Brian Withnell
Puritan Board Junior
Like I said, you did well.
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In this age, there is no doubt that those in Christ not only are tattered, but filthy (apart from Christ). We will not reach sinlessness, and saying that Christ's bride will not be tattered (meaning the church will be radiant and victorious in this age) to me is not seeing sin for the utter sinfulness it creates. Christ's bride can only be pure and sinless when all the members of the body of his bride and pure and sinless. We are in the coming age sinless, but not yet.5. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. (1 John 3:2)
If the church is not persecuted in this age, it is not the church.“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
I don't think anything will be perfect in this life or in this age, but I do believe in the progress of the Gospel against the evil in this world. Things like the nations being converted as nations, the Jews being converted, the downfall of Romanism and all false religion, world peace, are just the working out in history of the beneficial effects of the Gospel, when a greater and greater proportion of the world is converted.
That is why the focus is on Christ's Second Coming in the Bible, which corresponds to death in individual eschatology. There is no fundamental change until Christ's return. Before then the Millennial Kingdom is a gradual swallowing-up of the kingdoms of the earth by Christ's peaceful Kingdom through the Gospel. The Earth has been given to Christ de iure and since the first century He has been taking possession of it de facto slowly but surely.
Sometimes amils are postmils that have lost their nerve.
The fact that the focus of the Bible is on the consummate Golden Age at Christ's return, doesn't negate those passages that speak of the victorious progress of Christ's Gospel against all foes. This Silver Age is getting brighter and brighter.