Quick Survey on Eschatological Positions of Current Board Regulars

What is your broad position?

  • Amillennial

    Votes: 55 62.5%
  • Postmillennial

    Votes: 26 29.5%
  • Premillennial

    Votes: 6 6.8%
  • Something that distinguishes itself from all 3

    Votes: 1 1.1%

  • Total voters
    88
  • Poll closed .
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Israel has not been replaced by the church

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Israel has not been replaced by the church

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; And the people
whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. Psalm 33:12​

When Christ – the Messiah of Israel – came among His people, taught them and died for them, He came as the King anciently prophesied. Of Him Isaiah said, “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever” (9:7). Daniel saw in vision, “there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (7:14). Messiah, on the throne of David, shall rule a kingdom comprised of many nations.

When the angel Gabriel foretold His birth to Mary His mother, he said, “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father, David; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; And of his kingdom there shall be no end.” (Luke 1:32, 33)

We see here Messiah coming into the world to establish and order his kingdom; it is called by the angel “the house of Jacob”, and in this kingdom will be many nations, peoples, and languages; Micah said of Messiah, that He is “to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (5:2). We also see that Messiah, Jesus the Christ, extends the boundaries of His kingdom – the kingdom of Israel – to include all the earth, and this is fitting, for “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all they that dwell therein.... For God is the king of all the earth.... [He] reigns over the heathen” (Ps 24:1; 47:7, 8). There is no doubt that this long-awaited kingdom – of which Daniel said the God of heaven would set it up and it would never be destroyed but rather would do away with all rival kingdoms (2:44) – this very kingdom was Israel; its king, Jesus of Nazareth, seed of the royal line of David; its capital, New Jerusalem: “And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their honour and glory into it” (Rev 21:24).

But many in ancient Israel would not hear Him, rather hated Him. Of such, God speaking through Moses declared, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him” (Deuteronomy 18:19), meaning, God would require his place in Israel and his life! The apostle Peter reiterated these words of Moses as follows, “every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:23).

In other words, the Lord – the King! – at this time ordered His kingdom by separating wheat from chaff, sheep from goats, and executed what He had earlier told the chief priests and elders of the people: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matt 21:43). The kingdom of God given to a nation other than Israel? No, rather the nation of Israel so ordered anew by its king as to remove its ties to the temple and its priesthood, and to the government – both of which were conspiring to slay Him! – and transfer it to a new government of His choosing, with twelve apostles instead of twelve tribal elders, and comprised of all true Israelites who would bow the knee to their King and God. The others – all the others – who refused to heed the word of the God of Israel through Messiah, were removed from the nation of Israel, as a butcher cleaves inedible gristle from the meat. Israel was now comprised of only those loyal to God’s Messiah. His body was now the true temple, His word the law, and His apostles the appointed rulers of the people. The land of Israel would be extended to include the entire earth, no more restricted by the geography of Palestine; the true Jerusalem would be the heavenly, the one from above, to be brought to the earth in the fullness of time.

What was the status of those Jews cut off from the people of Israel? Unabashedly modern Judaism states,

“...it was the tannaitic [Pharisaic-Rabbinic teaching] tradition which was almost completely representative of the Jewish community in Palestine and, to a great extent, of that segment of the Diaspora which remained loyal to its ancestral faith.... Indeed, it is the halakhah [the Jewish legal system founded by the Tannaim] which may be described as that which typifies Rabbinic Judaism.” [1]​

In other words, those Jews who refused to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah and were cut off by God from the nation – no more accepted as Israelites by the God of Israel, and by its messianic King – these renegades became rivals for the name and status of Israel and Jew. Though physical seed of Abraham, they were disowned by Jehovah. They murderously persecuted the true Israel when it was in their power.

What says Messiah of these? When giving John the letter for the church in Smyrna, Jesus says, “...I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan” (2:9). When the Greek word blasphēmia is used regarding humans it means reviling slander, and these Jews slanderously accused this small company of Messiah’s followers to the Roman authorities, causing their imprisonment and execution. Again, in the letter to the church in Philadelphia Jesus has John write, “Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship [bow down in humility] before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee” (3:9). This indicates that some of the church’s fiercest enemies were converted and won to their Messiah. But it also indicates that the King of Israel declared those Jews which were against Him (“He that is not with me is against me” Matt 12:30) were, in His eyes, not any longer Jews, but apostates.

