The Already and Not Yet Gone Wrong - Scott Aniol Part 2

Opening Reflections on Recent Interviews and White Pills

Today seems like a cinnamon day, you know what I mean? It's going to be cinnamon today. We are going to do part two of Scott Aniel on the Eschatology Matters podcast. I don't know if you saw this, but the Room for Nuance guy, Sean DeMars, he interviewed Doug Wilson and that is the second of two black pills that I was aware of last week.

Black pills? No, no, no. White pills. It's all white pills around here. That was the second of two white pills that I heard about last week that I couldn't really tell you about because I wasn't sure if they were secret or whatever.

We got Doug Wilson on Tucker. That was number one. Then we got Doug Wilson with the Room for Nuance podcast guy. Turns out there is some room for nuance, so that is wonderful. I don't even care how it goes, you know what I mean?

I don't even care how it goes. It's a white pill to see the conversation even happen in the first place. So maybe Big Eva is learning a little bit. Hey, that's a good thing. I'm very, very glad to see it.

I fully expect Doug to be in the fetal position within 5 .7 seconds. That'll be interesting to watch, but I'm looking forward to it and I may even do a response video to it regardless of whether it's good or bad.

I'll just, and if it's good, I'll just do a very joyful, happy response video. There you go. I think that would be good. Actually, Sean DeMars, I reached out to him and he was kind enough to answer. He told me about the conversation and I said to him, hey, we don't need to talk.

The only thing I was going to do was encourage you to talk to Doug instead of just taking Ligon's word for it. He was already planning on doing it, so hats off to him. Good stuff. Good stuff indeed. Anyway, let's jump right into it today.

We've got Scott O 'Neill here. The first episode of this was, I was very pleasantly, not surprised, I guess, I wasn't really that surprised that there was some agreement, but I did appreciate much of what Scott said.

So, I've heard that people have told me that it gets good and when I say good, I mean bad very quickly. So, we'll see what happens. I'll be as honest as I can be about my personal feelings on what Scott says.

But, here we go.

1 Corinthians 15 and the Timing of Christ's Reign

I think it was at, I'm going to misquote it, I think it was at one of the G3 events, but I'm not sure. But anyway, somebody was bringing up 1 Corinthians 15, he shall reign or must continue reigning until his enemies have been subdued under his feet.

So, some of us would see that and say, this seems to be something progressive that's happening now. He is reigning and triumphing over his enemies. What are some of those mile markers you're looking at that say, no, no, no, this is actually something that's waiting until he returns in the flesh?

Yeah, so two things generally and then I'll address 1 Corinthians 15 specifically. Yeah, yeah. So, eschatology matters.

Let me just say this as well. You know, people are very, you know, trying various strategies to deal with Christian nationalists and some of the popular ones right now are, you know, block all Anons, you know, just block them.

You know, they're not, you know, they're not legitimate, they're not worthy of your time and I have no problem with individuals doing that. Like I said in a previous video, in the aggregate, that's obviously not going to work and obviously a terrible policy in the aggregate.

But as individuals, do whatever you want. The other policy is saying things like, well, they're not worthy of serious engagement. We just, we must just expose what they believe and then, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And again, I mean, this is not ideal, right? The ideal situation is that you take it seriously. The ideal situation is that they're serious engagement. But the thing is, either way, it works for me. You know what I mean?

Because if you don't engage and you just spread our very troubling message, that works for me too, because we're not hiding our very troubling message. So go for it. So if you want to show everybody, instead of engaging with us, if you want to show everybody that we think maybe women's suffrage was not such a great idea, maybe we should roll that back at some point in the future.

You think that's very troubling, but the thing is, I'm happy that you share that because it's true and I think that many people believe the same thing. They just don't feel like they have permission to believe it.

And so it's very similar to the woke wars one. It's like, you know, like people, a lot of people feel like they need permission to believe something or to just say something. So I'm certainly glad to go out there and just say it.

And if you're willing to spread the message as well, even while clutching your pearls, hats off to you. I appreciate that. It's not the best, it's not God's best for you, but it does work and serve my own purposes quite well.

It's like right wing watch shares Dusty Devers and William Wolfe and stuff like that. And they've exposed more people to his ideas than they could have themselves. It's like a, it's a really funny kind of feedback loop sort of thing.

