What eschatological interpretation do you believe?

What eschatological interpretation do you adhere to?


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I had to vote 'other' because I have not study the issue enough to form a strong opinion. I'm not even certain I ever will.

How important is it to decide? I suppose one could get it badly wrong due to having a faulty understanding of Scripture. But can one still get it wrong without necessarily compromising/contradicting doctrines which are vital?
 
I had to vote 'other' because I have not study the issue enough to form a strong opinion. I'm not even certain I ever will.

How important is it to decide? I suppose one could get it badly wrong due to having a faulty understanding of Scripture. But can one still get it wrong without necessarily compromising/contradicting doctrines which are vital?

It is very important for those whose views are built on an unstable foundation. They cannot stand it when someone disagrees because don't trust their own position.
 
HISTORIC pre-mil is called "historic" because early centuries (before Augustine) were largely expecting an earthly reign (Rev 20). Ladd detested dispensationalism (Harvard doctorate) and used to tell us in class about his misspent youth as a dispi.
 
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The Reformers had a lot to say about fulfillment of prophecy, and their insight is very helpful. However, you can't give the final word to writers who did not live to see the papacy's fall from secular power around the year 1800 when Napoleon's army took the pope prisoner, the restoration of the state of Israel, the end of Gentile trampling on Jerusalem, and the resurgence of Islam in our day. Still, what Luther, Calvin and the others wrote about the papacy and Islam helps us understand what is happening today. I think it is wise to build on their understanding, rather than to cast it aside.

Most of those who adopt the Left Behind approach are unaware that this way of thinking is relatively new, and that it contradicts the understandings Bible believers held for centuries. For example, in their application of Daniel 9:24-27, the authors of Left Behind take words that Luther applied to Christ, and they apply those words to Antichrist instead.

Bible believers for more than a thousand years identified the papacy with the Antichrist, but the novels of the Left Behind series show the pope raptured to heaven when Christ returns.

It is worth the time to find out what position was held consistently over many centuries by Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Spurgeon and others, before jumping on the bandwaggon of Tim LaHaye -- a bandwaggon that started rolling just recently.
 
Its a bit like climbing a mountain. You think you are getting to the top but discover its just a ridge. There maybe several ridges before reaching the top. Mt 24 relates to the punishment handed out to "this generation" (cf Mt 11.16; 12.39, 41,42, 45; 16.4; 17.17; 23.36) and also in reponse to the questions regarding the temple, the second coming and the end of the age. The events of AD66-70 were a fulfilment but perhaps just a ridge before the peak.

I would therefore be a partial preterist in relation to Mat 24 and a historicist in relation to the book of Revelation.
 
HISTORIC pre-mil because early centuries (before Augustine) were largely expecting an earthly reign (Rev 20). Ladd detested dispensationalism (Harvard doctorate) and used to tell us in class about his misspent youth as a dispi.

I just finished "The Gospel Kingdom". Which should I read next? "The Blessed Hope" or "The Presence of the Future"?
 
BH is eschatological in the second coming sense. PF is a more comprehensive treatment of the kingdom in the NT. This was, next to his NT Theo, his most important book. Ladd was pre-mil, but detested dispensationalism. Anyone foolish enough to defend it earned Ladd's utter disdain. I made the mistake once of bringing up my prof from Westmont (who also officiated at my wedding) who had penned a dispensational post-trib book. Ladd launched into an excoriation of Gundry, suggesting he probably wrote it when he was in seminary prior to studying with F.F. Bruce. Then, he gave me a pretty withering look for even bringing it up in class.
 
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