This Bible study was conducted at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Algoma, Wisconsin on September 18, 2024.
Transcript
Note: The following transcript was AI generated and may not match what was said 1:1.
So why don’t we begin with a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we praise and thank you that you have granted us the Book of Revelation towards our edification and our greater confidence.
And we pray that as we study these various views in the Millennium that you would make us wise in the way that we interpret Revelation so that your will would be done in us, that we would gladly and confidently go forth.
To share the gospel of Jesus Christ, not losing heart in the lordship of Jesus Christ, but rather looking forward with great joy for his return through Christ your Son.
Amen.
All right, so why don’t we go through the reading for today we to do.
So just as a reminder, we are taking a look at Revelation chapter 20, which is one of the most. controversial passages in Scripture, I’d say.
So let’s take a look at Revelation chapter 20 and we’ll go through and read verse by verse.
So I’ll start with verse one and why don’t we go clockwise.
So you’ll two, three, four, and so on.
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.
He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who was the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were ended.
After that he must be loosed for a little while.
Then I saw thrones, and seated them were those to whom judgments was committed.
Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the Word of God and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.
They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.
This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrectionThe second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.
When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, God and Magod.
To gather them for battle, their number is the sand of the sea.
And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city.
But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.
And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Then I saw a great white throne, and him who sat upon it from his presence Earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were open.
Another book was open, which is the book of life.
The dead was judged according to what they have done as recorded in the books.
And the sea gave up the dead in it, death and Hades gave up the dead in them,And all were judged by what they have done.
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
This is the second death, the lake of fire.
And if one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
OK.
So let’s take a look at what we’re going to cover today on the basis of this.
So we already read Revelation chapter 20.
So we’re not going to, we’re not going to dive into this passage verse by verse.
We’re going to wait until next week to do so.
But instead, what we’re going to do today is that we’re going to have an overview of the four predominant interpretations of Revelation.
So historical premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism. dispensational pre-millennialism, and then finally we’re going to advocate for one of these positions.
So that’s what we’re going to do today.
We already read Revelation chapter 20, so let’s just go over these four millennial teachings.
So let’s first of all describe, there’s a lot of words that I just used. that may be confusing.
So the first is millennial.
What does millennial mean? Millennial is related to the word millennium which means one thousand years.
So these are all various interpretations of what that thousand years is mentionedin Revelation chapter 20 verses 4 through 5 so it talks about how there that in verse 4 that the ones who had not worshiped the beast were its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years right and then so what isWhat is that thousand years and how are we to interpret that thousand years and to interpret the other things discussed in Revelation chapter 20 and really the rest of the scriptures as in relation to that thousand years.
That’s the question that we’re taking up today, OK.
And there are, as I mentioned, there are four main viewpoints that Christians have held over time regarding. the millennium and the things that are recorded in Revelation chapter 20.
So there’s a little comparison chart there and you can’t really see it super in the handout but it’s much more visible on the screen although that’s small too.
The first would be post-tribulational premillennialismI to call this historical premillennialism and that’s how I’m going to be referring to it as is historic premillennialism.
So this view holds that in a time to come, Christ will return visibly and will reignvisibly for a millennium, a thousand years and the historic premillennialist may and probably do not take that number entirely literally, but he will have a visible earthly reign before the Last Judgment as the viewpoint of historic premillennialism.
Then there is pre-tribulational or dispensational millennialism.
I’m going to be referring to this just as dispensational millennialism throughout our discussion.
OK, so dispensational millennialism teaches that Christ is going to come.
He’s going to take away his faithful people that that they would probably more call born-again Christians.
He’s going to come again then with the church and reign after a period of tribulation and he’s going to reign for 1000 years and then will be the last judgment.
And they certainly do take that thousand year reign of Christ as a very literal number, OK? Then is the viewpoint of post-millennialism.
Post-millennialism is the viewpoint that there’s going to be a reign of Christ over the world by means of the near universal triumph of the church.
And then finally after that period of time, and most post-millennialists would not interpret the thousand years literally, then there will come the second judgment and the second coming.
And then finally amillennialism.
