Simplified vs. Complicated

T

Timotheos

Guest
Here is an observation of 2 various eschatolgical views (the first is where I was, the second where I am).

Dispie Premillism is a fairly complicated system.  Charts, end-times time-lines, fiction novel series, and a host of various concepts of the rapture let alone many difficult passages for the dispo to face make it a complicated system.  Yet I will admit that it is probably the most simplistic of systems to arrive to.  In other words, the "literal" approach simplifies things.  There is less creativity when reading the Bible.  It gets complicated when you look at all the prophetical passages literally.  Suddenly, you have to take the many simple concepts and stack them upon one another to formulate a complex system.

Ammillism is a fairly simple system.  Jesus comes back and we begin eternity.  But I will admit that arrival to this system is complex b/c it requires a hermeneutic similar to the apostles along w/ a good understanding of biblical theology (as opposed to systematic theology).  I can't trace my eschatalogical views w/out speaking of the storyline of the Bible.  It is a complex flow that finds its fulfillment in Jesus and his return.  Yet the result of the complex pursuit is a very simplified system. 

Is this observation legit???
 
I was raised amillineal. When I got in an ifb church I learned about the pre-trib, pre-mill stuff. I tend to take the literal approach, so the amill guys have a hard time with the literal 1000 yrs.
 
I would really like to see some thoughts and beliefs on this topic. I know that in the grand scheme of things it is not that big of an issue if you are saved. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Just be prepared either way.
 
I tend to take the literal approach, so the amill guys have a hard time with the literal 1000 yrs.

*grin*

Your typical dispen-sensationalist reads Revelation and sees a one-world government, a one-world New Age religion headquartered in a rebuilt Jewish Temple, a cashless society, bar codes and biometrics, live satellite broadcasts of Jesus' return, nuclear weapons, a revived ten-nation Roman empire, war between Russia and Israel, and people being forbidden from buying and selling unless they have a microchip implanted in their forehead - none of which are spoken of in Revelation (and indeed these interpretations do tend to change with the shifting sands of international politics and current technology).  Yet, when they get to Revelation 20, they insist that the Millennium must be a literal 1000 years, because that's what the Bible says, and they read it "literally."

I'm not an amillennialist, just someone who appreciates good irony.
 
Ftr, I don't know how all the details will be played out. I try to take the words at face value.

Ransom, what is your take on the subject?
 
Ransom said:
I tend to take the literal approach, so the amill guys have a hard time with the literal 1000 yrs.

*grin*

Your typical dispen-sensationalist reads Revelation and sees a one-world government, a one-world New Age religion headquartered in a rebuilt Jewish Temple, a cashless society, bar codes and biometrics, live satellite broadcasts of Jesus' return, nuclear weapons, a revived ten-nation Roman empire, war between Russia and Israel, and people being forbidden from buying and selling unless they have a microchip implanted in their forehead - none of which are spoken of in Revelation (and indeed these interpretations do tend to change with the shifting sands of international politics and current technology).  Yet, when they get to Revelation 20, they insist that the Millennium must be a literal 1000 years, because that's what the Bible says, and they read it "literally."

I'm not an amillennialist, just someone who appreciates good irony.
Click to expand...

I took a class many years ago that used John Walvoord's Commnetary on revelation. It was dispensational to the core.

Right in the beginning of the commentary (We had to read the whole thing) he made it very clear that he took the words of Revelation "LITERALLY," in every case. He was totally against spiritualizing. I underlined this and returned to it over and over.  Then he went on to spiritualize passage after passage.  I kind of lost trust in his commentary method.
 
I'm a Pan-millennialist myself. I.e., just trust Jesus and it will all pan out.  :p

However, if I see the temple in Jerusalem rebuilt and a 7 year peace treaty made with Israel, all bets are off.  :eek:
 
Izdaari said:
I'm a Pan-millennialist myself. I.e., just trust Jesus and it will all pan out.  :p

However, if I see the temple in Jerusalem rebuilt and a 7 year peace treaty made with Israel, all bets are off.  :eek:
Click to expand...

