INTRODUCTION TO ESCHATOLOGY (Overview of the 3 Christian views)

TWELVE 5 CHURCH

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So, one of the most challenging things to study is the topic of eschatology, and this just simply means the study of last things or the study of the end times.

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And I think so many people find this fascinating because we are limited creatures, right?

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We are people that have a birth, a beginning, and we have an end, but we don't know the future.

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So, when we start talking about biblical prophecies, that will really draw a crowd a lot of times.

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Tell me what the future holds, because we look to God who knows the future. So, I don't think it's any surprise that we find these topics very fascinating, what the future is going to be like, and how

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God is going to restore all things. But I've been a part of a lot of Bible studies where pastors have made the study of the book of Revelation, eschatology, somewhat discouraging.

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People have said, well, it's too complex, and we might as well not even study it. Don't take it too seriously.

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And I want to take a step back and say the book of Revelation may be hard to understand, but this book perhaps glorifies

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Jesus as God more than any other book in the Bible. So, I don't want us to be discouraged as we approach the topic of eschatology.

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In fact, I want you to understand that it actually promises blessing as you begin to study it.

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Revelation 1 verse 3 begins by saying, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and those who keep the things which are written in it for the time is near.

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And so, I believe our time will be blessed when we read any part of God's word, but this is almost promising double blessing when you study the book of Revelation.

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You'll be blessed. You'll see that Jesus is king and that God wins in the end, and we are more than conquerors in Christ.

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So I just wanted this to be an encouragement that all of history is going somewhere. God is sovereign.

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There's nothing random in this universe, and I believe there are many principles found in Revelation that gives us a glimpse of where all of history is going towards, and it is

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Christ being king over everything. So one way that I want us to begin this study of eschatology is

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I want us to look at our statement of faith here at 12 .5. If you go to our church website and you look at our statement of faith, section 14, we have a tiny passage about eschatology, the study of last things.

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Let me read that. Regarding eschatology, we apply the dictum, in essentials unity, in non -essentials liberty, in all things charity.

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We believe that the doctrines regarding the personal eschatology, the coming of Christ, and the eternal state are clearly expressed in the scriptures and are therefore essential.

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Yet we hold that the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel and the nature of the millennium are less clear and therefore non -essentials.

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Therefore various corporate eschatological views are free to be discussed and taught side by side as long as unity is maintained and love is preeminent.

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So please hold on to that because this is our stance at 12 .5

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Church. We say you have these essential truths that are so important to affirm when you start studying eschatology, getting into the book of Revelation, the

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Olivet Discourse, looking at the book of Daniel. There are certain things that we know are true because it's so tethered to the gospel and our blessed hope.

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Then there's another category of non -essentials that we are free to disagree with and sharpen one another and we want to do this in a way where we don't look down upon somebody that believes in a pre -tribulational rapture.

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Hey, that's orthodox. Many men throughout history and women have held on to this view and then some people believe that there is no rapture that takes place before a tribulation.

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Those are things that we are free to discuss. So I want to really differentiate between the essential things and the non -essential things.

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When we start talking about the non -essential things, there are three views in eschatology that are orthodox, that are wonderful, and there's room for disagreement and sharpening one another.

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Before we dive into that, let's talk about the essential points of eschatology. Look back at our statement of faith that says, we believe that the doctrines regarding personal eschatology, the coming of Christ, and the eternal state are clearly expressed in scripture and are therefore essential.

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And so there's kind of three big points that I'd love for you to follow along in your handout with me on.

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Number one is concerning the second coming of Christ. This is so important.

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When you're studying the end times, eschatology, understand that Jesus came to earth one time at the first coming.

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We just got through the Advent series. Christmas time is really referring to Jesus coming, born of a virgin.

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He lived a perfect, sinless life. He suffered, he died on the cross, he was buried, he was resurrected, and he ascended to the right hand of the

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Father. This refers to his first coming, but Jesus is coming back, and that's the second

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Advent. So Jesus is coming, and the future is going to be bodily, physically, and he is going to restore all things, and he is going to judge the living and the dead.

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And so this first major point is Jesus' future, physical coming, his return.

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So that's number one. And so number two, believers are going to receive resurrected bodies, okay?

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And not just believers, but the unjust, those that died in their sin, they will also receive a resurrected body fit for eternal justice, okay?

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But there is going to be a resurrection of the dead, and that is also in the future. We look to a few different places that tell us that we receive a resurrected body fit for eternity, but one big thing about receiving a new resurrected body is it will no longer be cursed by sin.

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Does anybody have any hurts or pains ever when you get up out of the bed? Or when you're 30 and you try to play basketball and you're like, oh man,

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I just don't move like I used to. This is actually a result of our fallen nature, right?

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But ever since the garden man sin entered the world, the whole world has now spiraled into decay.

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Things are expanding and breaking down over time. But the book of Revelation gives us this reality to look forward to in Revelation 21 verse 4.

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Jesus says that he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.

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Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

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This is a part of our blessed hope. Jesus is coming to set up his eternal kingdom and we as believers will receive new resurrected bodies.

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When I say new, it's going to be something brand spanking new, right? It's still going to be Ryan Russell, but in a transformed body, right?

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I'll have the perfect looking beard, us together. And so we have that to look forward to. We're not going to have those hurts and pains.

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There's going to be no more death because the presence of sin is going to be no more. And so that's kind of under resurrected bodies.

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So number three, write this down, eternal state. The eternal state is when

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Christ has come, set up his eternal kingdom and all things are transformed.

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Remember how I said our bodies are affected from the fall and because of sin, the whole world also is cursed in light of sin as well.

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Romans chapter eight, the apostle said, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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So this should be a wonderful encouragement that when we are in Christ by faith and faith alone, we know with certainty that Jesus Christ is coming.

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He's going to resurrect the dead and he is going to restore the entire world. This is a lot of time referred to our blessed hope.