The apostle Paul, by the Spirit of God, says the same:

“For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” (Rom 2:28, 29)​

Jeremiah concurs, for even in the Old Covenant uncircumcision of heart incurred God’s wrath, as it indicated wickedness and rebellion (Jer 9:25, 26). And again Paul says, “For they are not all Israel which are of Israel... but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” (Rom 9:6, 8), and “...if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29).

And yet again, in his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul says, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Jesus Christ, and have no confidence in the flesh.” (3:3) To the Galatian churches he says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” (6:15)

Little wonder many in what is called Modern Jewry loathe Christ, the New Testament, Christians, and God for this pronouncement, even though it first came by Moses (Deut 18:15, 18, 19).

Paul says that in times past Gentile nations were looked upon as “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world…”, but now, in the fold of Messiah, they “are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Eph 2:12, 19). This household of God is the same spoken of in Hebrews, Moses being a faithful servant in it – the house of Israel – while Christ is no servant but the “son over his own house; whose house we are” (3:1-6).

The Israel of God has not been replaced, but it has been culled, the faithful Jews gathered and the unfaithful cast off by word of the King; the promise to Abraham that “in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 12:3) is now being fulfilled, as is the prophecy of Daniel that “all people, nations, and languages should serve him” (7:14). Sometimes the kingdom of Israel is called the church, but this latter is a synonym, and no replacement! Only in this kingdom is this Scripture fulfilled: “In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory” (Isa 45:25), for justification before His presence is the gift of God through faith in Messiah; in true Israel alone are all the seed so blessed. The New Jerusalem which shall come down upon the renewed earth is its capital, and the glory of Israel is the Lamb who sits upon the throne of David, the divine Husband of that beloved Bride who shares His glory.
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[1] Who Was A Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism, by Lawrence H. Schiffman (KATV Publishing House, NJ 1985), Pages 4, 5.
 
And my point is that the best interpretation of the 'great day of God's wrath' is to specify the 'final great day of judgment' that you indicate.

What happens to finally impenitent wicked men at their death? Do they suffer the wrath of God or not?
 
Hello Richard (welcome to PB),

Actually, it is the nature of the "millennium" that makes it easy to distinguish between the two. In the Postmil the world gets better, and in the Amil it gets worse.
 
Amil but who knows where I'll be a year from now. I find the matter frustrating and very similar to the origins and age of the earth issues in my experience.
 
Is there a version of amillennialism that also allows for a climactic showdown between Antichrist/Beast/Whatever and the faithful? I am willing to do business with that version.
 
Is there a version of amillennialism that also allows for a climactic showdown between Antichrist/Beast/Whatever and the faithful? I am willing to do business with that version.

I would have thought that the Protestant Reformed Churches adhered to that form of amillennialism, but I cannot say for sure. Steve or some of the PRC brethren can set me straight on that one if I am mistaken.
 
Is there a version of amillennialism that also allows for a climactic showdown between Antichrist/Beast/Whatever and the faithful? I am willing to do business with that version.

I would have thought that the Protestant Reformed Churches adhered to that form of amillennialism, but I cannot say for sure. Steve or some of the PRC brethren can set me straight on that one if I am mistaken.

Some clarifications. My eschatology (whether millennial or such) is fueled by a number of factors, not least of which the Church Fathers, and Eastern ones at that. So I see a coming showdown with Antichrist (Cyril of Jerusalem said we would fight him in our person) AND a renewal of the cosmos.
 
Is there a version of amillennialism that also allows for a climactic showdown between Antichrist/Beast/Whatever and the faithful? I am willing to do business with that version.

Traditional Reformation postmillennialism or very optimistic amillennialism - many (most?) modern postmils are amil in the sense that they believe the milllennium commenced in the first century - believes that the Antichrist (the Papacy) will not survive until the end of the world, that all nations and nation states will be converted from beastly, this worldly, ways, that the Jews will be converted as a nation, etc.