Sounds like you would become a situational dispensationalist.
 
Winston said:
Izdaari said:
I'm a Pan-millennialist myself. I.e., just trust Jesus and it will all pan out.  :p

However, if I see the temple in Jerusalem rebuilt and a 7 year peace treaty made with Israel, all bets are off.  :eek:
Click to expand...

Sounds like you would become a situational dispensationalist.
Click to expand...

Uh huh. I am probably an amillennialist, normally. But I am not immune to evidence if it appears.
 
Bro Blue asked:

Ransom, what is your take on the subject?

I find eschatology ridiculously complicated, but I'd consider myself a historic premillennialist - the church age followed by tribulation, then the return of Christ and a 1000-year (more or less) millennium.

Personally I think it's virtually fruitless to try and concoct a precise timeline of events for the end times, as the Dispies have tried to do. At this point, I'm not entirely convinced that what the Bible says about eschatology is even coherent in that way - I'd say it's more likely that various authors all likened the end times to different things to make a particular point, and they were never meant to fit together.
 
Winston said:

I took a class many years ago that used John Walvoord's Commnetary on revelation. It was dispensational to the core.

Yeah, Walvoord is one of the worst offenders in that regard.  Every time it heats up a little in the Middle East, his publisher would trot out a new edition of his book Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis.
 
Ransom said:
Winston said:

I took a class many years ago that used John Walvoord's Commnetary on revelation. It was dispensational to the core.

Yeah, Walvoord is one of the worst offenders in that regard.  Every time it heats up a little in the Middle East, his publisher would trot out a new edition of his book Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Conflict.
Click to expand...

We have a local thrift store that always has 2-3 copies of that book for $.50 or so.  I have one but have not touched it.
 
Ransom said:
Bro Blue asked:

Ransom, what is your take on the subject?

I find eschatology ridiculously complicated, but I'd consider myself a historic premillennialist - the church age followed by tribulation, then the return of Christ and a 1000-year (more or less) millennium.

Personally I think it's virtually fruitless to try and concoct a precise timeline of events for the end times, as the Dispies have tried to do. At this point, I'm not entirely convinced that what the Bible says about eschatology is even coherent in that way - I'd say it's more likely that various authors all likened the end times to different things to make a particular point, and they were never meant to fit together.
Click to expand...

My goodness, you sound like me.  It is ridiculously complicated.   I see revelation as Apocalyptical Eschatology, basically a letter to us saying that the end times will be horrible but encouragement that believers will overcome.  I was a traditional dispensationalist for about 15 years, but read A book by a guy from Fuller who blew away the Pre-trib rapture, and it was all downhill from there.
 
Winston, I would be interested to know how it got blown out of the water. What's the name of the book.

I have a book called ' Things to come' by J. Dwight Pentecost. Been a while since I've read it.  Maybe I need to dust it off again.
 
Bro Blue said:
Winston, I would be interested to know how it got blown out of the water. What's the name of the book.

I have a book called ' Things to come' by J. Dwight Pentecost. Been a while since I've read it.  Maybe I need to dust it off again.
Click to expand...

I read most of Pentecost's book. And I read Dispensationalism Today by Charles Ryrie. I was dyed in the wool.  I even read Renald Showers "There Really is a Difference." (which attempts to show how much superior Dispensationalism is to Covenant Theology. A weak book, imho)

I read quite a few more. However, the one I mentioned by Ladd (Blessed Hope) started the flood gates, because what it did was showed me that there was a position other than pre-trib that could be presented from Scripture, and I was convinced.  I started seeing how I would press passages into the Pre-trib view.  So I started questioning things.  I read tons.

  But the book that really pushed me was "Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship between the Old and New Testaments."

I wish you well in your search.
 
