A Case For Amillennialism-?

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moral necessity

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I picked up the book, A Case For Amillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger over the weekend, and am on Chapter 8. Has anyone read this yet? If there are any dispensationalists or pre/post millennialists who have been persuaded into Amillennialism, I just wondered what scriptures or reasoning convinced you of such a theological move?

Blessings!
 
I've read it and thought it was pretty good. An even better book for me was Jay Adams' The Time Is at Hand. Adams is an orthodox preterist as well as an amillennialist. Riddlebarger is an amil and a futurist.
 
I read it twice, first time as a postmillennialist and the second time as a premillennialist. It is well-written. he doesn't always deal with the opposition's strongest arguments. While I am not a postmillennialist nor a preterist, I wasn't impressed with his handling of that area. his arguments against classical dispensationalism was good; If I recall correctly he didn't really deal with progressive dispensationalism.
 
I heard several lectures by Dr. Riddlebarger at a conference recently. One reason no doubt he focuses so much on dispensationalism is that he used to be a Dispensational as well as the apparently pervasive influence of groups like Calvary Chapel in So. Cal.
 
I heard several lectures by Dr. Riddlebarger at a conference recently. One reason no doubt he focuses so much on dispensationalism is that he used to be a Dispensational as well as the apparently pervasive influence of groups like Calvary Chapel in So. Cal.

:ditto: and, sad to say, the more zany forms of classical dispensationalism have a vice-grip on Evangelical culture.
 
I picked up the book, A Case For Amillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger over the weekend, and am on Chapter 8. Has anyone read this yet? If there are any dispensationalists or pre/post millennialists who have been persuaded into Amillennialism, I just wondered what scriptures or reasoning convinced you of such a theological move?

Blessings!

I just got it and am reading it right now. When I finish it, I'll let you know what I think.
 
When I bought it, it was in a sale bin with a bunch of word of faith books and from what I remembered it was a good read.

I'd like see hear/see a debate between Pastor Jim McClarty from Grace Christian Assembly Kim Riddlebarger on eschatology, I can't agree with Pastor McClarty's dispensationalism but his arguments for premil are strong.

j
 
Some dispensationalists insist that the OT sacrifices would be sovereignly reinstated in the thousand year reign of Christ. I consider this an aberration because it insists that the work of Christ was not complete. If Christ fulfills the sacrifices, then why go back. The writer to the Hebrew has alot to say about this. I believe between Chap 7-10.
 
Some dispensationalists insist that the OT sacrifices would be sovereignly reinstated in the thousand year reign of Christ. I consider this an aberration because it insists that the work of Christ was not complete. If Christ fulfills the sacrifices, then why go back. The writer to the Hebrew has alot to say about this. I believe between Chap 7-10.

I have heard it taught. It borders on blasphemy in my opinion. :2cents:
 
Some dispensationalists insist that the OT sacrifices would be sovereignly reinstated in the thousand year reign of Christ. I consider this an aberration because it insists that the work of Christ was not complete. If Christ fulfills the sacrifices, then why go back. The writer to the Hebrew has alot to say about this. I believe between Chap 7-10.

Keep in mind that neither progressive dispensationalism nor historic premillennialism teach that.
 
Some dispensationalists insist that the OT sacrifices would be sovereignly reinstated in the thousand year reign of Christ. I consider this an aberration because it insists that the work of Christ was not complete. If Christ fulfills the sacrifices, then why go back. The writer to the Hebrew has alot to say about this. I believe between Chap 7-10.

Keep in mind that neither progressive dispensationalism nor historic premillennialism teach that.

I've always had trouble making sense of Zech. 14 which seems to teach a future Temple and sacrifices with all nations keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. All of this seems to take place after the battle of Armageddon when Christ returns to the Mount of Olives. If Zech. 14 is fulfilled in Christ then how are all nations keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and how did the battle of Armageddon happen, when did Christ return to the Mount of Olives?

:book2:

Ok, don't mean to get the thread off track...sorry.

j
 
If the Temple was a symbolic edifice, if the Feast of Tabernacles was a symbolic institution, etc., then prophecies can certainly be cast in terms of the symbol, while referring to the reality symbolized. If I have not misread him, I think that is the view Patrick Fairbairn takes in his book on Typology.
 
Even if they wanted to keep the sacrifices, some would argue that they wouldn't be Mosaic sacrifices in the sense of the old mosaic system. The old mosaic system was destroyed by exile(s). The sacrifices, whatever else they could be, aren't mosaic-redemptive.
 
I picked up the book, A Case For Amillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger over the weekend, and am on Chapter 8. Has anyone read this yet? If there are any dispensationalists or pre/post millennialists who have been persuaded into Amillennialism, I just wondered what scriptures or reasoning convinced you of such a theological move?