So amillennialism views the thousand-year reign of Christ as not a literal thousand years, that that’s a figurative number, and that thousand-year reign of Christ is in fact happening now.
And that Christ will come visibly a second time and that will coincide with the Last Judgment as.
So there’s a lot there and we’re going to go through these a little bit more in detail here in the next few slides.
By the way, if you have any questions at any point, please, please raise your hand and ask.
So, historic premillinealism, so according to our last slide, that was the, they call that the post-tribulational, no, yeah, post-tribulational premillinealism,.
So, historic premillinealism is the view that Christ will return and visibly reign on earth for 1,000 years before Judgment Day.
This will be a period of messianic peace until the Last Judgment.
So the justification for this is simple, those who hold historic premillennialism.
Um Revelation chapter 20, verses four and five.
So then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.
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 worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their forehead on their hands.
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.
This is the first resurrection.
So historic premillineal teachers would holdmore or less that Christ is going to return and visibly reign.
When he returns and visibly reigns for a thousand yearsthat those who live and believe and did not fall prey to apostasy, to false worship will reign along with him.
This will be a period of peace and-being for the sake of God’s people and that after that thousand years then will be the resurrection of all the dead for the purpose of judgment in that time, right?This was a pretty common view in the early centuries of the church and there are-regarded preachers and teachers in the early church who taught this.
So two examples would be Justin Martyr.
So who was Justin Martyr?He was, you might call Justin Martyr among the second generation of Christians so he was really early so John livedprobably to,into the 90s after 90s AD.
Justin Martyr was writing already in the early 100s, if memory serves correctly, and he was a defender of the Christian faith against those who sought to persecute Christians and against those who sought todeceived Christians into thinking that they needed to live as Jews and so on.
Alright, so anyways, Justin Martyr, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with every single thing that he says, and I don’t actually, but by and large regarded to be a faithful teacher in the early years of the Christian Church.
Also, Irenaeus is another individual who seems to have held a pretty strongly held pre-millennial viewpoint along the lines of this.
Irenaeus was another very, very early Christian teacher.
Um The years of his ministry are escaping me right now, but, it’s second or third generation of Christians, essentially.
So he wasn’t right at the time of the Apostles, but he was very soon thereafter.
He was someone who was very concerned with right doctrine and scriptural doctrine and he wrote probably his most famousbook, he had several famous books, but one of them was a book called Against the Heresies.
In which he confronted several false teachings that were happening in the church at that time.
Irenaeus also seems to have this viewpoint as.
It is not the only viewpoint of people in the early church.
OK, there were multiple viewpoints.
Amillennialism was also that which we’re going to discuss last today.
Amillennialism was also held in the time of the early church, but but premillennialism also was held very much as.
But by the time of about the 5th, 6th century, you start to see some big cracks in the teaching of premillennialism, historic premillennialism.
There did continue to be people who taught it. but people seem to be giving way at that time more and more to the view of amillennialism, which again we’re going to talk about.
So I was going to talk about amillennialism before, actually we’re going to talk about it next.
Because, and that makes sense because it was taught in the early church as.
So, what is amillennialism? Amillennialism is the view that Christ’s one thousand year reign is currently occurring.
So Christ is already reigning.
And this thousand year reign, that number is a symbolic number.
Now there are some, especially up until the year 1000, there are some who probably held more or lessThe same views of the Millennium as we did, except that maybe they did have a viewpoint that it was a literal thousand years, but that viewpoint pretty among those who share this viewpoint that Christ was currently reigning in this way, and that it was a literal thousand years that died out at a certain point.
Why do you think that died out at a certain point? We went past 1000 years.
Yeah.
So about the year 1000, there was a there huge amount of expectation for the return of Jesus.
OK.
And so those who believe that, when it talks about the 1000 year reign of Christ and that that is happening now, if they also viewed that to be a literal 1000 years, my goodness, people were. very much up in arms about the turning of the year 1000, and for several years in that time frame there was just this huge expectation that Jesus would return at that point.
Now there had always been, always been those who believed that thousand year reign of Christ described is a figurative number, but those who, those who believedum Those who held this viewpoint and also believed that it was a literal number no longer could hold that anymore.
