The Book of Revelation: Mystery Or Profitable?

[Arial]

@Tambora
From the idealist/amillennialist point of view, and considering that the thousand years is a period of time starting with the resurrection and will conclude with His second coming, what is meant by Satan being bound for a thousand years and then released? Keep in mind that John is seeing these things as a vision, which itself suggests the probability that both these thousand years are the same, and that the things in the vision are representative. For example of what I mean: Then I saw an angel coming down from the heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

There is not much, if any dispute that the angel was not holding a literal key, or that it opened a bottomless pit or that there was a literal giant chain, or that Satan is a dragon as well as a serpent. So why all of a sudden are the thousand years literal?

So if Satan has been bound since the resurrection (according to idealism), why is he still active. The scripture tells us that he was bound from a particular thing---deceiving the nations. Satan has already been bound (John 12:31; Col 2:15; Rev 12:9; Matt 12:29). The present spread of the gospel is initiated in Acts. Before that all nations except for Israel were deceived. The deceiving of the nations takes place largely through the Beast. The Beast we saw, way back at the beginning of this thread, is the counterfeit of Christ, sent by the dragon to execute the plans of the dragon. He suffers repeated defeats over the course of history and Satan therefore repeated reverses in his power over the nations. His being released then would be his final attempt to deceive the nations and his final defeat. And he is always attacking the church and its people.

 

[Arial]

Who is it here who's being hostile again? Sheesh!

This entire post is once again OFF TOPIC and all about you. It is serving no purpose for anyone but yourself. Knock it off. So far you have said nothing concerning the posts of myself on the subject, or anyone else's on the subject except about this OFF TOPIC dribble. Start a thread titled My Form of Dispensationalism Refutes All Other Views if you couldn't understand the last title I gave you. This a thread PRESENTING idealism/amillennialism. It is not a thread disputing your branch of dispensationalism, in which you or anyone else simply defends their branch of dispensationalism without actually engaging in the conversation. Your entire premise for defending it in the first place and then saying it relates to the topic is John was writing to Jews----look what it says in Galatians. That is really lame. Put up or be quiet.

 

[Arial]

I have already done that. Idealism is only reasonable if you can't find it in history. I found it. You are welcome to join.

What thread?

 

[Clete]

First, you are not the boss of how I discuss a topic or what questions I answer or ask.

Never suggested otherwise. Sheesh, you people are thin skinned!

Second, answering a question with question is not an invalid way to answer a question.

That isn't true at all! Who told you this?! The rhetorical power of questions is as old as literature! There's even a word for answering a question with a question. It's called "maieutics". It's associated with the Socratic method and is a perfectly valid way of debating so long as it isn't obfuscation in disguise.

You know that, so your demand is useless.

It wasn't a demand so much as a plea. Really, you need to turn down the sensitivity a notch. Trust me, you'll know it when I'm trying to be hostile.

The fact is that my question wasn't asked to avoid a direct response but, on the contrary, it was intended to demonstrate the shallow nature of your two one liners. Put simply, your assertion and Paul explicit statement to the contrary cannot both be true.

In the sense that a Gentile had to literally join Israel, yes.
In the sense that Christ had to be a descendant of Israel, no.

Well, Christ had to be an Israelite because of God's promise to Abraham, true, but that's sort of beside the point because there wasn't anything special about Israel as a nation apart from the fact that God had chosen them because of Abraham and because of Isaac. Had Isaac turned out to be evil then God would have chosen another people to yield the Messiah through, right?

So, leaving that much aside, and addressing your first answer, how would a Gentile get saved?

Incidentally, I am speaking here in general terms. I do not deny that there were people who God might have chosen to save apart from Israel (See Romans 2:12-16) but such people were the exception, not the rule. Generally, salvation was of the Jews and those who were outside the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise were without hope.

There were generations of people long before there was ever an Israel for them to join.
There was no Israel for Adam or any of his descendants (Seth, Enoch, Noah, etc) to join before there was an Israel.

Yes, there were several dispensations before there was a nation of Israel but that does not apply in the either that case of Nineveh nor Naaman!

And as already shown per scripture, Namaan did not have to join Israel to be accepted by God.

On what basis do you make this claim?
Naaman really does nothing to help your case at all. Have you read the story in II Kings? Naaman gets healed in order to demonstrate that the God of Isreal is the real God and Naaman, after being healed, says, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel;" and states that he, "will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord. " Naaman happens to be one of the very few people who experienced a physical miracle and responded to it by expressing faith in God. Usually, it goes the other way!

He had the faith that YHWH was the only Most High God to depend on.

Not before he was healed he didn't. Initially, his healing wasn't about him, it was about demonstrating the power of Israel's God to the King of Syria.