Christ will make a display of all forms of unbelief in history. It's a process in history, but 1,000 years is as one day to the Lord.
 
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Is there a version of amillennialism that also allows for a climactic showdown between Antichrist/Beast/Whatever and the faithful? I am willing to do business with that version.

Traditional Reformation postmillennialism or very optimistic amillennialism - many (most?) modern postmils are amil in the sense that they believe the milllennium commenced in the first century - believes that the Antichrist (the Papacy) will not survive until the end of the world, that all nations and nation states will be converted from beastly, this worldly, ways, that the Jews will be converted as a nation, etc.

Christ will make a display of all forms of unbelief in history. It's a process in history, but 1,000 years is as one day to the Lord.

I am aware of what traditional postmil and amil believes, having been an adherent at times.

As to the 1,000 years, you stated a simile, which is not the same thing as a literal fact. (That said, I am not committed either way on this point).
 
As to the 1,000 years, you stated a simile, which is not the same thing as a literal fact.

I just meant that the process of Christ's putting all His enemies under His feet (I Cor 15:25) may be a long time for us, but not for God. It's been almost 2,000 years already.
 
Jacob, you said, “Is there a version of amillennialism that also allows for a climactic showdown between Antichrist/Beast/Whatever and the faithful? I am willing to do business with that version.”

It seems like you’ve got the “Left Behind” drama in your blood. I tend to think our (here in America) “climactic showdown between Antichrist/Beast/Whatever” will take the form of public witness of some sort. Richard Bauckham, in two of his books on Revelation said this,

John carefully takes up Jewish expectations of a messianic war in which God’s people are to fight and win a military victory over their enemies, and reinterprets them, substituting faithful witness to the point of martyrdom for armed violence as the means of victory.” [emphasis added] (Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation, p. xv)
___________

Thus what John foresees of history before the End itself is that there will be the great conflict, the life-and-death struggle between the beast and the church, in which God’s secret strategy for the followers of the Lamb to participate in the coming of God’s kingdom is to take effect. Of course, even this is less a prediction than a call to the church to provoke and to win the conflict by persevering in faithful witness. . . [emphasis added]

Throughout the period [of imperial Rome’s persecution] martyrdom played a major role in the success of the Christian Gospel. Of course, the historical evidence is not available to weigh it against other factors. But it is clear that not only was martyrdom frequently the way in which the claims of the Christian God were brought to inescapable public attention, but also that the fact of the martyrs’ willingness to die and the way in which they died were seen to cohere with the nature of the religious message they believed. Moreover, John's own prophecy played a role, as it was intended to do, in providing the church with the vision that made martyrdom possible and meaningful. [emphasis added] (Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, pp. 150, 151)​
 
The Revelation teaches us the "climactic showdown" has already taken place in Christ, and the climax of the conflict for which Satan hopes will never be realised.

Christ has the keys of hell and of death, not Satan. The desire for an end-times "showdown" misses the point of Revelation. Believers at their death enter into glory and reign with Christ. That is only possible because Christ reigns now and the eschatological judgment is manifested in the present for the salvation of the saints.

Dreams of a carnal kingdom effectively deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
 
Amil... And I believe the wicked will be taken first.

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. Mt. 24
 
Dreams of a carnal kingdom effectively deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

Which is not my position. And even if I were premillennial, poisoning the well with terms like "carnal" isn't helpful.

Anything which disagrees with your position is poisoning the well as far as you are concerned, which nullifies the possibility of raising counter-points to broaden the discussion beyond your view.
 
Dreams of a carnal kingdom effectively deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

Which is not my position. And even if I were premillennial, poisoning the well with terms like "carnal" isn't helpful.

Anything which disagrees with your position is poisoning the well as far as you are concerned, which nullifies the possibility of raising counter-points to broaden the discussion beyond your view.

You used the word "Carnal." It has negative connotations. I mean, if the only options were your position and a "carnal" millennium, well who would choose carnal? I could have called all the alternatives to my position "gnostic" or "Manichean," but I didn't.
 
