Selected Essays And Book Reviews

A. The day of the Lord is any time that God deals directly with people and their sins in judgment. The Orthodox Church through the years has always held to a literal Second Coming. The Amillennial View is the majority view since Augustine. The Postmillennial View started to fail after World War I. The Amillennial View is a denial of prophecy rather than an advocate of it. This view came about because Scriptures were viewed as allegorical to be consistent with Plato's idealistic, pagan philosophies. He would say that a chair is not real but that the person's perception of the chair is real. Since allegory is not real, the millennium also would not be real. Augustine rejected the Alexandrian School of Literacy. He began the dual hermeneutics, where he treated prophecy as non-literal in the areas that dealt with the millennial kingdom. Either there is a literal thousand-year reign after Christ's return or there is not. A person's decision will affect how one views all of Scriptures.

B. Amillennialism is a negative view, and one cannot know much about such a person. The Premillennialist accepts the truth of Scriptures. He or she is usually conservative, and one can know a lot about such a person. Most Bible Institutes are premillennial because they have to study the whole Bible. Most Christian colleges have been Amillennial. Prophecy is a stumbling block to liberalism. Twenty-five percent of the Bible was prophecy when it was written. Prophecy is a gift or tool from God to keep churches from becoming liberal. Churches that preach and teach literal prophecy do not normally become liberal.

C. When studying prophecy, one always should try to make the correct application. Prophecy warns a person about what is coming so that he or she can be prepared.

A. Hermeneutics is the study of Bible interpretation. There are three ways to interpret the Bible.

B. Classic covenantal theology focuses on the covenant of Grace promised in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. This view leans more to the continuity view. Covenantal theologians favor reading the New Testament first so that the hermeneutical scheme is seen in fulfillment rather than in promises. One of their pet sayings is that everything is yea and nay in Christ. They see this as a literal reading of the Bible, and they give preference to the New Testament. If all of the promises are viewed in their fulfillment, then nothing is left to be done. This leads to amillennialism because they do not see the promise of a kingdom to come. It is a fulfillment hermeneutic. It is more of a backward reading of the Bible. The cross is the key for the Covenant theologian. All the promises are fulfilled by Calvary and that kind of interpretation is left with allegory for explaining away some of the promises. It is a promise hermeneutic.

C. Classic dispensational focuses on the radical distinctions between the church and Israel. It is more of a forward reading of the Bible. The Abrahamic Covenant is the key for the dispensationalist. Abraham received personal blessings, a land promise, and a seed promise. Understanding the Davidic Covenant becomes easier when viewed in light of the Abrahamic Covenant. When forward reading the Old Testament promises, it becomes clear that some promises go far beyond the cross. Romans, chapter eleven, is clear that there is a future for Israel, and this is a problem for covenant theologians. The dispensationalist tends to place a lot of emphasis on the Book of Revelation.

D. Hodge indicates that one decides in advance what the text means backward reading the text. How one views the promises and their fulfillment will determine how one views the millennium.

A. Abram took his father from Ur to Haran. Part of his culture was that his father was the family patriarch for as long as he lived. In Genesis 12:1-3, there are three very important promises.

B. When Abraham started out, he was not a great man of faith. He became a man of faith through testing and experience. In Genesis 15:1-5, Abraham sought an heir, and Eliezer was a logical choice even though he was not Abraham's actual son. When that happened, God renewed the original promise of a seed. Genesis 22:2 was the supreme test, in that Abraham was to offer Isaac. Isaac was probably big enough to resist, but there is no indication that he did. Abraham and Isaac had learned to trust the Lord.

C. Based on the biblical evidence, all of these things happened literally, not allegorically. Hebrews 11:17-19 says, "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death."

D. The Premillennial view begins in Genesis 12:7, which says, "The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him." Covenant theologians would call this allegorical, but the promises were to a specific individual. In the New Testament, the genealogies of Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are very literal and very specific, not allegorical. Amillennarians say that the promise of the land is not to a literal land.

E. The promise of the covenant is very important. When God says that something is going to happen, then it happens exactly as He says in His time. The Abrahamic covenant is the cornerstone promise of eschatology. The Amillennial view will accept almost anything as literal except the millennium. The promise of the land has not yet happened. So if it is to literally happen, then it must be a future event.

F. Dr. Walvoord said, "Most of the time that prophecy is confused, it is because the person is trying to get away from a literal interpretation." He said that we must fight for a plausible explanation.

A. Covenant theologian, Charles Hodge said that the Lord has been held up from the beginning as the Hope of the world. However, it is difficult to draw that conclusion from a strict forward reading of Scriptures. Thus, Hodge seemed to be forcing his point.

B. Dispensational theologians say that God has different requirements for man in each dispensation, but they do not say that His requirements for salvation are different. Early dispensational writers were accused of heresy. The old Schofield writer wrote that the Grace dispensation began with the death and resurrection of Christ. But he went on to suggest that people in the Old Testament were saved by obeying the Law. In the new Schofield Bible, the writing more clearly shows that all are saved by faith in Christ and that the Law was powerless in saving people.

C. A dispensation means:

D. If one is not careful, the dispensations can sound like different salvation methods or different redemptive periods. This is a criticism by covenant theologians. They say that God takes man through the dispensation processes to prove to him that he cannot be saved in any other way. It's like God is trying a lot of different ways to see how man can be saved. When one does not work, He tries something else. But this thinking does not represent sound dispensational thinking.

