Tag: Olivet Discourse

Book Plunge: Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught Part 10

Is Jesus a false prophet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

With my interest in eschatology, I was quite pleased to see this last of the ten things Christians supposedly wish Jesus hadn’t taught. Naturally, there will be no interaction with orthodox Preterism at all. Madison has the fundamentalist viewpoint throughout the chapter. Let’s go ahead and see what he has.

Madison begins with 1 Thess. 4:13-17 where Paul says that Christ returns, “we which are alive and remain” and jumps to his preferred conclusion.

This is a window into the earliest Christian thinking—at least Paul’s version of it. How can these verses not be an embarrassment? Paul was confident that he would be alive for this momentous event: “…we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them…” The imminent arrival of Jesus was a constant theme in Paul’s letters.

Madison, David. Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (pp. 73-74). Insighting Growth Publications. Kindle Edition.

I am reminded again of the joke where the pastor is filling out his sermon outline and writes in the side at one of the points, “Weak point. Pound pulpit harder.”

Of course, Madison could have consulted some scholars on this to see what was said, but what would be the fun in that?

V. 15 has been a flashpoint in the discussion of Pauline eschatology at least since the time of A. Schweitzer. Here, it is said, we have proof positive that Paul believed that he would live to see the parousia of Jesus. But this overlooks at least a couple key factors: Paul did not know in advance when he would die, and he argues that the second coming will happen at an unexpected time, like a thief in the night. It could be soon, it could be later, and in either case the indeterminacy of the timing is what fuels exhortations that one must always be prepared and alert. Since Paul does not claim to know the specific timing of either his own death or the return of Christ, he could not have said “we who are dead and not left around to see the parousia of the Lord.…” In short, he does not know that he will not be alive when Jesus returns, and so the only category in which he can logically place himself and the Christians he writes to here is the “living.”
What these verses surely do imply is that Paul thought it possible that he might be alive when Jesus returned. As Best rightly suggests, Paul, until he was much older and near death, always had both possibilities before him. We do not hear the language of possible survival until the parousia in the later Pauline letters because one of the two unknowns, the timing of Paul’s death, was becoming more likely to precede the other, the parousia. He did not change his view of the second coming or consider it delayed in the later Paulines because without knowledge of when it was supposed to happen one cannot could speak of it as “delayed.” Paul’s imagery of the thief implies a denial of knowing with that sort of precision

Ben Witherington III, 1 and 2 Thessalonians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 133–134.

Thus, according to Witherington, Paul took the safest route. Had he said they, it would have meant Paul knew it would happen after his lifetime, but he knew no such thing. It could happen during his, he doesn’t know. Thus, the safest thing to say is we.

The objection is nothing new. Calvin even brings it up in his time:

As to the circumstance, however, that by speaking in the first person he makes himself, as it were, one of the number of those who will live until the last day, he means by this to arouse the Thessalonians to wait for it, nay more, to hold all believers in suspense, that they may not promise themselves some particular time: for, granting that it was by a special revelation that he knew that Christ would come at a somewhat later time, it was nevertheless necessary that this doctrine should be delivered to the Church in common, that believers might be prepared at all times. In the mean time, it was necessary thus to cut off all pretext for the curiosity of many—as we shall find him doing afterwards at greater length. When, however, he says, we that are alive, he makes use of the present tense instead of the future, in accordance with the Hebrew idiom.

John Calvin and John Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 282.

Moving on from there, we see more of the fundamentalism of Madison.

Apocalypticism is a relic of ancient superstition. Jesus, at his trial, tells the high priest: “You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:62, NRSV) Obviously, this text has been falsified by history. It didn’t happen.

Madison, David. Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (p. 76). Insighting Growth Publications. Kindle Edition.

Yes. Obviously, Caiaphas was to wake up one morning, open the window, and see Jesus sitting on a cloud riding into Jerusalem like Goku on a nimbus. Perhaps he should have looked at the ways clouds are used at times in the Old Testament.

