., and for the churches in our contemporary world of 2014 A.D. The Amillennial – aka the *present* “millennial” reign of Jesus Christ from heaven – is the only view that does not exclude large segments of the age-long church from the blessings of wisdom and courage promised the readers and keepers of the prophecies of Revelation. Only in the context of the entire NT church age do the details of the visions fit into perfect place. But it needs to be explained clearly, which this book does!

Davis examines the Old Testament prophecies as well, and gives a well-rounded Biblical presentation of what the LORD graciously revealed to His people so that we would not be taken by surprise at things to come.

A very welcome focus – a foundational one, at that – is an examination of what actually is “the Kingdom of God”? And how to reconcile the OT language and imagery used when prophesying of the Kingdom that Messiah would _inaugurate_ as well as the Kingdom _consummated_ after the eschaton? This is masterfully handled by Davis.

I’ve been going through HKOH, initially some parts that much interest me, such as chapters 18 and 25. I like the way he handles the Zechariah prophecies, clearly, easy to access, skillfully demonstrating the NT authors’ hermeneutic of spiritual / symbolic interpretation. I wish I had had this material some years ago, as I struggled to understand chapter 14 especially. (I’d corresponded with David Engelsma then, and he was a help to me.) I really am out of my league in Davis’ work – which is scholarly, Biblically based, comprehensive and yet somehow easy reading. This is an important work; I can see why Sam Storms gave such an enthusiastic remark concerning it – it’s an extensive and valuable resource for those wanting to study Eschatology, yet not dense and difficult as is much of G.K. Beale’s work (or even Storms’), but an easily accessible read.

Here is the Table of Contents to give an idea of the ground he covers, and the method he uses:


*High King of Heaven Contents*

Prologue and Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction: The Blessed Hope in These Last Days. . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
*Part 1: Issues and Options in Biblical Eschatology*
1. What is Biblical Eschatology?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Issues in Biblical Eschatology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Options in Biblical Eschatology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4. He has the Keys!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
*Part 2: Understanding the Kingdom of God*
5. The Good News of the Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6. The Beginning and the Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7. The Covenant and the Kingdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
8. The OT Promise of the Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
9. The Coming of the Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
10. Salvation History: A Journey to the Kingdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
11. These are the Keys!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
*Part 3: Understanding Old Testament Kingdom Prophecy*
12. The Nature and Stages of the Kingdom in
Old Testament Prophecy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
13. New Testament Principles for Interpreting
OT Kingdom Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
14. NT Examples of Interpreting OT Kingdom
Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
15. OT Kingdom Prophecies Considered: Psalms,
Isaiah, Jeremiah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
16. OT Kingdom Prophecies Considered: Ezekiel . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
17. OT Kingdom Prophecies Considered: Daniel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
18. OT Kingdom Prophecies Considered: Zechariah. . . . . . . . . . . 380
*Part 4: Understanding the Millennium*
19. The Revelation: Purpose and Literary Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
20. The Revelation: Structure and Key Symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
21. Revelation 20: The Meaning of the Millennium. . . . . . . . . . . . 465
*Part 5: Understanding the Consummation*
22. The Design, Structure, and Unity of the
Consummation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
23. Crucial NT Texts Pertaining to the
Consummation (1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
24. Crucial NT Texts Pertaining to the
Consummation (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
25. The Consummation: A Biblical Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
Epilogue: Amillennialism: An Eschatology for These Last Days . . . 607
Appendix 1: A Critique of Historic Premillennialism. . . . . . . . . . . . 613
Appendix 2: A Critique of Postmillennialism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
Appendix 3: A Critique of Dispensational Premillennialism . . . . . . 624
Appendix 4: A Critique of Preterism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
Appendix 5: Is the Modern State of Israel a Fulfillment of
Biblical Prophecy?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
Appendix 6: Old Testament Kingdom Prophecies Listed. . . . . . . . . 661
Appendix 7: Old Testament Kingdom Prophecies Cited in the
New Testament. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
Appendix 8: New Testament Texts Touching on
the Parousia/Consummation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .671
Appendix 9: Biblical Prophecies of the Last Battle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Appendix 10: The Creeds of Christendom on the
Consummation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
Endnotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Scripture Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Select Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722​