I am Post-mil.

Pre-mil cannot be correct because I see Christ's return to be once at the very the end of history.

A-mil cannot be correct because the position (as I understand it) holds that Satan's binding was accomplished at the cross. However, at the very end Satan is unbound, which would be as though what Christ accomplished at the cross is undone - I don't think that is possible.

My view is that the work of the Spirit throughout this age will continue to grow Christ's kingdom, until Satan is bound for 1000 years. At the end of that time he will be released for a little season, and quickly defeated for all time.
 
Where does the community of PuritanBoard stand with regard to their eschatology?

Amil, Premil, Postmil? Preterite, Partial Preterite, Historical Premillennialism? Pre, post, mid-trib or pre-wrath Rapture? Literal Millennium or not?

Also, out of curiosity, since people seem to divide the following ways: Covenant Theology with Amillennialism, and Dispensationalism with Premillennialism, I'm curious if anyone comes down another way.

Short question to answer in the comments: what are you actually expecting in terms of what the next 20-80 years in the future will bring?

Useful reading regardless of one's view:

Why Study Eschatology?
Reason Three: God Put It In The Bible

Again, I don’t mean to sound like a wise guy here, but hopefully the strength of this point is its obviousness. If the Holy Spirit saw fit to fill the pages of the Bible with abundant (and I do mean abundant) references to the last-days, then why do the vast majority of Christians pass over these portions of Scripture? Why do so many Christians tend to be a bit cynical or dismissive when it comes to, for instance, the Book of Revelation? While God never says explicitly, “thou shall study eschatology”, He may as well have said it by simple virtue of the fact that He gave it such a place of prominence in the Bible. We must ask ourselves, “If God doesn’t want me to study and understand this stuff, then what is it there for?” Think about this fact: Over twenty-five percent of the verses in the Bible contain predictive/prophetic content 2 If we disregard that twenty-five percent (along with of course, those infamous and pesky genealogies) then we can significantly whittle the Bible down quite a bit. But before we do that, I suppose we’ll have to first toss out that verse that says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Sorry, I guess I was trying to be a wise guy after all… My apologies.
Historical postmill

; )
 
I could have called all the alternatives to my position "gnostic" or "Manichean," but I didn't.

Is it "gnostic" to believe that the souls of believers immediately enter into glory at their death? Of course not. So although you could have called it gnostic, you would have had no grounds for doing so. "Carnal," however, refers to this world, and chiliasts teach that the reign with Christ shall be in this world, so it is an appropriate description.
 
I could have called all the alternatives to my position "gnostic" or "Manichean," but I didn't.

Is it "gnostic" to believe that the souls of believers immediately enter into glory at their death? Of course not. So although you could have called it gnostic, you would have had no grounds for doing so. "Carnal," however, refers to this world, and chiliasts teach that the reign with Christ shall be in this world, so it is an appropriate description.

I believe that souls of believers enter into glory at death. In fact, I argued strenuously for that position on one PB thread some months ago and I got a lot of people nervous. But that can't be your final answer, because we also believe in the Resurrection--which means we won't remain disembodied souls forever. So, would you agree with Hoekema and other that our resurrected bodies will return to a renewed earth? Or will we float in the aether?

"Carnal" is too reductionist. How is it modifying the word "world"? Is it modifying God's good creation? Is that how world is being used? If so, then what God called "good" we call "carnal."

Unless there is another sense in play.
 
I believe that souls of believers enter into glory at death.

If you believe it in the eschatological sense taught by the Revelation you will have no basis for a "this-worldly" (carnal) millennium. You will be bound to acknowledge that the souls of believers are reigning with Christ throughout the present era because the devil has been cast out of the court room of heaven and has no administrative power of death over the woman or her seed.

"New heavens and new earth" is administrative and is already with us in the inaugurated sense that there is a new creation in Christ. But the consummation of this new creation takes place at the resurrection with the second coming of Christ, which entails a general and final judgment immediately after the resurrection. Again, it leaves no place for a this-worldly millennium.
 
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