“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides across the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. Deut. 33:26

“In my distress I called to the Lord;
I called out to my God.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came to his ears.
8 The earth trembled and quaked,
the foundations of the heavens[c] shook;
they trembled because he was angry.
9 Smoke rose from his nostrils;
consuming fire came from his mouth,
burning coals blazed out of it.
10 He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.
11 He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared[d] on the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness his canopy around him—
the dark[e] rain clouds of the sky.
13 Out of the brightness of his presence
bolts of lightning blazed forth.
14 The Lord thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High resounded.
15 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy,
with great bolts of lightning he routed them.
16 The valleys of the sea were exposed
and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at the rebuke of the Lord,
at the blast of breath from his nostrils. 2 Samuel 22 (Repeated also in Psalms 18)

Thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us as he goes about in the vaulted heavens.’ Job 22:14

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him—his name is the Lord. Psalms 68:4

Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Psalms 97:2

and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. Psalms 104:3

See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire. Isaiah 30:27

Look! He advances like the clouds, his chariots come like a whirlwind, his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! We are ruined! Jeremiah 4:13

For the day is near, the day of the Lord is near— a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations. Ezekiel 30:3

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. Daniel 7:13

The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. Nahum 1:3

The point is clouds are a symbol of judgment and the coming of the Lord, which are really the same thing. When the Lord comes, it is to judge. The claim is Caiaphas will someday see the Son of Man acting in judgment. This did indeed happen when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D.

To get back to Madison:

Hence theologians have retreated to a metaphoric interpretation of these texts: It must mean something spiritual. When I was a teen fascinated by astronomy, I asked my mother where heaven was, and she gave an answer that worked for a while: It is a state of being, a relationship with God. So, even though very pious, she also was savvy enough to know that heaven was not out there/up there to be surveyed by telescopes and rockets. So Stephen’s vision of Jesus standing next to God needs to be taken symbolically. But it’s harder to get away with a metaphorical interpretation of Jesus’ prediction that those attending his trial would see the Son of Man “coming with the clouds of heaven.” There was a passionate belief that the Messiah would show up, in person, real-time in the real world, to—among other things—toss out the Romans. Surely this must qualify as a major thing Christians wish Jesus hadn’t taught—even those who still hope that Jesus is coming back. They have to keep coming up with excuses as to why all of the predictions about the timing of the big day—made through the centuries—have been wrong.

Madison, David. Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (pp. 77-78). Insighting Growth Publications. Kindle Edition.

It’s not an embarrassment at all. If anything, it’s a confirmation. That Jerusalem was destroyed within a generation of crucifying the Messiah just as Jesus prophesied is all the more reason to trust Him.

What about Matthew 24? You can see my series on that starting here. What about Jesus saying that some of those present will not taste death until He “returns”? Right here.

Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28, NRSV) This sounds like a line from a fantasy novel—or science fiction. The gospel writers apparently didn’t check their own storylines for consistency. Surely this is a blunder: You who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones? Twelve? This would suggest that Jesus hadn’t yet figured out that Judas wasn’t really on the team.

Madison, David. Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (p. 84). Insighting Growth Publications. Kindle Edition.

Which means it’s all the more likely that Jesus said this. Nevertheless, it’s not a problem. One can include Matthias in that since he was added to the twelve. Some might even want to say Paul is the proper choice. Either way, the twelve came to be a reference to Jesus’s disciples as shown even in 1 Cor. 15.

And here are two Jesus sayings in the same chapter of Mark that can’t both be true. “And the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations…” This is something which would not happen for a long time. And “…Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”

Madison, David. Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (pp. 84-85). Insighting Growth Publications. Kindle Edition.

With regard to the first, Paul thought it had. See what he said in Colossians 1:23.

if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

And as for the second, again, covered in my look at the Olivet Discourse and you can find that here. (link is to part 1)

So this is the end. Right? Nope. Madison closes this part with saying the Gospels don’t count as biographies and aren’t historically reliable and he is going to give some “hope” to struggling Christians now.