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And these are future promises that we cannot wait for. So those three points real quick are number one,

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Jesus Christ will return bodily to rule and reign and to judge the living and the dead. Number two, the saints will receive resurrected bodies fit for eternity to rule and reign with Christ.

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And number three, this current world will pass away, but God will restore this new heaven on earth for the saints.

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So these are the essential truths that we lock arms with and we all can talk about the non -essential things, but these are the things that are non -negotiable.

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These are things that are actually tethered to the gospel itself. So let's think through some of the non -essential points of eschatology.

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So look back with me at your statement of faith again, where we continue to read, yet we hold that the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel and the nature of the millennium are less clear and are therefore non -essentials.

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Therefore various corporate eschatological views are free to be discussed and taught side by side as long as unity is maintained and love is preeminent.

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So there are two things here that I want you to see that are non -essential, right?

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Number one, it's the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel and the nature of the millennium.

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Now just because we say that these are non -essential, these are still very much important.

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And so what I'm saying is we see these taught in scripture. God has promises that he's given to Israel and there is a millennial reign of Christ.

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Those things are true because we see them plainly taught in scripture. But what does that mean?

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How do we interpret what these passages are ultimately getting at? Well, we can continue to sharpen one another along the way.

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But we lovingly talk through these difficult passages and concepts and we sharpen one another in these truths.

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So we have essential truths over here and we have non -essential truths and so it's very important that we distinguish those.

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So I want to spend not just a ton of time talking about the promises of God to Israel, but I want to give you two broad methodologies of historically how this has been understood.

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And so number one, maybe you've heard of this view called dispensationalism. I have a lot of friends and they just do this at me.

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They say, Jeremiah, don't tell me anything about dispensationalism. I'm not interested. And I just want to point out that there are different understandings of dispensationalism.

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It sounds like I'm making up phrases left and right here. I'm just telling you what's emerged out of church history.

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So there is a view of dispensationalism that says God is sub -sovereign, that he had plan

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A with Adam, he failed. Then he sent Israel, they failed, and so God had to send in the big guns of Jesus Christ, plan

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C. And that is awful. That is not the God of scripture. That's not the God we serve.

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And so there are forms of dispensationalism that teach that and that there have been different methods of salvation from the

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Old Testament to the New Testament. Any dispensationalism that teaches that, tell them, not interested, right?

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Because we know that God is sovereign. Plan A will succeed, amen? And so salvation has always been by grace through faith.

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That's true for the Old Testament saints looking forward. That's true for New Testament saints looking back to who the

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Messiah is and what he accomplished. But not all dispensationalism teaches that. The big things that dispensationalists teach that are fine as a methodology trying to harmonize scripture is that there is a distinction between Israel and the church.

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Okay? And so this view within dispensationalism, they are really trying to understand national ethnic

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Israel. And so that's different than the church today. They would look to Ephesians 2 and say, okay, you had this new man, this new church that no longer has a divide between Jew and Gentile.

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And so dispensationalists see this hard divide between Israel and the church. This view sees that Israel's promises will find their ultimate fulfillment in a future millennial reign of Christ.

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So this view says, okay, God promised Abraham a land. He never saw that land.

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So, oh no, God's promises have to come true. The dispensationalist says, oh, that will come true in the future during a thousand year reign.

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And I respect that view because they're trying to harmonize the text. Now, this is one of those non -essentials that we can have a different methodology and have loving disagreement.

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This view also sees that ethnic Israel, right, we understand that they rejected the Messiah. But this type of eschatology says, well, ethnic

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Israel will eventually look upon the one whom they've pierced and be saved at a future point.

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Okay? So we're talking about dispensationalism. And I want to encourage you. Many people have heard of Dr.

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John MacArthur. This is the view that he holds. And so when people get really mad and don't understand the distinctions between different kinds of dispensationalism,

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I'm saying, look, that is a faithful man that stands on the word of God, and it's okay to disagree with him on certain non -essentials of eschatology.

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Okay? And so dispensationalism is one way of understanding God's promises to Israel.

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Number two, the second view is called covenant theology. This is another way of seeing how

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God fulfills his promises to spiritual Israel. Okay? So that would mean that the promises find their fulfillment in Christ, who is the

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Israel of God. And in essence, the church reaps the benefits of those fulfillment blessings as the new

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Israel. So they just simply say, yeah, all the promises that you see given to Israel, yeah, the church has grafted in, and they get to reap those benefits.

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And so men that I look up to like R .C. Sproul, Votie Bauckham, they would hold to this type of methodology called covenant theology.

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And so the last thing I want to say to you, no matter where you land at on the spectrum of dispensationalism and covenant theology, is how you interpret the millennial reign.

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So we just talked about God's promises to Israel. This is a type of non -essential, where we can talk about the nuances of that.

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And then we have another really big non -essential topic when we talk about the thousand year reign of Christ.

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Is that thousand years meant to be literal and future, or is this symbolic?

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And is it referencing a timeframe that's not necessarily meant to be a thousand years?

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I'd like to invite you, if you would, please turn with me and your Bible to Revelation chapter 20.

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So this passage has been literally debated for 2 ,000 years, so we're going to solve it all right here and right now.

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Let's examine the opening 10 verses, and I want you to hear how many times the word thousand is referenced here.

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So Revelation chapter 20 begins by saying, Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.

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And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who was the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

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And he threw him into a pit and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until a thousand years were ended.

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After that, he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom authority to judge was committed.

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Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.

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They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.

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And this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection.

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Over such, the second death has no power. But they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

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And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are from the four corners of the earth,

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Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea.

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And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints in the beloved city.

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But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were.

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And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." So we see the phrase thousand years being repeated six times.

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And so the question of the evening is, how literal or how symbolic do we take these thousand years?

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Some people say, well, it says a thousand and it says it six times. How many more times does John have to say it to be literal?

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Well, that's an argument, right? And then some people would say, well, when we look into the Old Testament, we read a thousand cattle of a thousand hills.

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God owns all the hills. Or God makes a promise to a thousand generations. Well, he makes a promise to all the generations.

