Problems with Pre-Millennialism | Theocast Clips

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We don't need the memorial. We can look at the scars in his hands. We can look at the scars in his feet. I don't need to go look at animals in order to do that.

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Mostly because Hebrews tells us plainly that is not the case. I want us to deal with this statement.

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One, people will say, well, guys, you just do not take the text literal. You're being symbolic. You're being mystical with the text.

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I want to say this, whatever view you take on eschatology, your view on eschatology needs to not contradict other clear -cut views of Scripture like the sufficiency of Christ's death and resurrection.

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Justin and I say that we hold to an amillennial position. I will say on the podcast that I find it to have the least amount of errors and struggles contradicting other theological positions that I found very dear.

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An example of this, and this has been a modern criticism of dispensationalism's view of premillennialism, is that when you look at the lay of the land and those who are,

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I think, prominent, conservative, well -thought -through, educated dispensationalists, just like, listen, there are a lot of people who hold to Reformed theology and say some wacky things that I wouldn't hold to, so I'm not going to throw every dispensationalism out there, but a very common view is that in the thousand -year reign of Christ after the tribulation, we have the re -establishment of the temple and the re -establishment of the sacrificial system.

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And this is from Ezekiel mainly. Right. So I'm getting ready to preach Ezekiel. I've been studying this a lot. What a great book. Right. It is an amazing book.

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Chapter 36, right? Just a high -pinnacle view of the new covenant. But one of the things that has been out there, and I think it's a healthy conversation, and everyone should sit back and say, the position that I'm holding,

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I need to be careful that I hold it loosely, especially if it's going to cause me to contradict other parts of Scripture.

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It clearly says this here. It's plain in the text. Okay, again, the

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Bible does not contradict itself. Specifically, for instance, the book of Hebrews comes later.

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Oh my goodness. Right? So we have Hebrews. Hebrews has been accepted in the canon. It is a clear document used, written, so that it would clarify the work and the sufficiency of Christ.

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So one of the problems that we have is that in Hebrews, it says that Christ is the final sacrifice for all sacrifices, sufficient, and there was no other sacrifices needed because Christ is the final ratification of the new covenant.

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Right? So what the old system pointed to, which is a type and a shadow. If you don't know what a type and a shadow is, it is not the substance, but it's pointing to the substance.

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Right? A good example of this is a shadow. I mean, everybody knows what a shadow is. The shadow is not the substance, but it's a reflectant of something that is to come.

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Or a type is, we always like to use this illustration. You go to a Mexican restaurant, open up that laminate photo of that burrito there.

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That's a type of the burrito, but it is not the burrito. So the sacrificial system is definitely the type, not the anti -type.

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The sacrificial system, the priesthood, the temple, fill in the blank. The New Testament is very clear that Christ is the fulfillment of all of those things.

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That's right. And that all of those things only existed in the first place to point to Christ and teach God's people about the

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Christ who would come to save them. It was not that the blood of bulls and goats could atone for their sins.

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Right? It was not that human priests could be the mediator between them and God. It was not that in the temple there would be this one place where the presence of God would dwell, and that's how it's going to be forever, and we can only have access to it occasionally.

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That's right. The goal of all of this was that there's one coming who will be the once and for all sacrifice for the sins of God's people, who will be the one mediator between God and man, and who will actually be

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God on earth. He will literally tabernacle among us so that we might be resurrected, imperishable, incorruptible, and actually live with God forever and see the

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Lord Jesus as He is, and we will be with the Lord. All of this is so clear in terms of the trajectory that to deny this is crazy.

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I'll say this. When it comes to prophetic literature, I think you've got to really stand the

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Scripture on its head to argue, well, we need to take these things just deadly literally if we're going to be faithful in our exegesis.

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That's just clearly not true because prophetic language is illustrative in nature. It's metaphorical in nature often.

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It's depicting a reality using this figurative language. I think any reasonable, responsible scholar of the

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Bible has to admit this. That's right. And there's all kinds of other places where a literal hermeneutic doesn't work.

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And they would admit that. And we know it doesn't. When Christ says that I am the door of the sheep, it's like, well, we don't think that Christ is literally a door, right?

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We understand that no, he's using a metaphor. That's right. Or I'm a shepherd.

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The fact that the Lord is a shepherd in general. Right. And our dispensational preeminent brothers would agree with those types and shadows.

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They would agree with those metaphors. But we need to take the text literally, John. Right. And I'm not here to pick them up.

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But to go back to your point, the reason why I pick out this particular one, and this is true of any theological system that you choose, we want to dry and make sure that Scripture is harmonious and that we're being.

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And then you're not contradicting clear doctrines taught in the Bible. That's right. And so the reinstitution of the temple is taken from Ezekiel.

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That's right. The sacrificial system is taken. And so if you were to take it literal, there's a couple of issues that you're going to have.

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One, there's nothing in Ezekiel that lets us know that it is part of the millennial reign. There's nothing in the text there.

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And there's nothing in the text that said it's memorial. This is what a lot of my friends and my brothers will say is that, oh, those aren't to be taken as a literal sacrifice, as if they were for sins.

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It's memorial. Again, I agree with you. If you're going to take the text literal, let's read Ezekiel literally.

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There's nothing in the text that says it's a millennial reign. And there's nothing in the text that says it's memorial. It literally says for the remission of sin.

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It's what it says in Ezekiel chapter 40 through 48. So the only reason I say that is that of the millennial views, this is the one that causes me the most pause because when you're talking about reinstituting something that the writers of the

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New Testament say plainly, there is no more need for animal sacrifices and those animal sacrifices as if Christ is ruling and reigning in the millennium, so we have the actual substance.

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And you're telling me we're going back to looking at the menu. We're going back to looking at the picture of the type. Why would we do that when we already have the substance?

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We don't need the memorial. We can look at the scars in his hands. We can look at the scars in his feet. I don't need to go look at animals in order to do that.