The games are only just beginning.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

Be Watching

Should a Preterist be watching for the coming of the Master? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So as we read through Matthew 24, we saw in much of the discourse, I think it has already happened. Around verse 35, a shift takes place, but am I being consistent? I mean, do I think there is something to look forward to, a coming of some sorts? Yes. Even in this part, we have a warning.

42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

For this, I do believe it refers to the physical return of Christ. It is consistent for me to look out the window in front of my computer here and ponder, “What if it was today?” In some cases, it could be more consistent for me to do that than a dispensationalist.

In that paradigm, there always seem to be signs about what is happening next. Maybe you need a red heifer for example, to which some people are actively trying to breed one because the Almighty obviously needs help with this one. Maybe you need a temple to be built. Maybe you need something going on with the nation of Israel.

For me as a Preterist, I have just one requirement. The Gospel needs to be being spread throughout the Earth. We need to be doing evangelism. There is a verse in 2 Peter 3 where it says that in doing this, we may speed His coming. I find that an amazing idea. You can do something to have it be that Christ will return sooner?

So we should be watching? Yes. Naturally, this doesn’t mean you don’t do anything else at all. The servant is to be watchful for his master returning to the house, but he’d better still keep taking care of the house! It won’t be fitting for him to be up on the roof (Which in those days was more acceptable) looking out and making the servants do everything else while he just watches for the master.

As a Preterist then, I indeed hope the Lord returns soon and I believe in watching. These are warnings still worth heeding today. Perhaps we would all do better if we lived with the future in mind some.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:35

How sure are the words of Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Jesus here has a contrast. He is clear that this generation will not pass away, but He says Heaven and Earth will pass. He also says that His words will not pass away. While that could be a pointer to an inerrancy of His words, which I would accept even though this is not necessarily I think the best text for it, it’s more the idea of the certainty of the judgment. Of course, it would be. In Matthew 23 he had just lambasted the Pharisees and shared the certainty of judgment to them.

Some could think that this verse could indicate the destruction of Earth. I do not think that anymore than God needs to destroy the Heaven that He dwells in, as if it’s somehow impure. The same would refer to the sky. If anything, I think this would indicate more of a purification. The way the universe is today will pass away. God has always been about redeeming the Earth just as He has been about redeeming the human body, hence the incarnation.

At this point also, I think there is a decided shift in the discourse. Jesus is now wrapping up talking about an event that is coming on the first-century audience. Now, He will shift towards later judgment. At the same time, it is a present judgment. These are immediate calls to repentance for the people, which would also make sense since he has told the people now that judgment is coming on them soon, or at least His disciples who will bring this message to the people.

This also should be our message when it comes to judgment. Repentance. We need to be teaching that constantly. Is it foolish to say something like Covid-19 is a direct judgment of God? I think so. Does it mean we shouldn’t tell people to repent? Absolutely not. If anything, disasters should always show us the things that we take for granted.

Jesus’s audience was indeed living on borrowed time. Who else is? You and I are. None of us is guaranteed another day, let alone another minute. That generation did not pass away before the judgment came, but we know some passed away before that judgment and faced their own personal judgment then. The same could happen to you and I. Odds are you won’t die of Corona. Seriously. You likely won’t, all things being equal. Still, you could die in a car accident today. Anytime you hear a story on the radio of someone dying in a car accident, unless it was a suicide attempt, most of them had no plans to die that day and yet it happened.

As we go forward, we will see warnings of judgment and how we could be judged at any time. Be watchful. You don’t know when your time is.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Moving Into Part 2 of the Olivet Discourse.

Where do we go from here? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Verse 34 wraps up the first part of the Olivet Discourse. From there on, the terminology shifts. We go from “this generation” to “that day.” There is debate among Preterists even about whether this is still first-century or if it refers to later events. Thus, for this brief interlude, I want to speak more about other matters.

I really want to finish other statements in the Gospels. For instance, there is the saying that some here will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God coming in power. This is often taken by skeptics of the New Testament as a failed prophecy of the return of Christ, which is odd since it nowhere says anything about a return, and it is taken by most Christians to refer to the transfiguration, which is not much of a prophecy because saying some people hearing Jesus would still be alive a week later isn’t too awe-inspiring. There are also passages such as not finishing going through all of Israel until the Son of Man comes or Jesus’s words before Caiaphas and others. I really want to finish as much of the Gospels as I can before moving elsewhere.