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So that's kind of the question. How symbolic or how literal do you take this passage? Also, is this future or has this started at some point in the past?

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So when you step into the world of eschatology, these are the types of questions we ask when we're looking at the nature of the book of Revelation.

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So I think it's very fair to say that when you look at these three different orthodox views, they almost agree on 90 % of the

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Christian life, right? Where they disagree mainly are on the non -essentials of the nature of the millennium and the promises that God has given to Israel.

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So we're going to do just a brief flyover this evening over these three big views.

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So I want to encourage you, continue to take notes. And at the end, we're going to ask questions.

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And there is no way that I explain everything so well that no one has questions. So I think it'll be fun.

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This is a time where we can bring our differing perspectives together to sharpen one another. But we're really going to key in on the things that unify us together in these three main views of eschatology.

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So number one is pre -millennialism, okay? So this place is the return of Christ before or pre the thousand -year millennium.

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So if you look on this chart or this little picture I have here, so we're living in this kind of church age now, according to pre -millennialism.

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And then you have the second coming of Christ. I just, I envision the sky just opening up and then

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Jesus. And I think on a white horse, right? I'm super literal. And then you've got the saints coming with him.

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And how the whole world can see that? I don't know. But he comes and then the thousand years starts after his first coming, okay?

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So do you see why it's pre -millennialism? Jesus comes pre or before the thousand -year reign.

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And so I want to show you an example of how the pre -millennials would understand a passage. In Revelation 19 we read, and the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

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And from his mouth, Jesus, comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.

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And he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he will tread the winepress of fury of the wrath of God the

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Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

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Okay, good. And so this is about the closest we see to Jesus having a tattoo, having

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King of Kings on his thigh. But that's a super, that would be a super literal look at this passage.

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You can obviously see the symbolism here, right? The word of God coming out from his mouth, right?

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And so the pre -millennialist says, well, we would understand this, he will rule them with a rod of iron.

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This passage is talking about the second coming of Christ, okay? So the pre -millennialist sees chapter 19 coming before chapter 20.

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So you're like, no doubt. Well, the pre -millennialist sees the entire book of Revelation unfolding like a story, okay?

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So you might make a note on the side of this. I know it'll be filling out here in a second. In fact, I think it's the next point.

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The pre -millennial view depends heavily upon a chronological view of the book of Revelation, okay?

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So that's why when you look at chapter 19 and say, okay, this is the second coming, and then in chapter 20, you see that thousand year reign that we just read about, okay?

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So to me, that is a really compelling point within pre -millennialism. If you can establish that the book of Revelation is unfolding like a story, that it's unfolding chronologically, well, then it seems natural to see the second coming in 19, and then the millennial reign in chapter 20.

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And so, like I said, John MacArthur holds this view, and he makes an interesting point in Revelation 1 verse 19.

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He says, perhaps this gives us the bullet points of how to understand the book of Revelation.

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Jesus is talking to the apostle John on the island of Patmos, and says, right therefore, the things which you have seen, think past, those things which are present, and the things that will take place after this.

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So you kind of have this mindset of past, present, and future. And so if you take this to be an outline of the whole book of Revelation, well,

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John received this vision in the past in chapter one of Revelation, and then chapter two and three are the things which are this church age.

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We look at the seven churches of Asia Minor, and you see all different types of churches that existed historically, but they also represent different types of churches, right?

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Those lukewarm churches where God said, I would rather spew you out of my mouth. You're neither hot nor cold, and you need to repent.

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Or you have faithful churches, healthy churches like Philadelphia, right? And so in this view, that would be the time period that we currently are living in and share with the apostle

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John. So the things which were, past tense, Revelation chapter one, the things which are

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Revelation two and three, and the things that must take place after this, this would be all in the future,

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Revelation four through 22, okay? Now, remember, we're just talking about pre -millennialism.

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You have to first adopt that umbrella view, and this is everything that kind of flows from that.

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And so like I said, this is understanding the book of Revelation chronologically.

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There are other contextual clues where the apostle John says, after this takes place, then

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I saw this take place, and then I saw this take place, and so this would be further perhaps evidence of Revelation unfolding like a story.

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And so lastly for this view, a lot can be said about the rapture.

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Has anybody watched the Left Behind series? Any Kirk Cameron fans out there? When you start thinking about the rapture, at least

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I do, I start just thinking about clothes just falling out of thin air and cars just swerving off the road.

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I watch those movies. So, but rapture is not actually found anywhere in the

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Bible, and you say, oh, it's unbiblical. Well, the Trinity is not found in the Bible either, right?

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So you have to ask the question, what does that word mean, right, and does the Bible support that? Well, the word rapture comes from the

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Latin word raptura, which means to be carried off. And so the apostle Paul taught in 1

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Thessalonians 4, 17, that we will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the

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Lord in the air. I believe he further expounds on this spectacular event in 1

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Corinthians 15, where believers will be transformed from mortality into immortality.

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There he says, we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. The dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.

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Okay, and so all orthodox views, the pre -millennial, all -millennial, and post -millennial, we all believe in a type of rapture, right?

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And so within the pre -millennial scope, they try to understand when the rapture is going to take place, right?

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This transformation from this tangible body, right, that's decaying, and then being resurrected and transformed into a glorious heavenly body, okay?

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And so the rapture is a biblical teaching, but where people have disagreement is on the timing of the rapture, okay?

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So we're talking about pre -millennialism. So I want you to understand, tribulation is the time of trial and testing on God's people.

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And so within the pre -millennial view, we understand the tribulation to be a seven -year period.

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Why is that? Well, when you study the book of Daniel, there's this idea that God is going to deal with his people for 490 years.

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He's going to deal with them 70 years times seven, okay? And within this view, it says, okay, there's a special seven years that's reserved for a future judgment on God's people, and within pre -millennialism, they see a lot of this taking place in the book of Revelation and back further in Daniel chapter 9.

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So seven years, in your mind, divide it in half. You got three and a half years, and then you have another three and a half years, okay?

