The PuritanBoard - View Single Post

Larry Hughes · #6 (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 02:58 PM

That's the dual nature of it. The forever is the land won by Christ. Christ came and fulfilled the Law, this kingdom is ours by grace through Him. Through Isaac the Seed, Christ came, the King who would fulfill the Law and save His people. These people WILL inherit the land and have it forever. Right now we lie in the eschatalogical tension of now and not yet, faith, faith's essences is escahtalogical.

The real real estate of Israel was a shadow of the still forth coming, but it was fulfilled in Christ. Christ fulfills the Law of all kinds. Fallen man could not produce the king who would do this, yet through the Seed, the incarnation, God came to do what man could not do.

The forever is still God's promise, it is NOT here now. You have to keep in mind that though the first advent came and passed the second advent lies ahead.

Prophecy by various prophets can be viewed differently by from different time angles if you will but yet be the same, in part or whole of the whole prophecy. The key element to prophecy is not “when and how” but the certitude of it happening regardless of “when”. Certitude, God said and thus IT WILL HAPPEN CERTAINLY, is the primary. This is why Jesus said for example why a thing was done, “To fulfill the WORD of God” or God’s Word MUST happen as it is truth, or similar such phrases.

When looking backward or forward at a series of data already compiled and finished in terms of action completed in the past and now presented as one unit in time, it is difficult to not confuse the picture one is seeing. An example of this principle can be seen by understanding actual biblical prophesies. The prophet would see in one singular vision everything in time and space past, present and future in a particular way, then another prophet from a differing vantage point may see the same but slightly different. It WILL happen, when is irrelevant. What the prophet would see depended upon their perspective of the vision shown to them. For example in the Book of Daniel the major kingdoms of the beast were seen AT that point of time and space as two having been and one yet to come and as separate distinct visions of animals in a linear fashion. Like a line up at a police identification line up. If I recall correctly; the order was a separated and read as lion, bear and then leopard. Each symbolic of one of three historic kingdoms and relevant to the time frame. Yet in John’s revelation much further down the road in chapter 13 it is one single amalgamated beast and the stated order is leopard, bear and lion, but not linear, rather as one visual beast image if you will. Which makes sense verbally given the time frame even though visually it is one unit of data being viewed. John saw them as one beast visually. Here’s the point as it relates to seeing evidence. What did John see? Some kind of funky mythical looking leopard, bear and lion beast, like out of Greek mythology, as some suppose? No, his vision saw ALL the data at once, in one singular view, one dimensional if you will, and in human language he described the one beast whose roots were in the same singular authority and power of the antichrist of the devil and his varied form of kingdoms, that is the serpents seed (children of the law) opposing the woman’s/the Christ/the Seed (and children of the promise), yet manifested in three separate beasts of earthly authority (the devil manifesting his kingdom on earth in many ways over time and space, he tosses old used up kingdoms and people aside like so much toilet paper), and still further John sees it given to him as a single merged picture of the three. Kind of like if you could view a picture of me over top of my dog over top of another picture of cat, all mingling as one picture yet three entities and could be described as the head of a man, with the mouth of a dog and the eyes of a cat. It’s simply a brief way of capturing the entire idea connected together, someone from a side view might see the three separated. The data stream, to use a modern term, is one packet communicating many things in many times all at once, a base understanding of the picture is necessary, else a true picture may be rendered false.

So Abraham could see the dual nature of the land promise, yet there was an earthly temporary manifestation of it and simultaneously the eternal fulfillment of it as well. The earthly gives way to the eternal, the Law is fulfilled in Christ in His first advent and will consummate the finality of that promise in the second advent.

But the point is to feed and strengthen faith will we suffer and are persecuted to varying degrees in the here and now with the devil’s kingdom which appears at times to be winning and not with “when will this happen” so that I may look for signs, today, tomorrow a thousand years from now – but rather that it WILL happen as said when it will happen. That keeps the faithful in the faith by strengthening it. If I go looking for signs of glory here and now and don’t find them, I will loose the faith. But if I know IT WILL HAPPEN, perhaps not in my time, I still have the faith being passed down every generation. Eventually one generation will be alive here on earth to see the second advent, and we will be with them.

Thus, the land promises of earthly land was temporary but with a casting or shadow of the eternal certainty that has come in the first advent and will consummate in the second advent. And the point of the promise being a promise from God with certainty connects with the way to understand biblical prophesy, not when, not why not now, not why don’t I see it now, but the certitude of what God has said will be done, has been done and is being done. It’s like Augustine said, God has spoken ALREADY ALL that WILL be done in one Word, its just working out in time and space as we view it.

I hope that helps and doesn’t confuse.

L