It's not really a feedback loop, but it does signal boost what we want to get out anyway. So hats off to you, I appreciate it.

My take on that, it's the blood and the violence and the taking that literally. Like, you know, one of the things that I appreciate about most post-millennialists as I see it is you want to take those physical, earthly kinds of language and prophecies literally.

I want to do that with the violent language too. Like when, if that's currently happening, then where is Jesus violently overthrowing? Like, do you spiritualize that and just say, well, that's just the thread of the gospel?

I suppose there might be different answers by post-millennialists, but for me, it's like I see these texts in the psalm, I mean, really all the imprecatory language in the psalms, I believe is exactly that.

And it's why I think we should pray and sing the imprecatory language. That's an expression of hope that it's coming, that Christ is going to subjugate the nations when He comes again in the day of His wrath, and then all nations will then serve Him.

So it's that, it's taking that language literally, which has not yet happened. And I would say even Jesus during His life says it's not, you know, He points forward to the second coming, the day of His wrath, as something distinct from His first coming and His ascension.

And then 1 Corinthians 15, so I see there, He shall reign until He's made His enemies His footstool as describing the period between when He comes and then comes the end, right? So that is the period of the reign that He's talking about.

It's not happening gradually. In fact, grammatically, the language there is exactly the same as in 1 Corinthians 11, you observe the Lord's table until He comes. Well, that doesn't mean He's coming gradually, and neither does until He makes His enemies His footstool mean that happens gradually.

That's describing at the end of His earthly reign. So second coming, His earthly reign, the nations are serving Him, but there's still being people born. So there's still people being born into sin. They might, you know, many do come to faith in Christ, but some are doing it externally because they have to, because He's ruling with a lot of iron.

But they're not submitting internally. And so Revelation 20, at the end of that kingdom reign, there is an uprising, a rebellion, and then finally is the final, He makes His enemies His footstool. It happens in a moment of time.

Wow, my camera's doing weird things. Yeah, your camera is doing weird things. It happens in a moment of time. What's going on there? And then at that point, there's no more enemies. Everyone who is now, you know, Revelation 21, new heavens and new earth, obviously all are glorified believers.

There's a whole lot going on here. And I don't have much to say. I'm not the kind of guy that debates eschatology too much. But there's a lot going on here. But in the beginning, it certainly kind of seemed to, He kind of seemed to be saying that He's not a post-millennialist, you know, that kind of thing, because there's just not enough violence in the world.

He needs to see more violence and ruling with an iron rod and all this kind of stuff. And since there isn't a lot of that, He's not a post-millennialist. He needs to see more violence. In Minecraft, of course.

In Minecraft. Is He calling for another crusades or something like that? In Minecraft, of course? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess that's what, I guess that's the future. Another crusade. I'm okay with the crusades.

You know what I mean? I don't really know as much as I'd like to know about the crusades. But I grew up in public school as a Yankee. And of course, I knew that the crusades were the worst possible injustice ever in the history of mankind, maybe except for the Holocaust.

But the more I learned about the crusades, the more I realized that actually wasn't the case, interestingly enough. I wonder if there's anything else that's like that. I'm an idiot. Anyway, yeah, very, very interesting.

There's a lot going on here.

A lot going on here. That's all I'm going to say. I see, you know, there's three, I see three stages in 1 Corinthians 15. The first, you know, Jesus' resurrection, then He comes, and that's the first resurrection, right?

And of course, there's a wide thousands of years period of time. We don't even know how long yet between His resurrection and He coming again. And then there is also a period of time between, then He comes, and then comes the end.

And that's the period where, for He must reign until the point at which, at the end of that reign, He makes His enemies His footstool. Okay, now that's, yeah, I guess it's, I appreciate the walkthrough.

It's interesting to try to, well, especially with you matching up, you know, 1 Corinthians 15.

This guy's an eschatology, like, connoisseur. I mean, his podcast is called Eschatology Matters. And he's kind of, you know, trying to think through his walkthrough and think about how best to answer.

But I'll be honest, I mean, like, you know, one of the things that I love about postmillennialism and also preterism, for that matter, is it makes this all make a whole lot more sense. It's much easier to understand.