E. Some important distinctions concerning dispensationalism given by Ryrie and Feinberg.

F. The requirement, basis, and object of salvation are constant. The content and expression are not constant.

G. Salvation is a non-issue. In both testaments, people were saved by faith through grace in Christ. But they know different things about the Lord, and they express their faith differently.

A. Genesis 12:1 says, "The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." How one interprets "land" in that verse decides the literal or allegorical millennium kingdom. The Premillennial view is literal. Hence, the land is literal, and there is a millennial kingdom. The Amillennial view is allegorical. Hence, the land is not earthly, and the promised land is heaven, What one must do to find the truth is determine from Scriptures whether or not the land is a literal earthly land or is heaven.

B. In Genesis 12:7, the land to be given to Abraham's offspring seems to be literal. Other verses in the Old Testament show the literal land, not the allegorical idea of heaven. In Genesis 31:3, Jacob was told to return to the land of his fathers. It was a literal land. In Deuteronomy 1:8, the land is literal. It is real estate, not allegorical. In Joshua 1:1-6, the land to be given to the Israelites is literal. Often, the Lord threatened to cast the people out of their literal land if they disobeyed Him. In Jeremiah 39:10, some of the people are left behind in the Promised Land, but many others were taken out of their literal land.

C. Jeremiah 23:5-8 promises the Second Coming of the Lord. Those verses say, "'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness. So then, the days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when people will no longer say, As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt, but they will say, As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' Then they will live in their own land." These verses fit a literal interpretation much better than an allegorical interpretation.

D. Amos 9:11-15 promises the restoration of Israel. Ezekiel 34:12 also promises the bringing back of the scattered Jews. That verse says, "As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness."

E. There are four steps of events or stages for end-time Israel.

F. The conclusion is that, when God promised the land to Israel, He was promising a literal land.

A. John 5:39 says, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me." The spiritual leaders of those times did not understand salvation, and they did not understand the Lord.

B. Heretics are those that deny the fundamental doctrines of the Faith. They are not simply people with whom we disagree. II Peter 2:1 says, "But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves." People that deny the Second Coming have often rejected the first coming. II Peter 2 is a chapter that talks about heretics. A person that does not accept the Premillennial view is not necessarily a heretic.

C. Dr. Walvoord does not think that postmillennialism can be revived. Nothing points to things getting better.

D. According to Dr. Walvoord, the fundamentalists are not numerous enough to reach the world for Christ. Therefore, in the interest of evangelism, he appreciates anyone that preaches Christ, even if he does not hold to all of his or her eschatological views. He says that it is more important to be premillennarian than pre-Tribulationist.

E. You do not have to be a dispensationalist to be a premillenniarian, but many people do not define dispensationalism. In modern terminology, dispensationalism is recognizing Israel and the church as separate with godly programs for each. Covenant theology becomes problematic when it tries to level the theological covenants. The covenants are not the problem. It is the application.

F. The day of the Lord begins the day after the Rapture and goes through the end of the millennium. The Great Tribulation is part of the day of the Lord. After the Rapture are the time of preparation before the signing of the peace treaty, the time of peace for the first three-and-half years, and the time of persecution for the end of the tribulation. No one knows how long the period of preparation will take.

G. Premillennialism came about in the late nineteenth century as opposition to the Theory of Evolution. In the early twentieth century, Bible colleges got started, and most of them were premillennial. However, premillennialism and dispensationalism came from the lay people, not from the scholars, and for that reason, these views are often considered non-intellectual.

H. There are three ways to subvert Scriptures.

A. God gave many promises to Israel. We benefit from understanding those promises because they can help us understand the promises to the church. Dr. Walvoord says that God always speaks with a loud enough voice for the ear that wants to hear. II Samuel 7:1-3 says, "After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, 'Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.' Nathan replied to the king, 'Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.'" II Samuel 7:8-16 is the Davidic covenant. God's promises to Solomon are not exactly like the ones to David. David's line will continue forever, but not Solomon's. That becomes important later because Mary is from Nathan, son of David, and Joseph is from Solomon, son of David. The promises to David are as follows:

B. A literal interpretation of this covenant leads to a premillennial view because David's throne will have to continue beyond the Second Coming of Christ.

C. In Psalm 89:3-4, the Davidic covenant is reiterated. Is the covenant a conditional promise that might have been or be dissolved? Based on Psalm 89:30-37, the answer is no. Therefore, amillennial believers must try to make the future Davidic throne symbolic or spiritual rather than literal.

D. A kingdom is a rule of life, with a king and subjects. The promise to David is not for a creation or spiritual kingdom. It is for a political kingdom, and it depends on the faithfulness of God, not man (Psalm 89:33).

E. Jesus will be the King of the whole world, and David will be the king of Israel. The central city will be Jerusalem. The Davidic kingdom will be connected to the Second Coming, not the age of Grace. In Matthew 25:31-46, the division of the goats and the sheep will be at the beginning of the Millennium.

F. Interpreting these passages literally works much better than trying to spiritualize them or turn them to allegory. God fulfilled His promises to Abraham and David literally, so there is every reason to expect a literal fulfillment concerning the church and the future of David's throne.