As for Nineveh, by the way, the fact that God repented of destroying the nation, does not imply that anyone in particular got saved. The story there is showing God dealing with people groups, not individuals. Even when God did deal with individuals it was almost always in the context of that person's nation, whether it be the King of Syria, or the commander of his army (Naaman), or Pharaoh (i.e. the king of Egypt) or whomever.

Clete

 

[Clete]

This entire post is once again OFF TOPIC and all about you. It is serving no purpose for anyone but yourself. Knock it off. So far you have said nothing concerning the posts of myself on the subject, or anyone else's on the subject except about this OFF TOPIC dribble. Start a thread titled My Form of Dispensationalism Refutes All Other Views if you couldn't understand the last title I gave you. This a thread PRESENTING idealism/amillennialism. It is not a thread disputing your branch of dispensationalism, in which you or anyone else simply defends their branch of dispensationalism without actually engaging in the conversation. Your entire premise for defending it in the first place and then saying it relates to the topic is John was writing to Jews----look what it says in Galatians. That is really lame. Put up or be quiet.

By you own admission is it a thread about idealism, which I dispute and for good reasons which I have presented. It has nothing to do with me other than I am participating here on TheologyOnline.com which is a debate forum, not your personal blog site. You can present any idea you want to present and I can present any argument against that idea that I choose.

Like it or lump it Ariel! You just don't get to declare things off topic because you don't happen to like it.

 

[Tambora]

Please note the AUDIENCE that Paul is telling this to: https://theologyonline.com/threads/another-gospel-in-galatians-1.52439/

Many claim that Galatians 1 precludes multiple gospels. But it's simply them ignoring context as is too typical of many.

Gal 1:6-9 (AKJV/PCE)
(1:6) I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: (1:7) Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. (1:8) But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. (1:9) As we said before, so say I now again, If any [man] preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

There is a specific audience involved here. Once you take that into account, there is no problem at all.

He told the audience he (Paul) was speaking to that they should declare anyone (man or angel) that was preaching a gospel other than what he was preaching to be accursed.
So if any of his (Paul) audience ever heard (or read) the gospel Peter, James, and John were preaching then they should call them accursed.

You and i have both read the gospel they were preaching.
Do you declare them accursed?
I don't.

 

[Right Divider]

He told the audience he (Paul) was speaking to that they should declare anyone (man or angel) that was preaching a gospel other than what he was preaching to be accursed.
So if any of his (Paul) audience ever heard (or read) the gospel Peter, James, and John were preaching then they should call them accursed.

You and i have both read the gospel they were preaching.
Do you declare them accursed?
I don't.

It depends on who they tried to preach it to. Just like Paul said.

 

[glorydaz]

Actually, Paul would be declaring John accursed if he was preaching another gospel than the gospel Paul preached.

Galatians 1:8-9 ESV​

(8) But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.​

(9) As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.​

Was John (and Peter, James, etc.) accursed?

It depends on who they tried to preach it to. Just like Paul said.

So, as I understand it. If anyone came and preached a gospel of water baptism and works to those saved by Grace through faith they were to be accursed. That would include those who preached any kind of works including commandment keeping.

 

[glorydaz]

This seems to contradict the quote below.

Give me scriptures that speak of the church age.

It's a common term akin to age of Grace. You haven't heard of the different ages?

Notice how Paul's letters are written to the churches? Paul actually calls it a Dispensation.

Eph. 3:2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

Uhhh. The gospel of the kingdom? What kingdom are you speaking of? God's kingdom is in heaven and within the believer. It comes in its fullness with the second coming of Christ. It isn't on earth for a thousand years in the nation state of Israel and then there is another great battle and after that it comes again

The gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus and the Apostles preached. The Kingdom where the Messiah would rule and reign on earth. When the Jews rejected their Messiah, God turned to the Gentiles. Their KINGDOM was put off until the time of the Gentiles be full...because blindness in part happened to Israel.

Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

 

[glorydaz]

He told the audience he (Paul) was speaking to that they should declare anyone (man or angel) that was preaching a gospel other than what he was preaching to be accursed.
So if any of his (Paul) audience ever heard (or read) the gospel Peter, James, and John were preaching then they should call them accursed.

You and i have both read the gospel they were preaching.
Do you declare them accursed?
I don't.

I think it shows how serious it is to preach a gospel of works to those who have been saved by grace.

See how James teaches something different than Paul? John's letters, too, are way different than Paul's and I don't believe they are addressed to Gentiles. Personally, I believe that all but Paul were preaching end times gospels.