And I think that that's an indicator. It doesn't mean that it's right, but it's an indicator that it is. Because, you know, people had to understand this text. That's something that you always got to think about.

Like, the text can't mean what it never meant. That sounds so stupid, but it's true. Like, the people who read these books, these letters, they had to understand it. They had to know what it meant, right?

Because that's why you write a letter. You write a letter so that someone understands what you mean. When you're typing up an email, you're typing it up so your receiver can understand the meaning of the email.

And letters are the same way. And so when you think of it from that perspective, it makes it very unnatural to sort of try to chop things up and to put these different phases and stages that really couldn't make sense unless you had these other letters over here and maybe these other lines over here and you had all that in mind.

Like, it's a very weird way to interpret some of this stuff. And so it becomes very confusing, I think, with all the other systems. Maybe not all the other systems, but it becomes very confusing. And I think that, you know, post-millennialism and preterism, you know, if you put yourself in the mindset, if you try to put yourself in the mindset of the original audience, it makes a whole lot more sense.

And then with the benefit of hindsight, of course, it makes even more sense. So anyway, let's continue.

The Lord's Supper, for example. The Lord's Supper being something prolonged and ongoing, but then to take 1 Corinthians 15 as kind of more of a punctiliar, you know, singular, climactic event. No, no, no.

The comparison would be, yes, the Lord's Supper is ongoing until he comes, punctiliar. He must reign ongoing during the millennial period until he makes his enemy's footstool punctiliar. So it's the enemy's footstool, but I would assume you would say that's gradually happening right now.

Whereas I would say, no, no, no. That happens punctiliarly, if that's a word, at the end of his earthly reign. That's the comparison. The ongoing is observing the Lord's Supper. The punctiliar is until he comes.

Satan's Defeat, the Strongman, and the Kingdom's Present Growth

Quick qualifying question, because obviously we're going to get more into the kingdom here in a second, but Satan's defeat and the inauguration of the kingdom, where are you at on those? I'm trying to make sure we cover all the boxes, because like you described with George Eldon Ladd, there's like some amalgamated views out there, and I want to make sure we're representing what you're putting forth.

But my perspective would be that Christ's kingdom is now, that it is ongoing, that there's a climactic victory during this kingdom, that sort of thing. But what are you seeing as far as the defeat of Satan?

Is that something current? Is the kingdom something current and ongoing? And I'd also ask, with the kingdom, do you see any sort of growth in this age? Or is it something sort of, I don't want to say flat, but you know what I mean, more of a flat trajectory until Christ returns?

Yeah. So a couple things there. The, yeah, so, you know, the kingdom, the physical, literal aspects of the kingdom of Christ, which again, based on the prophecies, I want to take those literally and say, where Jesus is reigning on his throne in Jerusalem, and the nations are bowing, and by the way, this is another reason I think it can't be now, is, you know, people are living a lot longer, there's less health and disease, the animals are living in harmony with man and other animals, that's all happening after the coming of Christ.

All of that is future after Christ's coming. There is, and this is where I would see overlap with Amil, to a certain degree, but I do see, there is an aspect of the kingdom that is already in terms of people being made kingdom citizens through the gospel.

So that, and so to your last question there, that is growing. That is what I see, you know, the parables about the gradual growth referring to. It is the gradual growth of the kingdom's citizenship that occurs through the gospel during this age.

No, I, with regard to Satan, I mean, Satan has been defeated, right? He was defeated at the cross, it's a done deal, but he's not yet been executed, and I wouldn't say he's bound. That does not happen.

The binding of Satan, that language doesn't happen until after Christ comes again either, and then he is released at the end of that reign, and that's why there's this major uprising, and finally Christ subdues his enemies once and for all.

But there, you know, it is a done deal, right? The cross has secured the defeat of Satan, and particularly for Christians, Satan has no power over believers because of our relationship to Christ. So in that sense, Satan has no, you know, there's a lot of language of comfort in the New Testament about how we may not fear that, you know, somehow Satan could snatch us out of the Father's hand and that kind of language.