OK, so in any case, yes.
So now, so early on there were always those who viewed that as a symbolic number, and now if you hold this view, you have to see it as a symbolic number because 1000 years has gone by, right?And Christ has not returned.
In this viewpoint, there’s different understandings as what it’s talking about with the first resurrection.
Some people, when it talks about the first resurrection, believe that this is talking about Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection, right, as it talks about in other places of Scripture.
Um Or perhaps this refers to the eternal life of the soul of the Christian, right?So you when we die, our souls don’t die, but go to heaven and live.
And then we await the second resurrection when Christ returns in power and might and glory.
So the nature of the first resurrection is, and what it’s referring to there, are different viewpoints on this, but all amillennialists are united in this viewpoint.
The second resurrection is when Christ returns.
And the visible return of Christ coincides with the resurrection of the dead and also coincides with Judgment Day.
It all happens at once, all right?That’s the view of the amillennialist.
Not that Christ returns and he reigns for 1000 years and then the Judgment Day.
Not the view that Christ takes Raptures, Christians out, and then he comes back again for a thousand-year reign, and then there’s Judgment Day, but when he returns visibly, that will be when the dead rise.
Every eye will see.
It will be visible.
That’s when the dead will rise, and that they will rise to judgment.
Okay, so the justification for this viewis that there’s no mention of a visible rain, a visible rain preceding the resurrection that can be found in the rest of the scriptures.
So other scriptures picture Christ’s return, the resurrection and judgment occurring essentially simultaneously as.
So basically nowhere else in the Bible do we find this notion that Jesus is going to return visibly and then there’s going to be this period of a visible reign that precedes the resurrection of the dead and Judgment Day.
That is not found anywhere else in the Bible, but if you look at the testimony of the Scriptures, it seems to be pretty universal that these all happensimultaneously.
So let’s take a look at a few of these scriptures real quick here, the the justification of this.
So let’s take a look at John chapter 5 verses 25 through 29.
And would someone read John chapter 5 verses 25 through 29 please? Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
For the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.
Do not marvel on this, for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and come forth those who have done good to the resurrection of life. and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Okay, so essentially what this points to is that, Christ’s visible return will be evident to all and will be so evident, you can’t miss it, that even the dead will hear when He comes, right?And when He comes, all the dead will rise, simultaneously, and there will be, and Judgment Day will commence immediately after there.
And this will be a judgment between both the good and the evil, right? Um Those who are good, and this is, youknow,to eternal life and those evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Alright, Matthew 25 verses 31-40, would someone read Matthew chapter 25 verses 31-40 please? When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my Father inherit the Kingdom.
And actually that’s probably enough for us to get the sense of it.
Well, actually, no, go on.
Keep going actually.
Now I prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you clothed me.
I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison and you came to me.
Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink?And when did we see you as stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?And the king will answer to them, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
One more verse, please.
Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me you cursed into the eternal fire. prepares for the devil and his angels.
Okay, so this verse, When the Son of Man comes in His glory.
Right, so this visible return of Christ.
When He comes in His glory, then He will sit on His glorious throne, and before Him will be gathered all the nations of the earth, and they’ll be gathered for the sake of judgment.
So again, To me, this is a pretty clear indication that Christ’s return, his visible return, will coincide as with Judgment Day.
Not that there’s some thousand year reign before Judgment Day, but instead that these are more or less simultaneous, all right?Finally, First Corinthians 15 verses 23 to 26, and I could pick out many, many, many other passages. but these arejust these are a few of the most important ones and to help us see what’s going on here.
Would someone read 1 Corinthians 15 verses 22 through 26 please? Actually, let’s do 20. 20-26 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For as by a man came death, but by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all died, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But each in his own order Christ the firstfruits, and as it is coming those whobelong to Christ.
Then comes the end when we deliver the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
One more verse please.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
Okay.
UhSo Again, this passage, I think this passage is a helpful passage because it helps us to understand, I believe, a little bit of this discussion of a first resurrection and a second resurrection.