 

[chrysostom]

What thread?

chrysostom

 

[ok doser]

chrysostom

never heard of it

 

[Clete]

He told the audience he (Paul) was speaking to that they should declare anyone (man or angel) that was preaching a gospel other than what he was preaching to be accursed.
So if any of his (Paul) audience ever heard (or read) the gospel Peter, James, and John were preaching then they should call them accursed.

No, no, no!

Paul's converts were well aware of who Peter, James and John were and they would have understood who their audience was. It would only have been an issue if any of them (or men from them (Gal. 2) came and tried to teach them to follow that other gospel.

You and i have both read the gospel they were preaching.
Do you declare them accursed?
I don't.

No, of course, I don't! That's precisely because I know their audience and I'm not it! When I read letters written by Peter, James, John and Jude, I am reading someone else's mail. If I fail to keep that fact in mind then all kinds of confusion ensues.

Hebrews - The title of the book tells you who it was written to.​

​

James 1:1 James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,​

To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad:​

Greetings.​

​

I Peter1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,​

To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,​

(The "Dispersion" were Jews who had been scattered all over the place by the persecution in Jerusalem (lead by Saul before his conversion on the road to Damascus, by the way).

Peter's second epistle is written to the same group...

II Peter 3:1 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle...​

John's first epistle does not say explicitly who it is written to but you can tell by the subject matter that it wasn't grace gospel believers because it's all about loving your brother, loving God and "obeying His commandments. John mentions obedience to God's commandments six different times in that short little letter.
Further, we have his salutation in the second epistle which reads...

II John 1:1 The Elder,​

To the elect lady (i.e. Israel) and her children,​

​

III John 1:1 The Elder,​

To the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth:​

​

5 Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, 6 who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well, 7 because they went forth for His name’s sake, taking nothing from the Gentiles.​

Jude does not explicitly state who he is writing to but does cite the fact that he is a brother of James in his salutation. Virtually every precept in his book is transdispensational anyway. In other words, he doesn't say anything in his letter that would conflict doctrinally with either gospel.

More to say but out of time!

Clete

 

[Tambora]

I think it shows how serious it is to preach a gospel of works to those who have been saved by grace.

See how James teaches something different than Paul? John's letters, too, are way different than Paul's and I don't believe they are addressed to Gentiles. Personally, I believe that all but Paul were preaching end times gospels.

If they (peter, James, John, etc.) are preaching another gospel than what Paul preaches then they should be accursed.

 

[Right Divider]

If they (peter, James, John, etc.) are preaching another gospel than what Paul preaches then they should be accursed.

They preached the gospel of the kingdom. Why should they be accursed for that? (HINT: Depends on who they preached it to).

 

[Tambora]

They preached the gospel of the kingdom. Why should they be accursed for that?

If it was a different gospel than what Paul was preaching, they should be accursed.

(HINT: Depends on who they preached it to).

It would be naïve to think that no Jew (or Gentile) ever heard both Peter and Paul preach the gospel they were preaching.
If they heard both are they supposed to declare Peter accursed?

 

[glorydaz]

If they (peter, James, John, etc.) are preaching another gospel than what Paul preaches then they should be accursed.

I'm pretty sure Paul says "to you".

• Galatians 1:8
  But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
  
  
• Galatians 1:9
  As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

 

[chrysostom]

I am more interested in giving Arial a chance to present his views.

 

[Clete]

I'm pretty sure Paul says "to you".

• Galatians 1:8
  But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
  
  
• Galatians 1:9
  As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

Tambora knows her argument is rediculous. That's why she's stopped responding and started simply repeating herself over and over again as though we haven't said anything.

 

[Arial]

I am more interested in giving Arial a chance to present his views.

She---Ariel (Hebrew lion of God) Arial the female form (lioness of God).
That is nice to hear and I thank you. I take it you mean the original topic of the OP. The present conversation is people taking over the thread who do not agree with what I am presenting and it should be its own thread. Revelation has been utterly forgotten and people are arguing over a foolish assertion that has flimsy support in scripture and no logical support according to the scriptures that teach that all are one in Christ, that salvation and entry into the kingdom of God, comes at conversion through faith. There is no support for separating the kingdom of God and the church as involving different dispensations. Of by grace through faith for Gentiles and another method of salvation for the Jew in a different dispensation of salvation through faith plus works. That the believing Jew who has already been redeemed, now, in addition, will have to go back and repeat to perfection the keeping of the Law that Jesus already did for him, sacrificing bulls and rams and goats, even while the Lamb that was Slain, rules and reigns over them.

I had pretty much decided that there was no interest in the actual discussion I attempted to start, and for a brief moment, in spite of the interruptions, looked like it could be an investigation participants could explore together, but that went nowhere also; so I decided to just do the study on my own. Why go to the trouble of presenting it if no one cares anyway, unless they can find something to fight about and be rude over.