But at the same time, we need to be vigilant because he is seeking whom he might devour, and this, you know, present evil age is still in the power of the evil one to a certain extent, John says. So he's not bound in that sense of language, but the cross, of course, did, you know, Satan crushed the serpent's head at the cross.

He did defeat him at the cross. It's just his execution, his final execution is still yet to come. So, two questions. One to qualify that and then one... A lot of.

Already-and-not-yet type stuff. I'm not the only one, I don't think, that does not find the already-and-not-yet the way it's often presented as very helpful at all. It's an attempt to sort of smooth over some things that don't make sense.

So you say, well, yeah, it is already, but not quite yet at the same time. And, you know, oftentimes that just means that you shouldn't try to do things. And that's the problem with Scott's perspective here.

It's like, this is all well and good. I'm not gonna debate with Scott about this. To me, it's not my area. It's not worth it to me. And, you know, Josh, of course, this is his area, so it's definitely worth it to him.

I don't really care so much about that. It's just that when the already-and-not-yet becomes an excuse to do nothing or to fight people that are doing something that don't really believe it the way you do, and you fight against them because it's like, well, it's not yet, even though it's already.

The already-and-not-yet, I think, is okay so long as it's from a perspective of yes, it's already and there's a lot more to come. It's not complete. It's already, but not complete. That's much more helpful in my opinion because it doesn't lend itself to some sort of false-pietistic inaction.

The already-and-not-yet often leads to a sort of weird inaction. Not always, but often it does, and so I don't really like the already-and-not-yet.

I'm not quite sure if we would see it on this one or not. The first one would be about Satan specifically. With Satan, obviously, I've written some on that.

Josh is kind of like a cross-politic in the sense that he looks for agreement. I like that. I like that style. I personally don't use that style too much, but I do occasionally, and I think people notice that.

In fact, I got a really nice letter from somebody. Oh man, this is such a nice letter. It was just the other day, a few days ago. He said that there was a video that I did years ago, and he had commented to me that he agreed with my video, but encouraged me to try to look for positives and to look for ways to agree with people that I'm criticizing.

I never respond to that comment because I don't respond to every comment. Anyway, he reached out to me just the other day, and he goes, Hey man, I don't know if you remember this, but I sent you this email, this message, and I didn't need to send that because you do that all the time.

I just didn't really look. I appreciate that. I do try to give credit where credit is due and to try to build bridges where I can and stuff like that. That's just part of what I do. Anyway, I appreciate that.

Josh is really good at that. He's asking these qualifying questions, and in a way, they're serving to make a distinction between him and what Scott's saying, but also, in another way, they're trying to find agreement where he can.

That's very skillful. Good job, Josh Howard. As far as Satan's binding.

Goes, because I don't want to derail the conversation, but just thinking toward his binding, and specifically to the strongman passages, which I've written for Free Grace Press was where that book came through, but when you see the strongman passage, you see that similar language of Satan, or the strongman who is Satan having been bound, and it's got that same verbiage, same word usage as you see in Revelation 20, but without even getting to Revelation 20, what do you make of those strongman passages where Christ says that through his work, he has bound the strongman that he may plunder his house and plunder his goods?

Yeah. So, again, I would see that as language of using a sort of present tense as an expression of it's a certainty, it's a done deal. Because I would ask, Christ is saying that before his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, right?

And yet he's saying as if it's already done, but isn't he going to do that on the cross? So, and I think you see that a lot. You see that in the Old Testament too, where future realities that really haven't yet actually come to pass are expressed in sort of present tense terminology because they're a done deal, right?

And I think, I would say that's what Christ is saying. By virtue of his cross, it is already as if Satan is bound, even though it's not an actual reality yet, it's yet to come, but it's a certainty because of Christ's perfect life, his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

That's how I would take those. Okay, that's fair.

I mean, I would disagree just with the, especially with the setting of that passage, you've got Christ casting out demons and he says, if you see this, you know, this casting out of demons, you can know that the kingdom of God has come upon you, and then he describes it as this binding of the strong man.

So it seems to be set, like, right there in his work, like, you guys see me casting these demons out, I've accomplished this thing. So I get the kind of proleptic fulfillment part of it, but we would, okay.