It talks about how Christ,, is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep and that the resurrection of the dead has come in him, right?And so there’s a sense in which the,, there is a first resurrection already in Christbut then it it talks about you when the end comes he delivers the kingdom of God the Father that in that time when he returns will be the the second resurrection and this will be you the final end and this is the This is the visible return of Christ.
So, so those are some of the passages which some of them that those who take an amillennialist view would say support the position.
OK, as I mentioned, this was taught in the early church.
I mentioned that round about the year. 500 or so, premillennial, historic premillennialism started to be taught less and less and less and amillennialism rose more and more and more in prominence and a big reason why it rose in prominence is that this was the position of Augustine, of Hippo,?Saint Augustine, as we often call him.
All right, who was Saint Augustine?He was probably, you outside of the apostles, one of the probably top three most influential teachers in the Christian Church in the West and in Europe ever. and remains deeply influential to this day.
A huge influence on Martin Luther.
Augustine was known as the Doctor of Grace because he very clearly taught that salvation is by grace and so because Augustine and his thoughts loom so largeand various other things happening in the time of the church at that in that era.
Premillennialism really began to fade out and amillennialism really took off as the predominant view, so much so that by the time of the Middle Ages it was the predominant view.
Maybe you could find a person or two who might espouse some premillennialist view, but amillennialism was the order of the day. just full disclosure, amillonialism was the view of all the early Lutheran reformers and the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of Lutheran teachers since the time of the Reformation in the 1500s.
Um I’ve heard that there are a few More or less Orthodox Lutheran teachers who have espoused some form of historic premillennialism, but they’re I’m I’m talking about a handful of teachers.
The vast, vast, vast majority have always been amillennial amillennialists.
And this is a perspective that I’m going to be arguing for a little bit later.
Right now I’m just introducing them, but we’re going to talk about why amillennialism makes sense.
Yeah, we’re going to get into the the number 1000.
We’re probably going to save that for next week to see some of the significance of the numerology there.
Right now we’re just taking a broad overview of things because then scripture is used in numerous places symbolically.
Yeah, yeah Old Testament as as New Testament and any type of apocalyptic literature. it would be understood that numerology would be symbolic.
It would not be literal.
YouknowJust Just the type of literature that it is. 144,000, et cetera.
But it’s just that alone should get people to see this is not an actual 4,000 years.
Yeah, and that’s really, that really comes into play mainly to counter the claims of the dispensational millennialists, which we’ll get to that here in a second,because there’s a inconsistency in the interpretation of Revelation where the law takes some things very literally and other things not literally. and he can’t tell why ever.
Yeah So yeah, so we’re going to get to that as a as critique of the of dispensationalists here.
Post-millennialism, so the view that the thousand-year visible reign of Christ is a time of near universal triumph of the churchAfter which Christ will return for Judgment Day.
So the justification basically the viewpoint that the Great Commission was not only command, but also somewhat of promise.
When Christ said, go and make disciples of all nations, it was an interpretation not that, hey, go out and tell it to everybody, but actually you will everybody almost universally worldwide will become Christian.
OK, and as as the viewpoint that the church is Christ’s body.
So elements of this viewpoint can already be found in John Calvin.
OK, so who was John Calvin?Calvin was another early Protestant teacher who.
Agreed with many things with Luther but had some other big disagreements.
The two big disagreements with Luther were on predestination, or with Lutherans I should say predestination and also on the sacraments.
So John Calvin, I don’t want to get in too deeply, let’s just leave it at that because we’re short on time and that’s going to take us too far astray.
But John Calvin, more or less, he was inconsistent actually, which is interesting because Calvin put forth as this really systematic thinker who was always super consistent.
But actually in his discussions about this was a little bit inconsistent.
But people claim at least that you can find elements of post millennialism in John Calvin.
OK.Really when post-millennialism really came to be a popular teaching was in 1800s and early 1900s.
Okay, so this was a very optimistic viewpoint.