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All of that is the tribulation, and within this view, most pre -millennialists see the first three and a half years as being a false peace, okay?

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You kind of have this antichrist coming into power, unifies all these different world religions, and there's this peace on earth, okay?

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And then everything hits the fan after that first three and a half years, okay? And the second half is called the great tribulation, okay?

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So we got kind of a chart going on here. So you kind of have the church age we're at.

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You have a pre -tribulational rapture view, meaning the snatching of God's people comes right before the first three and a half years, and then this is where all the great judgments that Revelation talks about, the seal judgments, the trumpet judgments, and the bowl judgments start pouring out on the whole earth, okay?

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And if you go Google, you can find so many different charts and connecting the dots, and it's pretty interesting, right?

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But it's all built on understanding the book of Revelation chronologically, unfolding as a story.

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All right, do you care to pull up that next slide? So we're talking about the timing of the rapture, right, the snatching away of the church or God's people.

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Well, some people say, well, God's gonna protect the church from this great tribulation, okay?

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So they have it right before the seven -year period starts, but then you have some people that have a mid -tribulational rapture view, right, that we'll see initial, we'll be a part of that false peace, and you might say there might not be a ton of judgment along with that, but they're gonna get snatched away right before all the judgments start flowing, okay?

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So, like I said, you have the seal judgments, right, which get pretty intense. There's another view that's called the pre -wrath rapture, meaning that you'll be around for, the church will be around for those seal judgments, will be snatched away right before the intense judgments of the bowls and the trumpets.

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And so that next slide, please. And then you have the post -trib rapture, where the church goes through all the tribulation, and then at the end, as Christ comes, the church is raptured up to meet him, transformed, and then comes back with him.

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And what's neat is we're talking about pre -millennialism. What I've been talking about is really more of a dispensational pre -millennialism.

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The early church actually held to something that, they weren't dispensational, but they did see a future thousand years where the church, they didn't have it all mapped out like this, but they didn't think the church would be raptured up, but would have to endure under the

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Antichrist and all these different events. And so these are different looks of how to understand the rapture in relation to the tribulation.

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So these are wonderful things that we can talk about and disagree with and sharpen one another.

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And so pre -millennialism, it all goes back to how you understand the promise of God giving promises to Israel.

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And I want to tell you this. So how you understand that, you either will see a hard divide between Israel and the church, but if you see those really talking about the same people, that's going to affect how you interpret the book of Revelation.

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Because in chapters one, two, and three of Revelation, you see the church mentioned a whole lot, and then you don't see the church anywhere until Revelation chapter 19, and all you see in between is

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Israel. Well, if you see the church and Israel as almost synonymous, that's going to affect how you read that.

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But if you see a hard divide, then you'll probably be more in this pre -millennial framework.

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And so I actually have a caution, there we go, I like my graphic there, so I have a caution.

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And I've been guilty of this. I grew up very dogmatic pre -mill, right, because Johnny Mac, baby, he was my go -to teacher.

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But I started feeling myself and hearing other people. It's like when they opened the newspaper, they were just trying to really discern the times through the events that they were reading the paper.

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And the caution I want to say is it's fine to try to be discerning with the times, but don't be paranoid.

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Right? God is sovereign. Please don't try to sell all your possessions and listen to the kooks that write books on when the rapture is going to happen.

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Don't get lost in it, right? There's a point to eschatology that we don't know the details of these things.

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So I just want to caution those, especially within a pre -millennial paradigm, people that believe in a pre -tribulational rapture, no one knows the exact timing for when

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Christ is coming back and going to begin the process of setting his earthly kingdom. I have some people that are constantly watching

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Israel, trying to figure out when are they going to rebuild that temple, right? That's fine, but don't worry yourself to death about it, right?

31:45

So just a caution. We can learn all these things in balance, right? So that is pre -millennialism in a nutshell.

31:55

So number two is all millennialism. Not all millennialism, not all the millenniums, but all millennial, which means that there is no millennium, okay?

32:08

You may say, what? That sounds crazy. These people not read Revelation 20? What this is getting at is this view does not see a future literal thousand years, right?

32:20

So it sounds a little weird to say that they believe in no millennium. They do, but they see this more as symbolic, right?

32:30

So they do not believe in a future millennial reign of Christ, but he is ruling and reigning right now.

32:38

And so a few reasons why they would do this. They're not going to see the book of Revelation unfolding like a story and chronologically, but recurring in cycles.

32:48

And they're going to say, when you look to the book of Revelation, you see a lot of phrases that are found in the

32:54

Old Testament. That's where you should go to to understand what John is saying in the book of Revelation.

33:01

So the next slide, please. So this is kind of how we would look at all millennialism.

33:07

So this is the thousand years, right? We're actually living in the millennial reign right now.

33:14

This began at Jesus's first coming when he resurrected and ascended into heaven, being this perfect high priest.

33:20

That began this symbolic millennial reign, and the millennial reign is going to continue until Jesus returns.

33:28

Can you see how that's way different than the premillennial framework? Remember premill? It says chronology, that our book of Revelation unfolds like a story.

33:38

All mill says, no, things are happening in a cycle, and Revelation 20 is symbolic for now.

33:45

And it started at Christ's first coming, and it's going to continue until he returns. And so this view says that Jesus is actually ruling and reigning now as a king, and that he gained victory over Satan and the curse of sin.

34:01

And so you could understand this as inaugurate millennialism, meaning that Jesus is an inaugurated king.

34:08

So that's a huge distinction between the premillennial view and all millennial view, is that all mill sees

34:16

Revelation occurring in cycles. It's cyclical. This view sees the bulk of Revelation as already being fulfilled back in the past, in the first century.

34:29

All the tribulation, the stress, the trials that we see throughout the book of Revelation, the destruction of the temple, they're saying all that was in the first century with 70

34:41

AD. And so, remember, premillennialism sees the bulk of Revelation as being future.

34:47

All mill says, no, the book of Revelation is primarily in the past. And so I'm wanting us to just have a comparing and contrasting of these two views.