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## Cymro (Oct 27, 2014)

Am with you Steve on your remarks concerning Revelation, and your appraisal of Davies's book
provoked an interest in getting it. A friend of mine long since departed for Immanuels land,wrote,
The interpretation of prophecy is much abused in these days. Prophecy is not not designed to enable the curious to speculate on future events. It's purpose is to keep hope alive, until in the progression of time, that for which the
awakened soul yearns, will finally be revealed.


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## Stephen L Smith (Oct 27, 2014)

Thank you Steve! That is a very helpful review. I have purchased the book.

From what I can see he links eschatology to a strong covenant theology. Is that right? If so that would add to its usefulness.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Oct 28, 2014)

Stephen, yes, a hermeneutic based upon the New Covenant and its interpretive methods is central to his exposition of the OT, and especially its prophecies of the kingdom of God, though he gives great respect and due weight to those who are what he calls “prophetic literalists”, as indeed some of the OT prophecies were fulfilled literally, such as Christ being born of a virgin, that God was His Father, He would die for the sins of His people, etc. 

This is from his second chapter, Issues in Biblical Eschatology:
*The Two Main Solutions*

So now we have a problem—the biggest, thorniest, and most fundamental of the Great End Time Debate. How shall we reconcile this apparent contradiction in Scripture? How shall we reconcile the OT foreview of the Kingdom—which seems to represent it as a reign of God (primarily) over ethnic Israel, a reign mediated by the Old Covenant—with the NT view of the Kingdom, which seems to represent it a (spiritual) reign of God over a new spiritual Israel, mediated by a new and Eternal Covenant that Christ gave to his Church (Gal. 6:16)? Needless to say, biblical interpreters subsequent to the apostles have wrestled long and hard with this challenging question. The result, as we shall see on the next leg of our journey, is a largish number of different solutions to the eschatological puzzle. Nevertheless, I will argue that the situation is not nearly as confusing as it might appear to be at first glance, for in the end the solutions fall more or less neatly into one of two categories. In other words, fundamentally, there are only two possible solutions to this theological problem.

On the one hand, there is the solution embraced by the traditional Church; the solution implied and required by the vast majority of Christian creeds and confessions.[SUP]1[/SUP] According to this view, in OT times God was pleased to clothe or _veil_ his revelations of the coming Kingdom in imagery drawn from the Old Covenant under which his OT people lived. Effectively, this rendered the true nature of the promised Kingdom a “mystery,” a secret that would not be fully revealed until the coming of Christ the King. This means that when we walk onto OT turf, seeking to understand OTKP, we must bring with us the riches of NT teaching about the nature and structure of the Kingdom. In particular, we must follow the lead of Christ and his apostles by interpreting OTKP, not literally, in terms of the Old Covenant, but figuratively, in terms of the New Covenant. We must, as it were, use the Rosetta Stone of the New Covenant to translate the mystical language of Old. In so doing, our goal is always the same: to see the blessings that Christ brought us in New Testament times mystically promised and prefigured in the Old—and to savor them when we do.

All this is, of course, a theological mouthful, one that we will carefully chew and digest in the pages ahead. (pp 14-15)​ 
He then proceeds to give the literalist view, and shows it wanting in light of how Christ and the apostles interpret the OT. Davis goes into great detail in order to bring great clarity, something which is needed in this area. And he does it simply, in an easily readable style, dealing first with the foundational issues.


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## JimmyH (Oct 29, 2014)

Available on Amazon Kindle for $7.99 if anyone prefers that format to the more expensive paperback. Reviews showing that it was purchased on that digital format didn't mention any glitches.


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