Blessings!

Here's another book thats very good. It's a little "sharp" at times on the rhetoric but very good nontheless.

A Defense of (Reformed) Amillennialism
 
If you can get past the invective, there might be some good things in that book...I guess. A friend of mine wrote a *moral* critique of the arguments in that book.
 
in my opinion, these are some of the best lectures on Revelation from an amill viewpoint I've ever heard. This brother can really preach.

Exposition of the Book of Revelation by Arturo G. Azurdia III

I have listened to several of these sermons, I think im up to chapter 7, what viewpoint is it that he teaches. I know it is amil and not futurist. It doesnt seem to be preterism, is this teaching historic idealism? I am just curious because I agree with much of what he says.
 
Even if they wanted to keep the sacrifices, some would argue that they wouldn't be Mosaic sacrifices in the sense of the old mosaic system. The old mosaic system was destroyed by exile(s). The sacrifices, whatever else they could be, aren't mosaic-redemptive.

And so they have to invent another type of sacrificial system in order to prop up their interpretation of Ezekiel's temple, event though Ezekiel says that the sacrifice is for the remission of sin (using language from the Mosaic system).

10 "And the Levites who went far from Me, when Israel went astray, who strayed away from Me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity. 11 Yet they shall be ministers in My sanctuary, as gatekeepers of the house and ministers of the house; they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister to them. 12 Because they ministered to them before their idols and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore I have raised My hand in an oath against them," says the Lord God, "that they shall bear their iniquity. 13 And they shall not come near Me to minister to Me as priest, nor come near any of My holy things, nor into the Most Holy Place; but they shall bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed. 14 Nevertheless I will make them keep charge of the temple, for all its work, and for all that has to be done in it. 15 "But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood," says the Lord God. 16 They shall enter My sanctuary, and they shall come near My table to minister to Me, and they shall keep My charge.

29 They shall eat the grain offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering; every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs. 30 The best of all firstfruits of any kind, and every sacrifice of any kind from all your sacrifices, shall be the priest's; also you shall give to the priest the first of your ground meal, to cause a blessing to rest on your house. 31 The priests shall not eat anything, bird or beast, that died naturally or was torn by wild beasts. (Ezekiel 44)

So they say the temple is to be taken literally but what goes on in the temple is not to be taken literally.
 
I've read it and thought it was pretty good. An even better book for me was Jay Adams' The Time Is at Hand. Adams is an orthodox preterist as well as an amillennialist. Riddlebarger is an amil and a futurist.

I believe Riddlebarger identifies himself as a historical idealist amillennialist.

I think you're right about that, Tom. I guess I was thinking more about his position on the future antichrist in The Man of Sin and it made me think he was a futurist.
 
in my opinion, these are some of the best lectures on Revelation from an amill viewpoint I've ever heard. This brother can really preach.

Exposition of the Book of Revelation by Arturo G. Azurdia III

I have listened to several of these sermons, I think im up to chapter 7, what viewpoint is it that he teaches. I know it is amil and not futurist. It doesnt seem to be preterism, is this teaching historic idealism? I am just curious because I agree with much of what he says.

I think he comes from the historic idealist viewpoint.
 
And so they have to invent another type of sacrificial system in order to prop up their interpretation of Ezekiel's temple, event though Ezekiel says that the sacrifice is for the remission of sin (using language from the Mosaic system).

The issue of animal Sacrifices is a hard issue, but details are given in Eze. 40:39 – 42 and 43:18 – 46:24. It’s important to note, these animal Sacrifices are clearly different then those found in the Mosaic system with a few elements of the Mosaic system remaining. One theologian writes, ‘Doubtless these offerings will be memorial, looking back to the cross, as the offering under the old covenant were anticipatory, looking forward to the cross.’ I don't believe this to be true but I'm still trying to figure out all these issues. We know that ‘it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins,’ [Heb. 10:3] The OT sacrifices produced an outward ceremonial cleaness, a ritual purification on the people which allowed them to draw near as worshippers of God. We find sacrifices even made for inanimate things Ex. 29:37, no remission of sins can be had for inanimate things. Atonement in this day and age of theology, I think, has a deeper meaning then it did in the OT sense of the word, for instance, describing the work of Christ on the cross. The work of Christ has more of a reconciliation to God in mind (Rom. 5:11). I believe the passages in Hebrews insist that no future offerings can deal with sins any more then they did in the past...if they're are going to be any in the future... I just don't understand the need for exact details in Ezekiel if it's to be understood in the spiritual sense. Without arguing for a future Temple, when we read in 2 Thess. 2:3-4 about the anti-Christ who 'sitteth in the Temple of God, shewing himself that he is God,’ how is this possible without a Temple?