34:57

But what's interesting is they actually do share something in common. They believe that the times will get worse and worse until Christ returns.

35:08

So that's about the only thing that they share apart from the essentials. And so I mentioned how all mill sees the bulk of Revelation occurring in the past.

35:19

This means that they would be partial preterists. That comes from a

35:24

Latin word, praetor, which means events that have already taken place in the past. Now, I mentioned that it's partial preterists.

35:33

That is such an important distinction because there is a view out there called full preterists.

35:39

Has anybody ever heard of that phrase? Yeah, we get two thumbs down here. So partial preterism, good.

35:47

Full preterism, bad. Y 'all like my little emojis up there? Let me tell you what's at stake here.

35:53

Full preterism completely destroys our blessed hope and the essentials that we hold to in our eschatology.

36:02

They deny that Jesus is coming back. They say, oh, he already came back at 70 AD. Well, what about us receiving resurrected bodies fit for eternity?

36:12

All that resurrection happened at 70 AD. Well, isn't Christ going to restore this sin -cursed world and bring heaven to earth?

36:20

No, the new heavens and new earth is now. You're looking at it. And when you die, the Bible doesn't speak what happens after that.

36:28

And so I want to tell you, that absolutely destroys our blessed hope in Christ.

36:34

And you may say, okay, Jeremiah, how do you know that this full preterist look at Revelation and the

36:40

Olivet Discourse and the book of Daniel and these other places are wrong? Well, number one, we have a historic faith, meaning that Christ has been building his church for 2000 years.

36:53

He promised in Matthew 16, he says, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail.

36:59

Okay. So Jesus made a promise. And to me, it is unthinkable that the church that Jesus is building got our blessed hope wrong.

37:08

Right? So the church for 2000 years has always understood these passages about the coming of the

37:14

Son of Man to be a future hope. And so I'm just saying, it seems unthinkable to me that the early church all the way until up until about a hundred years or so ago, got this wrong.

37:26

In fact, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the apostles into all truth.

37:31

Right? And so that means that the Holy Spirit checked out for 2000 years because this was somehow wrong.

37:38

And so my point is the beginning point to eschatology is we step in unity with the past 2000 years of saints and say, we look forward to the coming of Christ.

37:48

We look forward to God restoring the entire world and giving us resurrected bodies fit for eternity.

37:54

Right? Does that make sense? So that's point number one is we stand in unity with the saints of old.

38:00

Okay. Now, let me tell you how I really know that full preterism is just wrong and cannot possibly be true.

38:06

They interpret everything in such a way where it all has to be at 70 AD. Well, they actually have to create an entire worldview.

38:14

What do I mean? Well, when they have a certain interpretation of scripture of who God is, this affects how we view the rest of the world.

38:22

Okay. And so they say all these key things happened at 70 AD. This pushes them into a corner that says, okay, well now when we look to the book of Isaiah 65, the world as we know it now continues on into infinity.

38:37

Why is that a problem? Because this actually is going to contradict necessary attributes of who

38:43

God is. God is sovereign and God is omniscient. Okay. But if everything here in this creative world continues on into infinity, this means people continue to procreate on and on and on and never ends.

38:57

And so God never knows truly who are his. You could say, well, he knows all of his people now, but then you can always add one more.

39:05

Okay. Well, now God is omniscient. Well, you could always add one more. And so you really don't have God who is omniscient, which is necessary for us to know who we are in this world because we put our hope in a

39:15

God who knows all things. This also destroys many passages of scripture that says all will come under judgment.

39:22

Well, not all because you could always add one more. Right. Well, every knee will bow and confess the name of Jesus one day.

39:31

Well, not every knee. If this world as we know it continues on into infinity, and I can go on and on and on about these things.

39:39

But my point is, is full preterism creates an illogical, incoherent worldview.

39:46

Okay. Now this is important because when we're studying eschatology, the entry point is we have essential things that we hold near and dear to our heart.

39:54

Jesus is returning in the future bodily. He's going to restore all things and he's going to give us resurrected bodies.

40:01

That's our entry point. And the dividing line is full preterism. We know they've completely jumped off the cliff.

40:08

Okay. So in between the beginning point and end point are these three views of eschatology that we're looking at.

40:14

And we can continue to sharpen one another in these things. Sound good? So we're still on all millennialism.

40:22

And like I said, they share something in common with the pre -millennialist.

40:28

And this is that things progressively get worse, worse, and worse. And then Jesus is going to come.

40:35

He's going to resurrect his people. He's going to restore all things and he's going to judge the living and the dead.

40:44

All right. And so we are to our third major view that has come out of church history.

40:50

And this might sound the most strange for most of our people. This is called post -millennialism.

40:57

And so this is very similar to all mill that we just looked at, which sees Christ's second coming post or after the millennial reign.

41:06

Right? You can see, can I have that next slide, please? Oh, no, that's good. So Jesus is, this right now is the millennial reign.

41:15

It's symbolic. And then Jesus returns. And so what is very interesting about post -millennialism that distinguishes it from the all mill view is it sees this thousand year reign, this millennial reign getting better, better, and better.

41:30

Okay. And so what I mean is the whole world will be Christianized. And the mindset is the gospel will be preached, souls will be one.

41:41

This may take a long time, right? Because we look at the world now and we're just like, whoa, there is so much evil, wickedness, and sin in the world, and so many people that hate

41:49

Christ. The post -millennial view says, give it time. We're not in the last days necessarily. We are in the early days.

41:56

And over time, the transforming power of the gospel will go forth and the world will be transformed.

42:03

And another big part of this is called theonomy. Did I, okay.

42:09

Yeah. Theonomy. Theonomy is the study of God's law. And so theonomists believe that it's the

42:16

Christian's duty to create a worldwide kingdom patterned after the Mosaic law. And I want to pause here because I was guilty of this.

42:25

I thought that just seems crazy to think that people are going to be voting in governments to stone disobedient children.