So what was going on in the 1800s and the early 1900s that made people so optimistic about this?Well they could see thatmissionaries were going out in the world and you there was a big flourishing of missionary activity around the world in that time frame and so that was exciting that was an exciting time in the church because various peoples in Africa and Asia and and so on were converting to Christianity and there was a great deal of progress being made with missionary activities around the world so it seemedIn time, literally, if if you just do the charts, everybody is eventually going to be Christian.
And then isalso was a time in which many people were advocating for Christian ideals, or at least what they believe are Christian ideals in wider society, and we’re having some measure of progress with this as.
So a lot of Christians were.
Were concerned with social welfare and reform in that time.
So this was the era of churches running and Christians running rescue missions in the cities and soup kitchens.
And this was the during the time of when people were really.
Like trying to get temperance going.
So that was very much a lot of these social reform and social welfare.
Christians were promoting a lot of these ideas.
The church was right along in a lot, a lot of, you Christianity was just warp and woof of part of this, this effort, but.
Basically all of this, so they were optimistic, it looks, everybody’s starting to live out Christian ideals publicly and we’re making progress in the world and spreading Christianity, but all of that optimism just came crashing down in the two world wars.
Okay, it looked we were making all this progress, but now Europe, this place where Christianity had been forThousands of years, they’re literally gassing each other in trenches.
And we thought maybe, OK, World War One was just a little blip and we can,, through our intelligence and whatever, we can reform politics and everything.
But then World War 2 happens and more or less most post-millennialists gave up this viewpoint. because it seemed the church was not as triumphant as as they thought yeah I can see that attitude being fostered in say in the United States and England and some of the countries in Europe but what about Russia and Orthodoxy?there too?wellso no this was definitely a Western Christian viewpoint yep yep so soEastern Christians are almost all amillennialists.
And yeah, if you are a Russian Christian underneath the thumb of Stalin, right, you’re not going to, you’re not going to have this viewpoint that the church is triumphant.
And Greek Orthodoxy probably.
Yeah, you’re under the the thumb of the Turks. right? Until World War I.
Actually, so for World War I was actually a high point for being Orthodox.
It was low for Western Christians, but you they are freed from the Turks at that point.
But no, post-millennialism, entirely Western.
Almost all Eastern Christians, you you could probably find some that have a pre-millennialist viewpoint throughout all of this. but it’s pretty hard for you to say if you’re under the thumb of the Turks or under the thumb of Stalin that it’s pretty hard for you to say the church is currently reigning triumphant or something this you’re going to see your triumph in different terms and this is probably the the main problem with post-millennialism is it has an external surface understanding of the triumph of Christin the church versus the message of revelation that even despite and through all the terrible things happening in the world that Christ still reigns.
That’s really the true message of revelation, right?And so I would say that actually post-millennialism is is really missing the point of revelation.
Yeah. time of World War I and the laughter of the Spanish Flu. that was killing one out of every three people yeah in the continent of Europe the early 1900s were a very dark time for Western society for sure and and actually the whole world honestly.
World War II, Muslim sided with Axis powers, right? The the Turks.
The Turks did.
Yeah, I’m not sure.
, Turkey controlled a lot of the Ottoman Empire.
Well, so the Ottoman Empire sided with the in World War One, sided with the Axis powers.
It was a different alignment.
The Ottoman Empire crumbled after World War One, which left a vacuum of power, which Hitler then could exploit when he sent his troops into Northern Africa and and so on.
So and actually into Greece and yeah.
UmAll right, so dispensational premillinealism.
OK, 9 out of the 10 questions that I get asked about revelation. are on the basis of, Hey, I heard this, what in the world? And that’s on the basis of dispensational premillennialism,? UmSo what is dispensational premillennialism?So it’s the view that Jesus will return to rapture, so to to take away from the earth born-again Christians,? After that time will become what’s called the Tribulation, right?So this time of Tribulation is talking about in Revelation where there’s all these terrible things happening.
After the Tribulation, Jesus will return for a thousand-year literal, visible reign from Jerusalem.
And after that, 1,000-year literal, visible reign from Jerusalem after that, Judgment Day,?So what is the justification of this? Basically a literalistic front to back reading of Revelation chapter 20.