I get that, I get that completely, but I would say that's true, my interpretation is true of all of the demon casting out of both Jesus and the apostles, and all of the miracles too, right? I think those miracles are meant, they're foreshadowing what it's going to be like in the kingdom.

The lame will walk, the blind will see, and all of this. So all of that is confirming that Jesus is the Messiah, and then in the book of Acts, that the apostles are his messengers, with foretastes of what is going to take place in the kingdom.

But it's also why I'm a cessationist. I think there was a period of time in which those were in effect in order to confirm Christ and his apostles, but now they're not, because that's not what this age is about.

And so all of that, the kingdom is at hand language is exactly what Christ is saying. Yes, the kingdom is at hand. I'm the king. Recognize what's going on here, but I wouldn't see that as him saying the kingdom has started, or is about to start, or whatever.

So, I mean, this is the thing, right? So, again, this is all well and good, right? The already and the not yet. This is why I don't want to call it the already and not yet, because the already and not yet, this would be like, and take it out of this context for just a second, I'll put it right back in, when Scott talks about Christian governments and politics and nations, it would be like if he sees this passage and says, alright, Jesus was giving the foretaste of the kingdom where the lame will walk, the blind will see, and all the rest.

And so, it is not right for Christians to do scientific research and to figure out a way to make blind people be able to see. And I'm going to fight against it. In fact, that's dangerous. That's dangerous, and it's not Christian in any way, and that's not what Christians ought to do.

He would never say that about doctors who are trying to help the blind see, right? Even if they were Christian doctors and said, look, I'm a Christian doctor and I'm going to do what I can in this area, I'm an eye doctor, and I want to help the blind see.

You know what I mean? And he would never have a problem with that, obviously. But it only becomes a problem when you put it in the context of politics and Christian nations. Why? Why is that the one area?

And the thing is, there's a lot more in the Bible about governance and law and stuff like that. So why would that be the one area where he wants to fight against that kind of stuff? Because it's not Christian.

It's not for right now. That's not for right now. He would never say that to a doctor that says, I'm going to help the blind see with my doctoring. He wouldn't say, that's not for right now. That was just a fortes.

It's the already and not yet. It wouldn't make sense to say that. Of course, you would see that as a good thing and a very legitimate Christian thing to do. But when it comes to politics, all of a sudden, all bets are off.

It doesn't make any sense at all. At all.

Saying that's still yet to come. I'm just showing you I have power over Satan. And I'm doing these miracles to confirm that I'm Messiah and all of that.

We pray for God to be working through the hands of their doctors. And that's fine. You can pray for that. I'm not against that. But there's a whole lot less in the Bible about God working through the hands of a doctor than there is about God working through the civil governing authority.

You know what I mean? The civil governing authority needs to kiss the sun. The civil governing authority needs to bow the knee to Christ, take their orders from the Lord directly. Again, there's so much in the Bible about this, about nations honoring the Lord and how a nation that honors Christ as Lord is blessed.

You know what I mean? There's so much in the Bible about that for kings and for rulers and governors and all that stuff. There's so much. But in this context, it's okay. But in the other context, it just becomes very weird, very weird.

So you're still affirming like a sort of defeat of Satan there in the time of Christ, though. I'm thinking like John 12, 31, 32, right? You've got the whole now is the judgment of this world, now will the ruler of this world be cast down, Ecbalo, thrown from something.

So you're still affirming, though, there was some sort of defeat of Satan then that's still the cross. So it's an already not yet with Satan and with the kingdom at the cross, right? The cross did defeat Satan.

Already and not yet is totally fine. I feel like I have to say this because I know a lot of you believe in the already and not yet and say it all the time. I do, too, as long as it's understood correctly.

The already and not yet is fine so long as you don't use the not yet version to discourage legitimate Christian action today. And it's not like we think we're ushering in the kingdom of God that we're going to do it and all that kind of stuff.

It's that we do it as servants of the Lord, right? The Lord is the one doing it. We're just servants. And so the already and not yet is fine. I've got no beef with you if you use that phrase because a lot of people grew up with that phrase and find it very helpful.

I have the benefit, in my opinion, of not really growing up with phrases like that. Even though I went to church, it wasn't that kind of church. And so I didn't have those phrases as part of my understanding of everything until I was an adult.