I asked before, if Zech. 14 is fulfilled in Christ then how are all nations keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and how did the battle of Armageddon happen, when did Christ return to the Mount of Olives?

It's confusing.

Peace and thank you.

j
 
The issue of animal Sacrifices is a hard issue, but details are given in Eze. 40:39 – 42 and 43:18 – 46:24.

I think that premills make it a hard issue ignoring typology. Matthew Henry explains it well:

The general scope of it I take to be, ... 2. To direct them [the Jews] to look further than all this, and to expect the coming of the Messiah, who had before been prophesied of under the name of David because he was the man that projected the building of the temple and that should set up a spiritual temple, even the gospel-church, the glory of which should far exceed that of Solomon's temple, and which should continue to the end of time. The dimensions of these visionary buildings being so large (the new temple more spacious than all the old Jerusalem and the new Jerusalem of greater extent than all the land of Canaan) plainly intimates, as Dr. Lightfoot observes, that these things cannot be literally, but must spiritually, understood. At the gospel-temple, erected by Christ and his apostles, was so closely connected with the second material temple, was erected so carefully just at the time when that fell into decay, that it might be ready to receive its glories when it resigned them, that it was proper enough that they should both be referred to in one and the same vision. Under the type and figure of a temple and altar, priests and sacrifices, is foreshown the spiritual worship that should be performed in gospel times, more agreeable to the nature both of God and man, and that perfected at last in the kingdom of glory, in which perhaps these visions will have their full accomplishment, and some think in some happy and glorious state of the gospel-church on this side heaven, in the latter days.​

Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) | Christian Classics Ethereal Library

As does Gill:
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
 
Thanks RJS, but I fail to see how this handles the details given. What in the text from Eze. would make them a "type and figure" of the Church? I read that they are but we're not told why they are. It was quoted, "that these things cannot be taken literally, but must spiritually, understood" because the details would make the Temple too big. That's fine, but what in the text would lead us to believe it can't be understood literally and that it has to be spiritually?

The same with the 1000 years in Rev. I read often that this is only stated one place in the Bible, fine, but how many times are we told we must be born again?

I asked before, if Zech. 14 is fulfilled in Christ then how are all nations keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and how did the battle of Armageddon happen, when did Christ return to the Mount of Olives?

I'm just trying to understand.

:candle:
 
And so they have to invent another type of sacrificial system in order to prop up their interpretation of Ezekiel's temple, event though Ezekiel says that the sacrifice is for the remission of sin (using language from the Mosaic system).

The issue of animal Sacrifices is a hard issue, but details are given in Eze. 40:39 – 42 and 43:18 – 46:24. It’s important to note, these animal Sacrifices are clearly different then those found in the Mosaic system with a few elements of the Mosaic system remaining. One theologian writes, ‘Doubtless these offerings will be memorial, looking back to the cross, as the offering under the old covenant were anticipatory, looking forward to the cross.’ I don't believe this to be true but I'm still trying to figure out all these issues. We know that ‘it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins,’ [Heb. 10:3] The OT sacrifices produced an outward ceremonial cleaness, a ritual purification on the people which allowed them to draw near as worshippers of God. We find sacrifices even made for inanimate things Ex. 29:37, no remission of sins can be had for inanimate things. Atonement in this day and age of theology, I think, has a deeper meaning then it did in the OT sense of the word, for instance, describing the work of Christ on the cross. The work of Christ has more of a reconciliation to God in mind (Rom. 5:11). I believe the passages in Hebrews insist that no future offerings can deal with sins any more then they did in the past...if they're are going to be any in the future... I just don't understand the need for exact details in Ezekiel if it's to be understood in the spiritual sense. Without arguing for a future Temple, when we read in 2 Thess. 2:3-4 about the anti-Christ who 'sitteth in the Temple of God, shewing himself that he is God,’ how is this possible without a Temple?

I asked before, if Zech. 14 is fulfilled in Christ then how are all nations keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and how did the battle of Armageddon happen, when did Christ return to the Mount of Olives?

It's confusing.

Peace and thank you.

j


Scofield ... It all gets back to his and Darby's aberrant system.

I agree it can get confusing if you adopt the literalist futurist's presuppositions about things like temple, sacrifices, feast of tabernacles, Armageddon. The presupposition is that these things must be taken "literally" and must be future. But you first have to demonstrate that they were intended by the writers to be taken "literally".
 
I asked before, if Zech. 14 is fulfilled in Christ then how are all nations keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and how did the battle of Armageddon happen, when did Christ return to the Mount of Olives?

Hi brother,

I am no scholar on this but I think you need to revisit the hermenutics of interpreting prophesy. I am currently waiting for the volume on prophecy in the Handbooks for Old Testament Exegesis series. I know that I am not the one to teach you....
 
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