So if something is talked about in Revelation 20 or even any part of the book of Revelation earlier,, it happened before what happens later,which I’ve tried to indicate that’s not the right way to read the book of Revelation.
OK, and this was unheard of. until the 19th century.
Nobody, nobody ever taught this.
This was never taught in the early church.
This was not taught in the Middle Ages or in the time of the Reformation.
Literally never heard of until the 1800s.
There were a few people in the 1800s that promoted this viewpoint.
So the first person who really promoted this viewpoint was an Anglican churchman, an Anglican priest by the name of John Nelson Darby.
You You don’t need to know a whole lot about him, but sometimes this viewpoint is called Darbyism, right?Uh The person who probably did more than anybody else to promote this view was a man by the name of Cyrus Scofield.
Cyrus Scofield was another Anglican clergyman. who wrote something called the Scofield Reference Bible.
It was actually published by Oxford University Press.
And this is what really popularized this viewpoint, especially in the United States.
Basically, Protestants in the United States got the Scofield Reference Bible under their hands and went wild with it.
Another individual who very much promoted this viewpoint was a man named Dwight Moody.
Who was Dwight Moody?Dwight Moody was a originally, once again, an Englishman.
He was not a clergyman.
He was actually a business guy.
But he came to the United States and created a a huge he he did.
He did a lot of revivals.
He was, in some ways, the Billy Graham of his time.
OK.
He would go travel from city to city and set up these big revival events.
And have you ever heard of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago? And so he’s started the Moody Bible Institute, essentially.
All right.
And he. if you ever hear Moody Radio or things this, that’s all from this Dwight Moody, all right?I’m actually named Dwight partially after Dwight Moody.
That’s how popular he was.
So my, I’m named Dwight because I’m named Dwight after my granddad,, who was named Dwight, my middle name is Dwight.
My granddad was named after my great-grandmother’s favorite cousin.
Do who my great-grandmother’s favorite cousin was?Dwight Eisenhower.
Did that?I’m really a Dwight Eisenhower.
So actually the earliest writing too that that we have in the Dwight Eisenhower Library is a letter to my great grandmother.
And so he wrote it when he was 13 years old.
He was a really bad speller.
And so I’ve actually been in the Eisenhower Library, got to get special badges, go back into the archives, and they pulled out the original letter that.
Got to see that and they, you they love it.
It’s one of their favorite artifacts they have there.
Dwight Eisenhower was named after Dwight Moody.
OK, people love Dwight Moody so much in those times that they literally named their children after Dwight Moody.
He was so popular.
Dwight Moody promoted this.
All right, so in more recent times. There have been several pretty prominent advocates of this viewpoint.
So Hal Lindsey…
I have Hal Lindsey up there twice.
That’s not right.
Uh It’s Tim LaHaye should be the the third name there.
So Hal Lindsey did the Late Great Planet Earth in the 1970s.
Alright, so this promoted this viewpoint.
If you’ve ever heard of the televangelist Jerry Falwell,Jerry Falwell also was a big proponent of this viewpoint and then finally that should be Tim LaHaye there not Hale Lindsey.
He was the guy behind the Left Behind series of the the 90s alright so all that Left Behind stuff was promotes this dispensational premillinealism viewpoint.
Oh my goodness.
Not enough time.
So some associated ideas, dispensationalism is not just about the end times, it’s about many other ideas as,?So it is, some associated ideas are that it’s a way of reading the entire Bible.
It posits that God has related to humanity in different ways at different times.
OK, so for example, from the time from Moses to Christ, he related to humanity and salvation was by means of the law.
Now he relates to the church by means of the gospel, by means of grace.
And there are many other what they would call dispensations.
What does that mean? Ways that God.
Dispenses his relationship with you, and it’s not all through Christ.
OK, there are many different ways, for example, through the law.
Another associated idea with dispensationalism is that the Israel on the one hand and church on the other hand, the institution of the church, are distinct one from another.
They do not coincide with each other.
They are distinct entities, and that Israel as a.
As a people of descent, of fleshly descent, continue to be a part of God’s plan going forward.
OK, and as distinct from the Church of God.