I simply took the Dispensational scheme of things for granted until I was a couple of years into university,and I read The Plain Truth About Armstrongism by Roger Chambers.  I wasn't reading it for a refutation of Dispensationalism, obviously, but for his answer to the theological distinctives of the Worldwide Church of God (which was still a heretical cult at the time). Chambers was an amillennialist (though he did not say so explicitly), and his answers to the apocalyptic theology of Herbert Armstrong were amilennial: the continuity of Israel and the Church, the Apostles' application of the Old Testament to the Church, that sort of thing - which Dispensationalists all but say can't happen. (Notice that Scofield's notes pretty much ignore Peter's Pentecost sermon, which says that Joel 2 was being fulfilled right there in their hearing, not in a future millennium.)

Later, I read books such as William Cox' Amillennialism Today and Why I Left Scofieldism, which specifically answered dispensationalist claims.  It wasn't enough to turn me amillennial - I see no problem with an actual 1000-year millennium, or something like one - but they effectively crumbled the house of cards that Dispensationalism rests upon.

These days, when I read through Dispy textbooks (like Pentecost's, for example), which talk about returning to the Judaic system of sacrifices and Temple rituals, or denying that Christ instituted the New Covenant for the Church, I just can't help but shake my head. It's complete nonsense.
 
In my KJVO days, at other people's recommendation, I read 'The Bible Believer's Guide To Dispensationalism" by David E. Walker, and several other books that went even further than Scofield and Ryrie:  Whereas Scofield and Ryrie say that the means of salvation is the same in every dispensation, these other books say that it changes with each dispensation. For example, according to them, salvation by faith alone as well as Eternal Security are only true for this dispensation and that salvation was by works in most of the other dispensations, including the Tribulation and the Millennium.
They also say that some books of the Bible were written for other dispensations, like they claim the book of James was written for Jews during the Tribulation.
 
Oh yes, there are hyper-dispensationalists who believe that Paul taught a different Gospel than Peter, James, John, and even Jesus, for a new dispensation of the Gentiles; and that Paul's material alone is intended for the Church while the remainder of the New Testament was given to the Jews under the previous dispensation.

I've seen some radical fringies (I call them Super-Duper-Dispensationalists) who will even divide up individual epistles as if different parts of them were intended for different dispensations - ignoring the fact that they were written at one time, generally to a single audience.

Some people think "rightly dividing the word of truth" means putting it through a cross-cut shredder and giving each little piece of confetti to a different dispensaton.  ::)
 
wheatpenny said:
In my KJVO days, at other people's recommendation, I read 'The Bible Believer's Guide To Dispensationalism" by David E. Walker, and several other books that went even further than Scofield and Ryrie:  Whereas Scofield and Ryrie say that the means of salvation is the same in every dispensation, these other books say that it changes with each dispensation. For example, according to them, salvation by faith alone as well as Eternal Security are only true for this dispensation and that salvation was by works in most of the other dispensations, including the Tribulation and the Millennium.
They also say that some books of the Bible were written for other dispensations, like they claim the book of James was written for Jews during the Tribulation.
Click to expand...
It has been my experience that hard-nosed KJVO (Ruckman types) teach an unacademic dispensationalism that the Ryrie's, Walvoord's, and Pentecost's would abhor.  Much of it talks about various ways of salvation, which is a controversy that the above men (old DTS days called them the pedagogical trinity) made sure they clarified was NOT their view.
 
My former prof, Roland McCune, is a dispensationalist. He is not of the Ryrie type, but a student of J Alva McClain who wrote "The Greatness of the Kingdom"

McCune said that it would be another 200 years until dispensationalism has settled its own questions. The hardliner dispys need to realize that the prophetic charts are not scripture. Too many strict distinctions have been made.

For me, as long as a common sense distinction between Israel and the church are maintained, I don't engage in a discussion against the Covenant/Progressive side.

Timotheos has introduced an interesting topic about the hermeneutics of the apostles that would be good fodder for another thread...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top