There are also a few places in Acts to cover. I am thinking of the disciples’ asking if Jesus was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Not only that, believe it or not, there is some important eschatology to cover in Stephen’s stoning.

Some Old Testament verses will have to be covered. The most important one is Psalm 110:1. If you do not understand this verse, you will not understand eschatology. If you think this verse is not important to the New Testament, then you will have a major problem because this is the most quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament.

A good friend of Deeper Waters has asked about Paul and James, naturally. After all, Paul pretty much had his PhD in the Old Testament so how did he supposedly miss what Jesus was saying? This is important to consider so we will look at passages about the resurrection to say what is being talked about and when and where Paul got His information from.

Finally, we will do some looking at Revelation, though to be extensive with that one would be difficult. We will discuss some matters such as the antichrist (Who is never specifically mentioned in the book. Consider that.) and the Beast and 666. We will also discuss how apocalyptic works should be read.

I hope this will be further informative for me as well. There are many secondary areas of Christianity I don’t care to discuss, but for some reason, I thoroughly enjoy eschatology and orthodox Preterism. I hope even if you disagree with my view, you have come to see how it is that someone can hold to it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse: Matthew 24:32-33

What does a fig tree have to do with Israel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

These verses are ones dispensationalists point to. We’re supposed to look at Israel and see what’s going on God’s eschatological time clock by looking at them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t hold up and it can be seen just by looking at the discourse itself. Let’s look at verses 32-33.

32 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.

Now notice that Jesus singles out the fig tree. Since He’s doing that, He must be talking about Israel. After all, fig trees represent Israel. Right? Well, let’s see about that.

First, look at Luke 21.

29 He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. 30 When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. 31 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

Jesus says the fig tree and all the trees. What other trees are we supposed to look at here? Second, Jesus says what is near at that time is the Kingdom of God. Has the Kingdom of God come at all or not? We could be spending more time looking at the Kingdom later on.

If you do a search for fig trees, there’s really nothing about them that show that they are meant to be a symbol of Israel. In a parable in Judges 9, the plant kingdom asks the fig tree to be their king. Now if the parable is about the people of Israel looking for a king, it’s saying Israel is going to Israel asking Israel to be their king. Make sense to you? It doesn’t to me either.

Also, in Matthew 21, Jesus curses a fig tree that we are often told is meant to symbolize Israel, but if that is the case, and I think a strong case can be made for that, then dispensationalists have a problem. After all, the fig tree is cursed to never bear fruit again. If that’s the case, then we would expect Israel to never bear fruit again. I hold such an interpretation with hesitancy as I believe God could use national Israel in the future.

Let’s also consider how many people made their predictions based on Israel. In 1948, Israel became a nation and people were making predictions based on that. After all, a generation is supposed to last forty years and this generation was supposed to not pass away until everything took place. Think such a thing seems far-fetched? Not at all. A few decades ago, a man named Edgar Whisenant rocked the Christian world with a book on 88 reasons the rapture will take place in 1988. As we can tell, he was wrong.

To dispensationalists reading this, even though you disagree with me on Preterism, please at least try to get your camp to stop writing books like that. They only embarrass us further. There has been great harm done to the body of Christ by people trying to predict events from an eschatological perspective by what they see going on in the news.

Some people then decided the six-day war was what started things. Nope. Wrong again. That was in 1967 and again, nothing happened 40 years later.

Could it just be that maybe the nation of Israel being established doesn’t have eschatological meaning at all?

Now some people might saying, “Are you saying we shouldn’t support Israel?” Not at all. Whether we do or not, it is not because the nation is supposedly that of God. It’s because if a nation is doing what is right, we should support it. One reason I personally think we should support Israel is they are a great buffer against Islam in the Middle East.