And finally this idea of a rapture.
When people talk about the rapture, this.
Where Christians, born again Christians are taken out of the earth, before this time of tribulation and so on.
This idea is associated with it as.
Several critiques of dispensationalism.
OK, because we are short on time, we’re not going to be able to totake a look at these passages, unfortunately.
OK, but all of them at least.
But dispensationalism teaches that there are have been several ways that salvation has been available to man.
So, for example, from Moses to Christ, salvation was available by means of the law.
But the clear teaching of Scripture is that salvation has always been by grace through faith in Christ.
Always from the time of Adam.
Until now.
I said I wasn’t going to read this, but I’m just going to read it.
Galatians 3, verses 6 through 9, and there are several other passages that convey the same idea.
Just as Abraham believed God and was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham, not those who are descended by the flesh, those who are of faith.
In the scriptures, for saying that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand.
Preach the what?The law? No, the gospel.
To Abraham, saying, In you shall all nations be blessed.
So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Salvation has always been by grace through faith.
Second of all, all scripture testifies to Christ.
John chapter five.
Verse 39.
Uh we can find Jesus saying as much.
Give me a second to find it here.
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about Me.
Now what Scriptures is he talking about? Well,when Christ said this, the only scriptures which had been written are the Old Testament.
The Old Testament has always been about Christ and salvation in Him.
Third, the church is Israel.
Alright?We are God’s people.
So, as it says in 2 Peter 2:4-10, You are a holy people, a holy nation.
Right?The kingdom of priests.
These are all things which in the Old Testament were used of the people of Israel.
We, the church, are Israel.
God’s people, the true descendants of Abraham, Israel, in other words, are those of faith, and it has always been that case.
UhFourth, another critique of dispensationalism.
It has an inconsistent way of interpreting the book of Revelation.
I had a girlfriend in high school who, her father was very into this left behind stuff, very much into this dispensational ideas and she as.
And, she was just bound on a turn around.
It’s the thousand years of Revelation 20 were literal.
And I’d say,, do you believe that there’s literally going to be a prostitute riding a dragon in the sky?Well, no, I don’t believe that.
Well, if you don’t believe that, why do you believe that this thousand years, where’s the line?Why do you believe the one thing and not the other?Never had a good answer.
Sorry I went over guys.
We’ll send you the link to the video.
All right.
You can refresh us next week.
All right. A betrayal of the purpose of revelation.
So the purpose of revelation is there for the sake of granting hope and consolation to Christians in the midst of things that are hard to understand.
Jesus is Lord, but why is it that therefore I am being persecuted? Jesus is Lord,But why is there still so much darkness in the world? And Revelation is there to give Christians confidence and the knowledge that Jesus does in fact reign.
Whereas on the other hand, dispensationalism is formulated in large part to cause anxiety in people about what’s coming, rather than glad confidence and hope.
That same girlfriend, she actually wrote a book about this.
About her experience growing up in that in that household, her father on his deathbed was sorrowful over what he had taught his daughter.
Why? Because these teachings didn’t lead to confidence and hope, but instead filled her with a great deal of fear and anxiety.
Am I going to be one of the true believers?One of the?The people born again so that, youknow, so that I know that I’ll get raptured and I’m not going to have to go through the tribulation?That’s just something she honestly worried about.
Um So it’s a betrayal of that purpose.
It’s a betrayal of that purpose because it fails to see the main point behind revelation, which I’ve been trying to hit time and time and time again.
In the point, main point of Revelation, Revelation is the simplest book.
I think it’s actually the simplest of all the books of the whole Scriptures because this teaching can be summarized in one sentence.
Jesus is Lord.
This viewpoint of dispensationalism says Jesus is not Lord of the earth right now.
He’s not going to be Lord of this earth until that thousand-year reign.
He in fact, for a period of time, He’s just going to wash His hands of this earth in the period of the tribulation.
Not have anything to do with it.
Okay? But the book of Revelation I’ve been trying to get you to see time and time again the thread that runs through all of it.
Jesus is Lord! And not even despite all ofthe things that might make it look as if He’s not Lord, but actually through them.
