# The Promise of the Future - Cornelis P. Venema



## Mayflower (Mar 31, 2006)

Have anyone read this book about eschatology ? Does Cornelis P. Venema hold to a amillennium or a postmillennium position ?


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## RamistThomist (Mar 31, 2006)

amillennial. From what I have read it is okay. He does a better job than most amillennials presenting his position. In other words, he makes an attempt to deal with Ken Gentry. 

His amillennialism is a lot more balanced than say Cox and others. It is closer to the Confession. While the Confession wisely doesn't state a millennial position, the larger catechism speaks of gospel victory within time and space. Venema comes close to that. I still disagree with him, but It is a good book to have on amillennialism (kind of pricy, though)


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## RamistThomist (Mar 31, 2006)

I will also add: much of it is well-written.


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 31, 2006)

I read this book, and I too thought it was very well written. There are one or two (maybe more) seminaries that have adopted it as the current foundational "textbook" for the systematic Eschatological _locus._


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## RamistThomist (Mar 31, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Contra_Mundum_
> I read this book, and I too thought it was very well written. There are one or two (maybe more) seminaries that have adopted it as the current foundational "textbook" for the systematic Eschatological _locus._



RTS uses Hoeksema for systematic locus and Venema for Hebrews-Revelation.


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 31, 2006)

RTS has probably used Anthony A Hoekema, _The Bible and the Future,_ since Dr. Smith introduced it when he taught there. GPTS used Hoekema as the basic text up until my final year (2000-01). I read and reviewed _Promise of the Future_ as part of my coursework for that course. The following school year Dr. Smith transitioned to Venema.

[Edited on 3-31-2006 by Contra_Mundum]


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## RamistThomist (Mar 31, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Contra_Mundum_ edited to correct my spelling
> RTS has probably used Hoekema, _The Bible and the Future,_ since Dr. Smith introduced it when he taught there. GPTS used Hoekema as the basic text up until my final year (2000-01). I read and reviewed _Promise of the Future_ as part of my coursework for that course. The following school year Dr. Smith transitioned to Venema.



Which one do you like better? Who offers the better case? I haven't read Bible and Future.

[Edited on 4-1-2006 by Contra_Mundum]


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 31, 2006)

Hoekema's (note the sp. correction) book was first published in 1979. He taught for some years at Calvin Theological Seminary (Grand Rapids, the theological school for the CRC). In it he interacts a great deal with current (at that time) and past theological literature. I do not say that it mars the book at all, but clearly it is as much a "theological" work as as "exegetical" one. In this sense, there is "more to the book" than Venema's.

I still like Venema better, however. He is better (more focused) organizationally and exegetically. He is far less interested in technical work, and more interested in expositing Scripture. He is not interested in interacting with innumerable variants of liberal thought, whereas Hoekema feels it necessary to glean "the gold" from popular liberals as well as addressing more popular abberations. Venema zeroes in on misapplications of the Bible. Yet his footnotes are valuable in the "scholarly" department.

In short, I felt Venema's book far more useful to a preacher (or a preacher wannabe-seminary student like I used to be) than the more "scholarly" Hoekema. What I thought reading Hoekema was "who is Oscar Cullman, or who was he 30+ years ago when his "cutting edge" theology was the latest challenge to Reformed orthodoxy to "keep up" with theological development? Now we have NT Wright." With Venema, I never asked "Who cares?" or "Who will care about this paragraph in 20 years?"

The other thing I like about Venema is the way he handles the "millennial question." Both men demolish dispensationalism, but Venema is more balanced in his handling of postmillennialism (a glaring ommission: Hoekema never even deals with "optimistic" passages; in CRC circles postmil issues probably not even on the radar screen in the 1970s).

[Edited on 4-1-2006 by Contra_Mundum]


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## RamistThomist (Mar 31, 2006)

Thanks Bruce! I got your U2U


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