So dispensationalists, there’s nothing here about the fig tree representing Israel. The passage doesn’t work. Now if you interpret it as referring to the signs within the passage and not about the establishment of Israel, then it works just fine.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:31

What role will angels play? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, we have a verse that many futurists assume is about something in the future. After all, look at angels going out and this gathering together and the sounds of a trumpet. A trumpet sounds at the resurrection. Right? Surely that’s what’s going on here! Let’s look at the verse.

“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

This would be an incredibly vague reference to a resurrection and trumpets have many more uses in Scripture and in the Roman Empire at the time. They could be used for war and they could also be used as a royal proclamation. I would go for a mixture of both of these. The Kingdom of God wages war on the kingdoms of man and the proclamation is the gospel going forth.

What about angels though? Angels are heavenly messengers aren’t they? Are they not the ones that are around the throne of God? If they’re going out, then surely that must mean something future is going on. Right?

No. The Greek word is aggelos and it can refer to a member of the heavenly entourage, but it can also refer to a messenger. John the Baptists is referred to as an aggelos. The word describes more function than anything else.

By the way, it’s worth noting the high Christology here. These are not the messengers of God, though they are that indeed, but in the text, they are the messengers of the Son. It’s one of those casual references easily missed.

The gathering of the elect refers to those who are Christians. At this point, there is zero interest in whether this is meant in a Calvinistic, Arminian, or some other sense. I really avoid that debate as much as I can.

And what about to the ends of the Earth? For the first-century Jews, this would not mean going all the way to North America or something, contrary to Mormon claims. This would mean going throughout the Roman Empire. By the end of the book of Acts, we see that this has been done. Not a shock to a Preterist that shortly after that, the temple gets destroyed.

We’re nearing the end of the first part. We will continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:29

What in the Heavens is going on? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Ah. Now we’re getting into stuff that definitely sounds like it’s more in line with futurism. After all, surely none of this stuff happened in the 1st century. Right? What kind of stuff? Let’s look at Matthew 24:29

” Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Years ago, Neil Degrasse Tyson sadly gave a more common reading of this passage.

“You know, one of the signs that the second coming, is that the stars will fall out of the sky and land on Earth. To even write that means you don’t know what those things are. You have no concept of what the actual universe is. So everybody who tried to make proclamations about the physical universe based on Bible passages got the wrong answer.“

Sadly, most churches today would accept this reading as well. After all, there’s supposed to be something sacred in taking the text literally. I prefer to take the text as I think Jesus really intended it. Jesus was more than a prophet of course, but he was at least that. How did prophets speak? We go to the Old Testament to find out.

2 Samuel 22 is one of my favorite passages to go to. Look at this song David sings about his lifetime.

7 “In my distress I called upon the Lord;
    to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
    and my cry came to his ears.

8 “Then the earth reeled and rocked;
    the foundations of the heavens trembled
    and quaked, because he was angry.
9 Smoke went up from his nostrils,
    and devouring fire from his mouth;
    glowing coals flamed forth from him.
10 He bowed the heavens and came down;
    thick darkness was under his feet.
11 He rode on a cherub and flew;
    he was seen on the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness around him his canopy,
    thick clouds, a gathering of water.
13 Out of the brightness before him
    coals of fire flamed forth.
14 The Lord thundered from heaven,
    and the Most High uttered his voice.
15 And he sent out arrows and scattered them;
    lightning, and routed them.
16 Then the channels of the sea were seen;
    the foundations of the world were laid bare,
at the rebuke of the Lord,
    at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

Search all you want through the life of David and you will not find this. You will not find YHWH hitching a ride on Gabriel and Michael and coming down Green Arrow style blasting the bad guys. You will not find the channels of the sea being seen and the foundations of the world laid bare. So either we believe that the writer of this text had to leave out one of the most amazing events in the life of David, or else that we are misunderstanding the way Jews speak if we take this literally.

Isaiah 13 is another such case.