Jesus is using all that you encounter in this world unto His purposes and the purpose of blessing you, His holy people.
Finally, this is getting a little bit more technical, but an improper understanding of the role of the antelagomena.
We talked about this way last year,? Butuh Basically, it’s when we look at the book of Revelation, it’s good for us to remember, I believe, a distinction in the New Testament that Lutherans have always wanted to point out, and that’s the distinction between the homologumina on the one hand and the antologomina on the other hand.
What are the homologumina and the antologomina?The homologumina are the…
Nine times fast, right?The whole laguna are those books in the New Testament that when the church was in the process of discerning what is authoritative Christian scripture, nobody spoke against.
They were universally received.
So more or less the the Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, 1 John, 1 Peter, and a few other writings.nobody ever spoke against.
The antelagomena are those that there were questions about for various reasons.
Maybe it was unclear who the author is, for example in Hebrews.
Maybe they were received by some churches but not all churches had had used them universally.
In the LutheranWay of approaching this has been to say we gladly receive the Antalagomena.
We believe that it is the word of God, but it is best not to bind consciences on the basis of the Antalagomena.
So if if we’re establishing doctrines, we establish them on the basis of the clear teaching of the homologumina and we can use the Antalagomena to.
Enrich our understanding of those doctrines which are taught in the homo lumina.
So as I said, this idea, what this really gets back to this idea of 1000 year reign of Christ before Judgment Day.
You can’t find that anywhere in the Gospels, Acts, in the letters of Paul.
It’s just not there.
And so this so. of a literal thousand-year reign that precedes Judgment Day therefore we need to interpret revelation in the light of for example what we read in Matthew or John or first Corinthians about the return of Christ in Judgment Day Pastor Tom I think you had it.
Homo laguna means literally words that are the same words that agree with each other.
And so the homo laguna are easily understood and that all of the teachings agree with each other.
And Andlaguna you sometimes raise questions about how certain things fit in to the homo laguna, the basic message of scripture.
But that’sWhat there was, yeah, some disagreement about the letter of James, for example.
James, Hebrews, Revelation.
All right.
Amillennialism.
We’ll review this next week, so I’m going really fast through this right now, so we’re just going to keep blazing through this here.
This is the viewpoint that I would promote as being the correct viewpoint,?I’m willing to give a hearing to historic premillennialism, very few people teach postmillennialism anymore, but I’ll give a hearing to historic premillennialism just because it’s historic, been taught, dispensational premillennialism, I just have toDismiss outright, I believe amillonialism, I believe, is the the correct viewpoint because it’s based on clear accounts of the end times that are in the homologumina and Revelation.
What we find there in Revelation can be and ought to be interpreted in the light of what we find in the Gospels and so on.
All right.
It’s a consistent interpretive method of revelation.
So it’s not picking and choosing,, we’re gonna take this part as symbol, we’re gonna take this part as literal, with no apparent reason, one for the other,?So it understands that revelation is using picture language, right?Andyou know, so in any case, that is a, it’s consistent that way.
It’s consistent with clear teachings of Scripture regarding salvation, Israel, and Christ.
The Scriptures clearly teach that salvation has always been by grace through faith in Christ, never by works of the law, the dispensationalists teach, OK?The Scriptures clearly teach that the true Israel are those who believe, those who have faith, and that we are the true Israel by faith in Christ.
And so there is no. ongoing purpose for example the state of Israel or or those who are descended from Abraham according to the flesh in God’s plan of the world rightfinally that Christ is the center of the scriptures from the very first page to the last there’s not an era in which it’s about salvation by means of Christ andBefore it was salvation through the law, it’s always been about Christ.
It’s consistent with the purpose of Revelation, once again to give confidence to Christians and hope and consolation.
And finally, it’s consistent with the main point behind Revelation.
Again, amillennialists teach that thatthousand-year reign of Christ is happening now.
And I believe that that is the clear teaching of Revelation, that Christ isReigning.
It may be hard for us to discern, but he is reigning.
And if we examine the world through the eye of faith, we can know and be assured that Christ and his purposes are being brought about.