42:33

Okay. Because we see that law found in the Old Testament. This is not what theonomy teaches.

42:39

Most people are in agreement that there's a threefold distinction in God's law. You have the moral law, you have the civil law, and then you have the ceremonial laws.

42:50

And so we have to understand it that way. I think the Apostle Paul gives us those categories in the New Testament, but the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ, right?

42:58

So when we look to the ceremonies of how the people of Israel, they would send out goats into the wilderness to, that was symbolic of something.

43:06

This is where the John the Baptist said, this is the lame of God, right? This is the scapegoat that takes away the sins of the world.

43:13

Meaning that in the Old Testament, all these types and shadows and ceremonies ultimately pointed to Jesus Christ.

43:20

So we don't look to the ceremonial laws anymore to implement, but we understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of those things.

43:28

And so if a Jew did not obey a ceremonial law, well, there was judicial or civil consequences, right?

43:35

And so this is where the theonomists, the post -millennials will say, well, there's some moral principle embedded in the judicial laws.

43:44

So we look to the moral laws of God that reflect His unchanging character. We look for moral equity in the civil laws.

43:52

And that is, we should be fighting this cultural war, voting for these laws of God found in the

43:58

Old Testament, and that is going to help transform the world, okay?

44:04

Does that sound different to a lot of people out there? I really tried to wrap my mind around a lot of these things.

44:11

It's very interesting. I do believe that post -millennialism and theonomy is orthodox.

44:18

So I just wanted to encourage all of us that these are things that we can continue to wrestle with and sharpen one another in, okay?

44:27

And so I also want to remind us that we should not run away from the book of Revelation because there's so many twelve -headed monsters and scary -looking angels.

44:37

Love it, right? So I ask the question, what did John mean when he was writing these things, and what is the principle, what is the application of how this applies to my life today?

44:48

I think what's important to know is God wins, right? God wins.

44:53

And we, if we are in Christ, we are more than conquerors, right? Let me ask you, what is typically the best part of any book that you read, like a novel?

45:04

What's typically the end, how it all leads up to the end? Has anybody just skipped to the end before even, yeah,

45:10

I knew some of y 'all would. I've been guilty of that. But as Christians, that's what we should be doing with the book of Revelation.

45:18

Skip to the end, right? Revelation is the last book of the Bible. Guess what? We win. The prayer is that there's going to be no more suffering today, no more death, no more hurts and pains, and we are going to see

45:30

Jesus face -to -face for all eternity, right? The book of Revelation says there's going to be no more sea, right?

45:38

There's a debate of what that means, but it's going to be a totally different economy. There's going to be no more sun. I think in some way, it's going to be this, the glory of God shining, how we are resurrected for eternity is going to be so different than what we experience now.

45:53

And so, the last thing I want to end with is that phrase in our statement of faith. In essentials, unity.

46:00

In non -essentials, liberty. And in all things, charity. Amen? All right.

46:09

Keith is first with a question, and I promise you I will not know probably the majority of any of these questions.

46:17

What do you think, Keith? What do you got? Maybe it's a question that you're talking about.

46:33

I don't even know anything about millennialism, because, you know, we weren't... It was an assumption, so the question is kind of getting at is, like, within the

46:41

Southern Baptist world, it's a given assumption, pre -millennialism, but no one ever even says that term, and it's just pre -trib, pre -trib, pre -trib.

46:49

So, having said that, when you take the scripture that you read out of there, like, you mentioned that some people, you know, go back to the

46:58

Old Testament and say, well, but, this is a little bit different.

47:14

Because there's what's going to happen at the beginning, and what is going to happen at the end. So, if you read what is going to happen at the beginning, and that hasn't happened yet...

47:28

Right. Go ahead. I'm trying to remember your question, so I can repeat it for the video.

47:34

It talks about an angel coming down, seizing the dragon, which is, say, bounding,

47:42

I think So, the question is, you know, when we look at Revelation 20, we say, have these things begun to happen, or not, and that's going to affect our eschatology, you've literally stepped into the debate, because, no, it's okay.

48:02

Because all millennialism would say, yeah, Satan's bound, because Jesus came and he bound the strong man, right,

48:10

Adam Carmichael, back there? And so, the conversation continues, though, is

48:19

Satan deceiving the nations like he did in the Old Testament, or is he bound? Or is he bound by the power of the gospel?

48:27

Well, you have to interpret it, because everyone is going to have levels of symbolism, versus how literal you're going to take the book of Revelation.

48:35

So, that's, like I said, you've literally stepped into the dialogue, which is awesome. Yeah. Now, here's how

48:46

I approach it. If you're convinced that it's not happened yet, well, then you're necessarily going to be in a premillennial framework.

48:53

But if you are convinced that Jesus talked about the binding of Satan in the gospels, and that's relevant, well, then that's already begun in the past, and then we're living in that millennial reign.

49:05

So, that's good. It's like, study Revelation 20, right, and stay within orthodoxy, right, because we've been given the parameters of what the essentials are, and we know where the cliff is, where our full preterism is, and they've totally left the faith altogether.

49:22

Yeah, those were good points. Anybody else? I'd better get some questions from the youth back there.

49:46

We tend to be fearful, like, you can lean that way, but we should all agree, like, we should be able to all know that Jesus is ruling the right way.

50:03

That's an excellent point. It 100 % does, because we're talking about, you know, what are the implications if Satan is bound?

50:10

Does that mean that there's no spiritual warfare? Well, no, we're talking about it in a particular sense, if he's bound or not, because the answer is you still have to put on the whole body armor of God.

50:21

And so, full preterism, guess what? They believe that Satan's already thrown into the lake of fire at 70

50:27

AD, right? So when they look at Ephesians chapter 6, they may say, yeah, put on the whole body armor of God, but it's not really to war against the principalities and powers anymore, it's to war against your flesh.

50:40

And then I'm like, but our battle's not against flesh and blood, but it's against the cosmic powers of darkness.

50:46

And so I'm just saying, when you take full preterism to its fullest and put it all back to 70 AD, it has catastrophic implications on our world view, right?