And I could see the deficiency in that. It's just that it so often leads to a fighting against other Christians that are taking action because you're like, no, it's not yet! It's later! Think of the eye doctor, the Christian eye doctor who is attempting to create a treatment or a surgery or something to help the blind see.

He doesn't think he's doing the miracle that Christ did when he helped the blind see. That was a completely different thing. But he understands that that's a legitimate good, right, Christian enterprise and there's nothing wrong with that.

And so he's like, yeah, already and not yet but I'm going to still do what I can with my skills, with my role, with my duties before the Lord and I'm going to help the blind see with this surgery or whatever it is, right?

I don't know how it works. That's the already and not yet that I can get behind. Yes, that passage means something and it didn't mean that I was going to do eye surgery but this eye surgery is awesome and this is a good thing and we can see that in the passage and I'm going to do it.

Maybe I'll never figure it out and maybe the blind won't see until Christ comes back. That being said, I'm going to work. I'm going to do what I can. I'm going to make the world a better place. I believe in human flourishing.

That's the kind of already and not yet I can get behind. That's why I like it to be already but much more to come.

Execution. It just leads to more action, I think. Right. Sure. And I would agree with that. We're just kind of parsing it a little differently. Or even the binding. It's not yet. So it's really the binding we're having issue with.

So you're still seeing a defeat. There's still a fulfillment but you're just saying the binding. Okay. That's helpful, Scott. The second question I was going to ask, just that little two-parter, just the second question on that was, so with the nations because I think we can actually start to move forward there, but with the nations, would you see, for example, Matthew 28, the Great Commission being called to disciple the nations.

I know there's been some stuff bantered around about whether this can be the nations or just people from the nations and all of that but if we can just kind of try to skip past the definite article usage, are you still seeing nations in some sort being envisioned in the Great Commission as people groups, as some sort of cross-Bible reality?

Yeah. I mean kind of. I think there's definitely an intentional connection between how Jesus phrased that and the Davidic covenant and the prophecies that he is going to inherit the nations, right? I think that's probably embedded in there and already anticipating the Jews who are going to not understand the role of the Gentiles and the missionary impulse to go out.

I think that's probably the larger thing. The point is you go out and spread this gospel message to people from every ethnic, every people group, every ethnicity. Does it mean evangelize or disciple the nations?

I just don't get what that looks like. What does that mean to disciple the nations? If it means... It means to make students of the nations so that.

When the nations consider as nations what they should do in a certain circumstance, the first instinct that they have is to, okay, well, what does the Lord say about this? Does the Lord address this? Can we take application from the things that the Lord does address and apply it to this situation over here which maybe he doesn't directly address?

That's what a student does, right? A student studies what their master, what their teacher teaches. So that's what it would look like. It's really not as complicated as the G3 team has made it seem. What are you going to do?

Disciple Greece? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it would be a good thing for Greece as a nation to consider and seek out what the master, what their Lord teaches about certain topics. In fact, this is what we used to do or at least attempt.

You know what I mean? Obviously it didn't do it perfectly and this is the old, oh, Christian nationalism always fails. It's doomed! It's like, well, I mean, that's like saying Christianity always fails.

It's doomed because we didn't always get it right. We didn't always lead to the great place. We led to where we are today, right, where there's all this division and all this confusion. Well, obviously Christianity didn't fail.

People fail. That's very true. But it's very different than saying that God's not clear or God's not, you know, he's not he doesn't give us the information that we need. That's a very different kind of thing.

It's really not that confusing. Yeah, you disciple the nations. Make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything God commands. I mean, it says it right in the text itself what that looks like, what that means.

Preach the gospel to people from every nation and then those who come to faith, you baptize them and then you teach them everything that Christ has commanded. Okay, yes, absolutely. Beyond that, I just don't, you know, it's fuzzy to me when people make a big deal about, well, this means disciple the nations and this means baptize the nations.

I don't even know what that looks like, except for the sort of Christian nationalist or theonomy or obviously different permutations of what it might look like in this age for a nation to self-identify as a nation.

And there I would say, no, I don't see that in this age.

Alright, so we're going to stop there. We've been at it for 35 minutes, so I hope you found this video helpful. We'll continue in the next one. God bless.