9 Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
    cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the land a desolation
    and to destroy its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
    will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
    and the moon will not shed its light.
11 I will punish the world for its evil,
    and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,
    and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.
12 I will make people more rare than fine gold,
    and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
    and the earth will be shaken out of its place,
at the wrath of the Lord of hosts
    in the day of his fierce anger.
14 And like a hunted gazelle,
    or like sheep with none to gather them,
each will turn to his own people,
    and each will flee to his own land.
15 Whoever is found will be thrust through,
    and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.
16 Their infants will be dashed in pieces
    before their eyes;
their houses will be plundered
    and their wives ravished.

Now some of you might be tempted to think this is future, but wait. God says in the next verse that he is raising up the Medes against them. The Medes did eventually come and conquer Babylon. However, none of the stuff if taken literally happened as described.

Ezekiel 32

“You consider yourself a lion of the nations,
    but you are like a dragon in the seas;
you burst forth in your rivers,
    trouble the waters with your feet,
    and foul their rivers.
3 Thus says the Lord God:
    I will throw my net over you
    with a host of many peoples,
    and they will haul you up in my dragnet.
4 And I will cast you on the ground;
    on the open field I will fling you,
and will cause all the birds of the heavens to settle on you,
    and I will gorge the beasts of the whole earth with you.
5 I will strew your flesh upon the mountains
    and fill the valleys with your carcass.
6 I will drench the land even to the mountains
    with your flowing blood,
    and the ravines will be full of you.
7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens
    and make their stars dark;
I will cover the sun with a cloud,
    and the moon shall not give its light.
8 All the bright lights of heaven
    will I make dark over you,
    and put darkness on your land,
declares the Lord God.

This describes God’s judgment on Israel in the past. Again, the language is eerily similar to what we find in the Olivet Discourse. Once again, either we need to take it all literally or we need to try to understand the way ancient Jews spoke.

Ezekiel 39 has the following:

9 “Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and make fires of the weapons and burn them, shields and bucklers, bow and arrows, clubs and spears; and they will make fires of them for seven years, 10 so that they will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any out of the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons. They will seize the spoil of those who despoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, declares the Lord God.

This kind of passage shows us that many prophecies were indeed for the near future. Many futurists interpret this as a great future battle. It will be an interesting one if we are using bows and arrows and shields and bucklers again. True, some prophecies had a long range far ahead into the future, but to read many dispensationalists today, you’d think the only times worth talking about were the time of Jesus and what is supposedly our time today.

So what is going on?

When the Jews spoke of intense political events, they often used cosmic language. War would be such an event. This kind of language was not meant to be literal. It was meant to indicate chaos on the realm of Earth as kings and others went to battle. The disciples would have understood that war was coming.

Don’t read the text like Tyson. Read it like a first-century Jew. If you do that and you read it as the language of warfare and judgment, then again, Jesus is still spot on. You are also being consistent with the prior first-century milleu found in the text.

But that’s one verse. What about others?

We’ll see when we get there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:23

Is there a Messiah in the house? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Our next verse does fit well with our own times. After all, we have several people claiming to be Jesus. I’m not just talking about people in insane asylums either. Let’s look at the verse and see what it says about such a thing.

“Someone might say to you at that time, ‘Look, there is the Messiah!’ Or someone else might say, ‘There he is!’ But don’t believe them.”

Actually this fits in better with a first-century climate. For one thing, note that it doesn’ say that people will say “Look! There’s Jesus!” They will say, “Look! It’s the Messiah!” Why does this matter? The Jews for the most part did not embrace Jesus as the Messiah since He didn’t put a stop to Rome. They were looking for another savior.

In the midst of the destruction of Jerusalem, it would be easy to look at someone else and say that someone is the Messiah who could stop the Romans. It would also be Jews that were saying that. Most Gentiles were not going around claiming someone was the Messiah.

This would be a hope to Jewish people who were under attack in Jerusalem and would be convinced that God was not going to let anything happen to His chosen people. After all, they were the ones who were faithful to the covenant. The hope for a coming Messiah was definitely there with the Romans in the land and the attack on Jerusalem would be a time for YHWH to show up.