50:55

And this is where the premillennialists and an all -millennialist can talk about that bounding, but realize, however you view that, spiritual warfare is real, and we've been given instructions on how to combat

51:10

Satan, right? What do you think? We can lock arms together and do all kinds of things and know that God is armed with And there's nothing to be scared of.

51:21

Perfect love casts out fear. God's got this. And to me, is there a balance to be curious about Israel, and did they get, is the temple supposed to be where the

51:38

Dome of the Rock is, or was it somewhere? Sure, that's interesting, right? I know the people that are all into it, but it's like, don't be fearful, right?

51:46

Don't be newspaper exegetes, like your eschatology is dependent on what you see happening in the news.

51:53

That's good. Anybody else out there? If you, what'd you say?

52:03

If you think that Satan is bound, this is what

52:10

I'm talking about. We want to apply charity in this area, because there are good orthodox views that do not think that Satan is bound in a literal sense right now.

52:21

And so the book of Revelation is symbolic. There's a lot of symbolism. Everybody has to give in to symbolism at some point, right?

52:29

So that's where we apply charity, and we don't say, well, I expect your view to be wrong and me be correct.

52:35

You know what I mean? In that kind of like, I'm looking down upon another person. We lock arms together in these things, and we have those good discussions with one another.

52:44

Erica. Yeah. Yeah. So Adam's going to get more into this in the all -millennial view coming up, right?

53:04

And so this is the idea. He's not bound with these spiritual chains and he can't do anything. We're saying, and Adam, correct me, if you look in the

53:11

Old Testament, you just see all the nations outside of Israel being just basically pagan to the core.

53:17

Satan has deceived the nations. And then when Christ came, he bound the strong man,

53:24

Satan, and he says, I've come, right? I'm doing my will and I'm putting all things in subjection under my feet.

53:31

And then the all -millennial view and the post -millennial view says, okay, that is a type of binding that Revelation 20 is talking about.

53:43

So Adam, you have to help me on this. We're just saying that when Christ comes, he's God in the flesh.

53:48

And so Satan can only do what he's permitted to in that sense. And what's the parable?

54:46

Did you say Matthew 12? And it's the parable where Jesus talks about binding the strong man.

54:52

So for our listeners, that's kind of the move to, in the all -millennial view, we would say

54:58

Revelation 20 is kind of linked to the parable that Jesus gave talking about binding the strong man, the strong man.

55:05

I think Bob's in that picture.

55:27

If he's a Tenet, like what was the Prince of Persia? Was that on the

55:32

Tenet? No, he's all -mill.

55:49

They'd probably agree with you on that. He used to be a unique person. Maybe at the end of the

56:02

Puritan era, things are getting better. Yeah, but since God is... See, and that's another thing.

56:11

What a lot of times influences people, eschatology, is trying to look at the times around them.

56:16

And that's hard not to do, right? Because when you're in a time of war, you might be thinking, man, things are going downhill.

56:23

But when maybe you're in a golden age and things are going up, people may try to think in post -millennial terms. We're trying to look in like 20 to 50 % of the time.

56:52

Yeah, and this goes back to a principle we talked about earlier. God's sovereign, right? And really, instead of taking our human experience with the times that we see and then going to Scripture, the best hermeneutical principle we could have is what did the

57:06

Apostle John, in writing Revelation, what did he mean when he was writing it in the first century?

57:11

That will kind of set us up on the right trajectory. Christy? Is theonomy, is that lucid to post -millennialism?

57:26

Great question. Great question. So the question is, the word theonomy, is this exclusive to post -millennialism?

57:34

I would actually say no. But to what degree of theonomy one is, that's where the difference, because theonomy simply means

57:41

God's law. And so in Romans chapter 7, we know that God's law is holy.

57:49

We uphold God's law, but typically what we mean is not the ceremonial law, not the judicial laws that were meant for the nation of Israel, but we uphold the moral law of God.

58:02

Think Ten Commandments, right? And so that's a theonomic understanding, where the post -mill is different though.

58:09

They are saying not only do we need the moral law, but we need the moral equity of the judicial laws implemented for today for the

58:18

Christianizing of the world. That's going to work in tandem with the preaching of the gospel and the Holy Spirit going forth.

58:24

Is that not the same thing as Christian nationalism? I don't know. Christian nationalism, it sounds like that, but I'm not 100 % sure.

58:32

But I would say all Christians are theonomists, but it's a different question to what degree.

58:39

So, good question. Yeah? I think it's eye -littering to me.

58:51

It's symbolic, too. You know, my discussion is plain as day, as you know, that you've got to work together, love one another, as Christians or for anybody, is to make sure that your heart is right with God.

59:16

Yep. And then this stuff don't really matter. Right, and see, we want to handle that with care, because you're right, we don't want to elevate a particular eschatology and not understand the method of salvation, soteriology.

59:31

Some people, they have all their charts for eschatology, and they couldn't even tell you what the Trinity is. And I'm like, your priorities are out of line here, right?

59:39

And so, we have to unify together on these non -essentials.

59:44

What's the phrase? In essentials, unity. In non -essentials, liberty. And in all things, charity.

59:50

And what we want to say is the book of Revelation matters. It's part of God's word.

59:56

It promises blessing, right, to those that read it. And it's arguably the book that glorifies

01:00:03

Jesus and his majesty more than any other book. But we don't want to disparage somebody that disagrees with us and still falls within orthodox.

01:00:13

That's where you're getting at. You see a lot of church splits. Some people said, well, if you're not teaching pre -millennialism or a pre -trib, pre -trib, pre -trib,

01:00:20

I can't go to that church. That's not how you approach what a healthy church is or not, right?

01:00:25

Here at 12 .5, we're saying we champion the orthodox views, and we lock arms together on the essentials, and we combat the heresy of hyper -full -preterism.

01:00:40

Yes. Yes, let's go. Representing the youth.

01:00:45

Well, anyway, probably explained it earlier. Okay, so really good question.

01:01:02

How does full -preterism explain the sin and the darkness in the world, right? What they're going to say is

01:01:08

Jesus took care of sin at the cross, meaning the penalty of sin, and it doesn't really matter the sin that actually you see in this world, which, by the way, is the new heavens and new earth.

01:01:21

They think that's going to continue on into infinity. Now, I'm saying that's absurd.

01:01:27

That isn't a workable worldview because it literally contradicts the necessary attributes of God and his omniscience and his sovereignty.

01:01:35

And I like your question, too, because there is no question that there's sin and darkness in this world, right?

01:01:42

Then they are serving a God that does not restore this sin -cursed world, right?

01:01:47

Think of the grossest sins that you can, that continues on forever, right? That's a different God.

01:01:53

That's a different Jesus, and in my opinion, is not a victorious king but is a defeated king.

01:01:59

I don't want anything to do with that type of worldview and that type of realized hope, right?

01:02:05

They don't have a blessed future hope, but they have a past tense, oh, it was all done in 70

01:02:10

AD. So I just don't think full -preterism makes sense at all. So as we're interacting with full -preterists, one common objection that we have is, okay, you appeal to the early church and the church for the past 2 ,000 years unifying on these eschatological points like Jesus' future return, resurrected bodies,

01:02:32

Jesus is going to restore all things. And so, like you said, Nathan, one point is, well, then wasn't

01:02:38

Martin Luther an innovator, right? You kind of fall in the Protestant Reformation. So how can you allow some type of reform to happen to the early church?

01:02:47

Does that summarize the question pretty good? Well, it's a great question because the Roman Catholic Church, they are the ones that deviated from salvation, right, by implementing sacramental works, right?

01:03:01

And so when I've talked to hyper -preterists, Martin Luther was not innovative with what he said.

01:03:08

When he said sola fide, faith alone, and when he started talking about double imputation, how justification is forensic or judicial, there being a hard distinction between justification and sanctification, all of these points are found with the early church.

01:03:25

So there's nothing new with the Reformation. You just see someone saying, no, we're going to challenge the dogmas of Rome, right?

01:03:34

And so I would challenge a full preterist when he says, no, everything was new and innovative.

01:03:40

Well, we have it in the literature. And in fact, there's a book, if anyone's interested, it's called Long Before Luther.

01:03:46

It's a wonderful book that just talks about that Luther was not the first to invent these principles of salvation by faith and faith alone.

01:03:55

And so the point is, full preterism is brand spanking new. They really hold a view that goes against all the creeds of the early church, and they try to claim that they're taking the best from all -millennialism and post -millennialism in marrying those two together.

01:04:12

Well, as soon as you do that and try to put everything back at 70 A .D., you've come up with something that's brand new where the all -mill and post -mill would say, no, no, you're not one of us, right?

01:04:23

What do you think? You like that? All right, Brian. Can you talk about the full preterists being new? Are any of these – what's the timeline on these?

01:04:32

Is it like the post – I mean, were they all around since the early early days, or is the post kind of – Great question.

01:04:38

So I want to say pre -millennialism came first. The early church – they weren't a dispensational pre -millennialism.

01:04:45

They didn't see the church being raptured before tribulation. But the early church, when you look at literature like The Shepherd of Hermes and there's a few other ancient works, they looked forward to a thousand -ish year reign of Christ in the future that's different than the eternal state.

01:05:03

And so this view still is around today. A lot of people hold to what's called a historic pre -millennial view. So like I said, they don't put a lot of stock in the rapture, and they don't see the thousand years as primarily with Israel getting all their land promises and then redemption.

01:05:17

They see the church being on display during that thousand years or however long that that's meant to be.

01:05:23

So pre -mill came first. And I want to say with Augustine, who was – was it

01:05:29

Augustine where all -mill kind of started coming out? Not too long later, but is that the earliest we have of kind of a framework of all -millennialism?

01:05:38

If you ask me, it goes back to Paul. Sure, sure, sure. Fair. Well, we see

01:05:45

Adam's cards when you start saying Paul taught all -mill or pre -mill. You start seeing it around Augustine.

01:05:51

Yeah. So those are early, and post -mill comes last of the three.

01:05:58

And I don't know where it comes from exactly. I know most Puritans held to a post -millennial view of eschatology.

01:06:07

Great question. We're out of time. We're out of time. Oh, we have some sad faces,

01:06:13

Nathan. Anybody that has questions, we'll hang around. Oh, yeah. We're going to hang around.

01:06:19

But what's my curfew, Ali? I've got to be home by nine or so. Remind everybody we have four more weeks of this in detail.

01:06:26

Yeah. So this was week one of five, and so I wanted to just kind of give a big overview of the three main views of eschatology.

01:06:34

But you have to understand the essential views and the non -essential views, right? And so the three major views of eschatology affirm the essentials, and then we can sharpen one another in the less essential category, right?

01:06:46

And so the next week, we're going to go deeper into premillennialism.

01:06:52

I know everybody's excited about that. And then Adam's going to teach on all millennialism, right?

01:06:59

And then I will pick it back up on postmillennialism. And then the last week, we're going to recap on the essentials of eschatology and have a longer

01:07:09

Q &A. What do y 'all think? Y 'all seem excited out there. Well, you're right.

01:07:17

We can't exhaustively cover, but hopefully we'll hit a lot of the highlights. So look forward to that.

01:07:22

Let me close this in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word,

01:07:28

God, that is powerful. And, God, we take risks in many things that we read that no one knows the day or the hour pertaining to the second coming of you,

01:07:39

Jesus, God, but you and you alone. And so, God, these are certain things that we're not supposed to have nailed down precisely because that is knowledge that is reserved for you.

01:07:49

So, Lord, please help us to just sharpen one another as we continue to study your word. God, please help us to do it passionately, but also lovingly with one another that disagree.

01:07:59

And please help us to lock arms together against those views that are heretical and totally take away our blessed hope in these promises that you give us,