Now in our own times, we should discount anyone who claims to be a Messiah figure or Jesus or have a new final revelation. I would say the same goes for many of our modern prophecy experts. Once again, this has a just fine first-century fulfillment and there’s no need to look beyond for more.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:22

Do the days being cut short point to a worldwide calamity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As we continue, I must remind you all again that we are asking if the text fits with a first-century fulfillment or not. Last time, I pointed out that there is a lot of hyperbole in the description. If you take it as literal, then Jesus is not the wisest king of all and the writers of Scripture forgot Hezekiah when they got to Josiah. So what is today’s verse?

“And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

Wow. This sounds like the end of the world. No human being will be saved. What do you make of that?

Well, if you think this describes Revelation, when we get to the end of the book and we see the battle of Armageddon, maybe it’s just me, but it looks like if there’s a war going on, there must be a lot of people to fight it. Could it be that maybe this is more hyperbolic language?

Not only that, if this is the case, why flee to the mountains once again? Are the mountains going to somehow be this safe place that human beings can survive at when the world comes to an end? Now if you read this as local, there aren’t any difficulties. It refers to Jerusalem and Judea. God will see to it that not everyone is killed.

And who are the elect? It could be some Jews who did not head to the hills and were part of the covenant anyway. The elect generally refers to those who are in the covenant. It’s not a word that Arminians and others need to shy away from.

So again, this fits in with a first-century fulfillment. Going through so far, we have come to no major problem verses. I hope that you will see the same follows as we continue.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:21

Is this the worst possible thing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For the past five verses, I think some dispensationalist readers could even look and see that it makes sense in an Orthodox Preterist viewpoint, but now there’s a shift. When we get to verse 21, it looks like we’re entering something of epic proportions. Let’s look and see what the verse says at the start.

“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.”

Okay. So I think the passage here is about the destruction of Jerusalem and that’s supposed to be the greatest disaster of all? That can hold a candle to 6 million Jews dying in the Holocaust? Doesn’t this just seal the deal against a first-century interpretation?

Not quite, because if you have that view throughout Scripture, you run into problems. This normally happens with a modern literalistic hermeneutic that doesn’t take into account Jewish idioms. What kinds of things am I talking about? Let’s look. We’ll start with 2 Kings looking at Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:5.

“He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him.”

You go, Hezekiah! Awesome! No one like you!

But what about this Jesus guy? Wasn’t He a king who trusted in God more?

Now some might think that’s not the most valid way to look, but if you’re one of those, we don’t need to go to Jesus. We can just go to the same book in the Old Testament. Let’s look at Josiah in 2 Kings 23:25

“Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.”

Wow. So either the author of Kings totally forgot about Hezekiah in a few chapters, or else we’re looking at a Jewish way of speaking. Is this the only instance of this? Hardly. Look at Exodus 11:6

” There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.”

People of Egypt can rejoice. Nothing will ever be worse than the Hebrew Exodus. Of course, this will be odd for my dispensationalist friends who think the whole Earth is going to go through something far worse. Who knows? Maybe Egypt will be the exception that’s spared! How about Daniel 9:12?

“He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem.”

But Babylon was laying siege to several cities and starving them out and destroying them. What makes Jerusalem the one exception? You could say their temple was destroyed, but that’s not too unusual in a siege. Let’s also return to 1 Kings 3 and look at verse 12.

“I will do what you have asked. I will give you more wisdom and understanding than anyone has ever had before or will ever have again.”

But Jesus said that one greater than Solomon is here. Was He wrong? Was Solomon wiser than Jesus? If you use my hermeneutic to just picture this as a way of describing something intense, you don’t have a problem. Go with a literalist one and you do.

Not only that, if you look at the parallel in Luke 21:24, what do you see?

“Some will be killed by the sword, and others will be taken as prisoners to all countries; and the heathen will trample over Jerusalem until their time is up.”

Luke centralizes all of this to Jerusalem. So again, this fits with a first-century paradigm.

Now if someone doesn’t think what happened to Jerusalem in 70 A.D. counts as great suffering, just go read about it. See what you think then. If it does count, then my hermeneutic is entirely consistent and I would contend more consistent than a dispensationalist one.

We shall continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters