Wolicki made the following tangential point which I believe is worth pursuing.
[Rabbi Pesach Wolicki] “Because Jewish victims, Jewish suffering, Jewish peoplehood returning to the homeland. All of that is a living embodiment, a living reminder of the authenticity of a biblical narrative. The Jewish people are not just a nation. The Jewish people still alive today after thousands of years returning to our homeland as the only ancient people to go into exile and return to our homeland… is a fulfillment of such an outrageous prophecy in the Bible. The most repeated prophecy in the Bible. And it’s such a departure from the rest of history, from the rest of the history of nations. It’s so impossible and dare I say miraculous that they can’t have it because it would be an affirmation that the God of the Bible is real and active in history. They would have explaining to do if you accept that the Jewish people have returned to their homeland after thousands of years scattered in exile that the Jews of today are the Jews who have finally returned.” Rabbi Pesach Wolicki
Rabbi Wolicki clearly believes that the Jewish return to their homeland is proof that “the God of the Bible is real and active in history.” I ran his comments through an objective source (ChatGPT) posing the following two questions:
Is it true that no other people group have returned the the land they were exiled from?
And, if this is true, is it a logical deduction that because the Jews have turned to their homeland, this is divine confirmation that the Bible is true?
Before sharing the Rabbi Wolicki’s quote with ChatGPT, I made a few comments.
Did the undertakings of very influential men significantly manipulate the political environment thus helping this new state of Israel become a reality? Knowing the history behind the machinations, it seems to be more born of human and political maneuvering than divine intervention. I realize that God often works through human agency, but at what point is human effort and opportunism mistaken as something divinely decreed?
The Jewish contention that the May 14, 1948 establishment of Israel was God ordained fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets, seems to almost completely ignore the New Testament’s writings i.e. Jesus said “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken into pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” (Mt 21:43).; John the Baptist said, “for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.” (Mt 3:9); The Apostle Paul wrote, “This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom 9:8); AND “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” (Rom 2:28-29)
The New Testament is replete with references to the Christ killing generation of Jews being permanently judged, and, other than a couple of cherry-picked verses like Romans 11:26 which is often interpreted without context, there’s not a single NT verse regarding the Jews returning to their homeland. As a matter of fact, it’s just the opposite. They were permanently expelled due to unbelief. Since the NT is God’s divine commentary of the OT, I find it strange that neither Jesus nor His apostles ever addressed the Jews returning to the Land.
I would argue that ethnicity is no longer the essence of the biblical message since Paul explicitly tells us that the dividing wall of separation was forever torn down between Jew and Gentile (Eph 2:14). All must come to Christ… He is the way, the truth and the life and no man can come to the father but by him. (Jn 14:6) and only those “in Christ” become the true children of Abraham (Gal 3:16;28-39. I believe this Jewish rabbi’s quote is a testament to the fact that he ignores both Jesus and the entire NT. What say you?
[ChatGPT’s Reply]
The rabbi’s argument is rhetorically powerful, but it doesn’t quite hold up as a proof. It’s better understood as a theological interpretation of history than as a historical demonstration.
On the first question: no, it is not true that the Jewish return to the land is utterly unique in all of history. It is certainly unusual—especially in its scale, duration, and the preservation of a strong communal identity over many centuries—but it is not without parallels. Various peoples have returned to ancestral homelands after displacement. The Armenians returned in significant numbers to historic Armenian lands after centuries of dispersion. Greeks resettled areas associated with their ancient heritage after Ottoman rule. More recently, diasporic peoples across the world have repatriated or reconstituted national homelands. What is distinctive about Jewish history is the extraordinary longevity of the diaspora combined with the preservation of language, religion, and national consciousness. That is remarkable. But “remarkable” is not the same as “unprecedented.”
Even more importantly, the Jewish people were never entirely absent from the land. A continuous Jewish presence remained in Palestine throughout the centuries, even if often small. So the modern return was not a simple case of a people vanishing and then reappearing two millennia later. It was a complex process of immigration, settlement, nationalism, diplomacy, and conflict.
On the second question: even if one granted that the Jewish return were historically unique, uniqueness does not logically prove divine inspiration. That would be a non sequitur. Extraordinary events can invite theological reflection, but they do not compel a single theological conclusion. History is full of astonishing developments that people interpret in very different ways.
To say, “This happened, therefore the Bible is true,” skips several necessary steps. One would first need to establish:
that the biblical texts actually predicted this specific event,
that those prophecies were intended to refer to a far-future political restoration rather than events nearer to their original context,
that no human agency could adequately explain the event,
and that fulfillment of one prediction validates an entire theological system.
That’s a lot of heavy lifting for one historical event.
And your point about human agency is exactly right. The establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948 was the result of a convergence of factors: Zionist political organization, European antisemitism, the Holocaust, British imperial policy, international diplomacy, and military action. Figures such as Theodor Herzl, Arthur Balfour, David Ben-Gurion, and many others played decisive roles. To ignore these historical forces is to flatten history into a miracle story.
From a Christian theological perspective, your observations are well grounded. The New Testament consistently reorients covenant identity around Christ rather than ethnicity or geography. Paul’s central argument is that the promises to Abraham find their fulfillment in Christ and in all who belong to Him, Jew and Gentile alike. Galatians is especially explicit: “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29). The dividing wall has indeed been broken down (Eph. 2:14).
That does not mean ethnic Jews cease to matter, nor does it justify antisemitism—Paul explicitly rejects that. But it does mean that the New Testament does not present national restoration or possession of a particular territory as the centerpiece of God’s redemptive plan. The centerpiece is Christ and His multinational people, the Church.
As for Romans 11, it certainly teaches a future mercy toward Jewish people, but faithful Christians have long disagreed about exactly what that entails. It does not necessarily require a political state, territorial restoration, or a separate covenantal program for ethnic Israel.
So the return of Jews to the land can be viewed as historically extraordinary and deeply significant without being a knockdown proof of biblical prophecy. Whether one sees it as providence, politics, or some combination of both depends largely on one’s prior theological commitments.
In short: the existence of modern Israel is a fact of history. Its meaning is a matter of interpretation.
[My cross examination]
Excellent, very helpful and balanced response. Sadly, your advice, “That does not mean ethnic Jews cease to matter, nor does it justify antisemitism”, is not always heeded since some believe they have the moral high ground to constantly smear the Jews with antisemitic tropes. I think they wrongly connect the Jews of today with the synagogue of Satan reference in the book of Revelation. Today’s Jews are no more responsible for killing Jesus than I am.
Regarding Romans 11:26, if it is argued in the context of the New Testament and specifically with regard to the remnant in the earlier Romans 11 verses, “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace”, I think a formidable argument can be made that “all Israel will be saved,” was fulfilled through the remnant of Jews who turned to Christ prior to the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. The attached article by James B. Jordan makes that case. (I created the below video from that article)
[ChatGPT’s Rebuttal]
Yes, a fair argument can absolutely be made—indeed, a strong one—that Romans 11:26 refers to the salvation of the covenant remnant of Israel in the first-century transition period rather than to a mass national conversion at the end of history.
James Jordan’s central observation is an important one: throughout Romans 9–11, Paul is dealing with a pressing, contemporary redemptive-historical crisis. The question is not primarily, “What will happen to ethnic Jews thousands of years from now?” but rather, “Has God’s word failed now, given Israel’s present unbelief?” Paul’s emphatic answer is no. God has preserved a remnant, just as He did in Elijah’s day.
That remnant theme is crucial. Paul explicitly says, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Rom. 11:5). The phrase “at the present time” anchors his discussion in his own generation. He is not speculating about a distant future but interpreting the significance of events unfolding before his eyes. Just as seven thousand in Elijah’s day represented the faithful within apostate Israel, so Jewish believers in Christ represented the true Israel within first-century Judaism.
On this reading, “all Israel” does not mean every ethnic Jew without exception, nor necessarily a future collective conversion of the Jewish nation-state. Rather, it refers to the full complement of elect Israel—the complete ingathering of the Jewish remnant before the old covenant order passed away. Paul’s use of “fullness” and “life from the dead” can be understood covenantally and corporately: the completion of Israel’s transition into the new covenant community, culminating in the end of the old age in AD 70.
This interpretation also fits the larger New Testament pattern. As Jordan notes, the New Testament repeatedly emphasizes the imminent judgment on Jerusalem and the passing away of the old covenant order. Yet it nowhere else clearly predicts a distinct, end-times national conversion of ethnic Israel. That silence is at least noteworthy. If such an event were central to eschatology, one might expect it to appear more explicitly and more often.
At the same time, humility is warranted. The traditional interpretation—that Romans 11 points to a future large-scale turning of Jewish people to Christ—has been held by many serious and careful interpreters across theological traditions. It is not a frivolous reading. Paul’s language in verses 12, 15, and 26 is expansive enough to sustain that view.
So the issue is not whether the preterist-remnant interpretation is possible. It clearly is. The real question is which reading best accounts for Paul’s argument, his time markers, and the flow of redemptive history.
What can be said with confidence is this: Paul’s ultimate concern is not the perpetuation of ethnic distinction, but the faithfulness of God to His promises in Christ. The olive tree has one root, one covenantal life, and ultimately one people of God. Jewish and Gentile believers alike stand only by grace, through faith, in the Messiah.
And that brings us back to your earlier point. Whatever one’s interpretation of Romans 11, the chapter cannot be used either to marginalize Jewish people or to establish a separate salvific path for them. Paul rejects both arrogance and exclusion. There is no room for antisemitism, and there is no room for ethnic triumphalism either. In Christ, mercy is the great leveler.
In closing, I found this exercise somewhat exhilarating. Though I appreciate Rabbi Wolicki’s heart in this matter, the fact that he is missing the divine commentary on the OT puts him at a significant disadvantage. The Rabbi has seen only half the movie and He’s completely missing the central figure throughout history, Jesus Christ. Everything was about Jesus and everything was fulfilled in Him. He is the promised seed of Abraham and only through Him will we be blessed. Jesus is Israel and you are either “in Christ” or you are not. Sadly, Rabbi Wolicki is not. Let’s pray that God quickens is soul.
There are no special blessings to those who reject Christ, which the majority of modern day Jews have done and are doing. As was noted by ChatGPT, The olive tree has one root, one covenantal life, and ultimately one people of God. Jewish and Gentile believers alike stand only by grace, through faith, in the Messiah.”
At the outset, let me explain my intent. I will use parts of the following sermon as a teaching tool, attempting to provide a critical analysis using sound rules of interpretation.
[Pastor Abney said] “If you’re new to Bell Schoals, I want you to know we make it our aim every week to study the Bible. Not my opinion, not your opinion. We believe that God has given us an incredible word. We believe he’s made his will for us known and we make it our aim to study His word and his will every week.”(full sermon below)
I wholeheartedly agree with Pastor Abney. God has given us His incredible, inerrant, infallible, and inspired Word! In it alone is the foundation of all truth. And it should be the goal of every pastor to proclaim it as written. As he said, we must not be engaged in merely sharing our opinions of God’s word. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) I truly believe that the Bible is living, active and transformative. The more we read it the more it changes us into the likeness of Jesus.
(2 Timothy 3:14-17) But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
In Bible studies it’s traditional to go around the room giving people an opportunity to say what a verse or passage means. Though it’s good to hear what others think, I don’t really care what someone thinks a passage means… I want to know what it actually means. In other words, if their conclusions are rooted in sound interpretive principles, it won’t be a mere guess. Does that make sense? I don’t want to demean anyone’s views, but if those conclusions are not derived from sound rules of interpretation, they may be errant. It’s not “your truth”, “my truth” or “anyone’s truth”, but rather “THE truth”. There is only one truth.
The Bereans who lived a few miles north of the Thessalonians, examined the Scriptures daily attempting to line up their views with what Jesus and the inspired Apostles taught. “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11) So, our goal is to be like the Bereans as they diligently examined God’s word. (The map below shows the locations of Berea and Thessalonica – spelled Thessaloniki today)
You may immediately say to yourself: I have no formal biblical training, so how can I become like the Bereans? How can I learn to separate truth from error?
Make no mistake, the Apostle Paul put the onus on us, those endowed with the Holy Spirit (which we receive after our faith profession in the shed blood of Jesus which covers our sin) to discern what the Bible teaches. This is not an obligation that we can slough off on the pastor or the church leaders. It is incumbent upon us to be students of God’s Word. With diligence we can become faithful Bereans.
Rules of Biblical Interpretation
Following are 6 overarching hermeneutical principles (which means science of interpretation) that will help us in this endeavor.
1.Exegete (pull out) rather than eisegete(read into):
These two words are rarely used outside a biblical setting, but they’re nonetheless important to understand. We must do everything in our power to avoid reading our own presuppositions and biases into Bible passages which is our natural tendency. Rather, we must “pull out” what the inspired authors were conveying. Too often people have the tendency to eisegete (read into) passages which only serve to muddy the waters. We all do it. But it’s something we must be aware of and guard against.
J.I. Packer, author of the best-selling 1973 book “Knowing God” was considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America. He wrote about the presuppositions we bring to the Bible and how they impact what we read:
“We do not start our Christian lives by working out our faith for ourselves; it is mediated to us by Christian tradition, in the form of sermons, books and established patterns of church life and fellowship. We read our Bibles in the light of what we have learned from these sources; we approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world… It is easy to be unaware that it has happened; it is hard even to begin to realize how profoundly tradition in this sense has molded us. But we are forbidden to become enslaved to human tradition, either secular or Christian, whether it be “catholic” (universal) tradition, or “critical” tradition, or “ecumenical” tradition. We may never assume the complete rightness of our own established ways of thought and practice and excuse ourselves the duty of testing and reforming them by Scriptures.”
In other words, it should not be underestimated how our beliefs formed by life experiences impact how we interpret the Bible. We don’t begin with a clean slate. If we merely accept the opinions of others, two things can happen:
1. We may affirm the errant views of others.
2. Even if those views are accurate, merely appropriating those views without serious investigation, short-circuits the exploratory process and deep convictions are never formed. And to defend our faith requires confidence in those views, which can only come through diligent study.
Peter exhorted his readers to, “always be prepared to make a defense [apologia] to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you;” (1 Peter 3:15)
So, when in Bible study, as others share their opinions, if we follow the 5 interpretive rules below, we can determine if what they’re saying is correct.
2. Audience Relevance:
This means exactly as it sounds. We need to first determine the relevance of a passage to the original audience. For example, when we read Paul’s letters to the Colossians or the Ephesians, we must view everything through their first-century lens. Similarly, if we read Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians or his second epistle to Timothy as though they were written directly to us in 2026, we will undoubtedly miss the points Paul was attempting to convey. I cannot overstress the importance of this too often ignored principle.
Casually reading the Bible is of great value, but if we want to develop sound doctrinal conclusions, we need to study it which requires understanding audience relevance. Viewing a passage in context is of absolutely essential.
This principle of first considering the supremacy of the original audience is vital to understanding all Bible passages, and if ignored makes it virtually impossible to interpret Bible prophecy, which is time and context sensitive. By that I mean that if the Apostle Paul wrote that something was about to happen, given the fact that he wrote his epistles almost two thousand years ago, we must assume that it already took place. Though that seems obvious, we’ve been conditioned to ignore this simple rule.
For example. To the church at Corinth Paul wrote:
“I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed womanmarries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. “the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29-31)
First, we need to identify all words that refer to the original audience like verb tenses, time sensitive words and pronouns. “Present distress”; “Are YOU bound to a wife?”; “The appointed time has grown very short”; “For the present form of this world is passing away”.
If we ignore these components of speech and read this passage as though Paul just dropped this letter on our doorstep, we would be forced to conclude that we should not marry. But Paul was referring to conditions that existed at that time which were in the very distant past. We no longer heed Paul’s warning to “remain as we are” because we don’t live in what Paul described as “this present distress.” In AD 57, they were enduring persecution that was about to become severe. The “appointed time” had grown very short. The old covenant sacrificial system was about to permanently pass away, the Jewish-Roman war would begin within 10 years (AD 67-70), and the Temple would soon be destroyed (AD 70).
When Paul wrote, “for the present form of this world is passing away”, notice that it was passing away 2,000 years ago. “Is passing away” is present tense. It was passing away then, not now. It makes no sense if Paul was referring to the end of the world, because it’s not been in the process of passing away since the first century. I believe Paul was referring to the passing of the Old Covenant system, not the gradual end of the cosmos.
In the book of Hebrews, written in approximately AD 63, Paul wrote, “In speaking of a new covenant (Jeremiah 31), he makes the first one obsolete. and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:13) This was seven years before the temple’s destruction when the Old Covenant was “ready to vanish”. The Temple, which was the hub of the sacrificial system, was razed to the ground by the Romans in September of AD 70, marking the Old Covenant’s end.
The point is that we must not read Paul’s imminent warning of distress as though it applies directly to us today because we are not living in “the present distress” which typified the conditions at that time. In addition, Paul referred to the time being short. Time cannot be short then and be short today, 2,000 years later. It can’t be interminably short. So, the admonition to remain as they were, is no longer applicable to us today.
You would not believe how many read “in view of the present distress” and assume Paul is referring to difficult times in our day. It’s tragic that so many make this simple mistake of ignoring the original audience.
To further demonstrate the concept of audience relevance, consider the following from the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. I would encourage you to read the whole chapter, but for brevity, let’s look at these few verses. Again, focus on Paul’s reference to “you” (which are the Thessalonians).
“…since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict YOU, 7 and to grant relief to YOU who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels…” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-7)
Many Christians read the above as though they are both the “you” and the “us”, but that’s not the way to read the Bible. This is a letter of instruction to the church at Thessalonica, not a theological thesis. Just like receiving a letter from your mom, this was Paul’s correction and encouragement to them at that time. These letters were addressed to beleaguered Christians of Paul’s day.
Consider how the Y’all Bible Version renders these same two verses. One of this translators’ goals was to draw the distinction between “you” singular and “you” plural, which has been lost in most modern translations:
“since it is righteous for God to repay with affliction those who afflict y’all, 7 and to give relief to y’all who are afflicted with us.” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-7)
Was the Apostle Paul referring to us in our day or did these words pertain directly to the Thessalonians? Who was it that was afflicted and to whom did the Apostle promise would be granted relief? The Thessalonians, right?
*As a disclaimer, it should be noted that even if a passage wasn’t written directly to us, we can find general application. For example, we can correctly conclude that if God was faithful to the Thessalonians at that time, then we can be assured that he will be faithful to us as He works all things for our good. (Romans 8:28)
To properly understand 1st Thessalonians, we must first remember that the primary focus should always be on the direct recipients. We should never lose sight of the fact that this special promise, “to grant relief to YOU who are afflicted,” applied directly to the Thessalonians and all persecuted Christians at that time. Paul assured them (not us) that they would be granted relief and that their persecutors received their just penalty.
In AD 66, when Jerusalem was surrounded by armies the first time, Josephus (a Jewish historian) wrote that when the Romans inexplicably pulled back, the Christians fled in mass to the mountain regions of Pella…heeding Jesus’s warning to flee Judea when they saw “Jerusalem surrounded by armies” (Luke 21:20). In the wake of Jerusalem’s destruction, 1.1 million Jews had died and 100k had been taken captive. God indeed was faithful to avenge his beloved followers as He poured out his wrath on that wicked and perverse Christ-killing generation. (Matthew 23:36)
Consider yet another example. As Jesus and His disciples were on the Mount of Olives looking down at the magnificent temple (that had been under construction for approximately 44 years), Jesus said, “See that no one leads YOU astray.” (Matthew 24:4) Right after telling them that this amazing edifice would be destroyed, and before he began explaining what they would witness leading up to it’s dissolution, Jesus specifically warned them (not us) not to be misled by false prophets and false Christs. Was this a warning for us today? No, it was to Jesus’s faithful followers who were gathered around.
Approximately 6-9 months earlier, Jesus told His followers that some would live to see these things in their lifetimes.
“For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every person according to hisdeeds. 28“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Matthew 16:27-28)
This concept of audience relevancy is quintessential to our understanding of the Bible just as it is when reading any piece of literature… however, much more the Word of God. Since the late 1800s when dispensationalism was becoming the dominant interpretive system, we have traveled far off course in this regard, too often ignoring the original audience.
Looking further into this Olivet passage, it again should not escape our notice to whom Jesus was referring in verse 9? “Then they will deliver YOU up to tribulation and put YOU to death, and YOU will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. (Matthew 24:9)
Concerning this verse, a famous pastor who once shepherded over 10,000 said,“They killed Jesus. They killed all the apostles. We’re all going to be persecuted…”
So, what in the following passages would lead anyone to believe that Jesus was referring to our generation? Let’s look at the other Gospel accounts regarding persecution. Notice the consistent references to “you” and “your”.
“But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, turning you over to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors on account of My name.” (Mark 13:9)
“But be on your guard; for they will hand you over to the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them.” (Luke 21:16)
But you will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, other relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death,” (Luke 21:12)
Considering that Jesus was speaking directly to His disciples, it’s both puzzling and troubling that this famous pastor would insist that these sordid expectations are meant for us. Clearly, many have been persecuted and even martyred down through the centuries due their association with Jesus. But to whom was Jesus warning? Us? Was Jesus prophesying that all Christians throughout history and specifically twenty-first century Christians, would be delivered up to tribulation and put to death?
As absurd as this sounds, that’s exactly what this pastor was stating. Though many have suffered for the sake of Christ since His ascension, and many today are being severely persecuted in Muslim and Communist countries for their Christian testimonies, the above prophetic decree is not about us. Sadly, twenty-first century Christians have become so egocentric, narcissistic and myopic that they believe everything is about them and their twenty-first century generation. This reminds me of the 1972 Carly Simon hit single, “You’re So Vain.” Chorus:
You’re so vain You probably think this song is about you You’re so vain (you’re so vain) I’ll bet you think this song is about you Don’t you? Don’t you?
Given the current state of interpretational affairs, it would be more like:
You’re so vain, You probably think this passage is about you You’re so vain (you’re so vain) I’ll bet you think this passage is about you Don’t you, don’t you?
I recently heard someone use the term narcigesis, which is even more descriptive than eisegesis to portray our current interpretational climate.
So, whether a Christian was martyred in the fifth or the fifteenth century, it would not be a prophetic fulfillment of the above passages because the YOU pertained to those who lived in “this perverse generation” (Matthew 17:7) And God made certain that through first-century historians Josephus and Tacitus (neither were Christians), their accounts of this time period were preserved for our edification. The uninspired extra-Biblical sources, they prove the historical fulfillments of Jesus’s prophetic words, thus further testifying that Jesus truly was the Messiah.
In 1805, George Peter Holford harnessed the amazing power of those historical accounts in: THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM: AN ABSOLUTEANDIRRESISTIBLE PROOF OF THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY: Including a narrative of the calamities which befel the Jews, so far as they tend to verify our Lord’s predictions relative to that event. With a Brief Description of the City and the Temple. Talk about a long title! This excellent resource offers historical proof that the events Jesus prophesied in the Olivet Discourse occurred between Jesus’s ascension in AD 30 and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
Holford recounted the ever-present persecution of the first century believers.
“In the very infancy of the Christian church, these unmerited and unprovoked cruelties began to be inflicted. Our LORD, and his forerunner John the Baptist, had already been put to death; the Apostles Peter and John were first imprisoned, and then, together with the other Apostles, were scourged before the Jewish council; Stephen after confounding the Sanhedrim with his irresistible eloquence, was stoned to death; Herod Agrippa “stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church,”(Acts 12:1) beheaded James the brother of John, and again imprisoned Peter, designing to put him to death also; St. Paul pleaded before the Jewish council at Jerusalem, and before Felix the Roman governor, who trembled on the judgment-seat, while the intrepid prisoner “reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come!”(Acts 24:25)
Tacitus, a Roman senator and historian who was hostile to Christianity (which makes his testimony especially valuable) explicitly connected the Christian persecution to Nero’s blame-shifting for the Great Fire:
“Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired… Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle.” Tacitus, Annals 15.44
So, just as Jesus prophesied, the disciples were hated by both the Christ-rejecting Jews and the Romans and many of died as martyrs.
3. The Bible was written FOR us, but it was not written directly TO us. This interpretive principle piggybacks “audience relevance”. We need to consider that when we read Paul’s letters to Timothy, for example, he was specifically addressing Timothy. God’s Word never excludes modern day readers, but it’s our responsibility to determine what it meant to Timothy before finding application. We are essentially reading someone else’s mail when we read the Bible because everything has a context and we are not the original target audience of anything written in either the Old or New Testaments.
So, how does this play out for us when reading these letters almost 2,000 years after they were written? As quoted earlier, we know that,
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Therefore, every word on every page of the Bible was written to teach, reprove, correct and train Christians of all ages in righteous living. Every jot and tittle was preserved for our edification. We must seek a balanced approach, neither ignoring the original nor take “audience relevance” to the extreme, realizing that even if a passage had a first century target audience, every word is for our understanding and betterment.
To recap, we must first determine what a passage meant to the original audience before we begin attempting to apply it to us. I am being intentionally redundant at this point to make clear that too often this assumption is ignored. Too many act as though the Bible arrived with the morning’s paper. Christians are so quick to find personal application that they don’t first take the time to understand what a passage meant to the original audience. And this is recipe for causing a doctrinal crisis.
4. God neither lies nor misleads. Hopefully no Christian would be audacious enough to call God a liar. (Hebrews 6:18) “so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.” But the reality is that the way many interpret the Bible, they unwittingly call God’s integrity into question. Let me be clear. Of course they wouldn’t couch it this way, but the truth is that’s exactly what they do. I’ll explain that in a moment but first some ground rules.
If a prophet of God proclaimed that something was about to take place, and if that event does not take place in the near term, he was a false prophet. This was clearly spelled out in Deuteronomy 18:18-22.
18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, orwho speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
God made it abundantly clear that He does not look favorably on those who purport to speak for Him. God said, “that same prophet shall die” who presumes to speak a word in the Lord’s name that He has not inspired them to speak. Whatever God speaks through a prophet must come to pass within the time parameters set or he is not speaking words from God. There is no wiggle room. However, many wrongly assume that’s there’s a fudge factor with God’s prophetic word… that He graded first-century prophets/Apostles on a curve.
They argue that since God is eternal, He is not bound by time. Therefore, when God’s inspired prophet or author says that something must happen soon, He isn’t bound by time constraints. Though it is true that God is infinite where time is meaningless, His finite creatures to whom the Bible was written are bound by the time clock God created at the world’s foundation. Think about it this way. How could a prophet presuming to speak for God be charged with a false prophecy if the time duration to fulfillment is completely ignored? It took me many years to come to this simple but critical realization. The timing of a prophecy is integral to the prophecy.
Following is an example. Let’s return to Matthew 24. As Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives overlooking the magnificence of the massive temple, He told His disciples,
“YOU see all these, do YOU not? Truly, I say to YOU, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Jesus predicted that the Temple would be razed to the ground. But when? Thirty-two verses later in Matthew’s Olivet account, Jesus predicted the unimaginable when He emphatically stated, “Truly, I say to you, THIS GENERATION will not pass away until all these things take place.” (Matthew 24:34)
One incredible event encompassed in “all these things” was the complete annihilation of the Temple which Jesus said would happen within 40 years (a biblical generation). And though there was Roman oppression of the Jews, at that time there was a relative peace throughout the Roman Empire called the Pax Romana. So, just as Jesus predicted, within 40 years, the Temple was completely destroyed during the AD 67-70 Jewish war with Rome. So, this was not just a startling prediction but an amazing fulfillment, proving once again the divinity of Christ. It’s really a shame that we don’t teach first century history in our Sunday schools and Bible studies. More on the destruction Jerusalem later.
So, “all these things” regard the predicted events and conditions in the preceding verses (Matthew 24:3-33) which include false Christs, wars and rumors of wars,famines, earthquakes, persecution, martyrdom, the abomination of desolation and the great tribulation. All within “this generation.” Not “that generation” or some future generation. Do you see how important the time parameter, “this generation,” is regarding these predictions?
Further, do you realize the significance that if the things contained in Jesus’s Olivet prophecy did not take place within a generation, Jesus would be guilty of false prophecy? Therefore, failing the Deuteronomy 18 test. Attempting to read their own eschatology into the narrative, some have changed what Jesus actually said by arguing that what Jesus meant was “the generation that sees these signs”. I’m sorry but that’s not what Jesus said no matter how much one wants to believe it. It’s a sad commentary when Christians are so infatuated with their paradigm that they’re willing to change what Jesus actually said.
In “This generation”, an article appearing on DeadRight.net, the author wrote: “The Bible records Jesus using the word “generation” 13 times, when you harmonize the parallel accounts. Taken separately, Matthew records 9 times, Mark 4 times and Luke 11 times, for a total of 24 verses. In every case, Jesus is referring to the Jews alive at that moment in time. (30-33 AD)”“This generation” or a derivative thereof, was used 24 times in the three synoptic accounts. Consider the following passage which preceded the Olivet Discourse in Matthew’s account. Jesus emphatically stated that “all these things” would come upon “this generation.”
34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city,35 so that upon you will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:34-36)
It seems very strange that the same pastors and theologians who believe that Jesus was speaking about a generation 2,000 years future in Matthew 24, but in the above passage when the same language is used as Jesus excoriated the Pharisees, they admit that “this generation” referred to the first century generation. I find that rather disingenuous.
“We read our Bibles in the light of what we have learned from these sources; we approach Scripture with minds already formed by the mass of accepted opinions and viewpoints with which we have come into contact, in both the Church and the world.”
Well known Bible prophecy experts are no less immune than we are to having “minds already formed” when they open their Bibles. They are beholden to a system that forces them to deny that “this generation” actually meant “this generation.” Let that sink in.
And because of the prophecy experts’ credibility (authority bias), many Christians follow their lead and assume that through God’s prophets, God sometimes said that something was about to happen that might remain unfulfilled for centuries or even millennia. This simply cannot be!
To put it bluntly, this would be equivalent to calling God a liar. Think about it. How then could the prophet’s legitimacy be questioned if the time of fulfillment is as crucial to the prophecy as the event prophesied? To put it mildly, God did not think well of those who wrongly proclaimed something on His behalf. Again, this would call God’s integrity into question. I know that sounds harsh, but the reality is that when a person interprets the Bible and concludes that the event prophesied did not happen within the stated time parameter e.g. “soon”, “quickly”, “shortly”, “at hand”, “this generation” etc., it should be obvious that there is something wrong with their interpretation of that passage, and not that something is inherently wrong with God’s word. The Bible is infallible. So, if an event was prophesied to happen soon and if we are convinced that it did not happen soon, we have three choices.
We can question the integrity and inspiration of the Bible. Which would be catastrophic. OR
We can attempt to alter what the passage says or provide an excuse for non-fulfillment. OR
We can assume that our understanding of the way that prophecy was supposed to be fulfilled is wrong and then attempt to determine why.
For example, look at God’s warning that came through the prophet Ezekiel. Let me set this up for you. The people of his day continued to argue that just because God warned that their disobedience would lead to their impending judgment, God would delay His judgment as if it was an idle threat. As such God was ignored and the people kept sinning. God would say that something was near and the people would retort, “the days grow long, and every vision comes to nothing.”
In other words, they basically mocked God saying that He was all talk and no action. So, they ignored God’s threats of judgment. Then notice God’s sharp reaction. “For there shall be no more false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel… God continued: “But say to them, the days are near, and the fulfillment of every vision… For I am the Lord; I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed. It will no longer be delayed.”
Do you see it? Writing almost 600 years before Christ, God made clear through Ezekiel that He was not a God of forever delays. “Thus says the Lord God: None of my words will be delayed any longer, but the word that I speak will be performed, declares the Lord God.” God was very serious about the timely fulfillment of His promises and predictions. He is not a God of confusion where He forever promises things that “must shortly take place” (Revelation 1:1) that remain unfulfilled for thousands of years.
Now, let’s hear from the Apostle Paul in his AD 64 letter to the Hebrews regarding delays: “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay;” God is not a God of delays.
Read the entire Ezekiel 12 passage below for context:
21 And the word of the Lord came to me: 22 “Son of man, what is this proverb that youhave about the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days grow long, and every vision comes to nothing’? 23 Tell them therefore, ‘Thus says the Lord God: I will put an end to this proverb, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel.’ But say to them, The days are near, and the fulfillment of every vision. 24 For there shall be no more any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel. 25 For I am the Lord; I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed.It will no longer be delayed, but in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and perform it, declares the Lord God.”
26 And the word of the Lord came to me: 27 “Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, ‘The vision that he sees is for many days from now, and he prophesies of times far off.’ 28 Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord God: None of my words will be delayed any longer, but the word that I speak will be performed, declares the Lord God.”(Ezekiel 12:21-28)
Did you catch that? “None of My words will be delayed any longer.” So, why do pastors continue to encourage us to violate God’s decree and pretend that God can’t keep time?
5. Context is king This is yet another facet of the interpretive diamond. Nothing can be properly understood without understanding the context in which a book or passage was written. For example, consider the following verse that’s on Hallmark cards, signs and placards everywhere: “For I know the plans I have for you’—this is the Lord’s declaration—‘plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11, CSB). Is this truly a promise guaranteeing wellbeing for all who trust God? Considering the persecution of the Apostles, health wealth, and prosperity weren’t exactly hallmarks of their personal experiences. As the author of Hebrews wrote, “For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” (Hebrews 10:34)
Further, consider the Apostle Paul’s rather tumultuous journey since following Jesus.
“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.Not exactly a life of prosperity!
In an article titled, “How Jeremiah 29:11 is Far Better When You Properly Interpret It,” Brian Chilton helps us understand this verse in context. He wrote, “The verse has been often misapplied as it has become a staple for graduation Hallmark cards, plaques, and knick-knacks. For some, the verse holds a promise that God will never allow the person to suffer bad experiences or trouble.”
Chilton then wrote, “It is critically important to note that Jeremiah 29:11 is part of Jeremiah’s letter to the Israelites who would become Babylonian exiles. This is key to understanding the context of the verse. If the interpreter misses this point, he or she will not comprehend the nature of the verse. Quite frankly, I do not know that anyone would want this to be their graduation theme because God is telling the nation that they are about to experience difficult days ahead.”
Chilton went on, “Jeremiah 29:11 can be likened to Romans 8:28 which states, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28, CSB). In like manner, God tells those who would be exiled, “I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you … I will restore you to the place from which I deported you” (Jeremiah 29:14, CSB). While the people would face severe difficulty in their days ahead, they could live with the assurance that God would restore the fortunes of their people and their land. Similarly, we are part of the community of God’s people. We do not always get things right. Quite honestly, we probably mess up more than do right. Nonetheless, God has a better day coming for his children—a day where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more heartache, no more divisions, and no more death (Rev. 21:3–4).
This is a masterclass on how to employ both the principles of audience relevance and context is king. As you can see, we must not apply Jeremiah 29:11 directly to us in our day since it was a promise given to the Israelites who were about to endure severe hardship. So, what does this verse/passage mean for us. As Chilton wrote, it’s just like the promise of Romans 8:28, where God assures us that He is sovereignly working all things for the good of those who love Him. It doesn’t mean that we won’t go through times of severe hardship, but what it does mean is that God will always be with us through it. What you may find astounding is how many Christians cling to Jeremiah 29:11 as though it guarantees their health and wealth. This is an excellent lesson on how to consider the context of a Bible passage.
6. The Analogy of Faith
This hermeneutical principle (science of interpretation) posits that the Bible interprets itself. No other manmade document is so internally consistent. We must interpret the Bible with the Bible. To understand the Bible, there’s no inherent need to appeal to extra-biblical sources. The Bible is never self-contradictory. We must interpret that which is unclear through the lens of what is clear. Therefore, we are cautioned to take obscure, difficult to understand passages or verses and make doctrines out of them. Rather, we should interpret the more confusing verses through the lens of other clearly understood passages, always with the understanding that the Bible is never contradictory.
Consider this “apparent contradiction” regarding how Judas was said to have died. If the Bible wasn’t internally consistent, we wouldn’t expect harmonization with these two different accounts.
(Matthew 27:5) “…he went away and hanged himself.” Then in (Acts 1:18) “…falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.”
Are these two accounts contradictory? Matthew wrote that Judas died by hanging while Dr. Luke seems to argue that he died bursting open after falling. Given that there are no contradictions how can this be reconciled?
Both are describing the same death from different points of view. Judas hanged himself and his body later fell (due to decay, after the rope broke or was cut down) and burst open on impact. So, Matthew emphasized the cause of death while Acts emphasized the aftermath.
Let’s consider the analogy of faith from a different perspective by returning to Jesus’s Olivet Discourse. This regards the synergy between the Old and New Testaments. Do you remember when Jesus was on the Mount of Olives looking down at the Temple explaining the things that would take place within their generation (Matthew 24:34)? Jesus warned, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Matthew 24:29) What’s your immediate impression? Doesn’t this sound like earth ending astrological events were on their horizon? Since it’s often assumed that Jesus was prophesying the end of the cosmos, and because this has not happened, it must refer to our future annihilation.
In the book of Revelation (the Apostle John’s version of the Olivet Discourse), we find very similar language.
“When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.”(Revelation 6:12-14)
As we read this kind of “decreation,” poetic language, the $64k question is: How are we to understand the threat of Jesus’s warning? Is this to be taken literally/naturally as so many assume? When the disciples understood these two passages, do you think they assumed that stars would fall from the sky ending our planet? Can you imagine what would happen if the stars fell to the earth? Even a fallen meteor could destroy a major city.
So, how should we interpret Jesus’s decree? Should we read this passage in a vacuum? Should we look to see if this type of language was used by the Old Testament prophets? Indeed. The disciples would have been familiar with similar apocalyptic language usages? Jesus’s prophetic warnings were almost direct quotes from Old Testament prophets. For brevity, let’s consider two OT passages from the prophet Isaiah. In the passage below, notice both the timing of fulfillment (verse 6) and the nature of judgment (earth shaken “out of its place”).
Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;as destruction from the Almighty it will come!7 Therefore all hands will be feeble,and every human heart will melt.8 They will be dismayed:pangs and agony will seize them;they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.They will look aghast at one another;their faces will be aflame.
9 Behold, the day of the Lord comes,cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,to make the land a desolationand to destroy its sinners from it.10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light;the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.11 I will punish the world for its evil,and the wicked for their iniquity…
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,and the earth will be shaken out of its place,at the wrath of the Lord of hostsin the day of his fierce anger. (Isaiah 13:5-13)
The “day of the Lord” (which refers to God’s judgment) was “near.” Time sensitive words were to be taken literally and seriously, not delayed for thousands of years. To interminably put off punishment on the people to whom were angering God, and then carry out that punishment hundreds of years later on a completely different group of people, would punish the wrong villains. When God said that judgment was near, he meant it.
Isaiah 13 refers to the fall of Babylon to the Medes in 539 BC. (read verse 1 – “The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.”) This begs the question: Do the historical and/or scientific records validate the prophesied events as having taken place exactly as stated i.e. “the earth shaken out of its place?” In other words, did the heavens actually shake and did the earth move out of its orbit, which would have ended all life on earth? The answer is obvious.
So, we learn from the Old Testament how Jesus’s disciples would have understood this type of language, which is very similar to the apocalyptic, decreation language contained in the two New Testament passages above. God used these astronomical descriptions prophetically, as He empowered one nation to judge another contemptable nation. Therefore, when we read the New Testament, the same language should be understood similarly to that of the Old Testament prophets and therefore not to be taken as woodenly literal.
Let’s look at the next passage from Isaiah.
Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood. 4 All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree. (Isaiah 34:3-4)
In Isaiah 34, the prophet announced the desolation of Bozrah the capital of Edom late in the sixth century BC. (read verse 6 – “For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,a great slaughter in the land of Edom”) If this passage was taken literally/physically, it would be assumed that the sky rolled up like a scroll. As we know these kinds of astrological events didn’t take place as stated because these symbolic words marked the coming annihilation of Bozrah.
The bottom line is that the Bible is never in conflict with itself. It is self-interpreting and perfectly synergistic. Jesus was using language from the OT which would have been understood by His Jewish followers. They wouldn’t have believed that stars were going to actually fall to the earth. Rather, they knew that this was judgment language used against the wicked and perverse Christ-killing generation of Jews.
I hope you can see how important it is to employ sound rules of interpretation when reading and studying the Bible. If we don’t, we can make the Bible say anything we want it to say. Anything to support our presuppositions. And that’s exactly what has happened, especially with Bible prophecy interpretations over the past 150 years.
[Pastor said]“We have the highest rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide in the history of the world.It’s not even close”.
Is this true? I’m not intentionally trying to nitpick, but we need to be faithful Bereans in every regard. We should avoid cynicism and unhealthy criticism, but pastors and church leaders aren’t immune to making unintentionally false statements.
Does the pastor not realize that there have been far darker times in human history than what we’re experiencing today? I believe the reason for the pastor’s statement is in part due to his preconceived biases. He expects that things are worse than they have ever been and will continue to decline. This is baked into the way he reads the Bible. But as we have already seen under the “audience relevance” section, that there were far darker times going all the way back to the the first century, especially prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
Let’s evaluate his statement about anxiety, suicide and depression against the backdrop of recent history. According to this chart, the suicide rates from approximately 1905 until 1945 were significantly higher than they are today. From that time, they steadily dropped until they reached a low in the year 2000.
Do we have a mental illness problem today? Of course. But to make a statement detached from reality is problematic at best. It feeds a narrative that is simply untrue i.e. that we’re facing unprecedented times of despair. Rates of suicide and depression often peak during severe economic hardship. In the early 1930s during the Great Depression, you can see the spike in suicides to 22 per 100,000.
What you will find is that many pastors paint a very gloomy picture of our future in large part because they’ve accepted what I believe are unsupported eschatological (end times) conclusions that things must get worse until Christ’s second coming. This glass half empty mentality has pervaded the church since well before I became a Christian in 1972. In large part this pessimistic view comes from not employing sound principles of interpretation.
The short video below dispels the myth that the laundry list of negativities found in 2 Timothy 3:1-13 is a warning for us, today. It was Paul alerting Timothy at that time (mid AD 60s) of the conditions that Timothy would encounter in the last days of the Old Covenant system.
That said, acknowledging the struggles we’re facing is not defeatist. It simply points to how much further we must travel considering far worse times behind us. When society condones men playing women’s sports. When transgenderism becomes accepted if not glorified. When sexual deviancy is celebrated. When assassination culture reaches epic proportions. When class warfare is magnified and the mayor of our most renowned city is an avowed Islamic Marxist… It’s easy to understand the increased level of pessimism. However, by every metric, not only have things been far worse throughout history, the reason for the last 50 years of the west’s societal declines is at least in part the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Said in another way, if we are told ad nauseum that things must get worse and that there’s no possibility of reversal, Christians naturally take themselves out of the game and the vicious cycle continues. Case in point. In 1982, When Debbie (my wife) and I were in our 20s, we picketed abortion clinics with some church friends who were committed to the sanctity of human life. One day following our Sunday morning church service, a passionate gentleman who believed Jesus’s return was imminent, chastised me for us wasting our time trying to save babies while attempting to reform culture. He essentially said that our efforts were futile, much like polishing brass on a soon sinking ship. The goal to makes disciples is not necessary to save culture, but as the Gospel pervades all areas of life, it will have a purifying effect. When God is exalted and His principles are followed, societies change. Contrarily, when we expect defeat this mentality impacts everything.
This pessimistic view has pervaded the church to the point that the worse things get the closer many Christians think Christ’s return will be. It’s sadly ironic, but I’ve actually heard some believers revel in the darker times thinking that temporal increases of immorality will speed up the Lord’s return. If this is what the Bible predicts, then so be it, but I think this view is demonstrably false.
Before I came to the conclusions I now hold, the question I kept asking myself was why, after 2000 years of Kingdom advancement, is the Gospel destined to fail? Why would Jesus grow a band of 12 young Galileans into a billion worldwide Christ followers, only to mandate that it’s all going to crash and burn? Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me since our mission to disciple the nations is far from over.
In the Forest Frank video linked below, Forest said, “It is an angst for the return of Christ, for the return of justice.Jesus Christ is the only way and He’s coming back soon, get your life right because we don’tknow if today is our last day.” I love this guy! His passion for Jesus is heartening and infectious. Of course we want to make crooked things straight. We want justice to prevail. But to be honest, I’ve been hearing this “He’s coming back soon” mantra since I became a Christian. That’s 54 years of the constant refrain, “Christ is coming soon.” We have so tortured the word soon that it has become virtually meaningless.
In 1772, John Newton wrote Amazing Grace, one of the most inspiring and uplifting songs ever written. In the final stanza began the words, “The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine…” So, 254 years ago, John Newton expected that the earth was nearing its final breath. This short-term expectation of earth’s annihilation was not new, but the drumbeat has grown ever louder.
This is problematic since as the proverb says, “Hope deferred makes the heart weary.” Have you ever waited expectantly for something that you were told was about to happen? The anticipation grows exponentially as you think the time is growing ever shorter. But then, what you were expecting soon, is delayed. Ultimately it never happens. The harsh reality of unfulfilled promises set in. Initially it causes significant disappointment, but eventually it often turns to disillusionment.
Few consider the impact of failed promises. Years ago, a pastor was preaching through the book of James. When he landed on the fifth chapter he read these words, “You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.” (James 5:8-9) (written AD 61-62)
Language like “Is at hand” and “is standing at the door” created significant imminent expectations among James’s readers. The pastor, in an attempt to explain why the coming of the Lord was not actually at hand, told us that James was simply trying to motivate the beleaguered Christians by telling them that Christ’s return in judgment was “at hand”. In other words, the pastor admitted that James, the brother of Jesus and an inspired New Testament author, was using situational ethics where the ends, keeping the Christians engaged and motivated during severe persecution, justified the means, basically lying.
Of course, the pastor never said or even implied that James intentionally lied but that was the net effect. He would never accuse God of impropriety because he’s a godly man with a very refreshing love for the Lord. But the reality is that if we tell someone something that we know not to be true, no matter what our motivation, isn’t it still a lie? Did God ever sanction His inspired Bible authors to lie, even if for a good cause?
I find it sad that we have come to the place where these kinds of excuses have become palatable to the masses. The Bible stands on its own merit. No one should feel the need to apologize for the Word of God. Every word is true and it’s vitally important that we treat it that way. God neither misspeaks nor makes mistakes and he certainly doesn’t employ subterfuge. Why is it that the Bible is the only book ever written where readers have rendered time sensitive words meaningless… i.e. soon can be a long time and a long time can be soon?
My Journey
After more than 20 years as a Christian, I finally came to the realization that there was something very wrong with the way God’s word was being interpreted regarding Bible prophecy. I think this is the Achilles Heel of Christianity.
What started as me merely being unsettled by the accepted eschatological conclusions, turned into a comprehensive skepticism. Kind of a deconstruction before it became fashionable. I had no answers, but I began questioning the kind of interpretational methodology used to form a stream of false conclusions. Every time a Middle East skirmish broke out, a massive earthquake would rock the world, or a school shooting would shock our collective senses, what has been the common refrain? Jesus must be coming soon! Every negative event evoked, “Surely I am coming soon. soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20) And they never stop to realize that this verse was written almost 2,000 years ago. How can Jesus be interminably coming soon?
Ever since Christ’s ascension in AD 30, there have been constant predictions of the world’s end. This long list of failed expectations testifies to the interpretive problems. And this has created a palpable skepticism of the Bible’s credibility. Whether specific dates have been set e.g. Harold Camping’s Judgment Day of May 21, 2011, or whether pastors have constantly told us that the end is near, they have the same net negative effect. It calls into question the Bible’s integrity and inspiration. Instead of questioning the eschatological system that continues to drive these false prophetic conclusions, too many question the Bible.
Let me stop at this point and make clear that there is a viable biblical solution to what may appear to be an insurmountable dilemma. So, just know that I have utmost confidence that God’s word, if properly interpreted, is bulletproof. Therefore, we don’t have to settle for a system that forsakes many of the interpretative principles I’ve outlined.
Almost every New Testament reference to Christ’s coming in judgment is couched in near-term language. And that should be telling. Is it possible that what was imminently expected actually took place? In other words, the first century Christians expected some sort of coming in their lifetimes just as the opening 3 verses in the book of Revelation unequivocally state.
“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John…3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. (Revelation 1:1,3)
The New Testament is replete with this kind of imminence. Any fifth grader who hasn’t been steeped in interpretational subterfuge would believe that the signified events in the Revelation “must take place shortly”, “for the time is near”, cannot support a 2,000-year delay.
So, if whatever is described in the highly symbolic book of Revelation correlates with the events prophesied by Jesus in the Olivet, that means that those events were expected between AD 30 and AD 70 (a biblical generation). The question is, did they happen or not? We know historically through the writings of Josephus, Tacitus and others, that in AD 70, after a 3 1/2 year Roman siege of Jerusalem, the Temple was destroyed just as Jesus predicted. And “all these things” that I referenced earlier in Matthew 24, took place exactly as prophesied. It’s all documented. So, why are we still looking for future fulfillments, either pretending that these things never happened or, with no biblical license to do so, demanding that they must be fulfilled again?
How can we preach the Gospel to the whole world again? (Matthew 24:14) How can we have another great tribulation “such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will again.” (Matthew 24:20) Will there be another abomination of desolation that must be fled from flat-roofed Judean houses? What happens if I live in Florida? (Matthew 24:15). Will “The sun be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, andthe stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken”, again? (Matthew 24:30) How can it be that we “will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory”, again?
Once Bible prophecy experts begin making the rules up as we go, there’s no end to the absurd lengths they will travel to avoid the obvious i.e. that nowhere does the Bible predict multiple fulfillments of the NT prophecies. I recently heard a brilliant Bible apologist give an outstanding interpretation of the Olivet Discourse, showing how everything was fulfilled within a generation of Jesus’s statements, only to watch him say, with no biblical authority whatsoever, that’s it’s all going to happen again. And if “this generation” referred to that wicked and perverse Christ-killing generation, will we have another “this generation” to identify when it might happen again? Where does it end? Another virgin birth? Another baptism? Another crucifixion? Ludicrous you say? Not any more than leading people to believe that the AD 67-70 siege on Jerusalem and the razing of the Temple was simply a dress rehearsal.
How is it possible that so many eschatological experts and pastors of our day have ignored the elephant in the room i.e. that Jesus’s words must be fulfilled within the time parameter Jesus set? They do so because they read the Bible through the lens of their deeply engrained presuppositions. And many Christians follow suit because they were neither taught sound hermeneutics nor first century history. So, instead they read Matthew 24 as though all the references to “you” (the disciples) are us, and the prophesied events are all still in our future.
But thank goodness things are changing. TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) reaching 175 nations in every inhabited continent and a potential of a billion viewers, is shaking up the status quo. From its founding, TBN has been a major proponent of the interpretive principles that spawned Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind Series. Combined, approximately 110 million copies have been sold which has served to engrain this “pessimillennial” outlook into our collective psyche. And this excludes the 5 Left Behind movies, spanning from the years 2000 to 2023.
Since its inception in the early 1970s, TBN has been promoting a rapture-believing, antichrist/mark-of-the-beast-fearing, great-tribulation-expecting mantra which includes the forever imminent return of Christ. It’s been a dispensationalist hotbed in its interpretation of the Bible. In the below video, a panel of 4, Dudley Hall, David Holland, and Mike Hayes sat down with Matt Crouch, son of Paul Crouch, TBN’s founder, and they openly discussed their converging journeys. (48 minute video)
As they began to dig in, I was dumbfounded… in a good way. They discussed the prophetic events of Matthew 24 (the Olivet Discourse) and the book of Revelation (the Apostle John’s version of the Olivet in more poetic, apocalyptic language) and how the traditional view of the end times has been missing important details surrounding the timeline of events. It was astonishing that at TBN of all places, they realized “maybe there’s a different way to look at this” i.e. an opposing eschatological system that is at serious odds with today’s most dominant view which was popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible in the early 1900s.
These men have recently undergone an eschatological makeover of epic proportions… an earth-shattering paradigm change. The humility of admitting that they had been wrong for 5 decades, and the boldness of putting truth over finances is heartening. It takes a great deal of courage to change direction so significantly… especially since most of their viewers have been saturated with the sacrosanct end times system these men are now rejecting.
These men believe that bad theology has hamstrung the church’s mission causing unnecessary Middle East wars and doom and gloom expectations for far too long. TBN’s airing of conversations like this will dramatically shift perspectives and alter expectations for years to come. And this could not come too soon.
Consistently, I’ve found that many pastors and theologians have not employed the 6 principles I outlined above. Though those interpretational principles are taught in our seminaries, often the goal was to indoctrinate, rather than teach students how to think i.e. how to study the Bible. This kind of inculcation encourages pastors to eisegete (read into) passages which conform to their predetermined conclusions. So, oftentimes what we were taught remains what we still believe because those presuppositions are never challenged. Does that make sense?
Are Earthquakes and Natural Disasters on the Rise?
Consistent with this pessimistic worldview, many pastors purport that earthquakes and natural disasters are on the rise. They make this claim to support their conclusion that, just as Jesus predicted, “…there will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (Matthew 24:7b) and it’s all happening now.
In 1994, Grant R. Jeffery, a popular Bible prophecy teacher, claims Jesus’s prediction was being fulfilled: “However, since A.D. 1900, the growth in major earthquakes has been relentless. From 1900 to 1949 it averaged three major quakes per decade. From 1949 the increase became awesome with 9 killer quakes in the 1950’s; 13 in the 60’s; 56 in the 1970’s and an amazing 74 major quakes in the 1980’s. Finally, in the 1990’s as [sic] the present rate, we will experience 125 major killer quakes in this decade.”
Are these reliable facts or is this cherrypicked data to support a conclusion?
“Contrary to these prophecy teachers, no obvious trend is found indicating an abnormal increase in the frequency of large earthquakes during the last half of the twentieth century. Neither is there a noteworthy deficiency of earthquakes in the first half of the century. Graphical plots of global earthquake frequency indicate overall a decreasing frequency of earthquakes through the century. The decades of the 1970s, 80s and 90s experienced a deficit of larger earthquakes compared to earlier decades of the century.”
The reality is that global records going back about 100+ years do not show a statistically significant upward trend in the number of very large earthquakes (e.g. > magnitude 7 or magnitude 8+). There have been 15-20 quakes per year going back centuries. So, why is it presumed that earthquakes are on the rise? I can’t speak to the motivations of Jeffrey, Lindsey and the many other Bible prophecy experts who makes these claims, but they appear to develop a thesis and then attempt to prove it using favorite data.
With regard to “last days” plagues found in the book of Revelation, there was rampant speculation that Covid-19 would usher in the return of Christ. In The Covid Beast: Why We Cannot Give Up Access to Our Bodies, written in early 2021, the author wrote the following: “Is Covid the mysterious “cause” the Bible said would give rise to the beast government of Revelation? The Bible warned us of a deception so great that, if it were possible, it would deceive the very elect. Yet, as we speak, there is a coordinated move by the world’s governments to require mandatory access to our bodies. They are even threatening us with not being able to buy and sell unless we have a vaccine passport.”
Though I agree with the author that we need to vehemently oppose this kind of tyranny, I knew at the time that Covid had nothing to do with Bible prophecy. During a span of 4 years (1347-1351), the Black Plague killed between 75,000,000 and 200,000,000 out of 400,000,000 (20-50%). By contrast, Covid killed approximately 7,000,000 of the world’s 7,900,000,000 population (.08%). And the number of Covid deaths were inflated due to the way hospitals were compensated.
Regarding famines. Acts 11:27-30 records a “great famine” over all the Roman Empire.
“Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world [oikoumene – Roman Empire] (this took place in the days of Claudius). 29 So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothersliving in Judea. 30 And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.”
Josephus, a Jewish historian, specifically mentioned a severe famine in Judea, where Queen Elena of Abiabene imported grain from Egypt to relieve starvation. Plus there are severe grain shortages in AD 40-41, AD 51 and AD 62. The famine conditions leading up to the Jewish / Roman War (AD 66-70) significantly intensified as the Roman sieges cut off food supplies. Internal conflict within the walls of Jerusalem destroyed the stored grain.
Josephus wrote,
“The famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, mothers did the same to their infants.” — Josephus, The Jewish War 5.10.3
“The houses were full of dead women and children, and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged. The children also and the young men wandered about the marketplaces like shadows, all swelled with famine, and fell down dead wheresoever their misery seized them.” — War 5.10.3
Josephus later records a specific incident illustrating the extremity of the famine: *I apologize for the sickening anecdote, but it shows the level of sheer desperation as this once great city was turned into a death trap.
“She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, ‘O thou miserable infant! For whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition?’ … She then killed her son, and roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.” — War 6.3.4
Though there were worse famines in history (chart above), the point is that the famines recorded between AD 30-70 show the uncanny nature of fulfilled prophecy. Sadly, too many Christians know very little about the events between Jesus’s resurrection and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
Newspaper Exegesis
One of the main problems with our modern-day approach to Bible study is that people hold a newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other, and they attempt to match the two. Reading current events into the Bible is an issue that must be addressed. This dubious method of interpretation ignores most if not all of the first 6 hermeneutical rules I outlined above. But it’s still the dominant choice of prophetic assumptions.
In many ways one can argue that globally things are actually improving as the Gospel continues to proliferate. The churches in China and Africa are booming in spite of the heavy persecution. Sat7, a satellite ministry that brings Christian programming behind the Muslim curtain, is showing a massive increase in viewership. Christianity is not on the decline anywhere, except for western and northern Europe… and that is largely due to mass Muslim migration. Therefore, we must not continue to buy into the delusion that there’s nothing we can do to reform culture through the Gospel. I do not believe that Jesus’s mandate to make disciples of all nations will return void. I believe that Jesus will give us the power through His Holy Spirit to cover the whole earth with His glory. Audacious? Not really because the Bible teaches an overcoming Gospel.
You are from God, little children, and have overcome[nikao] them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)
For whoever has been born of God overcomes[nikao]the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4)
If individually we have become overcomers, then why are we supposed to fail collectively? That makes no sense. If, through faith in Jesus we have overcome the world through the power of the Spirit that resides in us, why has it become an accepted assumption that the body of Christ will lose to evil? Clearly, we had a rocky start but if we compare where Christianity was then to where it is today, it’s night and day.
First century Jewish persecution of Christians
It’s definitely not been a straight upward assent toward victory since Jesus rose on the 3rd day, 1996 years ago, but there has been a steady increase of Christ’s government (Isaiah 9:6). After having their Messiah crucified in AD 30 (due of course to false accusations), the Jews mercilessly persecuted Christians for the next 36 years until they became entrenched in a war with Rome, and then became the hunted. This corroborates both Jesus’s parable targeting the Jews and their persecution of Christians.
And the vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.36 Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they did the same things to them.37 But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’38 But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let’s kill him and take possession of his inheritance!’39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. (Matthew 21:35-39)
“Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, (Matthew 23:34)
“Then they will hand you over to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.(Matthew 24:9)
Let’s consider the biblical testimony as it relates to Jesus’s predictions of heavy persecution:
Jesus’ crucifixion (c. AD 30) The Romans carried out Jesus’s crucifixion, but Jesus was executed due to the insistence of the Jewish leaders and people. So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” 25 And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” 26 Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. (Matthew 27:24-26)this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you [Jews] crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men [Romans]. (Acts 2:23) In other words, “You crucified and killed” → assigns moral responsibility to Peter’s Jewish audience (especially in the sense of rejection and handing Jesus over). “by the hands of lawless men” → identifies the Romans as the ones who carried out the physical execution (crucifixion was a Roman method).
Stephen’s martyrdom (Acts 7) — likely early AD 30s.
Paul’s own persecution of Christians before his conversion (Acts 8–9).
James the son of Zebedee executed by Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2, c. AD 44).
James the brother of Jesus executed around AD 62 by High Priest Ananus benAnanus (reported by Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1).
Then, in the latter AD 60s, just as Jesus warned, He empowered a multinational force led by the Roman army to crush the Jewish rebellion. (It should be noted that this doesn’t implicate Jews living today any more than it makes 21st century Americans responsible for evils of 19th century slavery.)
Consider this from Luke’s Gospel account regarding the war that would take place within that first century generation.
43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:43-45)
In September of AD 70, after a 5-month siege (April 14, AD 70 – Sept 9, AD 70), the Titus led Roman forces killed 1.1 million Jews; another 100k were taken into captivity; Jerusalem was destroyed; and the Temple was razed to the point that not one stone was left upon another…just as Jesus had prophesied forty years earlier (Matthew 24:2). The Kingdom was indeed taken away from the Jews, and it was given to all people who would come to Jesus by faith (including Jews). Many assume that the promises to Israel were unconditional and eternal. I’m not sure why Christians don’t take Jesus seriously.
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. (Matthew 21:43-45)
If that was not clear enough, consider how the Christ-rejecting Jews were characterized by the Apostle Paul approximately 30 years after Jesus issued the above threat. Who, according to the Apostle is the true Jew? One born of the flesh or by the Spirit?
28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. (Romans 2:29-29)
Later in Romans, Paul made this argument concerning the true offspring of Abraham. Who were Abraham’s children? Those born according to the flesh or the children of promise?
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. (Romans 9:6-8)
Then just a few years later in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, Jesus (through the angel) stated, “They say they are Jews and are not”. What does Jesus mean? Notice that the Christ rejecting Jews were considered a “synagogue of Satan.”
“‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who woo that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. (Revelation 2:9)
Can the Bible be clearer that physical descendancy means virtually nothing? So, who are the true children of Abraham? Those who trust Christ as savior. It has nothing whatsoever to do with birthright (as is presumed by far too many) and everything to do with faith in Christ.
7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham… 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith… 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:7, 9, 28-29)
Below Peter explained who the actual recipients of this new Kingdom are. All those who come to Christ in faith have become living stones built into a spiritual house. Jews, Americans, Arabs, Chinese and Russian etc. Notice the language. “You are a chosen race.” To whom is Peter speaking? Christians! Those who trust Jesus as Savior, regardless of nationality or race.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,a cornerstone chosen and precious,and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,“The stone that the builders rejectedhas become the cornerstone,”8and“A stone of stumbling,and a rock of offense.”They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:4-10)
Christians are a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation.” At that time this included both Jews and Gentiles who had become one in Christ. The dividing wall of separation was forever torn down.
12 remember that you [Gentiles] were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:12-14)
Where are we going?
Since the days of the early Church, Christians have endured centuries of darkness and persecution. The Church has grown from a ragtag group of 13 (Jesus plus His 12 disciples) to approx. 2 billion! I realize counted in that 2 billion are Christians in name only, but regardless, there has been a massive increase. And the Kingdom of Christ continues to grow in spite of pockets of decline.
So, even though things are not as we want them to be, given the opportunity to be alive at any point in history, when would you choose? I’d pick 2026! That said, why do you think this pastor is so pessimistic? In other words, what in the way he interprets the Bible, causes him (and many like him) to believe that after this supposed delay he spoke about, Jesus is coming soon only after the world crashes and burns?
I believe there is a level of historical ignorance within today’s Christian culture that I find disturbing. Simply consider the past 150 years:
Between 1861-1965, the Civil War’s death toll was approximately 700,000 or 2.3% of the 31,000,000 population. Times were very bleak, and one could understand why the pessimistic eschatology many cling to today began to take root shortly thereafter. Not the end?
In 1918, The Spanish flu killed between 50,000,000 and 100,000,000! But during Covid when many pastors said that we were living in the most perilous times in human history, why did so few die in comparison? So, then why wasn’t 1918 the end?
World War 1 resulted in 17,000,000 deaths. Not the end?
Then, 10 years later, the Great Depression brought upon severe economic hardship as suicides rose to the highest point in U.S. history. Kids were stealing bread just to survive. Still not the end?
World War 2 resulted in the deaths of more than all wars put together, 85,000,000, which was 3-4% of the world’s population. And, as we know now, that wasn’t the end either.
And if we traveled back to the 1st century when Christians were heavily persecuted by both the Jews and then the Romans… or if we travel through the dark ages… or the Black Plague that killed 35-40% of Europe… or when Tyndale was martyred because he dared translate the Bible into English. I could go on but I think the picture is clear. Yes, there have been times of pervading darkness and times of incredible wickedness, but through it all the Gospel of Jesus Christ has continued to march on. So, when people attempt to declare our times as the gloomiest in human history, it’s nothing short of laughable.
And when pastors paint this kind of doom and gloom tapestry, attempting to match every modern-day event with Bible prophecy, it’s not only intellectually lazy since they apparently don’t know history, it has a chilling effect. And not only do they lose credibility (kind of like the boy who cried wolf) but they when it causes Christians to think we’re nearing the end, what’s the point in trying to defy the inevitable?
Since I became a Christian in my senior year of high school in 1972, this drumbeat of negativity has pervaded the sermons of many pastors, the music of many Christian artists and the books of modern prophecy writers. Pessimistic expectations have had an immeasurably negative effect on the body of Christ. I almost quit college because we were told by the “experts” that Jesus was returning any minute. And this has been the case for my entire life. I don’t think most of us realize how this has affected the growth and maturity of Christ’s kingdom. It’s a known fact that short-timers in the military (those who have only 6 months left of service) are virtually ineffective. So, since so many Christians believe we’re nearing the end, how is this any different in it’s overall effect?
This eschatological-induced psychosis has detached us from reality. And Forrest Frank has been just another casualty. That short Forest Frank video is a perfect case in point. Clearly passionate for the Lord, but tragic that he, like most influential Christians, are continuing to send a defeatist message. But I don’t blame him in the least. He’s just a product of what he’s been taught. He thinks that the worse things become, the closer we are to Christ’s return. As I’ve written, this viewpoint has largely been responsible for the malaise that has sidelined so many Christians for too long. There are married couples in my former church who said they initially decided not to have children since they were convinced that the world was about to completely descend into darkness.
I never thought I would get married, much have kids or grandkids. By the time my wife was pregnant with our first child (1982), I was told that this was a terrible time to bring a child into the world, which was followed up with a quotation from Jesus’s Olivet Discourse, “But woe to those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” (Matthew 24:19) My son is now 43! Do you see how destructive these eschatological presuppositions have been? Had I listened to these eschatological zealots who have been wrong about everything, I wouldn’t have two beautiful children and 5 outstanding grandchildren.
From the first century, Christians were convinced that the Gospel was going to overcome the world (which I believe is biblically supported). John, writing in the AD 60s during the reign of Nero, even in persecution made clear that Christ is greater than the world. He is our overcomer. John authored some very encouraging words when he wrote, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)
How can we believe in this overcoming Gospel for our personal lives but not extrapolate it collectively to what should be an overcoming Church? If Christ is greater than the Devil why do we expect defeat? The emotional schizophrenia is truly sad. On the one hand we believe that Jesus can overcome all obstacles and on the other, we expect the Church’s influence to go down in flames only rescued by a rapture. After Charlie Kirk’s death, TPUSA chapters exploded along with the purchase of Bibles. So, we’re optimistic within our overriding and pervading pessimism but it doesn’t last long. Now with the Iran conflict the prophecy pundits are working overtime convincing us that the apocalypse is around the corner.
If not for the mid-1800s when pessimistic interpretational systems became predominant, the world would probably be very different today. Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” When you expect defeat, you will most often be defeated. We have not had the impact on the world that we should have had for that very reason.
[Pastor said] “So, here’s the main reason we wait. Peter said, “You can’t overlook this, with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day.” Peter’s like, “Time is a relative construct.” Okay? So, he says, “Do not overlook this with the Lord, right? One day is like a thousand years. A thousand years like a day.” So then he says this. So the Lorddoes not delay his promise. You think it’s delayed. It’s not in his economy.”
If you can’t unravel this convoluted logic, you are not alone. By delaying, God’s not actually delaying because delaying is not in His economy? That was painful to read and no less painful to watch. Doublespeak is an understatement. The Bible was written to finite man. If God was writing to Himself there would be no time sensitive words in the Bible. None. Why would some things be considered soon while others far if God is timeless? It makes no sense. God’s authors are communicating His truth in our economy. So, a delay is in fact a delay. God knows how to tell time. He’s the one who created 24-hour periods. God is not the author of confusion. He doesn’t used different weights and measures to disorient His beloved followers.
So, what are we to do with verses like the following? “Festus then answered that Paul was being kept in custody in Caesarea, and that he himself was about to leave shortly [tachos] (Acts 25:4). Some pastors would have us believe that “shortly” means with extreme speed as in Revelation 1:1, even though there’s not a single verse using tachos in that matter. Can we assume that Festus might wait for 10 years and then sprint like crazy? These are the kinds of absurdities created by trying to fit our presuppositions into the Bible.
We learn just verses later, “After Festus had spent no more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to Caesarea, and on the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered that Paul be brought.” Shortly actually meant shortly. And it means the same in every context. So, if anyone tries to tell you that these time sensitive words can be manipulated and elasticized to mean whatever we want them to mean, run! The Bible must not be abused in this manner. I don’t want to be too harsh, but we can’t take these kinds of personal liberties with God’s word. It’s untoward.
[Pastor said] He is right on time because he’s patientwith us not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. You want [to know] the main reason right now the Lordhadn’t come back to pour out his wrath on these nut jobs in the world today that are making life difficult? You knowwhy he hadn’t? Because he’s a God of radical unconditional love.”
First, let’s consider the pastor’s comment, “to pour out his wrath on these nut jobs in the world today.” To be clear, the target of God’s wrath was upon the Christ-killing generation of Jews who were severely persecuting the church, not “nut jobs in the world today making life difficult.” We already looked at this next passage extensively in the audience relevance section. It’s relevant here as well.
(2 Thessalonians 1:7-9) and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away fromthe presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might…”
The beleaguered Thessalonians were granted relief while their Jewish oppressors were destined for “punishment of eternal destruction.” This has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone alive today no matter their level of evil. Notice who it was that would incur God’s wrath.
(Hebrews 10:29-30) 29How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Written in approximately AD 64, the author (whom I believe was Paul), warned that God would judge those who “trampled underfoot the Son of God.” He would soon “judge His people.”
This is exactly what Jesus had prophesied 34 years earlier.
(Matthew 21:18-19) In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.
The fig tree was a metaphor for the Jews. They were about to be excised from God’s Kingdom.
(Matthew 21:31b-32) “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you [the Jews].32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.
As the Jews continued plotting to murder their Messiah, Jesus was threatening their demise.
(Matthew 21:35-45) And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Jesus was speaking about himself.
When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:‘The stone that the builders rejectedhas become the cornerstone;this was the Lord’s doing,and it is marvelous in our eyes’?43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.
44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush Him.”45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.
These judgment parables were intense and specific. They weren’t targeting hideous men like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible or even Nero. As evil as these men were, they have nothing to do with the wrath that was to be poured out against that wicked and perverse first-century generation of Christ rejectors.
Following is how the first-century historian, Josephus, characterized the Jews who rejected Jesus and had Him murdered.
“It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men’s iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly: – That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world.” (Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book 5, Chapter 10, Section 5)
Compare Josephus’s description of the wicked and perverse generation to Jesus’s thrashing of the religious elite that would soon have Him crucified.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 You snakes, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?
34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matthew 23:29-36)
The outcome? Was this an idle threat? Did it occur within “this generation”? Indeed it did! Their days were, in fact, numbered.
As testified in The Jewish War (Book VI, ch. 9) regarding the Roman-Jewish war from AD 66-70, Josephus wrote:
1,100,000 Jews died during the siege of Jerusalem (AD 70)
97,000 were taken captive
These are astronomical numbers which include:Deaths from famine, disease, internal violence, and Roman slaughter. Pilgrims were trapped in Jerusalem for Passover, which Josephus said greatly inflated the population.”
Not one stone would be left upon another
Regarding the massive Jerusalem temple, Jesus made an incredibly startling statement to His disciples. (Matthew 24:1-2) Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” Temple construction began in approx. 20 BC and was fully completed by AD 63, roughly 83 years later. Because Jesus’s prophetic statements about the destruction We know it had to have been obliterated within a generation and Josephus confirms Jesus’s prediction.
Josephus wrote: “I suppose that had the Romans made any longer delay in coming against these villains, the city would either have been swallowed up by the ground opening upon them, or been overflowed by water, or else been destroyed by such thunder as the country of Sodom perished by; for it had brought forth a generation of men much more atheistical than were those that suffered such punishments; for by their madness it was that all the people came to be destroyed.” — The Jewish War 6.9.4 (§410)
Josephus was especially emotional when describing the burning of the Temple:
“As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor… one might have thought the hill itself, on which the Temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it.”— The Jewish War 6.5.1 (§271–272)
And Josephus emphasized that Titus did not intend to destroy the magnificent temple, though it happened anyway:
“Titus supposing the house itself might yet be saved, came in haste… but neither exhortations nor threatenings could restrain the soldiers.” — The Jewish War 6.4.7 (§254–266)
The Temple was burned despite Titus’s wishes:
“As for the house itself, God had for certain long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of ages.” — The Jewish War 6.4.5 (§250)
The sacred inner sanctuary was consumed by fire:
“The flame was carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those that were slain… one would have thought that the hill itself was boiling over from its base.” — The Jewish War 6.5.1 (§271–272)
Then regarding the complete dissolution of the Temple:
“Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple… it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.” — The Jewish War 7.1.1 (§1–3)
So, just as Jesus prophesied, the temple was razed to the ground and Jerusalem, the once great city, was obliterated. Some contend that the Wailing Wall was not torn down so that nullifies Jesus’s prophecy that not one stone be left on another. But this is incorrect.
The Western retaining wall (Temple Mount platform) remained. However, Josephus was referring to the Temple proper, not the massive retaining walls. Those walls supported the Temple Mount but were not the Temple itself. When I visited Israel, our Israeli guide referred to the remains as the Temple Platform.
Moving on to the pastor’s 2 Peter 3:8 reference. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. He argued that God is indifferent to His time commitments. I beg to differ.
Is he unaware that Peter, writing less than one year earlier (approximately AD 63) wrote, “The end of all things is near?” (1 Peter 4:7) If “near” could mean thousands of years, what would be the point in Peter using this kind of imminent language?
So, in Peter’s second epistle (AD 64), is the pastor correct that Peter abruptly changed his tune? Is Peter agreeing with the “last days scoffers” who mocked, “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3:4) If Peter believed that prophetic time commitments are irrelevant, he would actually be agreeing with the scoffers. Do you see it? Let me explain.
Why were the “last days scoffers” scoffing? On what grounds? They were mocking the devout Christ followers because it had been 34 years since Jesus made the startling prediction that, “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Since a biblical generation was presumed to be approximately 40 years, Jesus’s AD 30 “this generation” time limit was soon expiring. And, given that 34 years was well over half of their 1st century life expectancies, that would have seemed like a long time.
Who were these scoffers? Were they 21st century Christians wearied because Jesus has not returned after a 2,000 year delay? This was argued in this podcast with Pastor Josh Howerton and John Bevere.
Peter explicitly frames the scoffers as:
known to his audience
part of an already emerging problem
connected to the “last days” as experienced by his readers
The whole argument only works if the mockery is happening in real time for Peter’s audience. So at minimum the scoffers are:
First-century figures
They are not modern atheists
They are likely people familiar with biblical history (“the fathers”)
They may include apostate Jews but the text itself doesn’t require that they are exclusively Judaizer-type or apostate Christian Jews. I think they are best understood as first-century skeptics/false teachers, very possibly including Jewish apostates, but not limited to that category. So the bottom line is that these skeptics lived in the AD 60s.
So, if the mockers were mocking Peter because there were only 6 years remaining, can you imagine how atheists today are reacting to a 1,995-year delay (AD 30 to AD 2025)? I’m glad you asked. Famous atheist, Bertrand Russell, in “Why I Am Not a Christian”, argued that since Christ clearly stated that “all these things” did not happen within the predicted generation and remain unfulfilled today, Jesus was a false prophet and therefore could not be the Son God. This has been the common refrain among atheists and agnostics. Christian’s attempts to use 2 Peter 3:8 to manipulate the Bible’s clear teaching, is one of the most disconcerting arguments I’ve ever heard.
The reason I think this “time is irrelevant” issue is absolutely necessary to address, is because it makes us look unserious Bible students and also makes God appear like a schizophrenic old man incapable of saying what He actually means. Or worse yet, that God is not sovereign. Consider the following 4 charts which regard the usages of imminent, time sensitive words.
According to ChatGPT, in the New Testament there are between 450-600 imminent words like “near”, “at hand”, “quickly”, “soon” and “in a very little while.” Feel the weight of this issue. Why, again, would God use hundreds of time sensitive words if in one verse in 2 Peter, He’s washing them all into insignificance and ambivalence. Are you beginning to see the problem?
Are we to believe that one verse “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” is supposed to negate the natural meaning of hundreds of imminent words? How are we supposed to interpret all of these time sensitive words if soon can mean a long time and a long time can mean soon? Do you see the chaotic mess caused by metaphorizing time?
Sadly, because we can’t fit verses like Revelation 1:1, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon [tachos] take place” into our eschatological paradigm, many have chosen a hermeneutic that is foreign to all literature. Every time the words quickly and immediately are used in Scripture, we’re being told by godly authorities that those words may a long time in the future. How can we survive this nonsensical hermeneutic?
Consider this from the prophet Daniel. Notice the time referent. (Daniel 8:26) The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.” From Daniel’s perspective (6th century BC), this event was centuries in the future. Daniel is referring primarily to the persecution of the Jews and the desecration of the Jerusalem Temple under Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd century BC (c. 167–164 BC). So, we know that “many days from now” meant exactly as prophesied. But, given the supposed hermeneutic of 2 Peter 3:8 (“a thousand years as one day”), “many days” could have meant “soon.” Do you see the absurdity of pretending that all time sensitive words are to be interpreted from God’s eternal perspective?
Following is another list of Greek words implying immediacy/nearness.
So, if we apply the elasticizing usage of 2 Peter 3:8 uniformly throughout the Bible, the reality is that the interpreter of Scripture (not the biblical author) becomes the judge as to what a passage means. Therefore, when God said that something was about to happen or that it would happen many days into the future, we supposedly have God’s authorization to determine what God meant. By this method too many believe that “must soon take place” was an idle statement which has been interminably delayed. But the reality is that the license to manipulate time is not found anywhere in the Bible. The below video exposes this gigantic fallacy that undermines the veracity and coherence of Scritpure.
2 Peter 3:8 is a quote from Psalm 90:4, “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past,or as a watch in the night.” By Peter’s paraphrase of the Psalmist, he’s simply saying that everything is well under God’s control. Everything is going according to God’s preordained plan.
Yes, it had been a long time (34 years) since Jesus made His “this generation” prediction, but God was not fretting…and neither was Peter. He knew exactly what He was doing. The probationary period for the Jews was coming to a close and the vast majority were, as predicted, still rejecting Jesus as their Messiah. As Jesus sat at the right hand of the Father, as mentioned earlier, He stated emphatically, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.” The events to follow were within the scope of Peter’s timeframe. So, Peter wasn’t placating the scoffers in the least. He was excoriating their lack of faith in Jesus and His eternal plan.
Clearly, God is eternal, and He lives outside of time. There’s no question that God isn’t bound by time as are we. However, using this one verse to render all time related statements (throughout the Old and New Testaments) ambiguous, turns the Bible into an unintelligible book. To argue that God couldn’t communicate clearly, is, in my view, ludicrous… and at worst offensive.
I do not want to be unduly harsh but what piece of literature could be understood if time sensitive words are elasticized? As already stated, and shown in another chart below, there are literally hundreds of time sensitive statements just in the New Testament. If time means nothing, is relative, and can be elasticized to whatever duration the reader wants, understanding the Bible becomes a lesson in absurdity. I hope you see the elephant the room.
Another glaring problem is this. The first half of 2 Peter 3:8 is always overlooked. Not only is “a thousand years as one day” to the Lord, but it is equally true “that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years.”In this case, something that seems like a short period of time to us (one day) is said to be a long period of time (a thousand years) to God, rather than vice versa. The author is simply saying that God has it all under control.
The bottom line is that time is not relative. If “soon” can mean a “long time,” “at hand” can be extended to a few thousand years, and “many days from now” can be a very little while, this turns the Bible into an unintelligible mess.
In Biblical Hermeneutics (science of interpretation), highly respected 19th century theologian Milton S. Terry wrote the following regarding this odd interpretation of 2 Peter 3:8: “The language is a poetical citation from Psalm 90:4, and is adduced to show that the lapse of time does not invalidate the promises of God. . . . But this is very different from saying that when the everlasting God promises something shortly, and declares that it is close at hand, He may mean that it is a thousand years in the future. Whatever He has promised indefinitely He may take a thousand years or more to fulfill; but what He affirms to be at the door let no man declare to be far away.”
J. Stuart Russell, also a 19th century theologian, wrote with a bit more biting indignation. He lambasted those who so willingly turn the Bible on it’s ear.
“Few passages [2 Peter 3:8] have suffered more from misconstruction than this, which has been made to speak a language inconsistent with its obvious intention, and even incompatible with a strict regard to veracity. There is probably an allusion here to the words of the Psalmist, in which he contrasts the brevity of human life with the eternity of the divine existence. . . .But surely it would be the height of absurdity to regard this sublime poetic image as a calculus for the divine measurement of time, or as giving us a warrant for wholly disregarding definitions of time in the predictions and promises of God.
Yet it is not unusual to quote these words as an argument or excuse for the total disregard for the element of time in the prophetic writings. Even in cases where a certain time is specified in the prediction, or where such limitations as ‘shortly,’ or ‘speedily,’ or ‘at hand’ are expressed, the passage before us is appealed to in justification of an arbitrary treatment of such notes of time, so that soon may mean late, and near may mean distant, and short may mean long, and vice versa. . . .
It is surely unnecessary to repudiate in the strongest manner such a non-natural method of interpreting the language of Scripture. It is worse than ungrammatical and unreasonable, it is immoral. It is to suggest that God has two weights and measures in His dealings with men, and that in His mode of reckoning there is an ambiguity and variableness which will make it impossible to tell ‘What manner of time the Spirit of Christ in the prophets may signify’[cf. 1 Pet. 1:11]…”
The Scriptures themselves, however, give no countenance to such a method of interpretation. Faithfulness is one of the attributes most frequently ascribed to the ‘covenant-keeping God,’ and the divine faithfulness is that which the apostle in this very passage affirms. . . . The apostle does not say that when the Lord promises a thing for today He may not fulfill His promise for a thousand years: that would be slackness; that would be a breach of promise. He does not say that because God is infinite and everlasting, therefore He reckons with a different arithmetic from ours, or speaks to us in a double sense, or uses two different weights and measures in His dealings with mankind. The very reverse is the truth. . . .
It is evident that the object of the apostle in this passage is to give his readers the strongest assurance that the impending catastrophe of the last days were on the very eve of fulfillment. The veracity and faithfulness of God were the guarantees of the punctual performance of the promise. To have intimated that time was a variable quantity in the promise of God would have been to stultify and neutralize his own teaching, which was that ‘the Lord is not slack concerning His promise.’ ((J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, [1887] 1983), 321ff. Owen, “Providential Changes: An Argument for Universal Holiness,” 134–35.))
Russell didn’t hold back. He said that it wasn’t just ungrammatical, but it was immoral to accuse God’s inspired authors of such ambiguity. Let that sink in. We claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God (and I wholeheartedly concur), but then when pastors make these kinds of claims, though I know it’s not their intent, it demeans and distorts those inspired words that we argue are infallible and inerrant. We must be better stewards of God’s word.
Mocking birds
As I have said, The Apostle Peter, writing in AD 64 approximately 34 years after Jesus’s death, was rebuking the mockers. At the risk of being redundant, I want to do everything in my power to put this strange interpretational method permanently to bed, or better, to the grave.
Let’s revisit the arguments and consider more closely to what the mockers were saying that prompted Peter’s response?
(2 Peter 3:3-4) Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will comewith their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue just as they were from the beginning of creation.”
What was the mockers’ justification for making such a claim? The context that precipitated their accusation couldn’t have been clearer:
(Matthew 24:32-34) “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: as soon as its branch has become tender and sprouts its leaves, you know that summer is near; 33 so you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at thedoor. 34 Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Jesus had warned His disciples that which was to come. In the preceding verses in Matthew 24, Jesus laid out what they should expect in the years after His departure. There would be wars, earthquakes, famines, apostasy, lawlessness, persecution, tribulation, martyrdom and the complete and utter destruction of the temple. Notice first, that Jesus used the words “soon” and “near”. The meanings of “soon” and “near” were clear to all. So, why do these time sensitive words have relevance if ‘a day to the Lord can be a 1,000 years and a 1,000 years could be a single day’? The reality is that time is quintessential to prophetic fulfillments. So, Jesus is essentially telling them that they (His disciples) would be able to recognize the signs just as a farmer knows that summer is near when the leaves on the trees sprout.
Now to verse 34. “All these things” refers to the preceding 33 verses which include that ominous list of calamities. Jesus said that “all these things” would take place before the generation to whom Jesus was speaking passed away.
That brings us to back to the scoffers in 2 Peter 3. They were fully aware that Jesus predicted to return in judgment within a generation. We know that Peter wrote approx. 34 years after the cross. So when I think back 34 years I was only 37 and my youngest was 3. A whole lot has happened since my kids were little. And no less for the disciples. In the AD 60s, they had already witnessed many of the things on that list of “all these things” and persecution was intensifying.
We also know that a biblical generation was typically 40 years. So, the mockers who refused to trust God, were wagging their fingers at the Apostles telling chiding them with dripping sarcasm, “Where is the promise of His coming?” … With only 6 years left in their generation, you can feel the weight of their mocking.
Hopefully, you are beginning to understand why it’s completely inappropriate to use the delay excuse. Peter would be agreeing with the scoffers by basically saying, “Gosh, after all, a day to God is like a 1,000 years and God isn’t bound by time constraints…so I agree with you scoffers because it doesn’t appear that Jesus is returning any time soon.” Is that truly what Peter was doing? Was he in full agreement with the scoffers? Was Peter back peddling?
The reality is that God neither lies nor intentionally misleads. He does not promise something soon and then break that promise by delaying it thousands of years.
Further, regarding this supposed “delay”, what father tells his children that he’ll do something soon knowing the entire time that He has no such plans… that His plans are for a generation 2,000 years separated from the imminent promises. This just cannot be.
[Pastor] Do you know why Jesus has not come back? It’s because God of radical love. God is not willing that any would perish.”
Let’s focus on verse 9. It should be noted that there’s nothing in this passage that refers to a delay.
(2 Peter 3:8-9)8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.”
The pastor said that Jesus is delaying because He’s “not willing for any to perish.”
Let’s think through this claim. But first consider this chart. There have been approx. 55 billion born since the incarnation and 36B have died (65%) without faith in Christ. In AD 100 there were approx. 220M living, out of which was were 30k Christians (.014%). *It should be noted that both the number of Christians worldwide in 2026 and the total number of Christians who have died since the incarnation are not necessarily those who have professed faith in Christ. So the numbers may be less.
Every year approx. 63m people die (this number is far greater than it was in the 1st century).
Therefore, if the pastor is correct and Jesus has delayed 2,000 years (which I contend), somewhere north of 36 billion have died without Christ since the first century, compared to only 220 million unbelievers by the turn of the 1st century. So, did delaying send less people to hell? Do you see the point? Although the supposed “delay” has produced 19 billion Christians, there have been 36 billion who have died without Christ. Therefore, if the reason for the perceived delay was because God was “not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance,” the delay has been a colossal failure. In AD 70 at the fall of Jerusalem, approx. 220m would have been forever lost without Christ. Tragic though that it was, but 220m is far less than 36B!
This notion that God was delaying because He was “not willing for any to perish” should be all the proof needed that the time frame in view was that generation which culminated in the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem.
In Peter’s prior letter one year earlier, he made clear that “the end of all things is near” (1 Peter 4:7). People often dismiss this out of hand and assume Peter was referring to the end of the cosmos. But that’s not what Peter was referencing. Clearly the end of the planet was not in view and it was not nearing it’s end. So, then, to what “end” is Peter referring? The end of the Old Covenant system, the hub being the temple. Peter was talking about the end of the Old Covenant people and their system built upon animal sacrifices and temple rituals.
If God fulfilled everything on His prophetic timeclock, then there was no delay and God has continued to be fill the world with Christ followers…
To recap. How many people have died and gone to Hell since Jesus’s resurrection in AD 30? Perhaps 36 billion or more. So, although there are now approx. 2 billion Christians (which as I said I think is overstated), that means that 6 billion aren’t.
How did John Owen, a 17th century theologian, understand 2 Peter 3:9 in context.
Owen rejected the idea that the verse teaches that God is trying—but failing—to save every individual. Instead, he argued that:
“Not willing that any should perish” refers not to every human being universally, but to a specific group—the elect (God’s chosen people).
He emphasized the immediate context of the passage:
The verse says God is “longsuffering toward us”
So the key question becomes: Who is “us”?
Owen’s says the “us” is God’s elect, and “any” refers to any of US, and “all” refers to all of US. So the meaning becomes:
God is not willing that any of His elect should perish, but that all of them come to repentance.
The pastor went on to say that he doesn’t know all the reasons why Jesus hasn’t come yet. With the risk of sounding arrogant, I know the reason. What began with Jesus and the 12 has become a massive move of the Spirit reaching billions. But we’re far from done. There’s still far too much work yet to do. We are tasked to make disciples of all nations. think about it. There are billions of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists who need Jesus. Consider the parable of the mustard seed!
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 12:31-32)
The Parable of the Mustard Seed serves to illustrate the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven, and emphasizes its growth from humble beginnings to a significant presence.
It speaks of small, humble beginnings. The mustard seed is known for being one of the smallest seeds, but when planted it grows into a large plant, often described as a tree, symbolizing the expansive nature of God’s kingdom. And it provides shelter for Many. Why would we think the our job is done? Why are so many waiting for the rapture? Why, when the harvest is plentiful, do we simply put our hands to the plow and keep working until we’re called home? What builder looks for excuses to abandon his half built house?
Then there’s the Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22 connection:
Ezekiel 47: A river flows from the temple, bringing life wherever it goes; trees on its banks bear fruit every month and their leaves are for healing.
Revelation 22:1–2: A river of the water of life flows from the throne of God and the Lamb; the tree of life yields fruit monthly, and “the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
So the images of the mustard seed and the water flowing from the temple show the expanse of the church’s future. In no way does the Scripture teach us to expect the church will not reach the goals Jesus set.
Let’s again look at the first three verses in the book of Revelation and see if you can determine what Jesus timing was.
(Revelation 1:1-3) The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that MUST SOON TAKE PLACE. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for THE TIME IS NEAR.
It should be noted that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father at this point. He has been fully restored to his former glory. And when Jesus stated that even He neither knew the day nor the hour of His return (in judgment – Matthew 24), He clearly knew all things at the time of His ascension. And He didn’t equivocate when, in approx. AD 64, He spoke of things that “Must shortly take place… for the time is near.”
So, what’s going on?
At this point you might be slightly confused. There’s one other issue I need to explain. Today, the majority of Christians (including the pastor who preached the sermon I’m critiquing) are premillennial dispensational. For our purposes here the details are unimportant but what you need to know is that dispensationalism is a type of theology that arose in the mid-1800s and was mainstreamed through the Scofield Reference Bible.
In 1908, C.I. Scofield ingeniously added notes to the margins that detailed and supported his system. Many assumed, as I did when I first became a Christian, that the notes were part of the Bible. So, they were not heavily scrutinized by the readers. Dispensationalism is primarily responsible for the defeatist eschatology that this pastor embraced.
Following are the salient points of this system founded by John Nelson Darby in the 1830s:
We are living in the “last days”
Evil is destined to increase from this point forward.
An imminent pre-tribulation rapture of the Church
A 7-year tribulation, the first half being peaceful and the latter after the Antichrist is revealed which will usher the most horrific time in human history
A future restoration of national Israel with unfulfilled Old Testament promises
Christ’s visible return to earth to reign for 1,000 years
Following are the tenets that the majority ascribe to:
Eschatology is not foundational
As I reach the conclusion, it must be said that eschatology is not a foundational doctrine of our faith. As long as this pastor is grounded in the following, he is on solid turf. Though as I have attempted to demonstrate that eschatological conclusions are extremely impactful on one’s view of Scripture and our future expectations, the study of end times is not essential to our faith. Following is a list of what I believe are the non-negotiables.
Sola Scriptura (by Scripture alone) – The Bible is uniquely God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16) and therefore normative. All doctrines must be tested by Scripture (Acts 17:11). No church council, creed, pastor, or tradition is infallible—only Scripture is. Traditions and teachings are valuable, but they are subordinate to Scripture.
Salvation by grace through faith alone in Christ alone
Original sin (Rom 1:20) – humanity inherits a fallen nature as a result of Adam and Eve’s first disobedience (Genesis 3). Romans 5:12 – “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin…”; Psalm 51:5 – “Surely I was sinful at birth…” (poetic, but formative); 1 Corinthians 15:22 – “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive: Paul frames Adam as the head of humanity, just as Christ becomes the head of redeemed humanity.
Jesus was born of a virgin
Jesus resurrected bodily
Jesus was glorified at His ascension
Jesus, the God-man, is seated at the right hand of the Father on the throne of David in His glorified body
The hyperstatic union – Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is fully God and fully man at the same time—not mixed, not divided, not alternating.
Christ’s second coming (for salvation: Hebrews 9:28)
The judgment
The resurrection of the dead
The trinity
The atonement
The indwelling Holy Spirit (in every believer)
The sovereignty of God: God reigns supreme—He has ultimate authority and control over all creation, history, and events, and nothing ultimately thwarts His purposes. He rules — God is King, not merely an observer (Psalm 103:19).
Jesus has all authority — all power belongs to Him (Daniel 4:35).
The triune Godhead acts with purpose — history is not random (Isaiah 46:9–10).
At death, all Christians will receive glorified spiritual bodies patterned after Christ’s glorious body (Phil 3:21)
Eschatological views simplified
There are many eschatological flavors but to simplify there are two overriding expectations behind the two main views.
Futurist View: We are living at the tail end of the world’s “last days,” we are rapidly descending into times of pervading evil, and the Lord’s return is imminent. In other words, things are destined to get worse until Jesus soon returns. (2 Tim 3:1-13) Prophetic fulfillment of Bible prophecy (found primarily in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, and the book of Revelation) has been delayed, and therefore is yet unfulfilled. This view not only creates a short-term mentality, but it is also decidedly pessimistic. The rapture of the church (removal of Christians from the earth) can come at any moment, 3 ½ years after which the world will descend into the Greatest Tribulation ever. As Forest Frank said in that short video, “He’s coming back soon, get your life right because we don’t know if today is our last day.” The underlying assumption is that all of the New Testament “time statements” (soon, shortly, at hand and in a very little while) have been delayed for 2,000 years. 2 Peter 3:8 (a day is as 1,000 years and a thousand years is as a day) is used to nullify all of the time sensitive promises in the Bible.
Preterist View (praeter meaning past i.e. fulfilled): The “last days” was the period between the AD 30 resurrection of Christ and the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem/Temple, marking the end of the Old Covenant system. Jesus’s coming in judgment upon the wicked and perverse, Christ-killing generation of Jews, marked the end of the Old Covenant people. Bible prophecy was fulfilled on time (or as some believe, mostly fulfilled) within the “this generation” parameter Jesus and the New Testament authors predicted. Since the ascension of Christ (40 days after the resurrection), Christianity has been advancing and will continue to advance, fulfilling Christ’s ultimate mandate for us to disciple of nations. This view creates not only a long-term view but is decidedly optimistic. It’s a pollyannish view of evil, because it is realistic… things are still messy. But the underlying assumption is that God fulfills all of His prophetic promises and judgments on time.
(Daniel 7:13–14) “To him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.”
(Revelation 11:15) “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”
(Isaiah 2:2–4) “All the nations shall flow to it…They shall beat their swords into plowshares…”
(Psalm 72:8–11) “May he have dominion from sea to sea…All kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!”
(Psalm 22:27–28) “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.”
(Daniel 2:34–35, 44) “The stone… became a great mountain and filled the whole earth…The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed.”
(Matthew 13:31–33) (Mustard Seed & Leaven) “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed… the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants…”
“The kingdom… is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
(Matthew 28:18–20) “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me… make disciples of all nations.”
(1 John 4:4) You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
So, from a practical standpoint there are two dominant eschatological views. One that completely denies that God’s time sensitive promises and judgments have been fulfilled as stated, that the “last days” refers to a time at the end of the world, and that this world is cascading toward obliteration.
The other is that all of God’s promises and judgments came to pass on time, that the “last days” was the time period between Jesus’s resurrection (AD 30) and the destruction of the Temple/dissolution of the Old Covenant (AD 70), and that the Gospel would continue to be spread to every nation. Christ will be victorious over time as the Holy Spirit moves to convert the nations.
Eschatology, a branch of theology concerning the “end times”, can be divisive, so it’s not surprising that many pastors strongly discourage opposing views. It’s understandable why taking their lead from the Apostle Paul, “let there be no divisions among you , but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment”, is paramount. Church splits over secondary or tertiary issues understandably make church leadership cautious about entertaining unfamiliar views.
However, this is too often taken to the extreme and can therefore lead to complacency and ultimately to stagnation. The motto “reformed and always reforming” is abandoned for the status quo. Just don’t rock the boat! It’s definitely a balancing act, but one that we must engage in. On the one hand being united on matters of supreme importance but not at the exclusion of seeking scriptural truth. We must always attempt to be faithful Bereans, “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
As Thaddeous wrote on his Theotivity blog, “Some end-times zealots are even willing to call others heretics for differing with their particular view.” These gatekeepers don’t even allow questioning much less disagreement on views that don’t compromise the foundations of our faith. This is in large part the reason some eschatological views are never challenged. If its all going to pan out as God intends, and if questioning the accepted view can be hazardous to peaceful coexistence, why take the time to study? Even if you are not satisfied with a end times conclusion, the risk of causing disruption is deemed not worth the reward of finding truth.
Though eschatological conclusions are NOT foundational like the trinity, salvation by grace through faith alone, or the atonement, the convictions derived have a far more significant impact on our worldview than is readily recognized. Eschatology is like the tail wagging the dog. Not fundamental to our faith but nonetheless a powerful shaper of our expectations.
The Eschatological Road to Destruction
The dominant eschatological view which has controlled the Church’s expectations for more than 50 years has created:
A pervading pessimism – Immorality, wars, apostacy, natural disasters, famines and pestilences are destined to increase.
A short-term mentality – Jesus is coming soon which has obvious implications.
Geopolitical chaos – Blessing Israel regardless of what they do, creates instability in the Middle East and beyond.
Bible credibility issues and an interpretative schizophrenia – Jesus said and the NT authors corroborated that Jesus would return within a generation while some of His followers were still alive. That was 2,000 years ago.
Let’s break them down…
1. Pervading Pessimism – Since becoming a Christian in 1972, I’ve been assured by pastors and theologians alike that the world is spiraling out of control, is about to implode and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s all baked into the prophetic cake. The Scofield Reference Bible, the Late Great Planet Earth, the Left Behind Series and the chilling 1973 movie, Thief in the Night, have shaped our collective expectations of imminent doom.
Wars, natural disasters, famines and immorality are signs of the times, and the best we can do is save a few lost souls before everything crashes and burns. The antichrist is coming and a conflagration of unprecedented evil is ready to breakthrough! The worse things get the closer Jesus is to returning. Or so the story goes.
So, after 2,000 years of Kingdom advancement (growing from a band of 12 to over a billion strong) everything will worsen and then the end will come. Even the most optimistic among this eschatological majority report, repeat the mantra, “Occupy until He comes”, which in all sincerity sounds more like a water treading contest than a victorious swim for the gold. The default premise, “Why polish brass on a sinking ship?”, says it all. J. Vernon McGee (1904–1988) used it rhetorically in sermons to illustrate a pessimistic view of the present world system. He argued that if the world is soon destined for judgment and destruction, then investing heavily in improving society or culture is like polishing the brass fixtures on a sinking ship.
Culture is irredeemably lost and the recent spate of moral insanity proves it. We wait expectantly for Jesus’s return while the world crumbles.
2. Short-term Mentality – Going hand in glove with this defeatist expectation is the common refrain, “Jesus is coming soon”. Jesus has been “coming soon” since the day I trusted Him to save me from my sins. That’s been the constant battle cry. And whether we realize it or not, everything in our lives is flavored by this near-term expectation of Christ’s coming. I considered quitting college 52 years ago during a Middle East crisis when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson convinced us that the end was near. I didn’t expect to get married or have kids, much less grandkids. (My oldest is 43) And largely because of this imminent doom and gloom expectation, many Christians have ceded culture to the Marxists. Sin flourishes in a vacuum.
Consider the song “Jesus Is Coming Soon” written by R. E. Winsett in 1926, shortly after the Spanish Flu and WW1 resulted in the deaths of many millions. Can you imagine the feeling of confirmation when the Great Depression hit 3 years later? The suicide rates went through the roof. Talk about times of distress!
Troublesome Times Are Here, Filling Men’s Hearts With Fear, Freedom We All Hold Dear Now Is At Stake. Humbling Your Heart To God Saves From The Chastening Rod Seek The Way Pilgrim’s Trod, Christians Awake!
Jesus Is Coming Soon, Morning Or Night Or Noon. Many Will Meet Their Doom, Trumpets Will Sound. All Of The Dead Shall Rise, Righteous Meet In The Skies, Going Where No One Dies, Heaven-Ward Bound.
Love Of So Many Cold, Losing Their Home Of Gold, This In God’s Word Is Told; Evils Abound. When These Signs Come To Pass, Nearing The End At Last, It Will Come Very Fast; Trumpets Will Sound.
Troubles Will Soon Be O’er; Happy Forevermore, When We Meet On That Shore, Free From All Care. Rising Up In The Sky, Telling This World Goodbye; Homeward We Then Will Fly, Glory To Share.
Given the fact that this song was written 100 years ago, do you see the glaring irony? We sing “Jesus is coming soon morning night or noon” as if it was written today. Did Jesus come “soon?” If not, why not? If “troublesome times” is a reliable indicator of Jesus’s soon coming judgment, then why weren’t the Black Death, the Great Depression, or two world wars troublesome enough to trigger the end? The last stanza of John Newton’s 1772 “Amazing Grace” begins with, “The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine”. That was 254 years ago!
Reminds me of the famous Steve Miller song, Fly Like an Eagle:
“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future…”
Or perhaps my favorite cover of Chicago’s “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is”.
Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?
Too few think God knows what time it is or if He even really cares since He is not constrained by time. They’ve convinced themselves that although Jesus told His first century followers that time was fast ticking toward a climax of events (Matthew 24) He wasn’t even referring to them… rather it’s all about us in our 2026 generation. He’s supposedly in an interminable delay. He told them that it’ll shortly come to pass, that it will be within a generation, and as the time grew near, that it was the last hour… but time keeps on slippin’ into the future.
It’s a sad reality that we have been conditioned to believe that God is careless with time. Did God inspire James to warn his readers, “the coming of the Lord is at hand…for the judge is standing at the door”, but not really mean it? Absolutely not. The sovereign God I worship knows exactly what time it is and He really cares because His beleaguered AD 60s followers depended upon it! Can you imagine the level of cruelty to warn someone about some impending danger but know that it wouldn’t ever affect them? That it didn’t really pertain to them, but you were using it simply as a motivational tool?
If you believe in an any-moment rapture, it is affecting your life. It is altering how you plan for your future. Whether you should sell your house, get married or even have children.
Talking about planning for our future. It seems like most don’t believe we’ll be here in 10-20 years. And therein lies the problem. My wife and I visited the Cologne Cathedral in 2018, and it is without a doubt the most magnificent intricate structure I’ve ever seen. So immense that we could not capture its colossal entirety and us in the same frame. So, I had to use a photo from quite a distance.
Construction began in 1248 and this massive edifice was completed in 1880. Let that sink in for a moment. That’s a six hundred and sixty year building project! During that time, the Bubonic Plague (1347-1351) killed 40% of Europe and yet the project continued. Have you ever wondered why we no longer create these kinds of incredible structures testifying to the glory of God? We build churches to last for decades not millennia. Why? Because of we, unlike Christians of centuries past, have a very short-term outlook. We don’t play the long game.
In 1 Corinthians 7:17-31, the Apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthians to remain in the life situation in which God called them (social status, legal status, ethnicity [circumcision or non], marital status, etc.) Why?
In verses 26–31, Paul explicitly says his advice is given “in view of the present distress” and because “the appointed time has grown very short.” That context shapes everything that follows.
Why the context matters? Without those statements, several instructions would seem strange or even unreasonable today:
Advising people not to seek marriage
Saying married people should live “as though they had none”
Telling believers to treat possessions and normal life affairs as though they barely mattered
If those statements were treated as timeless universal commands, they would conflict with other biblical teachings that affirm that:
Marriage as a good gift
Ordinary responsibilities (family, work, provision) as legitimate parts of faithful life
There are clear consequences to living today as though you are heeding Paul’s first century warning.
What happens if what we believe is still future was actually fulfilled almost 2,000 years ago? It will change everything about the way you view the world, your future and your responsibility to leave the planet better than when you arrived.
3. Geopolitical chaos – If the Modern state of Israel, founded in 1948, is home to “God’s chosen people,” and if Israel must be blessed lest those who refuse are cursed (Genesis 12:3), then this will continue to have wide-ranging Middle East implications. Christian Zionists, who support Israel based upon what they believe is an OT biblical mandate, posit that anyone critical of Israeli policies is antisemitic. Therefore, Israel enjoys a preferred status as the apple of God’s eye.
Recently, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, was asked if he believed Israel’s borders should eventually be expanded to the borders defined by Genesis 15:18.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
Since Huckabee believes these borders are eternally binding, his response, “It would be fine if they took it all”, was as expected. So, one can understand how this disturbs the surrounding Arab nations who occupy what Christian Zionists argue is land God gave Israel forever. The below map shows the expanded borders in red, which encompass Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and significant portions of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Given the fact that the U.S. has traditionally favored Israel over their Arab counterparts, this has caused serious geopolitical tension within the region and beyond.
For an alternative to Christian Zionism, watch this series.
4. Bible Credibility IssuesandInterpretive schizophrenia – Jesus said that He would return before His disciples finished going through the cities of Israel, while some of them were still alive and all within the generation to which He spoke. (Matt 10:23; 16:27-28; 24:34) This has prompted many an atheist to mock the deity of Christ.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. (Matthew 10:23)
For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.28Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:27-28)
Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. (Matthew 24:34)
In “Why I Am Not a Christian”, atheist Bertrand Russell wrote:
“I am concerned with Christ as he appears in the Gospel narrative as it stands, and there does one find some things that do not seem to be very wise. For one thing He certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all of the people who were living at that time. There are great many texts that prove and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed that his coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of His earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching.”
Russell rejected Christ in large part because he saw the obvious…that Jesus said it, but didn’t do it. And sadly, no one ever challenged Russell at that point, partly because those who held this premillennial dispensational paradigm were unable to provide a plausible, biblically-valid answer to his objection. And, tragically, Russell died in his sins believing Jesus was a false prophet, much less the Savior of the world. Did you know that in the New Testament there are over 100 imminent time statements regarding Christ’s coming. Following are but a few.
“The end of all things IS NEAR.” (1 Peter 4:7)
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which MUST SHORTLY TAKE PLACE…for the time is near (Revelation 1:1;3b)
“For yet A LITTLE WHILE, And He who is coming will come and WILL NOT DELYAY.” (Hebrews 10:37)
“Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord is AT HAND….Behold, the Judge IS STANDING at the door! ” (James 5:8-9)
Children, ITIS THE LAST HOUR, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that IT IS THE LAST HOUR. (1 John 2:18)
If our immediate reaction is to provide excuses for these kinds of imminent statements, something is amiss. In order to rescue an eschatological view, if we are forced to argue that soon, near, at hand, in a very little while and it is the last hour, don’t mean what they have meant in every context throughout history, we’re engaging in interpretive schizophrenia.
Ask yourself this: If these words should be elasticized into thousands of years, how could God have communicated that something was actually imminent? Would the Holy Spirit have been forced to inspire Peter to write, “No, seriously, I really, really mean it when I’m warning you that the end of all things is near? Absurd? Of course. But these are the lengths we have traveled to normalize this bizarre hermeneutic.
I’ve even heard pastors try to argue that the Greek word “tachos” (shortly) in Revelation 1:1 means that after a 2,000+ delay, that it will happen with the speed of light. Cringeworthy. In all 8 NT usages, it never means a delay followed by supersonic speed.
Not surprisingly, during that same sermon the pastor conveniently neglected to mention the imminence in the 3rd verse in the Revelation, “for the time is NEAR (eggus).”
“Eggus” means near in terms of time or distance. “Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand (eggus).” (John 7:2) No matter how you slice it, eggus cannot be tortured to mean that it wasn’t really near at that time but is it now near to us. So when you combine “things that MUST take place” with “for the time is near”, it is unmistakable that what was to follow would soon take place.
Therefore, if we ignore the timing to fit a preconceived paradigm, we have left the intellectually honest high ground for a valley of subterfuge. The New Testament is inundated with these kinds of near-term expectations of Christ’s coming in judgment and rescue that are crying out to be understood. (I dealt with the most common objection HERE.)
In an attempt to maintain this “everything is going to Hell in a handcart” paradigm, it has caused many to abandon interpretive principles like audience relevance, the analogy of faith, and context is king.
Dispensationalism, the dominant eschatological system of our day, requires one to ignore many bedrock principles of interpretation. For example, the concept of “audience relevance” i.e. the supremacy of the original audience, which is essential in understanding any piece of literature in its historical context, no less the Bible, is completely invisible to far too many. We have been trained to read the New Testament as though it was delivered with our daily mail. Even though it must not be read with a 21st century western lens, many do. Case in point:
Many read this verse as though Jesus is coming quickly in the year 2026.
“He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)
Let’s consider another example. Jesus used the first-person plural “you” 21 times in Matthew’s Olivet Discourse account. To whom was Jesus warning? (Note: We must first understand what a passage was intended to mean to the direct recipients before finding principles of application.) All too often we read the Gospels and epistles as though they were written directly to us. This is not only tragic but it will lead you astray.
Consider these snippets from Matthew 24 and view them through the eyes of the disciples.
4 And Jesus answered THEM, “See that no one leads YOU astray. Who was told not to be led astray? Us, or the disciples?
6 And YOU will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that YOU are not alarmed… Who was to hear of wars and rumors of war? Who was not to be alarmed? Us, or the disciples?
9 “Then they will deliver YOU up to tribulation and put YOU to death, and YOU will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. Who was to be delivered up to Tribulation, be put to death and hated by all nations? Us, or the disciples?
15 “So when YOU see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, Who was to see the abomination of desolation (Luke equates this with “Jerusalem being surrounded by armies)? Us or the disciples?
25 See, I have told YOU beforehand. 26 So, if they say to YOU, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. Who was told beforehand what would happen, and who was warned not too look in the wilderness or the inner rooms? Us, or the disciples?
33 So also, when YOU see all these things, YOU know that he is near, at the very gates. 34 Truly, I say to YOU, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Who was to see “all these things”? Who was to know that when they saw all these things that Jesus was near (eggus)? Which generation would not pass away until everything in the preceding verses took place? Our generation or the wicked and perverse generation in which the disciples lived?
All of today’s major prophecy pundit completely ignore the fact that Jesus was warning His disciples that which would come upon their generation. We are not the YOU to whom Jesus was addressing. We are aren’t the ones who would be delivered up to tribulation or put to death, or would “see all these things.”
What if these first 3 presuppositions which have been assumed true for over a century, are false? What if the pervading pessimism and short-term mentality are the result of misinterpreting God’s word by assuming that we have been stuck in a time warp for 2000 years? What if that which was prophesied to take place “shortly” and “in a very little while”, did in fact take place, but in a manner not expected? We have been conditioned to believe that the issues which the first century Christians were dealing with and the events they were imminently waiting for, little to do with them because they are in our near future. So, it is argued that ostensibly nothing has changed since the Canon was completed in the AD 60s.
Ask yourself how can that which was imminent to the first century Christians still be imminent today? So many attempt to make clever excuses for unfulfillment and the beat goes on. The nasty conflagration of events targeting the wicked and perverse Christ-killing generation (Matthew 23:36), took place on time as planned.
At what point will the many begin to realize that something is wrong in their interpretive scheme? If the Bible is the inerrant, inspired, infallible God-breathed word, and it is, then when will the those who continue to rely on the apocalyptic writers who have made literally hundreds of errant prophetic predictions, be more seriously scrutinized? Something is awry and it’s not the Bible. It’s how the Bible has been interpreted.
Our mandate to the disciple the nations and although it is gradually being fulfilled since Jesus’s ascension, it has a long way to go. So, why do we assume that it’s supposed to end before the job is done. Is it possible that this near-term gloom and doom expectation is errant? If we believe that “greater is He that is in you then he that is in the world”, and “for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world,” are we selling our mission short? Is it possible that a famous pastor’s statement, “we lose down here”, is not true… and that we’re actually supposed to win down here? How long will we accept the mantra “Jesus is coming soon”before we realize that there’s a massive amount of work yet to be done? Has the entire world been filled with the glory of the Lord?
If this is confusing to you, I would highly recommend the following series from Pastor Kendall Lankford. He painstakingly and eloquently trudges through the Olivet Discourse as a precursor to delving into the book of Revelation. Begin with the first episode in this series which is #136, Revelation (An Olivet Introduction). You will be challenged but you will not be disappointed.
How much do you know about the historical context surrounding the period between Jesus’s resurrection in AD 30 and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70? How about the accounts of Jewish historian Josephus and Roman historian Tacitus regarding the AD 66-70 Roman-Jewish war culminating in the complete annihilation of the Temple? Shockingly, most Christians are oblivious to this time period and it has drastically skewed their understanding of the Olivet Discourse. (Mt 24; Mk 13; Lk 21) It’s a travesty how little Christians know about the incredible fulfillment of Jesus’s prophecies.
Why it matters
Consider the following statements from Pastor’s John MacArthur and David Jeremiah concerning Bible prophecy. Ask yourself if what these men are predicting is rings true. In other words, be a Berean and determine if the Scripture bears witness to their prophetic expectations.
These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. (Acts 17:11)
A couple of years ago at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church, attended by nearly 10,000 devotees, Pastor MacArthur warned …
“They killed Jesus. They killed all the apostles. We’re all going to be persecuted… No, we don’t win down here. Are you ready for that? Just to clear the air. I love this clarity. We don’t win. We lose on this battlefield. But we win on the big one. The eternal one.”
And if MacArthur wasn’t clear enough, he more recently doubled down leaving no doubt where he stood.
“There will be a barrage of false Christs, false messiahs, false teachers, false prophets, wars, disasters, persecution, all through human history, and getting worse and worse and worse, and at the end, the explosion of these kinds of things will reach epic proportions that are described in revelation 6 through 19 in a seven year period called the time of tribulation…even the latter half of that is a time of great tribulation the last 3 1/2 years being the worst of all.”
Not a pretty picture, that’s for sure!
Dr. David Jeremiah, one of the most prolific apocalyptic authors of our day, has written 114 books and sold 4,000,000 copies, most of which deal with the “end times”. These are but a few:
• Agents of the Apocalypse • After the Rapture • Agents of Babylon • Is This the End? • Where Do We Go From Here? • The Book of Signs • The World of the End • Escape the Coming Night • 60 Days of Prophecies • Answers to Questions About Living in the Last Days • People Are Asking… Is This the End?
“As the conditions of our world worsen, Jesus said we shouldn’t hang our heads in depression or shake our heads in confusion. We should lift up our heads in expectation, for our redemption draws near (Luke 21:28).
He went on:
“That before the Antichrist can be revealed, there will be a falling away, a forsaking, on the part of professing believers. This will not be a time when just a few people abandon their doctrinal beliefs; it will mark a period of major, widespread departure from the faith. In His Olivet discourse, Jesus predicted such a time: “Many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:10-12).”
Is it possible that Dr. Jeremiah is wrong? Is he using the same hermeneutical principles (science of interpretation) as Lindsey, LaHaye, Falwell, Robertson and MacArthur? It should be noted that I have been hearing about these dire expectations since I became a Christian 54 years ago, and not a single event has come to fruition. Should this not us cause pause? Could there be something wrong with their Bible interpretation methods?
Audience Relevance or Irrelevance?
The dominant end times prophecy system (premillennial dispensationalism) of our day which these two pastors espouse, ignores bedrock principles of interpretation. For example, employing the concept of “audience relevance”, first considering the primacy of the original audience (in this case Jesus’s disciples), is necessary to understand the below passage. As a matter of fact, all literature is naturally interpreted in this manner, but when brilliant theologians and astute pastors attempt to understand Bible passages, too often they ignore this fundamental principle. Why, when we read the only God-breathed Book on the planet, do we justify dismissing the most profoundly enlightening interpretational components like audience relevancy? Could it be because we will do anything to hold on to our existing paradigms.
Lets take a look at the Matthew’s Olivet Discourse and read it through the eyes of the disciples, not as 21st century Christians. Jesus used the first person plural “you” in Matthew’s account 21 times. Was Jesus warning them or us? If Jesus was warning us, why do you think He didn’t constantly refer to they and them while giving indication that these events were thousands of years future?
Watch the Olivet account and then read Matthew 24 below the video. Feel the weight of what Jesus was telling them. And do you best to put yourself in their position.
Ask yourself who it was that Jesus warned not to be deceived? Who was it that would be delivered up to tribulation and be killed? Who was going to see the “abomination of desolation” (or “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies” as Luke was speaking to a primarily Gentile audience)? Who did Jesus warn about not being deceived by false Christs, or as John wrote, “antichrists?”
Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “YOU see all these, do YOU not? Truly, I say to YOU, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell US, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 And Jesus answered THEM, “See that no one leads YOU astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And YOU will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that YOU are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.
9 “Then they will deliver YOU up to tribulation and put YOU to death, and YOU will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away[a] and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world [Roman Empire] as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15 “So when YOU see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, 18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 20 Pray that YOUR flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.
21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. 23 Then if anyone says to YOU, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told YOU beforehand. 26 So, if they say to YOU, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth [land] will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
32 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, YOU know that summer is near. 33 So also, when YOU see all these things, YOU know that he is near, at the very gates. 34 Truly, I say to YOU, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for YOU do not know on what day YOUR Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore YOU also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour YOU do not expect.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to YOU, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants[d] and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:1-51)
Now that you’ve had time to watch and read Matthew 24, is there any doubt to whom Jesus was speaking? Is this warning directed to us, living in the 2026 or is it clear that Jesus was speaking directly to His disciples? When would all these things take place?
Assuredly, I say to YOU, THIS GENERATION will by no means pass away till all these things take place. (Matthew 24:34)
So, is MacArthur correct when he so emphatically stated, “There will be a barrage of false Christs, false messiahs, false teachers, false prophets, wars, disasters, persecution, all through human history, and getting worse and worse and worse, and at the end…”
How about Jeremiah? “In His Olivet discourse, Jesus predicted such a time: “Many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold”
Have you ever considered that “all these things” actually took place between Jesus’s AD 30 resurrection and the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem?
In the preface to George Peter Holford’s 1805, “The Destruction of Jerusalem – An Absolute & Irresistible Proof of the Divine Origin of Christianity”, G.H. Landon wrote:
History records few events more generally interesting than the destruction of Jerusalem, and the subversion of the Jewish state, by the arms of the Romans. Their intimate connexion with the dissolution of the Levitical economy, and the establishment of Christianity in the world; the striking verification which they afford of so many of the prophecies, both of the Old and New Testament, and the powerful arguments of the divine authority of the Scriptures which are thence derived; the solemn warnings and admonitions which they hold out to all nations, but especially such as are favoured with the light and blessings of REVELATION; together with the impressive and terrific grandeur of the events themselves–are circumstances which must always insure to the subject of the following pages more than ordinary degrees of interest and importance. (click on the cover to read this short book).
Following are some of the subheadings to give you a flavor of the contents.
THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCES OF THE SCRIPTURE REVELATION
THE DESCRIPTION OF JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE
THE LORD’S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM
HE PREDICTS OF THE CITY AND THE TEMPLE
ACCOUNT OF FALSE MESSIASHS WHOSE APPEARANCE HE FORETOLD
WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS
EARTHQUAKES
FAMINES
PESTILENCES
PRODIGIES WHICH PROCEEDED
PERSECUTIONS
PERSECUTIONS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS
SPEEDY PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN ALL THE WORLD
FOUNDATION OF THE ROMAN WAR
GESTIUS GALLUS
CRUELTY TO THE IDUMEANS
APPROACH OF THE ROMAN ARMY – TITUS ENCAMPS BEFORE JERUSALEM
THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION DESCRIBED
FAMINE APPEARS IN THE JEWISH ARMY – DEPLORABLE AFFECTS OF THE FAMINE
NUMBERS OF DEAD CAST OUT – DISTRESS AND CRUELTY
A SOLDIER SETS FIRE TO THE TEMPLE
AN ATTEMPT TO PRESERVE THE SANCTUARY
TERRIBLE SLAUGHTER OF THE JEWS DURING THE BURNING OF THE TEMPLE
TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE
THE JEWS REFUSE TO SURRENDER
MASSACRE IN THE ROYAL PALACE
THE FINAL DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
THE QUALIFICATIONS OF JOSEPHUS
CHARACTER OF TITUS
SUFFERINGS OF THE JEWS, SUBSEQUENT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Everything in Matthew 24 took place within a generation of Jesus’s Olivet declaration! Everything. And for those who, without a shred of evidence, insist that it’s all going to happen again in our future… How can there be two abominations of desolation (Jerusalem surrounded by armies); two great tribulations “such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be”; Two Gospel preached to all the world and then the end? How many ends are there? The absurdity of taking this position proves just how desperate people are to maintain their paradigm. The NT is the final authority. There is no sanctioned Ground Hog’s Day eschatology.
The views of MacArthur and Jeremiah make the Olivet audience irrelevant. And I find that troubling since they are trusted by tens of millions.
Have you ever wondered why we are riddled with unbelief? Why don’t we take Jesus at His word? Why we come up with so many excuses for Jesus not returning in the timeframe He stipulated? I can assure you that, though the disciples weren’t certain how all of this was going to play out, they clearly understand that things were going to get very dicey.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the Church and Israel and where some of our modern theology came from, especially dispensationalism. I’ve always assumed that this was the way the Bible was always interpreted and I never studied it out on my own.
Dispensationalism, as we know it today, didn’t come from the early church. It really took root in the 1800s. John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), who was part of the Plymouth Brethren movement, is really where this system began. He divided history into different “dispensations” and separated Israel and the Church into two parallel plans of God. That way of reading Scripture was new.
Those ideas stayed fairly contained until C. I. Scofield popularized them through the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909. The biblical text didn’t change — but the notes did. Those notes put dispensational interpretations right next to the verses, and once that happened, a lot of people assumed that was simply what the Bible taught. Especially because by the early–mid 20th century, the Scofield Reference Bible had become the default study Bible in almost every American evangelical seminary and Bible institutes, especially places like Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, and Biola, so its notes shaped how generations of Pastors were trained to read Scripture.
But when we take our time and read what Jesus and Paul say throughout the scriptures, that framework starts falling apart.
Jesus never taught two separate peoples of God
He taught that the only way to the Father was through Him and doesn’t matter what culture or nationality you are. You are either going to accept Him or deny Him. Paul never taught two parallel covenants.
And the apostles weren’t preaching delay, they were preaching fulfillment.
Jesus says very plainly, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). That’s not vague language. Fulfill doesn’t mean pause or push into the future and he plainly says he CAME to fulfill it ALL, meaning everything about his coming fulfilled the law and scripture is clear about how.
Paul says, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Not some promises. Not spiritual promises only. All.
He also says, “He Himself is our peace, who has made both one” (Ephesians 2:14). Not partially one. Not spiritually one while still divided later. Just… one.
And then Paul goes even further: “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). That alone should make us stop and rethink a lot of categories we’ve inherited.
What really stops me, though, was something Paul says in Acts 13. He’s preaching in a synagogue and he says, “We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus” (Acts 13:32–33).
That’s past tense.
All promises fulfilled to the fathers and then to us. And the fulfillment is tied directly to the resurrection.
Paul’s gospel literally depends on the idea that the promises are no longer lingering into the future.
When you line that up with how the New Testament talks about the promises to Israel, the pattern is consistent.
The seed promise to Abraham points to Christ (Galatians 3:16).
The blessing to the nations becomes the gospel going to the Gentiles (Galatians 3:8).
And the Law is written on hearts through the Spirit (Jeremiah 31; Romans 8 ).
What a downgrade for Israel to say, “Oh God promised to give you one small piece of land back,” when Jesus came and said everyone who believes in Him is brought into one family — Jew and Gentile together. Paul says Abraham wasn’t promised a strip of land at all, but the whole world (Romans 4:13).
And when Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”(Matthew 5:5), He wasn’t talking about real estate. He was talking about what belongs to those who choose Him. Why would we shrink Gods promise back to an old Covenant piece of land, excluding Jews from the whole world inheritance, and dividing people when he came to expand the gospel to all?
Then there’s the “one jot or tittle” passage. Jesus says, “Not one jot or tittle will pass from the Law until heaven and earth pass away”(Matthew 5:18).
In Scripture, “heaven and earth” is a way of describing an ordered world of law, worship, temple, and priesthood (see Isaiah 51:15–16; Deuteronomy 32; Jeremiah 4:23–28). In that sense, Jesus isn’t talking about the planet disappearing, but about the Old Covenant order remaining fully intact until it did what it was meant to do.
So applying the definition of, “heaven and earth” as it is interpreted in Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and Jeremiah, means the Old Covenant world.
Even if we continue believing “heaven and earth” means “literal creation”, the logic creates a big problem. Because if literal “heaven and earth” haven’t passed away yet, and not one dot of the Law can pass until they do… why aren’t Christians still keeping all of it? Sacrifices. Feast days. Purity laws. Dietary restrictions.
Paul is pretty clear. He says, “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness” (Romans 10:4). And, “You are not under the Law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). Not because the Law failed, but because it worked. And in case anyone feels like going the distance…
Below is an even more exhaustive list:
Acts 10:34–35 — “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.”
Acts 15:8–9 — “God… made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.”
Hebrews 2:11 — “He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.”
Hebrews 11:10, 16 — “He was looking forward to the city that has foundations… a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
The major concern for me personally is this…
Jesus says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). But believing in Jesus isn’t just believing He exists or that He saves. It also means taking Him at His word.
Early in His ministry, after reading from Isaiah, Jesus says, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). When Jesus stood up in the synagogue in Luke 4, He read from Isaiah 61 about the anointed one bringing good news, freedom, and restoration. Then He stopped mid-passage, sat down, and said, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”He was claiming that promise for Himself, and the people knew exactly what He was saying. That’s why they were fine with Him for about 30 seconds… and then tried to throw Him off a cliff once it sunk in.
After His resurrection, He explains that “everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). And Paul later says plainly that this had already happened: “What God promised… He has fulfilled by raising Jesus” (Acts 13:33).
Not postponed.
Not open-ended.
Fulfilled in Christ.
So I guess the question I keep coming back to is this:
If Jesus said Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing…
If Paul preached fulfilled promises as the basis of the gospel…
And if the apostles consistently spoke in terms of fulfillment rather than delay…
Why do we keep we pushing His fulfillment into the future? Are we taking back things He said were already done?
During a sermon, a pastor made a pejorative comment concerning Jesus Calling, a best-selling devotional he later admitted he never read. My wife, who is a huge fan of both Sarah Young, the author, and her plethora of devotionals, took issue with what she felt was an uninformed, mean-spirited attack. Note to self: Be intimately familiar with that which you assail, especially in a large group setting.
I’d watched a couple of very critical YouTube videos of Jesus Calling and had a cursory understanding of their reasoning, but I was far too ignorant to engage in a serious discussion with one of Sarah’s biggest fans. My hope was to end up agreeing with my wife, especially since she’d spoken of it in such glowing terms. So, given my ignorance on the matter, I decided to do some serious research.
It should be noted that a startling 50 million copies have been sold!
I began by purchasing both the Audible and Kindle versions of Jesus Calling and I read the first month of daily entries to gain the necessarily context. I wanted to understand Sarah’s style and experience Jesus Calling for myself.
I spent quite a few days working through it, reading numerous online resources and watching critiques both positive and negative. Some were brutal. Others were glowing. I scoured through literally hundreds of comments under the videos which ranged from, “It changed my life” to “It wrecked my understanding of Scripture.” I congealed those thoughts into my analysis, attempting to be as objective as possible.
The majority of my initial impressions were derived from Sarah’s daily entries. Since writing her devotional in 2004, Jesus Calling has been at the center of controversy. It elicits very strong emotions, either very positive or very negative. Why the passionate divide? Since it’s merely a devotional centered around the Bible, that may seem innocuous. Then why the harsh reactions? I will attempt to explain the main issue in a variety of ways, refraining from being overly cerebral so as not to dismiss the millions who testify to the vast benefits from Sarah’s writings.
Each daily reading begins with what Sarah describes as a message directly from Jesus followed by various Scripture passages. In the introduction she wrote:
“The Bible is the only infallible, inerrant Word of God, and I endeavor to keep my writings consistent with that unchanging standard. I have written from the perspective of Jesus speaking, to help readers feel more personally connected with Him. So the first person singular (“I,” “Me,” “My,” “Mine”) always refers to Christ; “you” refers to you, the reader.”
Following are my thoughts. For risk of being misunderstood, excuse my redundance.
The Positives:
Based upon book sales of 15m and glowing testimonials, Sarah Young is driving vast numbers of people into God’s Word. This is a big deal that must not be discounted. Many who have never read the Bible have begun to read it regularly.
The Scripture passages included each day are very helpful in acclimating readers to the Bible, encouraging them to dig deeper.
She helps readers become more connected to the heart of Jesus.
She inspires readers to take positive steps toward following Jesus.
Overall, saying that Jesus Calling’s impact has been significant, is an understatement.
It is undeniable how Sarah’s gifted writing has benefited so many.
As I move toward criticisms, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not questioning the legion of testimonies praising her work. Any time people are confronted with God’s Word they are changed.
For clarity, Sarah has repeatedly stated that she was not adding to Scripture, and that:
Her words are not inerrant
Her journal is a devotional and is not prophetic
Scripture and Scripture alone, is final authority
In her 2004 introduction she wrote: “I knew that these writings were not inspired as Scripture is.”
Sarah’s husband, Steve Young, recently speaking to the PCA general assembly which was considering an inquiry into Jesus Calling‘s potential encroachment on Sola Scriptura, defended his wife:
“Her writings did not add to Scripture but explain it. She would stand with Martin Luther and declare that her conscience was captive to the Word of God.”
He went on:
“Sarah is a sister in Christ and wife who delighted in the law of the Lord, and on his law she meditated day and night. She was led to share her meditations with the world.”
Sarah made clear that her devotionals were meant to be read “with your Bible open.”
Before I balance the positives with some concerns, let me say that though my apprehensions may be lengthier, this is not only a function of avoiding being misunderstood, but is the result of echoing the main issue from different angles. It should be noted that many theologians and Bible scholars are not simply being critical for the sake of being critical. Some are, but most have shared legitimate misgivings which have broad-reaching implications.
My Concerns:
#1 Straight from the Heart of Jesus?
Sarah begins each day with words that she said came straight from Jesus. My understanding is that in her prayer time she wrote down exactly what she believed Jesus was telling her to write. And she wanted to share those thoughts and exhortations with the world.
The tension lies between what is canonical and what isn’t. If Jesus inspired her to write down His exact words, perhaps you can sense the potential conflict. The book was written in the first-person voice of Jesus, with no theological disclaimers on the daily writings. To reiterate, Sarah has been very straightforward about the fact that these are not her words. On the one hand she states that her words are not inerrant, prophetic or are scripturally authoritative, but on the other she says that these were Jesus’s exact words… which is an apparent problem.
Though she makes clear that her writings are not inspired and are in no way on par with God’s word, it is nonetheless a rather bold assertion to claim that Jesus spoke to her word for word which were not merely for her personal edification but for the benefit of millions. So, they essentially become Jesus’s words to both Sarah and all who read Jesus Calling. This kind of transcendence definitely ups the ante.
The issue at stake is that the words she attributes to Jesus are either inspired by God or they’re not. She says they’re not, but that doesn’t settle the issue. Based upon her foreword, she believes that God has spoken directly through her. To give you a flavor, I have excerpted a small section of January 1. Notice the personal pronouns are capitalized which refer to Jesus.
“COME TO ME with a teachable spirit, eager to be changed. A close walk with Me is a life of continual newness. Do not cling to old ways as you step into a new year. Instead, seek My Face with an open mind, knowing that your journey with Me involves being transformed by the renewing of your mind. As you focus your thoughts on Me, be aware that I am fully attentive to you.” Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling, with Scripture References: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (A 365-Day Devotional) (Jesus Calling®) (p. 2). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Notice the perspective. “Come to ME” and “Seek MY face with an open mind.” This immediately begs the question as to what biblical inspiration means. If Jesus inspired the exact words in Sarah’s daily entries, how can they be less than quotes of Jesus recorded in the Gospels? In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Jesus is speaking in the first person. Matthew was inspired to write those exact words.
*And we should take note at this point to realize how the Gospels and Epistles were written. God inspired men through the Holy Spirit to write through their personalities and experiences. The words were not dictated to them as Sarah claims was done for her. So why wouldn’t the words Jesus spoke directly to her not be even more inspired than the biblical books?
The question is, can Jesus ever speak non authoritatively? How is the above any different than when Sarah wrote, “A close walk with Me is a life of continual newness.” Some Bibles put Jesus’s words in red because they were spoken by the King of Kings. Therefore, could the opening words of her daily devotional be colored red? If not, why not?
This might sound like hair-splitting but it’s not. She is not saying that they are merely personal directives gleaned from her prayer time. I believe God speaks directly to His people, but if we take what we believe we hear from God in our daily prayer time and say, “Thus saith the Lord,” it must not only be 100% accurate, but it must come from the Lord. There is no fudge factor. Mishandling God’s Word is serious.
How is what she’s writing not Scripture? She and her husband saying that it’s different, are mere words.
If you know anything about Sarah, it’s obvious that her intent was not to elevate the words in her book to Scriptural authority. According to a friend who knew Sarah quite well, he said that she was extremely humble and she lived an exemplary life of service to Jesus.
But the question remains: In what category do we place the words of Jesus if they were not written by an inspired author with the Holy Spirit’s divine authority e.g. the Apostles Paul or Peter. It’s one thing to include a number of Scripture passages and congeal your understanding of them into a daily reading. That would be similar to a commentary, and is the method employed in every other modern-day devotional. I’m not aware of any other modern author who writes in first person Jesus.
At this point it should be noted that Sarah Young is not the only one to have written in this manner. Below are a few others.
Classical mystics / visionaries who reported direct speech from Christ in visions, dreams, or locutions. These writings often contain first-person divine speech like Young’s format.
Julian of Norwich (Revelations of Divine Love) – (1500s)
Hildegard of Bingen (visions recorded as divine speech) – (1151)
Catherine of Siena – (1379)
Teresa of Ávila (Teresa of Jesus) (1577)
Anne Catherine Emmerich – (1819-1824)
Modern “Prophetic” or “Charismatic” Writers claim direct dictation or prophecy from Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit:
Mark Virkler (“two-way journaling”) – (2021)
Bill Johnson / Bethel-associated prophetic writings – (Current)
Louise Hay / God Calling (not evangelical, but directly influenced Jesus Calling) – (1932)
Non-Evangelical Modern Visionaries
Maria Valtorta (The Poem of the Man-God) – claimed dictation from Jesus – (1947)
Gabrielle Bossis (He and I) – daily first-person speech from Jesus – (1985)
Anne a Lay Apostle (Direction for Our Times) – (2004)
So, in my view, this leaves us with a serious dilemma. If the words are uninspired as Sarah says (most of those listed above say that they are reporting what God said to them), then I find it strange for her to write as if they came directly from the mind of Christ. Again, how can anything Jesus said be uninspired?
This concerns me a great deal. To be transparent, I have no dog in this fight. The reality is that I would prefer to agree with the throngs who say they have benefited from Jesus Calling. And I want to avoid stepping on the toes of those who think the world of Sarah’s writings. I have no interest in casting aspersions on someone far godlier than me. But what I am passionate about is defending God’s word from the constant attacks of Muslims, atheists, and many other religions. And Jesus Calling is, in my view, blurring the lines that must be drawn somewhere.
Many conservative apologetic’s scholars who regularly debates Muslims, Mormons and other groups claiming to have heard directly from God (Quran, Doctrine and Covenants and the book of Mormon), are very concerned with Jesus Calling. No critic that I’ve read is deliberately attempting to squelch the Spirit of God or anything of the kind. Rather, they are fighting to preserve the integrity of the Bible. Once we go down this slippery slope, where does it end? That’s why I think this discussion is worth having.
Let’s say you have a vision that you believe came from Jesus, and you put it to paper professing that it is from the Lord. How should others treat it? What if many similar Jesus Calling books are written claiming to speak for Jesus? And the broader question is, do all believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit have this same capability as Sarah? If Jesus gives you His unvarnished Words, are they meant for everyone?
You may think it’s preposterous scenario, but what if thousands of similar devotionals are written, fueled by Sarah’s passion to hear directly from Jesus… each with messages directed to all Christians? What if we were to coalesce only Jesus’s words from hundreds of these devotionals into one hardbound book and call it “The Modern Sayings of Jesus?” Is it possible? Why not?
I would be far more comfortable if Sarah spoke as though her words were written through her eyes with the qualification that she felt that the Holy Spirit guided her commentary. Instead of speaking in the first person, what if Sarah had begun, “COME TO JESUS with a teachable spirit, eager to be changed”? If that had been the case, we wouldn’t be engaged in this discussion because this would be similar to every other devotional.
I see no way around the implication that to write as though the words came directly from Jesus makes them God inspired, no matter how Sarah protests to the contrary. I do not believe she can have it both ways i.e. on the one hand saying that the words are directly from Jesus, but on the other admitting that they are not biblically authoritative. Again, how can anything Jesus said not have supreme authority? How is this not adding to Scripture?
For example, the Epistle of Barnabas did not make it into the Canon even though Barnabas was a pivotal member of early church. Barnabas had been a direct companion of the Apostle Paul, but, because his writing was not deemed inspired, it did not become the 28th NT book. Yes, it’s worth reading, but it has no divine authority. I realize Sarah is not claiming that her words are inspired, but why would Jesus’s exact words which she said flowed from the mind of Christ directly to her, not be more inspired than Barnabas’s Epistle?
#2 Are Jesus’s words not authoritative?
Sarah claims to have heard directly from Jesus as if Jesus was channeling through her. I know some may bristle at the word “channeling” since it carries a new age connotation, but that’s in fact what she’s saying. Sarah said that she was a conduit for the Lord to speak through her.
When so many have claimed to benefit from Jesus Calling, if anyone puts her words (ostensibly Jesus’s words) to the test, then Sarah’s devout followers have often branded dissenters as mean-spirited. But the reality is that if those words are uninspired, even if she says they came directly from Jesus, they must be scrutinized like any other writing. However, do you find not find it awkwardly strange criticizing the words of Jesus? Seriously, how can anyone criticize or even question anything Jesus said? This unwittingly elevates the words she attributes to Jesus to another category.
I’ve seen some extremely critical comments online from the usual heretic hunters, and I don’t think it’s fair to impugn Sarah’s motives. I believe she was convinced that Jesus actually spoke His words directly through her. She said she was a mere instrument and I believe her. However, as she has clearly stated, those words do not rise to the level of Scripture… and, therefore, we have an insurmountable problem.
How can we be critical of what she said Jesus spoke directly? To reiterate, if the words came from Jesus, how can they be scrutinized? If anyone says to one of Sarah’s devout readers, “Jesus couldn’t have said that”, can you imagine the outcry? How dare they quibble with the Messiah!
The most significant issue is that if those words are not breathed out by Jesus as she agrees they aren’t, then there is a guarantee that Jesus could not have spoken the words that are attributed to Him. Saying “thus saith the Lord” puts humanly spoken words into a very different category. If these were, in fact, Jesus’ words, completely reliable and true, then Jesus Calling would be Scripture. One can protest that conclusion but on what grounds? I don’t think this point can be overemphasized. So, though Sarah’s intent appears as pure and noble, she is unwittingly sending seriously mixed messages to her millions of readers. How are they to understand the difference between the 66 and writings like Sarah’s? This, in my view, is a very treacherous path.
#3 Is the Bible enough?
Sarah said that she yearned for more than the Bible. “I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day.” At this point we’ve changed the discussion from inspiration to sufficiency. Is Scripture sufficient? The reformers argued that the Bible was not only God breathed but that it was also sufficient for all things.
I think I understand her deep desire for intimacy with Jesus, and though I believe her quest was certainly heartfelt, why doesn’t she read, study and meditate on Scripture and allow the Word of God to speak to her (and us)? Why does she need other words that she says mirror what Scripture already teaches? Why not instead ask the Holy Spirit to help her to more fully understand what a Bible passage meant and how it should be applied on any given day?
Getting a personal word from Jesus is far different than receiving words from Jesus meant for the masses. For example. God may be leading you, but if you tell me how I should live based upon some directive you think you heard from God, that changes things. What should be my immediate reaction? To compare whatever you heard with Scripture, right? Therefore, what’s the reason for the redundancy. Just go to the Bible first and bypass the middle-man.
We all yearn to hear from God and I’m not arguing that God doesn’t still lead and guide his people. David heard regularly from the Lord regarding strategies of warfare etc. But is it a prudent precedent to believe that we not only hear directly from the mind of God, but that what we hear becomes a directive for all? It’s one thing to believe we have a leading from the Spirit, but quite another if we believe it applies to everyone else. That seems rather presumptuous.
What if I study diligently, pray fervently and then think I hear Jesus say, “Write down these words. I want you to write an eschatological commentary which will be directly from Me (Jesus). Put the words I’m about to tell you in the first person.” So, what would be the reaction if I wrote the following:
The things I’m writing to you have come directly from the mind of Jesus.
“Contrary to what too many of MY beloved children believe, I (Jesus) returned exactly as I said I would as I empowered the Roman army to destroy the wicked and perverse generation that had Me murdered. They were an abomination in MY eyes. And just as in the days of Noah, I annihilated the city of wickedness, Jerusalem, and I used the Roman army to raze the Temple to ground so that not one stone was left upon another. I detest those who continued to sacrifice after my once-for-all shedding of blood on that despicable cross. When I said that some standing here would not taste death until they saw ME coming in the clouds of glory, I meant it. When I said, You will not have finished going through the cities of Israel until I come, I meant it. For I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of this world. I am the Alpha and the Omega.
What I speak I will always do. Through my beloved Apostle Paul, I inspired him to write, “In a very little while HE who is coming will come and will not delay.” Through the man who denied ME three times, I filled him with these words, “The end of all things is near.” So why do the people question ME? Why do they make up excuses for ME as though I cannot do exactly what and when I promised? Why do they have so little faith not to believe that when I said, “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place”, I meant it? Every eye saw Me, that is, those who had Me pierced. I avenged the martyred saints who cried out to ME with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will YOU refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who live on the earth? Do you think I did not hear their incessant cries? Not long, my children for I told them “I am coming soon,: for I, the Lord your God, am faithful.”
How would the above be received if I wrote an entire book this way, as if Jesus wrote it? I believe everything I wrote can be defended by Scripture and it could have come from Jesus. But others might sharply disagree. If I claimed that Jesus spoke those exact words to me, and I felt compelled to share them as Jesus’s words to the Church, I would be excoriated. I can hear them now. How dare you put words in Jesus’s mouth! And I would agree with the critics. So, why is Jesus Calling any different?
I think at the very least it’s presumptuous to believe that God would speak directly through Sarah as though she was a prophet, though as mentioned earlier, she doesn’t claim to be prophet. But I’d still like to understand the difference. Does a prophet not speak on God’s behalf?
If a pastor said God told him something specific that must happen which will impact his entire congregation, would that not cause concern within the membership and therefore prompt further investigation and inquiry? Should his congregation simply yield assuming this is God’s will? I hope someone would judge the pastor’s words to determine if they are, in fact, from the Lord? If there is no corroboration within the church, has the pastor elevated himself above his congregants. Has he moved from pastor to mediator? Would the congregation be required to blindly follow him assuming that he is speaking directly for God?
Wouldn’t the leadership have the responsibility to first weigh the pastor’s vision against the backdrop of Scripture? Does it set a healthy precedent to think that we need more than what God has provided in His Word. 2 Tim 3:16 comes to mind. Everybody knows it. “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”The above example may not be a fair one-to-one comparison with what has been done in Jesus Calling, but when we say that we need more than what God has provided in His word, are we not wading into dangerous waters?
#4 God Calling was Sarah’s inspiration
Sarah modeled her book after God Calling, a “new age” type book whose two authors also claim to have heard directly from God. They mention channeling and auto-writing. It should be noted that Sarah’s publisher removed the reference to God Calling in later editions possibly because it drew backlash. After critics in the evangelical world began pointing out the similarities and the association with the channeling and automatic writing in God Calling, those explicit references to God Calling were removed in newer printings of Jesus Calling. In fairness, Thomas Nelson, the publisher, said that the reference to God Calling was removed for clarity. That may be true, but if that was Sarah’s inspiration why was it excised? Wouldn’t that be helpful information?
Sarah wrote regarding the “God Calling” authors, “These women practiced waiting quietly in God’s Presence, pencils and paper in hand, recording the messages they received from [God]. This little paperback became a treasure to me. It dove-tailed remarkably well with my longing to live in Jesus’ Presence.”
#5 Canonical lines blurred
Sarah doesn’t draw a clear distinction between her words ascribed to Jesus and Jesus’s actual words as recorded in Scripture. As I’ve mentioned to the point of redundancy, I don’t understand why Sarah never attempts to explain why her words are not inspired Scripture. Saying so doesn’t make it so. If she didn’t use first person pronouns as if they came directly from Jesus, and instead she said something like, “These are thoughts which I believe God brought to my mind,” then what she wrote could be evaluated against the backdrop of the Bible. But she doesn’t give the reader any leeway since her quotes are directly attributed to Jesus.
So, when people read these words in first person Jesus, the Canonical lines are blurred. I’ve seen a number of reader responses, whether either consciously or subconsciously, who appear to believe that these are Jesus’s words and therefore directives for them. I’m not arguing that this is Sarah’s fault since she never makes that claim, but it is a problem since she never makes clear why Jesus’s actual words as given to her are not authoritative. Perhaps even if she made the disclaimer that, although she believes Jesus was telling her what to write, she could have said, “I believe this came from Jesus but I can’t be absolutely certain that they are for you, my reader.”
#6 Scripture compared to Jesus Calling Following is what I believe is the key theological distinction:
First-person divine speech implies revelation. If Jesus says something, it must be binding.
Therefore, it functionally creates new Scripture. How can anything Jesus said not be binding?
#7 The Dilemma
In practice, I believe this is the dilemma:
A. Sarah denies that her words from Jesus are scriptural inspiration.
B. Sarah says that her revelations are classified as private and fallible.
C. Therefore, they are subject to biblical testing.
D. But in effect, the first-person divine voice that she writes in, blurs the category, which is why many theologians and apologists are uncomfortable at least and call it heretical at worst.
E. In the mind of the reader, how can words from Jesus be any less authoritative than the Bible? If the words are from God, how are they not inspired?
F. And if Sarah’s daily writings are mere summarizations of other Bible passages (which summaries are open to scrutiny) then why attribute those words directly to Jesus even if she believes that’s what she heard Jesus tell her? Wouldn’t that be the safer path?
#8 Sola Scriptura
Sola Scriptura — means that the Bible is the only infallible revelation of God. This prohibits any new revelation outside of Scripture — which means that modern claims to hear direct words from Jesus which are presented as divine (rather than clearly personal meditation or paraphrase) is of grave theological concern.
#9 Should Jesus’s words ever be questioned?
The fact that so many have benefited from Jesus Calling is often the justification for squelching scrutiny. Since millions proclaim its praises, this puts critics in a precarious position. This unwittingly makes unqualified readers who have no background in Canonicity, the ultimate judge whether it rises to a level of inspiration. Unfortunately, even questioning whether Sarah’s words are actually from the very mind of Jesus, immediately brands one a mean-spirited ogre. And if anyone attempts to determine if the daily readings accurately reflect Scripture, they are assumed to be questioning Jesus.
#10 Unwittingly Infringing on Scripture
Sarah is unwittingly infringing on the sufficiency of Scripture. Clearly that is not her intent, but she’s nonetheless creating expectations in the minds of many that Scripture is not enough. The truth is that the Bible is not only inspired but it is sufficient which means that the Bible contains everything necessary for salvation, for knowing God, and for living a godly life—no additional binding revelation is required.
#11 Ex-Mormons have serious concerns I hope I have made it clear that I am in no way questioning Sarah’s deep conviction, her motivation, or her love for Jesus. As one who has spent a great deal of time studying how we got our Bible which I believe is inspired, infallible, authoritative and inerrant, this issue matters a great deal. And this is the reason Ex-Mormons have serious concerns with Jesus Calling.
#12 Is Jesus Calling hermeneutically sound? Since I already quoted this, let’s take another look at a snippet of Sarah’s January 1st entry which begins:
I [Jesus] also know the plans I [Jesus] have for you: plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Admittedly, I feel odd examining Jesus’s words… This is a quote from Jeremiah 29:11 as if Jesus said it. Considering the context in which it was written, is this statement true? Is this a promise for every person who reads this at all times and in all circumstances? Could Jesus have said this?
Is this truly a promise that God has plans to prosper us. Is Jesus promising wellbeing for all who trust Him in this new year? If Jesus said it, then it must apply to the first century Christ followers as well. Let’s take a look at whether this was true for the disciples/apostles.
Considering the severe persecution of the Apostles, would health, wealth, and prosperity be hallmarks of their personal experiences? As the author of Hebrews wrote, “For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” (Hebrews 10:34) This verse seems to be in complete contradiction to what Jesus is said to have promised above?
Brian Chilton, who writes for Frank Turek’s “Cross Examined” ministry wrote:
“It is critically important to note that Jeremiah 29:11 is part of Jeremiah’s letter to the Israelites who would become Babylonian exiles. This is key to understanding the context of the verse. If the interpreter misses this point, he or she will not comprehend the nature of the verse. Quite frankly, I do not know that anyone would want this to be their graduation theme because God is telling the nation that they are about to experience difficult days ahead.”
Chilton went on, “Jeremiah 29:11 can be likened to Romans 8:28 which states, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28, CSB). In like manner, God tells those who would be exiled, “I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you … I will restore you to the place from which I deported you” (Jeremiah 29:14, CSB). While the people would face severe difficulty in their days ahead, they could live with the assurance that God would restore the fortunes of their people and their land.”
But many did not live long enough to see their fortunes restored. Did they experience the promised blessings as they entered into 70 years of Babylonian captivity?
So, did Jesus really cherry-pick a verse meant for a beleaguered people who were about to be devastated, and say that this was His plan for all those who would read Jesus Calling?
Further, consider the testimony of the Apostle Paul as he recounted his rather tumultuous journey since following Jesus. Did God have plans to prosper him and not allow harm to come to him?
“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. (2 Corinthians 11:23-27)
Not exactly a life of prosperity! And He was not alone.
Stephen’s martyrdom (Acts 7) — likely early AD 30s.
Paul’s own persecution of Christians before his conversion (Acts 8–9).
James the son of Zebedee executed by Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2, c. AD 44).
James the brother of Jesus executed around AD 62 by High Priest Ananus benAnanus (reported by Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1).
Peter and Paul were executed under Nero.
The Neronic Persecution broke out in AD 64 after Christians were scapegoated for the fire many scholars say that Nero intentionally started. It lasted 2 years and many Christians were martyred. The earliest and most important account comes from Tacitus (Annals 15.44), a hostile but highly credible Roman historian:
“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.”
During the AD 60s, Christians lived and died during extremely tumultuous times.
Being covered in animal skins and torn apart by dogs
Crucifixion
Being burned alive as human torches to light Nero’s gardens at night
State sponsored violence
False accusations
Public executions
Betrayal and fear
Excluded from trade guilds
Accused of secret crimes (incest, cannibalism—misunderstandings of Eucharist language)
Viewed as disloyal for refusing emperor worship
This was the first documented state-sponsored persecution of Christians. Tertullian would later summarize their legacy:
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
In China as I write, there are widespread crackdowns on “house churches”.
Chinese authorities have conducted major police operations against unregistered Protestant congregations — including large raids in Wenzhou (“China’s Jerusalem”), detaining hundreds of worshippers and demolishing church buildings just before Christmas. These actions involved significant police deployment and have been described as among the largest crackdowns on Christians in decades. Source
Arrests of pastors and church members. Multiple leaders and members of underground churches — such as Early Rain Covenant Church — were detained in early January 2026, with some still held in undisclosed locations and charging information limited. Source
China still ranks as a top persecutor of Christians globally. Watchdog lists of countries where Christians face the most severe persecution continue to include China among the worst places for believers. Source
Many scholars and researchers estimate there are 70 million to 100 million+ Christians which includes registered and unregistered (house) churches.
Is this not proof that to apply
I am not trying to be obtuse, but this undermines Sarah’s contention that Jesus uttered this blanket statement to all Christians in all times. It is dubious at best.
I [Jesus] also know the plans I [Jesus] have for you: plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
I truly don’t want to offend people who love Jesus Calling. And, as I said, it’s very difficult to challenge words uttered by Jesus. But I have spent the last 25 years doing everything in my power to promote apologetics and accentuate the Bible’s supreme authority. In this woke, subjective world, I think it’s critically important to maintain the foundations of our faith. And Sola Scriptura is a bedrock. We need to defend the Bible against all skeptics. It’s being viciously attacked from every quarter. And I think the way Sarah has written her Jesus Calling causes major concern.
It can’t be denied: The Jesus of Sarah Young sounds suspiciously like a twenty-first century, Western, middle-aged woman. If this is, indeed, Jesus speaking, we need to explain why he sounds so markedly different from the Jesus of the gospels or the Jesus of the book of Revelation. Nowhere in Scripture do we find Jesus (or his Father) speaking like this: “When your Joy in Me meets My Joy in you, there are fireworks of heavenly ecstasy.” Or again, “Wear my Love like a cloak of Light, covering you from head to toe.” And, “Bring me the sacrifice of your precious time. This creates sacred space around you—space permeated with My Presence and My Peace.” Why does Jesus suddenly speak in such different language?
#14 Is the sole criteria of a book’s validity the fact that many praise it? Many are inclined to think so. But are we are challenged to be faithful Bereans, testing everything against the Bible. We do it with every book except Jesus Calling. It is bulletproofed because Sarah proclaims she’s written the direct words of Jesus?
Will it help people? The testimony of millions shout, “Yes and Amen”. But is that the proper measuring stick? People benefit from unsound theological books all the time. Many came to Christ because of the fear mongering of being “Left Behind” after reading the Late Great Planet Earth…which, in my view, was one of the most biblically unsound books written in the modern era. God can and does use all means to shape and mold His people. But, the question is, is it prudent to use Jesus Calling when there are hundreds of soundly written devotionals which don’t speak in first person Jesus? And if you say yes, who’s going to pick up the pieces when a torrent of similar books flood the scene blurring the lines of biblical inspiration and authority?
In regard to recent conversations I have had dealing with the rise of lawlessness in this nation, especially among those on the left who are accelerating their obstruction to law enforcement efforts by ICE to rid communities of criminal illegals, I am including a section from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome.
Keep in mind when reading this, that when this letter was written, Rome, while yet to see the rise of the beast Nero and his fanatical persection of Christians, was still no friend to the followers of Christ. Previous to his letter ( approximately 57 AD) , the emperor Caligula (37-41 AD) had commanded images of himself to be set up in temples and worshipped and claimed to be divine. Not exactly someone who would view both the Jews and Christians with a great deal of admiration!
I chose a particular translation of the Bible that I rarely use ( I prefer the New American Standard Bible) but which I found to have a very good rendering of chapter 13 of his letter.
From the New Testament for Everyone translation: Romans 13: 1- 5:
“Every person must be subject to the ruling authorities. There is no authority, you see, except from God, and those that exist have been put in place by God. As a result, anyone who rebels against authority is resisting what God has set up, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terrors for people who do good, but only for people who do evil.
If you want to have no fear of the ruling power, do what is good, and it will praise you. It is God’s servant, you see, for you and your good. But if you do evil, be afraid; the sword it carries is no empty gesture. It is God’s servant, you see: an agent of justice to bring his anger on evildoers. That is why it is necessary to submit, not only to avoid punishment but because of conscience.”
There is so much to unpack in this which time and space preclude me from entering into, but a quick synopsis is appropos to the woman who was shot and killed while interfering with the law enforcement actions of ICE.
The Scriptures teach us that man’s nature has been corrupted by sin as a result of the fall of Adam Without some sort of restraint upon his tendency to do evil, life here would soon become a horror and freedom would vanish. The law of the jungle would prevail in which the strong would dominate the weak and crush those who refuse to submit to their will. God, in his infinite goodness, therefore has given us institutions that are there to restrain this tendency towards evil. One of those is what Paul is referring to.
Consider for a moment this statement from the book of Ecclesiastes:
“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully given to do evil. “ (Eccl 8:11)
When there are no consequences to lawbreaking, evil increases in a land. Tell me that this is not the very truth we are learning at this time in our country? Yet the means to avoid this is to understand what the Apostle Paul is teaching us; namely, that God has given the governing authorities “the sword”, the instrument to punish evildoers in his day, to mete out His vengeance against lawlessness. As he states, they are “His agents of justice to bring His anger upon evildoers.”
Those who resist the efforts of our law enforcement agents to rid our communities of violent illegals are not merely resisting these officers, but God Himself. Removing evildoers from our midst, those who have no legal right to be here in the first place I should add, is the express plan of God to provide for our good and our safety. Yet we see a growing number of radical leftists, egged on by their corrupt political leaders, constantly inserting themselves into this process and interfering with it, obstructing it in every manner possible.
Yet in spite of the absolute clarity of the Apostle Paul in this matter, there are still some “professing Christians” who are defending these lawbreakers and acting as their apologists. Those that do so have no understanding of the Scriptures, nor do they understand the ordinances that God has provided out of His goodness to curb the proliferation of evil.
Instead they cry up a false Christ who is all about love and knows nothing of justice nor of righteousness. Their idea of the love of Christ is that He sits idly by allowing evil to prosper and overrun societies to the point that they soon devolve into hell holes of wickedness and death. The more innocent people are killed by criminals, the more women are raped, the more drugs ravage our communities, the more robberies, vandalism and theft left unchecked, apparently the more these clueless “christians” believe that the love of Christ is demonstrated. What fools these have become!
I will leave you with some quotations from various passages in Scripture:
“The wicked strut about on every side, when vileness is exalted among the sons of mankind.: (Psalm 12:8)
“An unjust person is an abomination to the righteous, and one who is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked” (Proverbs 29:27)
“Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.” (Psalm 34:21)
“By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is torn down.” (Proverbs 11:11)
“The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates.” (Psalm 11:5)
Daniel 7, a hotbed for eschatological theorizing, continues to baffle commentators, past and present. The solution to the identity of the Ancient of Days is in my opinion, one that is without controversy. The most common designation this obviously Divine character is God himself. This view largely stems from the reading of the text.
Variant renderings are:
The Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days
The Son of Man comes as the Ancient of Days
In the first rendering the Father is meant. In the second it refers to the Son. Can we solve
this debate of Who is the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7?
Have you ever overlooked the obvious when it was right in front of you? Objects like eyeglasses sitting on your desk, but you search all over the house because you can’t find them.
Recently, I had difficulty finding the exit in the airport. Over the weekend, I flew to San
Francisco, CA from Memphis. The first stop was Minneapolis. It was a long trek through the airport to the terminal. I made it with no problem. From there, it was off to San Francisco. Again, no problem navigating my way through the airport.
On the return trip, I flew into Detroit. Again, another long trek for my connecting flight. Even took the shuttle without getting lost. But, making my way back to Memphis, I could not recognize what was right in front of me, the exit to baggage claim.
Instead, I took a circuitous scenic stroll through the airport before figuring out I was headed the wrong way. The exit was so obvious I missed it. But I turned around and retraced my steps and the within a few steps of the gate from which I exited the plane was the baggage terminal.
Well, that’s the way today’s topic is, a few steps away. Follow the article and I will serve as your tour guide to the solution to a problem that baffles many.
The answer lies in how one approaches the text of Daniel 7:13. The clues supporting the solution we offer can be verified from several passages in the New Testament.
But first, look at the clues from the text which are:
The natural division in Daniel 7.
The inspired interpretation in the chapter
The evidence from the gospels
The evidence from the Apocalypse
The Natural Division
The question, “Who is the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7?“, is answered by noting the natural division of the chapter. The chapter is divided into two main segments.
The first is the dream, 1–16.
The second is the interpretation of the dream, 17–28.
To interpret divine dreams requires divine inspiration. As noted in Daniel chapter 2, “There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets.”
God had made known to Daniel the interpretation of the image in chapter two. (2:19, 28). Why should we expect anything different here? Daniel’s own words express his utter inability to interpret the dream.
“I, Daniel was grieved in my spirit within my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.” (v. 15) How did the prophet spell apocalyptic relief? He asked God for the answer. Simple enough? We think so.
“I came near to one of those who stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things.” (7:16).
Ah! What a revelation? What an ingenious method for understanding the scriptures. Just
ask God for the answer. Daniel walked away with a headache after hearing the meaning of the dream, but now its cause is not from ignorance or not knowing. Rather, it is from knowing what the dream meant. What follows in verses 16–27 is God’s answer to Daniel.
Luckily for us, the clues to identify the Ancient of Days are found in this section. Whatever may be the obscurity in translating the Hebrew in verse 13, is eliminated by the
more lucid text in verses 21–22:
“I was watching; and the same horn was
making war with against the saints, and
prevailing against them until the Ancient
of Days came, and a judgment was made
in favor of the Most High, and the time
came for the saints to possess the kingdom.
In the vision, the saints are Christians who engage in battle against the little horn. There
is no possible way this could happen in A.D. 30. Many want to make it the Ascension of Christ to the Father, but there was no war going on between Christians and their enemy at the ascension.
Why, because there was no enemy of Christians prior to Christ’s ascension (Acts 1:11). Why? Because there were no Christians before Jesus ascended to the Father. *(The Jews were enemies of Christ and His followers throughout Jesus’s ministry, but the more severe persecution didn’t ramp up until quite some time after the ascension. cwc)
Thus, no judgment could be rendered to stop an ongoing battle against the saints (Christians) and the little horn at that time. That forever rules out Pentecost of A.D. 30 as a viable solution. The battle continues until a judgment is rendered in the saint’s favor against the little horn with whom they were at war.
The focus is the eschatological judgment resulting in the kingdom being awarded in their favor. See Matthew 25:31–34. At the coming of the Son of Man, the saints inherit the kingdom. Thus, according to the interpretation in the vision, it is the Ancient of Days who comes in judgment.
That refers to Christ, not the Father.
Further evidences for this view are the parallel texts in the gospels. Matthew 24:30, speaks of the coming of the Son of Man in judgment upon Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The text is quoted from Daniel 7:13. Jesus, in this verse, identifies himself as the Son of Man who comes as the Ancient of Days in judgment.
Because the Jews knew this figure represented a Divine being in the apocalyptic imagery, is evidence from Caiaphas’ charge that Christ, again referring to the Danielic text, blasphemed.
But Jesus kept silent, And the high priest answered and said to Him, I put you under
oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!”
Jesus said to him, It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, ‘He has spoken blasphemy!…(Matthew 26:64, 65)
The text is a direct allusion to Daniel 7:13, and the coming of the Son of Man. Jesus claims to be the Ancient of Days, hence a divine being resulted in his conviction of a crime worthy of crucifixion.
Evidence from Revelation
Finally, the book of Revelation gives clues as to the true identify of the Ancient of Days. Once again, there can be no mistake that Christ is the reference. Consider the description of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7:9. He adorns a garment white as snow, and hair like pure wool.
Compare the vision in Revelation:
Chapter 1:13, shows the High Priest, i.e. the Most High, among the seven lamp stands, and
in their midst, one like the Son of Man. . .
Observe the attire.
“. . . clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters.”
This is the description of the Ancient of Days. The identity is unmistakable. The Son of Man is Jesus, the Christ.
Pastor Zach Davis, in his 3rd rebuttal of Brian Schwertley’s frontal attack on fuliflled eschatology, made the point that Daniel 7, Rev 1, Acts 1, Matt 24; Matt 26; and 1 Thess 4 cannot be separated. They all speak of the same cloud coming. At the 14:48 video mark, Zach also addressed the common assumption that Daniel 7:13 is referring to Christ’s ascension. Given the arguments by William Bell, Zach Davis and FF Bruce, the evidence seems conclusive that Daniel 7 is referring to Christ’s coming in judgment in the Jewish /Roman War circa AD 66-70.
I believe that I can speak for most Bible-believing Christians when I say that we have watched in utter dismay at the moral madness that has descended upon our beloved nation.
It has been going on for many years now as the nation descends further into lawlessness and wickedness, straying far from its Judeo-Christian roots, but the climax has been the unnatural and perverse ideology that accepts the premise that there are some men who believe that they are actually women, trapped in a man’s body. This entirely devilish doctrine charges God, the creator of all things and sustainer of all things, with making a grave mistake when giving life to His creatures.
In all my years of existence on this earth, I have never witnessed something so utterly stupid and idiotic and yet we have a major political party in this nation which not only sees nothing wrong or unnatural about this, but actually goes out of its way to malign anyone who challenges this nonsense.
That this thinking has been accepted by far too many is yet another sign of God giving some over to a reprobate mind so that they believe a lie. That is the reason I watched this election closely as I genuinely feared that we had gone too far and sinned against light to such a degree that God had washed His hands of this land.
Yet, we have good reason to give thanks to our longsuffering and most merciful and gracious God who hearkened to the prayers of His people, pleading with Him to spare us and our children from any more of this madness. The outcome of this election has granted us a reprieve from our misery.
In considering this moment of grace, I was reminded of a passage in the book of Ezra, chapter 9, which dealt with the situation that the remnant of Israel, who had been in captivity to Babylon and had now returned to their own land which was under the jurisdiction of the Persian empire, were facing.
After their initial return to the land, some of the princes of their nation had taken wives from among the original inhabitants of the land, (the Canaanites and others such as the Moabites, Egyptians and Ammonites) and had also fathered children from these unions. This had been expressly forbid by the Lord in the law of Moses which stated categorically that the holy race was NOT to intermarry among the inhabitants of the land. God in His infinite wisdom knew that these unions would lead Israel into idolatry and unfaithfulness, along with all the perversions that these nations had been guilty of.
When Ezra was informed of this, he was both heartbroken, angry, dismayed and crushed as he knew how grievous an offense this was against the Law and that it was sins like this which had provoked the anger of God that had led Him to hurl them out of the land of promise and into their long Babylonian captivity. This godly man trembled when he learned of this, tore his garment and fell to the ground to beg the Lord’s forgiveness. It is a portion of his prayer which I believe that the Lord, through His good Spirit, brought to my mind this past evening and that is what I wish to share with you.
“Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity and to plunder and to open shame, as it is this day. 8 But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage.” (Ezra 9:7-8)
Ezra understood that God had been incredibly gracious to this remnant and his fear was that they had already forgotten how merciful He had been with them and were taking for granted this respite from their bondage. He called for action on the part of those who had committed these sins which would denote a true and genuine repentance.
I believe that God, in much the same way, has granted our nation a “brief moment of grace” in spite of our provocations. Let us not go on our merry ways, taking this mercy from heaven for granted, and returning to our sins but rather let us show Him out gratitude for His kindness by striving to live so as to please Him, walking righteously and with integrity and humility. Remember, to whom much is given, much is required. Do not allow the awful sin of ingratitude to overcome us but rather take time to meditate on His goodness to we who are so undeserving of all the kindnesses He has shown to us.
I am including a large portion of chapter 9 below so that you can read it and get the full impact of it.
Yours in Christ Jesus,
Dan Norcini SS
“But at the evening offering I arose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to the Lord my God; 6 and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. 7 Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity and to plunder and to open shame, as it is this day.
8 But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage. 9 For we are slaves; yet in our bondage our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
10 “Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, 11 which You have commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from end to end and with their impurity. 12 So now do not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or their prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever.’
13 After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, since You our God have requited us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us an escaped remnant as this, 14 shall we again break Your commandments and intermarry with the peoples who commit these abominations? Would You not be angry with us to the point of destruction, until there is no remnant nor any who escape? 15 O Lord God of Israel, You are righteous, for we have been left an escaped remnant, as it is this day; behold, we are before You in our guilt, for no one can stand before You because of this.” (Ezra 9: 7-15)
I have been a believer in fulfilled prophecy for over eight years now. At the beginning of my journey, the two biggest hurdles to overcome as a partial preterist were the resurrection of the dead and the millennium. These two items are likely the two biggest items of debate within the preterist world still today. I began to study these two items deeply, and immediately after accepting the one and only second coming of Christ in AD70, I joined a private email study group composed of all the major public proponents of what is called the “Corporate Body View” (hereafter, “CBV”) of the resurrection.
If you are not familiar with this view, it is essentially that the “resurrection of the dead,” specifically in texts like 1 Cor. 15, does not refer to individual dead people departing Hades, but to the corporate or collective body of saints, both alive and dead, coming out of Judaism and into the church or the “body” of Christ. I quickly adopted this view because it seemed tremendously logical and straightforward. I immersed myself into the works of Max King, who was considered to have written the definitive work explaining a corporate body view of the resurrection of the dead. I have written a few articles on the subject over the years, and spoken at three different Preterist Pilgrim Weekends on the subject of resurrection.
As I continued to study these subjects and engage other preterist Christians who had different views on the resurrection, I started seeing problems with many of the arguments made to defend a corporate body view of the resurrection of the dead. This paper seeks to analyze those problems and propose a solution.
Each titled section in this paper is a critique of the each of the most important arguments made in the CBV. At the end, I offer a possible solution that honors the corporate and covenantal aspects of the story from Genesis to Revelation, but also gives clarity to what happened (and happens today?) to the individual.
“Our Body”
It could easily be said that the most foundational argument of the CBV is that the use of the phrase “our body” (a plural possessive pronoun with a singular noun) by Paul in resurrection-related passages indicates that only a corporate body resurrection can be in view and that numerous individual bodies cannot be in view. This has been the view of every CBV speaker at all the Preterist Pilgrim Weekends on the topic of resurrection – Preston, Scott, Bell, Curtis, etc., and was specifically the argument made by King in “The Cross and the Parousia.” It is based on a basic Greek grammar rule which says that generally, pronouns and nouns should agree in number. Therefore, if the noun “body” is singular following a plural pronoun such as “our,” then the meaning is to be understood as a single corporate “body” (group, collective) to which everyone who is addressed belongs.
However, there are exceptions to this Greek rule, and context determines which way it goes. It was possible to use a plural possessive pronoun with a singular noun in order to put emphasis on the noun. This usage was not meant to communicate the existence of only one noun collectively for all those represented by the plural pronoun. I will demonstrate this by looking at some advanced Greek Grammars and citing some scriptural examples. Those examples will also be looked at via the context of surrounding passages.
In Wallace’s Grammar (pg. 399-406), he lists several categories of pronoun/noun number agreement: “collective singular subjects, compound subjects, indefinite plurals, and categorical plurals.” Both Robertson’s Grammar and Blass and Debrunner’s Grammar discuss this phenomenon, calling them “idiomatic plurals and singulars,” and constructio ad sensum (“construction according to the sense”), respectively. Turner’s Grammar says that using a plural pronoun with a singular noun in order to put emphasis on the noun, but not deny the plurality of the noun, was a common Hebraism: “Contrary to normal Greek and Latin practice, the NT sometimes follows the Aramaic and Hebrew preference for a distributive singular. Something belonging to each person in a group is placed in the singular: as in, TO SOMA HUMON (1 Cor. 6:19) and EN TE KARDIA AUTON (Luke 1:66).”
Therefore, according to the rules of grammar, it wouldn’t be wrong to first consider the singular noun option, but the plural noun should also be considered; it could go either way based on context. The words “our (plural) body (singular)” in and of themselves do not prove a corporate body is in view.
The primary singular body CBV texts are: Romans 8:23 (NASB) “And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body”; and Philippians 3:21 (NASB)“who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”
Romans is challenging because concepts of corporate identity exist throughout – identity based on the law, on sin, and on covenant. “Flesh” (Greek: sarx) is a word used by Paul, which is often argued by CBV advocates to be a mode of existence based on the Law (in fact, I wrote a paper on this very position about 7 years ago, borrowing mostly from Max King). Indeed, life under the law was a “wretched” existence according to Paul (7:24). This is a good and acceptable understanding of “flesh” here in Romans 7 & 8.
However, “the flesh” had a more protracted meaning than “covenantal mode of existence” in the ancient Greek, and in Paul’s writings. According to the highly respected scholar F.F. Bruce (Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, 1977), “flesh” primarily referred to human nature, and was seen as the locus of temptation and sin; not literally in biological tissue, but more holistically in the individual as a whole person. That is, when one would say “his mind was set on the flesh” they meant he was living according to his own human nature, not brought under control by the mind of God through His Spirit (e.g. Gal. 5:16-21).
Of course, a corporate solidarity exists for those who were under the Law, for they all shared the same fate and were all under the same covenant. But the meaning of “in the flesh” should not be stretched beyond its normal use in order to exclude it – that is, it would be incorrect to define the meaning of “in the flesh” as only a covenantal “mode of existence” to the exclusion of the individual’s human nature as sinful. The human nature is general and primary; the covenantal mode of existence is specific within that general category. One text that makes this point clear is Galatians 2:18-20.
(ESV) “For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. (19) For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. (20) I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
It is clear here that being under the law is not the same as being in the flesh, since Paul said that he died to the law yet was still in the flesh. And, Gentiles who had not formerly known God or were in a covenantal mode of existence under the Law were also said to be “in the flesh” (see Gal. 4:8-9 with 5:13ff). So it might be better stated that being “in the flesh” in the above texts is not specifically talking about biological tissue, and while a having covenantal background are most certainly and primarily talking about being “human.”
What is problematic to the single-body view of Romans 8:23 is the plurality of individuals discussed throughout that chapter. For example:
(8:11) (NASB) “…will also give life to your mortal bodies”
Verse 11 is a tricky verse for the CBV advocates. Over my years of study with them on this, no solid contextual answer has ever been given without resorting to a lot of imposing of foreign concepts into the text. Next we will look at verse 13:
(8:13) (NASB) “for if you [plural] are living according to the flesh, you [plural] must die; but if by the Spirit you [plural] are putting to death the deeds of the body, you [plural] will live.”
Contextually it cannot be the deeds of a corporate body (such as of Moses, Adam or Christ) being put to death, but rather must be the individual deeds of each person because of what is said in the next verse:
(8:14) NASB “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
Paul’s point was that there were individual members of the body of Christ who were not putting to death the sinful deeds of their own individual selves, with the result that some would live (spiritually) and some would die (spiritually). This is seen clearly by Paul’s use of “so then” (Greek: ara) in 8:12, which is a particle denoting inference, the drawing of a decisive conclusion regarding the “mortal bodies”:
(8:12) NASB“So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.”
Since each individual Roman believers had been set free from the law of sin and death, they each one then must not live according to the sinful human nature aroused by the law. Why? Because (a) the Spirit was within each of them, and (b) they were about to suffer with Christ through the great persecution, which would (c) result in each one who overcomes being glorified with Christ:
(8:16-17) NASB “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, (17) and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
The CBV also misses or de-emphasizes the theme of martyrdom in this chapter. The second half of Romans 8 (vs. 18-39) is built around a promise to people (in Rome) about to be martyred under the persecution of Nero, and is meant to teach them that when they are martyred they will be glorified like Christ was after his martyrdom. This Neronic persecution, which followed the Jewish persecution they were then receiving, was the “suffering” and “pains of childbirth” in Rom. 8:18 & 22 (cf. Matt. 24:7-9):
Romans 8:18, 22 NASB “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us… (22) For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”
So when we get to the phrase “redemption of our body” (8:23), a singular noun with a plural pronoun, it does not prove that ONLY one body (i.e. a corporate body) would be raised. Individual “bodies” is what Paul meant in this chapter when he used the word “soma,” based on its use in verse 11 (“your mortal bodies”). Paul would be using the idiomatic plural here, a Hebraic construction, or constructio ad sensum (construction according to the sense).
In addition to all the plural nouns applicable to each Roman Christian in this chapter (“sons,” “heirs,” “hearts,” “saints”), we can see here that the promise was that the Spirit would help each individual person in their weakness, searching each person’s heart:
(8:26-27) NASB “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; (27) and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
This was not a promise to the weakness of a corporate body (notice “our weakness” is a plural pronoun with a singular noun); that would be incredibly impotent and impersonal with the upcoming tribulation. Rather, it was to the “hearts” of the “saints.”
This is further confirmed towards the end, once the entire chapter is read as a whole in its context of persecution and distress:
(8:35-36) NASB “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (36) Just as it is written, ‘FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.’” [emphasis NASB]
The second primary text for a singular corporate body resurrection is Phil. 3:21. Max King (The Cross & the Parousia, pg. 565-573) identified Phil. 3:21 as a clear text that showed that “body” meant a corporate group, not the individual person:
Philippians 3:20-21 ESV “(20) But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (21) who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
There are several problems with a corporate body view here. I will engage these problems in three major points.
First, what is the lowly body? The phrase “lowly body” (ESV), “vile body” (KJV), “body of our humble state” (NASB) in Greek is soma tes tapeinoseos, which literally is “body of our humiliation.” It is usually claimed in the CBV that the “lowly body” is the corporate body of Israel to which the Apostle and other Jews were still in the process of dying (TC&TP, pg. 572). This is argued primarily because Paul discussed the Judaizing “dogs” earlier in Phil. 3, and expressed his historic solidarity with Israel and his movement out of the Law of Moses. King argues:
“Since the law set forth a mode of somatic existence wherein sin and death were able to reign, it follows that victory through Christ is by means of a new mode of existence wherein life and righteousness reign. We conclude, therefore, that (1) somatic change is determined by a change in one’s mode of existence, (2) this is accomplished through a change from the Old to the New covenant, (3) covenantal change was the specific design of Christ’s pre-end-of-the-age reign, and from that viewpoint, Paul ties somatic change in v. 21 to the working of Christ.” [Emphasis King’s] (pg. 573)
While I disagree with King’s interpretation of this text as applied to the “body,” I am not denying the overlapping of covenants during this transition period nor Paul’s past as a Jew under the Law. The problem for King is there are no actual written statements by NT authors or direct, concrete evidence that covenantal change = somatic change. This is a theory, strung together on facts assumed to connect to each other, much like how reformed theories of atonement are strung together. This will become clearer as we continue.
A basic rule of preterist interpretation is to pay attention to the pronouns and see who is being addressed. The pronoun “our” in Phil. 3:20 contextually can only be Paul’s entire audience in Philippi (at least, all those who are “perfect”):
Philippians 3:15 NASB “Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;”
The church in Philippi was likely composed of Jews (cf. Acts 16:12ff; Lydia likely being a Jewish proselyte), but also of Greeks who never would have been in the corporate body of Israel. The text doesn’t indicate two lowly corporate bodies (one for Jews and the other for Gentiles), so the context of “our” being all of Paul’s audience in Philippi precludes the typical corporate body view of dying to old covenant Israel, since the Greeks were never in the old covenant body of Moses (and I will demonstrate later that Gentile converts to Christ did not enter into the old covenant body of Moses). It would have to be some other “covenantal body” which included both Jews and Greeks that Paul had in mind if he was indeed referring to a corporate body.
Some CBV advocates say the “body of humiliation” is not the old covenant body of Moses as King specified, but rather is the body of Christ, the church, which did contain both Jews and Gentiles. If the “lowly body” was the church/the body of Christ, then it seems to contradict other more specific passages about the church being “pure, spotless, undefiled, a bride,” etc.
2 Corinthians 11:2 ESV “For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.”
Ephesians 5:25-27 ESV “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (26) that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, (27) so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
1 Peter 2:4, 5, 7a, 9 ESV “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, (5) you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ… (7) So the honor is for you who believe … (9) But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Do any of these passages sound like the body of Christ is “lowly” or of “humble state”? While possible, it doesn’t seem intuitively likely.
Leaving the discussion on the “lowly body” for a brief moment, I’d like to look at the context of the entire epistle, which I believe shows that the best meaning of “lowly body” is the individual person. Every other instance of this word “lowly” (Greek: tapeinosei) – three other times in the NT – refer to specific individuals found in a state of humiliation (see Luke 1:48; Acts 8:33; James 1:10).
Here in Phil. 3:21, the form of this word is a noun. The verb form of this word, etapeinosen, is used of Jesus just one chapter earlier in Phil 2:8 (ESV):
“(6) who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (8) And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Notice that the verb points to Jesus’ humble state as a “human.” This fits with every other NT use of this word. The most logical way to determine this word’s meaning is to see how Paul used it elsewhere in the same letter. As we have already seen, he used it in reference to Jesus’ “human form,” which leads to the simple conclusion that Paul was referring to the individual human, not the church, when he used the phrase “lowly body.”
Second, notice in the preceding verse (3:20) the location of both the citizenship and the Savior: “heaven.” The most straightforward contextual explanation is that the individual bodies of the saints in Philippi would be transformed into the same type of heavenly body as Jesus possessed in heaven. In refutation of this, CBV advocates usually point out the corporate solidarity Paul had as a Jew with the Law and the body of Moses from previous verses in chapter 3. While Paul certainly identified as belonging to that community, he also thoroughly repudiated it (3:7-8). Paul then made a personal plea for his own individual resurrection: “that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (3:11). One’s covenantal status surely dictated the end result in the resurrection, but this does not negate the individual tone clearly present in this text.
At this point, CBV advocates usually counter-argue (as I have done in the past) that the fact that Paul would say he hoped “by any means possible” to “attain the resurrection,” followed by “not that I’ve already obtained it,” would be an odd thing to say if he is talking about a corpse resurrection, or even an invisible individual bodily resurrection out of Hades, since it would be obvious that he hadn’t obtained it yet because he was still living! And, if it was the general resurrection of the dead, doesn’t everyone (both the just and the unjust) participate in it to be judged? If so, why would Paul “hope” to be part of something that he had no choice over?
While I am certainly not arguing for a corpse resurrection, I do believe that Paul used rhetoric designed to demonstrate that even in his imprisonment, he felt he hadn’t yet “completed the race” of his apostolic ministry as it were. This seems to reflect some sort of maturity benchmark. Notice 2 Timothy, which would be during Paul’s last imprisonment before his death:
2 Timothy 2:3-10 ESV “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. (4) No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. (5) An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. (6) It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. (7) Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. (8) Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, (9) for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! (10) Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”
Though the Greek word here for “may obtain” is not exactly the same as “may attain” in Phil. 3:11-12, it is very similar in meaning and communicates the same idea. This passage clearly describes striving for maturity and holiness as striving for salvation and the attainment of glory, just as Paul did in Phil. 3. “Striving” is very uncomfortable for evangelicals based on our “grace vs. works” mentality. But we know from what we read above that Paul clearly saw the need to continue to strive for holiness and perfection “in order to attain” both resurrection and salvation.
1 John 3 also emphasizes purity in connection with seeing Christ, which I believe is connected with the idea of seeing God “face to face” (or “eye to eye”).
1 John 3:2-3 ESV “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (3) And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
Notice the emphasis on purifying oneself. This connects with the striving theme above. I might also note here that this passage seems to strongly indicate a transformation of each/all of the children into being like Christ at his parousia, rather than a legal transformation of a corporate body. This seems intuitively clear by how John said he and they didn’t know what they would be like when Jesus returned. If this was talking about covenant transition, this would be a ridiculous thing to say since they were preaching exactly what a new covenant without an old covenant would look like.
One of the most important examples of striving till the end might be Revelation 3. In the seven letters, some are told that if they endure to the end (i.e. if they die as martyrs in the persecution), they will be saved. But some, because of their spiritual maturity, will get to skip the whole tribulation:
Rev. 3:10-11 ESV “Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. (11) I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.
The implications of this are interesting and are more than we can discuss here. The point remains that it is not outside the scope of Paul’s teaching for him to write “not that I have attained it” in order to emphasize continued need to work and strive for holiness.
Third, it’s not just in Phil. 3:21 where Paul employs a plural possessive pronoun with a singular noun (“our body”). The two preceding verses (3:19-20) have four occurrences: “whose end is destruction,” “whose god is their appetite,” “whose glory is their shame,” and “our citizenship is in heaven.” Each of the Christ-deniers had their own destruction, their own appetite, and their own shame. Each citizen of heaven had their own citizenship. One might argue that there was a corporate solidarity in each of the two groups, and that is certainly true, but we can know for certain that the singular nouns were distributive because of how Paul employed a plural noun with a plural pronoun in the same sentence construction: “who set their minds on earthly things.” Paul had no problem switching between singular and plural nouns with plural pronouns.
A rather clear example of how Paul employed the plural possessive pronoun with a singular noun to give emphasis to the noun, yet acknowledge the obvious plurality of the noun, is 1 Thess. 5:23.
(ESV) “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Notice how “your” is plural, but the nouns “spirit,” “soul,” and “body” are singular. Paul didn’t mean the corporate spirit, soul and body of the Thessalonian church, he meant the individual spirits, souls and bodies of the Thessalonian saints might be kept until the Parousia. CBV advocates use this text in this way to prove imminence and audience relevance, and they are right to do so. Yet, Paul uses “your (plural) body (singular)” here in Thessalonians, which is the same grammatical construct as “our body” in the two disputed texts.
Other examples of the plural possessive pronoun with a singular noun, but meaning a plurality of the noun distributed to each individual, are:
Luke 6:22 ESV “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!”
Romans 8:16 ESV “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,”
Romans 8:26 ESV “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
2 Corinthians 1:12 NASB “For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you.”
2 Corinthians 6:11 NASB “Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide.”
1 Thessalonians 2:17 NASB “But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while–in person, not in spirit–were all the more eager with great desire to see your face.”
James 3:3 NASB “Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well.”
Revelation 13:16 NASB “And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead”
The James 3:3 passage is very important, because here we clearly see the singular “body” meaning multiple horses’ bodies.
After looking at all the evidence regarding plural possessive pronouns with singular nouns, it is clear that the CBV claim that the phrase “our body” must be a corporate body is not only contrary to the rules of Greek grammar, but also is contrary to the context of the passages in view.
“Are Being Raised”
A major pillar of the CBV is Paul’s use of the present passive indicative (“PPI”) verb form in 1 Corinthians 15 For example, the numerously used phrase in the text, “are raised,” is argued to technically be, “are being raised.” This is meant to show that there was a dying/rising process underway when Paul wrote. If people were in the process of dying and rising in AD57 when 1 Corinthians was written, then this must prove that the resurrection of the body must be the corporate body of Christ referred to earlier in 1 Cor. 12, so the argument goes. Specifically, this dying and rising process was integrally tied to the changing of the covenants – dying to the law and rising to Christ in the process of redemption and salvation.
Jack Scott taught this view at the 2009 PPW (I was present), Sam Frost wrote about it in his book “Exegetical Essays on the Resurrection,” and William Bell wrote an article on it in Fulfilled! Magazine in 2013. None of them, however, except Scott, site any Greek authorities, who cited from Machen’s “New Testament Greek for Beginners.” Machen said that translating the present passive indicative verb as an ongoing action can communicate better in English, but he also gives caution about doing so.
More advanced Greek studies indicate that the PPI need not always be translated as ongoing, and many times are not unless the context clearly indicates the need for such. A PPI can be an event in the past, an event in the present, an ongoing event in the present, or an event in the future. Greek is complex like that.
Context determines.
Wallace notes several nuances of the present tense: The progressive present, where the action is an ongoing process; the iterative present, where an action repeatedly happens; the gnomic present, where the statement indicates a timeless fact; the futuristic present, where the action is an event in the future. There is also the aorist present, the historical present, and the periphrastic present.
One such example (among many) is 1 Corinthians 3:11 NASB “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” “Is laid” is a present passive indicative verb, but it would be wrong to translate it “is being laid,” since that foundation was already laid; what was ongoing was the building upon the foundation (see 3:10). This is an example of a gnomic present. Another example is 1 Corinthians 12:8 NASB “For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit.” Just as in the previous use in 1 Corinthians, the PPI here is not an ongoing process for the individual, but a specific event in the past. The Spirit had already poured out these gifts to the Corinthians, who were employing them in incorrect ways.
In 1 Cor. 15, every time Paul refers to the resurrection of the dead he uses the present passive form, except for one instance at the end, 15:52, where he uses the future passive indicative: “the dead will be raised.” Since according to Wallace the future tense does not admit any present progressive aspect, and since there is no reason to think that Paul was discussing two different resurrections of the dead in this chapter, it seems contradictory for him to imply a progressive aspect in previous instances then deny it in vs. 52. If Paul wanted to indicate a progressive aspect of the resurrection, he would have used a periphrastic future in vs 52 to express this idea (see Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pg. 648).
My point in raising this is not to say that “are raised” cannot be an ongoing action, but that it incorrect to say it must be ongoing simply because it is a present passive indicative. Again, the context of the chapter will determine how to understand what would be raised at the Parousia.
The Prophetic Background
Hosea and the prophets are used in the CBV to demonstrate the covenant change which was underway in the first century. This then is used to prove that the “body” in 1 Cor. 15 is the corporate body of Israel (from Hosea) being raised into the corporate body of Christ. This is a very strong and powerful argument.
Without denying the covenantal death that Israel as a nation was in because of their sin (Hos. 6:1-3; 8:1, 8; 13:1, 12-13), there is also an individual aspect in the passage quoted by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:55. Hosea moves from the corporate identity of “Ephraim” in 13:12 to a plurality of persons in Sheol (Hades):
Hosea 13:14 ESV “Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.”
“Sheol” was the location of the dead in Hebrew thought. Some CBV advocates deny this, claiming Sheol is symbolic for the grave, which is symbolic of covenant death (cut off from the presence of God as a nation). While I agree with the connection to covenant death, a word study of Sheol in the entire OT shows that this word does not fit for grave in most of its uses (see Morey, Death and the Afterlife, pg. 72-93). Sheol as the underworld location of the dead was common in ANE thought and was used throughout the Second Temple literature. One can correctly argue that the word pictures were highly metaphoric and apocalyptically styled (i.e. not to be taken as a literal description), but there is no evidence that Second Temple writers or their audience understood “Sheol” as only a metaphor for covenant death and nothing else. Furthermore, not once did Jesus or any apostle redefine Sheol as a word which held no meaning other than as a metaphor for “covenant death.” Likely the most important NT demonstrating this is Acts 2:31-32, where Peter speaks of Jesus having neither having his flesh see decay in the tomb nor his person being abandoned in the realm of Hades (as most of his contemporaries would have believed).
Paul also referenced Isaiah 25:8 in 1 Cor. 15:54. Covenant judgment in Isaiah 24-27 is absolutely at the forefront. However, it’s not a corporate “body” that is found in this text, but many individual “bodies:”
Isaiah 26:19 (ESV) “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead [plural].”
In fact, there’s not one location in the entire OT where the word “body” is used in a corporate manner, specifically in regard to resurrection language. The only time “body” is used, it is in the plural (Isa. 26:19). The whole “house” of Israel will be raised (Ezek. 37:11), but even here there are plural “graves” (37:12-13) for the “people.” I’m not arguing a literal grave resurrection in Ezekiel; that is not the meaning of this text. My point is that “body” is not used as a singular noun to represent a corporate body in the prophets; when the prophets spoke of resurrection, they say a national/corporate identity resurrection, and a personal individual resurrection out of the realm of the dead.
“Body” in 1 Corinthians
Another argument sometimes made by CBV advocates is how Paul used “body” in a corporate manner throughout 1 Corinthians, so when he gets to chapter 15 he is just continuing that same meaning. It goes without saying that there is not one scholar or expositor who agrees with this, so the burden of proof is on the one making this claim. Nevertheless, I will deconstruct this argument by looking at all the 1 Corinthians passages that have the word “body” in them:
1 Corinthians 5:3 NASB “For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.”
This is Paul’s personal body.
1 Corinthians 6:13-20 NASB “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. (14) Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. (15) Do you not know that your bodies[plural pronoun with a plural noun-jk] are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! (17) But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (18) Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. (19) Or do you not know that your body[plural pronoun with a singular noun-jk] is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? (20) For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body[plural pronoun with a singular noun-jk].
Here, Paul is addressing individuals in the church and teaching them what they do with their bodies is critically important. Notice that Paul employs both the plural noun “bodies” (vs. 15) and the singular noun “body” (vss. 18, 19). This does not mean that Paul switched from the individual to the corporate. When one understands the rules of grammar (discussed above), then it’s obvious that a singular “body” can also mean plural “bodies.” The words “a man” and “his own body” specifically mean that Paul was addressing the sexual use of each individual person’s body. A common reply by CBV advocates is that the individual is part of the corporate and what they do with their personal body impacts the corporate body. Well, of course it does. No one is denying that. But, that does not prove a corporate meaning of the word “body” here in chapter 6.
1 Corinthians 7:4 NASB “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”
1 Corinthians 7:34 NASB “and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.”
1 Corinthians 9:27 NASB “but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”
These last three are all the individual human body.
1 Corinthians 10:16 NASB “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?”
Because of the reference to the blood of Christ, this likely refers to the actual body of Christ, connected back to the cross. The cup and the bread were representative of the biological body and blood of Christ that hung on the cross. It could be a reference to the church body, but the “blood of Christ” is not a corporate church reference, so the grammar strongly suggests it is Jesus’ actual human body on the cross.
1 Corinthians 10:17 NASB “Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.”
Now Paul introduces the church as the body of Christ for the first time in the letter.
1 Corinthians 11:24, 27, 29 NASB “and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ (27) Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. (29) For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.”
Back to the actual body of Christ (some see “the body” of vs 29 as the church body, but the antecedent referent to “body” belongs to Christ’s own personal body.
1 Corinthians 12:12 NASB “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.”
There are 18 uses of the word “body” in chapter 12. I will not list them all. We will just look at this first one, and admit that all those that follow continue the same thought. This text is referring to the church as a corporate body.
It’s important to note here that the first two uses of “the body” in vs. 12 refers to the individual human body as a reference in this teaching. This is connected to the previous verse: (11) NASB “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.”
Throughout this chapter, Paul uses parts of the individual human body for illustration of the church as the body of Christ. The human body was of such common thought in Greek culture that it was a logical starting point for teaching about how they needed to get along as a church with all their different spiritual gifts.
1 Corinthians 13:3 NASB “And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
This is Paul’s human body, again.
1 Corinthians 15:35 NASB “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?’”
Obviously we can see that Paul did not consistently apply a corporate meaning to the word “body” in 1 Corinthians. In fact, he overwhelmingly uses the individual human body, and uses the corporate meaning for the first time in chapter 10. The problem of claiming that chapter 15’s use of “body” follows Paul’s “corporate body” flow of thought is further undermined by the fact that Paul returns to the common usage of “body” in chapter 13 as the human body. The continuity argument favors the individual view, not the corporate. Chapter 12 is not defining the word “body,” which was already used 16 time prior to ch. 12 with the already understood meaning of the human body.
Yet even in chapter 12 the teaching is not really about defining what a “corporate body” is, but rather is on correcting certain people’s behavior in the assembly with their individual spiritual gifts, using the human body as a teaching tool for church behavior (“the ear should not say to the eye,” etc.)
Contrary to what is claimed, the evidence shows that a “corporate body” is not the theme of “body” in the entire letter. In fact, it is barely a theme at all except as a pericope in chapter 12 for the proper use of gifts in the assembly.
2 Corinthians 3-5 and Covenant Transition
It is claimed by CBV adherents that covenant transition is the primary topic under consideration in 2 Cor. 3-5. Specifically, it is posited that since covenant transition is directly mentioned in chapter 3, that aspect defines what Paul meant in chapters 4 and 5 regarding “the body.” It is true that covenant transition is directly referred to in chapter 3; however, it is wrong to apply this to every aspect of what Paul said in this section of text, as we will see next.
The letters of 1 & 2 Corinthians have been widely noted and accepted as demonstrating Paul’s command in writing in Greek rhetoric (Witherington III, Conflict and Community). This knowledge is well known today by scholars who have studied contemporary Greek writings and compared them to Paul’s letters. 1 & 2 Corinthians are very Greek letters written to a very Hellenistic audience or ones well versed in Greek rhetoric, who could respond to Paul’s ethos and pathos evident throughout the letters. After 2 Corinthians begins with a thanksgiving and an exordium (an exordium is the beginning part aimed at making the audience open to what follows) in 1:3-7, Paul moves into the narratio in 1:8—2:16. The narratio is where the rhetor states the facts of the case that were at issue or the main questions under debate. According to Witherington,
“Paul…chooses to build up goodwill and compassion in the narratio by dealing with less crucial charges such as possible dishonesty about his travel plans, his sternness in the painful letter toward the one who had offended him, and his supposed lack of love and concern for the Corinthians. These are important issues and Paul will return to them later in the “argument” section of the discourse, but it is clear from 2:17 and what follows in 3:1—6:13 that the major issue is the legitimacy of Paul’s ministry. It is above all else that this is in question in Corinth and therefore also this letter.” (Emphasis mine)
Chapter 2 verse 17 is the propositio. In forensic rhetoric, the propositio is the statement to be proved true or false by the arguments that follow. Paul wrote, “For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.” Here, Paul denies the charge of being a false ambassador of Christ and the most critical part of that charge, that he has been untrustworthy of the Corinthian’s money.
Again quoting Witherington,
“Paul’s basic rhetorical strategy seems to be that at the beginning of the probatio (3:1—6:13) [the probatio brings in arguments to support the debater’s case-JK] he will compare his ministry with that of Moses and on that basis develop arguments to show why he should be seen as a true minister of the gospel or ambassador of Christ and thus should be reconciled to and recognized by his Corinthian converts.”
Baird is right when he says,
“[The] central concern of 2 Corinthians … is the discussion of apostolic authority, and it is in this light that 2 Cor 3:1-3 must be viewed. When this is done, it will be evident that Paul’s [main] concern in this context is not with a covenant written on the hearts of his parishioners, but with his own experience of commission in that covenant’s ministry.” (“Letters of Recommendation,” pg. 172)
This all makes great sense, especially as we move into chapters 4 and 5 which is where the CBV starts to fall apart. In 4:7-9, Paul gives a catalog of trials that he has endured, consisting of eight present tense middle or passive voice participles in four contrasting pairs linked by all’ ouk (“but not”). Again quoting Witherington,
“It is in set pieces like this that we see Paul’s rhetorical skills most clearly. For example, the second pair “perplexed but not totally perplexed” contains a pun of both sound and content. One could be distressed without being totally desperate. He has been hard pressed but not at his wit’s end; at a loss but no completely lost; persecuted, abandoned, and knocked down, but not knocked out. Taken as a whole, this catalog suggests that Paul’s vessel has plenty of cracks but is still intact, which suggests miraculous preservation.”
Then in the very next verse (4:10), William Bell and other CBV advocates claim that “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” refers to the corporate body, not the bodies of Paul or the other apostles. Which corporate body that is, the Church or dead Israel, he has struggled to state clearly as seen in at least two different Preterist Pilgrim Weekend discussions (2008 and 2014) on the topic.
Notice the surrounding context:
2 Corinthians 4:7-12 NASB “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; (8) we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; (9) persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; (10) always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. (11) For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (12) So death works in us, but life in you.”
CBV adherents claim that Paul and the other apostles were in the dying corporate body of Israel, while the Corinthians (composed of both Jews and Greeks) were in the living body of Christ. This argument is made on two main points: that chapter 3 introduces a covenant transition theme, and that Paul used the singular form of “body.”
The covenant transition aspect of Ch. 3 was noted above, and is not denied. However, covenant transition does not demand a corporate understanding of “body,” particularly when seen within the entire construct of Paul’s rhetorical argument. And, we have already seen how the construct “our body” (plural possessive pronoun with a singular noun) does not demand in Greek that a singular body is in view.
Look at chapter 4 verse 10, and ask yourself: if the corporate body view is correct, then how many different corporate bodies are in this text? (Go ahead and pause and reread that verse.)
Notice how both the dying of Jesus and the life of Jesus was on display in the “body” (singular noun with a plural pronoun) of the apostles. Is this the individual bodies of the apostles, or the corporate body to which they belonged?
Bell argues the latter (he must, for if he doesn’t then he gives up the farm). But, to which corporate body did the apostles belong? Did they belong to two corporate bodies at the same time, or to just one corporate body that was both dying and rising at the same time? Was the dying of Jesus in the “body of Israel” but the life of Jesus in the “body of the church”? Or are they both in the “body of Israel?” They can’t be both be in the “body of the church” since that creates a problem for what body the Corinthians are in (“death works in us [apostles] but life works in you [Corinthians]”).
The fact that this gets convoluted, and CBV adherents have had a tough time making sense of this passage, indicates to me that violence is being done to the text. This is a clear case of trying to force a square peg into a round hole because of a preconceived notion that every use of “body” must be corporate.
When one approaches the text without preconceived notions or trying to force in a view that admittedly is difficult, it becomes easy to see that Paul’s point was that the life of martyrdom (which Christ exhibited in his life) was on display in the apostles (and especially in Paul’s!), but the resurrected life of Christ was also at work in their lives so that this life could also be at work in the Corinthians. Paul was personally and physically persecuted, and was carrying around in his own body the marks of such persecution.
In refutation of an individual body view of this text, CBV adherents says there cannot be an actual “outer man” and “inner man” for each individual in 4:16, because this is Platonism and would be far from the Hebraic view of man. I’ll have more to say about this later, but for now will make a brief comment.
CBV advocates are correct that many modern and post-modern commentators do indeed take the position that this is talking about the human body (the “outer”) in contrast to the soul (the “inner”). But the text, while sounding Platonic, is actually in my studied opinion closer to Stoicism than it is Platonism or Neo-Platonism.
First, the most up to date scholarship shows that Platonism was not in vogue in the first century (see A.A. Long, “Hellenistic Philosophy”; M.V. Lee, “Paul, the Stoics, and the Body of Christ”; and Rasimus, Engberg-Pederson, and Dunderberg, “Stoicism in Early Christianity”). Second, while Platonists did see the body as a shell with a trapped soul inside (they strongly contrasted the material with the immaterial), the Stoics did not see the body as a shell or that the soul was trapped inside it. Stoicism, according to the scholars above, was the dominant Greek worldview of the first century. For Stoics, “body” represented whole of the person, unified by one common thing: pneuma (Greek for “spirit”). They believed that there was a visible body on earth made of the elements and pneuma, and that after someone died all that remained was their pneuma (spirit). In this understanding, most in Paul’s Corinthian audience would have quickly seen this as meaning that the biological bodies of the apostles were under extreme duress, but their pneuma (spirit) was being renewed by the Holy Spirit day by day (4:13-14). This renewal of their spirit is in fact a precursor for Paul’s “new creation” in 5:17.
Notice that the “afflictions” (4:17) which Paul and the other evangelists were receiving were not merely some kind of “covenantal afflictions” – they certainly were afflicted because of their covenant status with Christ – but these were real afflictions received on the human body (“manifested in our mortal flesh”). See Acts 14:9f and 16:22f for two examples of afflictions Paul received prior to writing 1 and 2 Corinthians.
It is on the heels of this section on the physical abuses of Paul’s body that Chapter 5 presents a solution to the problem.
This chapter is argued quite diligently by CBV advocates that this is only a covenant status change for the body of Israel into the body of Christ. Word comparisons of “tent,” “building,” “house,” “not made with hands,” “naked,” “clothing,” “dwelling,” are made to show how the words applied to both the old covenant nation of Israel and their tabernacle/temple arrangement and to the new covenant church. Clearly those words were used that way (e.g., Eph. 2:14-22; 1 Peter 2:5). That those words are used elsewhere pertaining to the new covenant body of Christ is not denied. But, does that usage require its meaning here? I argue that it does not.
First, let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 in Young’s Literal Translation:
“For we have known that if our earthly house of the tabernacle may be thrown down, a building from God we have, an house not made with hands–age-during–in the heavens, (2) for also in this we groan, with our dwelling that is from heaven earnestly desiring to clothe ourselves, (3) if so be that, having clothed ourselves, we shall not be found naked, (4) for we also who are in the tabernacle do groan, being burdened, seeing we wish not to unclothe ourselves, but to clothe ourselves, that the mortal may be swallowed up of the life.”
Notice how vs 1 starts: “For.” That’s a conjunction that bridges the thought from the previous verses, which was regarding the physical persecutions and death the apostles and evangelists were undergoing.
Next, let’s look at 2 Peter 1:13-14 again in Young’s Literal:
“and I think right, so long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up in reminding you, (14) having known that soon is the laying aside of my tabernacle, even as also our Lord Jesus Christ did shew to me,”
Peter used the same noun, skenoo, in the specific context of his impending death as did Paul in referencing the earthly house that he and the other apostles undergoing afflictions would put off. In 2 Peter the actual Greek word is skenomati, a dative singular noun used because of the reference to time (“soon”), and in 2 Cor. 5 it is skenous, a genitive singular noun used to emphasize something everyone in his audience possesses.
Let’s continue with 2 Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 5:6-10 NASB (6) “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord– (7) for we walk by faith, not by sight– (8) we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (9) Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. (10) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
Notice in 5:10 that each person (“each one,” “he”) is recompensed for what each has done “in the body.” This is referring to each person’s body. This individual aspect to judgment and recompense for what is done in the body is important to Paul’s point about how the apostles were being persecuted for the sakes of both Christ and the Corinthians. And as we already noticed, judgment and recompense for each individual was part of Paul’s admonition in 1 Cor. 6:18 (“the sexually immoral man sins against his own body”).
But maybe the biggest problem in the CBV interpretation of this text is the logical conundrum created if the “body” is the corporate body of Israel/Moses. Paul preached that being in Christ, one had died to the Law or the old “body.”
Romans 7:4-6 (ESV) “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. (5) For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. (6) But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”
It is clear from this text that it would be impossible for Paul to be “at home” in the body of Moses since he had already died to it.
Some CBV advocates might argue that as an apostle, as one still ministering to Israel (e.g. 1 Cor. 9:20), Paul was still tied to “the body of Moses,” because the old covenant had not fully disappeared (Heb. 8:13) and was still in transition (2 Cor. 3:18). Those things would be true, but they do not prove that the “body” and the “home” Paul had in mind was the old covenant body of Moses. Paul already was released from the old covenant by the power of Christ’s resurrection, as we just saw here in Rom. 7 and also in Phil. 3:8-10.
Earlier in 2 Cor. 5, Paul mentioned the words “torn down,” “groan,” “longing.” The context, as we’ve already seen, is on the physical abuses and persecution he was undergoing. It makes much more logical sense to see Paul longing to be done with his physical sufferings and to be with Christ, than it does to see Paul groaning to be out of the old covenant, since that fate was already sealed in Paul’s past. We also should connect Paul’s “groaning” here with Romans 8 –
Romans 8:18 NASB “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is [about] to be revealed to us.”
Romans 8:23 NASB “And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
Paul’s Greek audience in Corinth would immediately understand his phrases “not being found naked,” and “not be unclothed but further clothed” to mean that he would rather live up to the time of the resurrection instead of being found in the intermediate state that one would be in Hades if he died before it; yet he also longs to be done with these persecutions immediately and be resting with the Lord.
That being true, Paul sums up by saying that whichever way it works out, he will stay courageous, knowing that he and everyone else must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. This point about the judgment seat is important, because elsewhere (Dan. 7:9-10, Rev. 20:11-12) we see that this judgment takes place in heaven (not on earth). This Second Temple Apocalyptic theme of a heavenly judgment makes the view that this is merely (only) about the legal transition of covenants extremely tenuous.
“The Hope of Israel”
Another CBV argument is that Paul preached the hope of Israel, which was “nothing other than the Law and the Prophets” (Acts 23:6; 24:14-15; 26:6-8, 22-23). This is absolutely true. But does this mean that the only resurrection predicted in the Law and the Prophets was a corporate resurrection? Was this the only hope of Israel? No, this was not the only resurrection in the Law and Prophets, and it was not the only hope of Israel.
In the Acts passages listed above, “the dead ones” that Paul mentioned were actual already dead people in Hades. In 23:6, he cries out “I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead!” as a tactic in his defense to set the Sadducees against the Pharisees. To what degree Paul agreed with the Pharisees about the resurrection is not said, only that he believed and hoped there would be one. (The identity of “the dead” as dead people in Hades rather than spiritual dead Israelites under the Old Covenant will be proved later; for now it is sufficient to show that the understanding of the Pharisees that Paul appealed to was to biologically dead people, whether Paul agreed with them or not.)
The “resurrection of the righteous and the wicked” in Acts 24:15 echoes back to Daniel 12:2, where resurrection was not described as a “corporate body” but as “many” dead people including the individual Daniel himself. Daniel hoped that he himself would be raised unto his inheritance at the end of the age (Dan. 12:13).
When Jesus discussed the resurrection of the dead with the Pharisees in Matt. 22:23-33, he said: “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: (32) ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”(ESV) Jesus individually mentioned these three dead OT saints as ones who would participate in “the resurrection of the dead.”
Martha clearly had a hope in an individual resurrection of the dead on the “last day,” and Jesus himself confirmed it without correction:
John 11:23-26 (ESV) “Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ (24) Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ (25) Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, (26) and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’”
Notice the singular pronoun, “he” in the phrase “though he die,” referring to both Lazarus and also any other individual from then until the end-of-the-age-Resurrection who would believe in Jesus but biologically die before the resurrection occurred. Indeed, this is a critically important passage for supporting the grass-roots importance of individual resurrection for new covenant theology: even Jesus weeps over the individual! Though most all Jews were desirous of the reestablishment of the nation of Israel under the Messiah, the deepest concern of Jewish believers was not “will all Israel be raised,” but “will he/she/I be raised.” (For more on the Hope of Israel, please see my lecture “Exploring the Hope of Israel” from the 2014 Preterist Pilgrim Weekend conference, available from Don Preston.)
One of the problems with the CBV is that, whether intended or not, it sees the restoration of Israel into a new covenant people as an end unto itself. Often times this results in some believing that redemption in this life alone is the full expression of the prophets, with nothing specific about the afterlife of anyone other than a couple of inferences here and there. We are supposed to derive the “implications” of an afterlife from this covenant standing, but no one can say to any degree what that is. This is surprising, given how in the first century, the vast majority of all Jewish and Greek writings were fixated on what would become of life after death. For those in the CBV who disagree, I would ask them to list which passages discuss the afterlife and whether or not they see resurrection as anything beyond a corporate issue, specifically pertaining to individuals in Sheol/Hades. I certainly want to be fair, and not paint everyone under a broad stroke.
In contrast, a focus on the individual person can be seen as the core of Jesus’ teaching, from the Sermon on the Mountain where he espouses individual responsibility, to apostolic descriptions of living as individual priests, to being raised as individuals like Daniel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were. God fulfilled his promise of restoration to Israel, but that restoration transcended the corporate and ultimately pointed to the individual. In fact, one might argue that the story of the once-for-all corporate salvation of Israel pointed to individual salvation of each person coming into the kingdom for ages without end. Without including the individual body component to the covenantal transition, we do disservice to the power of God to incorporate these two elements together (the promise to resurrect Israel as a nation and to resurrect biologically dead individuals from Sheol).
Defining “the dead”
With this assessment, we come back to 1 Corinthians 15 and ask the question, who were “the dead (ones)?” Some Corinthians were saying “there is no resurrection of the dead” (15:12), so clearly we need to see what or who “the dead” were in order to draw a conclusion. This is important to ask because CBV advocates argue that “the dead” are not specifically biologically dead people in the grave or in Hades (though it might include them), but rather are the spiritually (or covenantally) dead, specifically those in old covenant Israel who were dead via the Law of Moses.
The argument is advanced that there were “some” in Corinth who were denying participation in Christ to the Jews, that they had missed out on the blessings of Christ, therefore they would not be raised into the body of Christ (see Sam Frost’s audio “Lectures on 1 Corinthians 15” and his book “Exegetical Essays on the Resurrection”).
I wanted to do an exhaustive search to see how the phrase “the dead” was most commonly used to see if it will shed a light on 1 Cor. 15. First I looked at the Old Testament, and searched for all uses of “the dead.” Excluding references to animals, I found 39 uses. They mostly were all references to either corpses after a battle or in a grave, or departed spirits in Sheol. A few did not specifically say spirits but simply referred to people who had died. All the uses I cite use the Hebrew word muth which is typical Hebrew word for die/death/the dead. It is the root word found in Genesis 2 and 3 pertaining to Adam’s sin. Here are some examples (I will not list all):
Numbers 16:48 ESV And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.
Deuteronomy 18:11 ESV or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead,
Judges 16:30 ESV And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.
2 Samuel 14:2 ESV And Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman and said to her, “Pretend to be a mourner and put on mourning garments. Do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead.
Psalms 88:5 ESV like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.
Psalms 88:10 ESV Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah.
Psalms 115:17 ESV The dead do not praise the LORD, nor do any who go down into silence.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 ESV For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.
Isaiah 8:19 ESV And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
Isaiah 14:9 ESV Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades [Heb. rephaim] to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations. [“the shades” is not the Hebrew word muth but it is related as the next verse shows]
Isaiah 26:14 ESV They are [the] dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end you have visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
Ezekiel 24:17 ESV Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.”
As you can see, in not one instance is “covenantal death” the meaning. These texts are all specific to dead people as spirits or corpses. If anyone thinks I have omitted passages that do demonstrate that the Hebrew word “the dead” are biologically alive but covenantally dead people, I welcome the input (again, recall my admission for a covenant death for Ephraim/northern Israel in Hosea, though they aren’t called “the dead”).
Turning to the New Testament, I wanted to narrow the search to the specific phrase “from the dead,” with a focus on resurrection or being raised. This phrase is found 53 times in 52 verses. Here are all 53 examples:
Matthew 14:2 NASB and said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”
Matthew 17:9 NASB As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”
Matthew 27:64 NASB “Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”
Matthew 28:7 NASB “Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”
Mark 6:14 NASB And King Herod heard of it, for His name had become well known; and people were saying, “John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in Him.”
Mark 9:9-10 ESV And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. (10) They seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant.
Mark 12:25 NASB “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Luke 9:7 NASB Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was happening; and he was greatly perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead,
Luke 16:30 NASB “But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’
Luke 16:31 NASB “But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'”
Luke 20:35 NASB but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage;
Luke 24:46 NASB and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day,
John 2:22 NASB So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
John 12:1 NASB Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.
John 12:9 NASB The large crowd of the Jews then learned that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead.
John 12:17 NASB So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about Him.
John 20:9 NASB For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.
John 21:14 NASB This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead.
Acts 3:15 NASB but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.
Acts 4:2 NASB being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
Acts 4:10 NASB let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead–by this name this man stands here before you in good health.
Acts 10:41 NASB not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.
Acts 13:30-31 NASB “But God raised Him from the dead; (31) and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people.
Acts 13:34 NASB “As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID.’
Acts 17:3 NASB explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”
Acts 17:31 NASB because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.“
Acts 26:23 ESV that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.” [I used the ESV here because the NASB does a terrible job translating this verse]
Romans 1:4 NASB who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,
Romans 4:24 NASB but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
Romans 6:4 NASB Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:9 NASB knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
Romans 6:13 NASB and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Romans 7:4 NASB Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
Romans 8:11 NASB But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 10:7 NASB or ‘WHO WILL DESCEND INTO THE ABYSS?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).”
Romans 10:9 NASB that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Romans 11:15 NASB For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
1 Corinthians 15:12 NASB Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
1 Corinthians 15:20 NASB But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
Galatians 1:1 NASB Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead),
Ephesians 1:20 NASB which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
Ephesians 5:14 NASB For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.”
Philippians 3:10-11 NASB that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; (11) in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Colossians 1:18 NASB He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
Colossians 2:12 NASB having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
1 Thessalonians 1:10 NASB and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.
2 Timothy 2:8 NASB Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel,
Hebrews 11:17-19 NASB By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; (18) it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” (19) He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
Hebrews 13:20 NASB Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord,
1 Peter 1:3 NASB Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1 Peter 1:21 NASB who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
I know that was a lot of reading, but it was necessary to demonstrate the obvious truth that “the dead” were in every situation but three a reference to previously biologically dead people, most often being Jesus. Eph. 5:11 is clearly referring to spiritual death or sin death. In the other two (Rom. 6:14, Rom. 11:15), they could be seen as arguing that the Romans should be acting holy in regards to personal sinning as though they had been resurrected either out from sin-death, or out from the afterlife realm of the dead, or both.
Someone might respond that Jesus’ death and resurrection was not merely biological but was of great spiritual and covenantal importance. Indeed it was! Such meaning can be found in some of the passages above like Colossians 1:18 and 1 Peter 1:3. Does this mean that “raised Him from the dead” did not mean that Jesus was raised personally, individually from Hades and the grave? Absolutely not. In fact, in the vast majority of these references, they were about people witnessing Jesus in Jerusalem after his resurrection. For example, if you look at Matt. 27:64, where the chief priests and scribes use the phrase “he has risen from the dead,” they clearly weren’t worried about the disciples claiming that he overcame sin-death, but were singularly worried about the claim that he came back from biological death.
The point is, one cannot claim that the most common use of “the dead” in either the OT or NT was only or primarily referring to spiritual death. The overwhelming use pertains to the biologically dead, to ones in (or in the case of Jesus, formerly in) Hades.
In Adam or in Christ?
You can’t have a discussion of “the dead” without looking at the “death” of Adam. A very important part of the argument for a corporate body view of “the dead” in 1 Cor. 15 is the relationship with Adam (15:21, 22, 45). Because Adam died “the day he ate,” the very day his “eyes were opened,” it must have been a spiritual (covenantal) death not a biological death, since he went on to live for hundreds of years more. Therefore, the death being overcome in 1 Cor. 15 cannot be biological death but must be “covenantal death,” i.e. the death of Adam, according to the CBV.
Of course, I agree that biological death was not the death Adam incurred the day he ate. I also agree that it was not a consequence of Adam’s sin, nor is it what is being “ended” in 1 Cor. 15. I believe that biological death existed before the time of Adam, and this death was the known foundation upon which the idea of a covenantal separation or death would have been understood.
Clearly there are references in the NT to the “spiritually dead” who were still biologically alive (e.g., John 5:24f). That said, many CBV advocates fail to see the other side of the coin in Adam’s death, which is detention in some sort of realm of the dead (“Sheol” or “Hades”) as a consequence of the staining of sin against a holy God. It is this other part of the story that we see throughout the rest of the bible. It is a grave concern (no pun intended) for many of God’s people. Had Adam not sinned, it is reasonable to conclude (as most covenant eschatology and covenant creation preterists do) that Adam would have gone on to live in heaven after his biological death.
Notice some passages which reflect this concern about what happens after death:
Job 7:7-10 ESV “Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good. (8) The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone. (9) As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; (10) he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore.”
Job 14:7-14 ESV “For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. (8) Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, (9) yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant. (10) But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he? (11) As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, (12) so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep. (13) Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! (14) If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.”
Psalms 22:29 ESV All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive.
Psalms 49:7-11, 14-15 ESV Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, (8) for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, (9) that he should live on forever and never see the pit. (10) For he sees that even the wise die; the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others. (11) Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they called lands by their own names. (14) Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their shepherd, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning. Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell. (15) But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah.
The “death” that these people were afraid of was at the outset biological death, but what really concerned them was never returning from Sheol. Hope of this glimmers in Job and Psalms (and possibly to Abraham), but is not revealed until much later in the prophets and finally the Apostles:
Hebrews 2:14-18 ESV Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, (15) and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (16) For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. (17) Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (18) For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
So while Adam’s death was a “fellowship” death that very day based on his sin, the consequence (and remedy) of that death is the story of the rest of Scripture. How would this be fixed? It would be fixed by God becoming like his brothers in every respect, sharing in flesh and blood, and overcoming death in all its aspects, both covenantal and biological. Why fear biological death? Because it was the moment when the ultimate price would be paid for sin – separation from God. As long as one was still alive, they had “coverings” allowing them to be in the limited presence of God. This is the other side of the “death” coin that the CBV often misses.
Now, the Resurrection of “the dead” in 1 Cor. 15
Sam Frost makes the argument (based on Max King) that the problem that Paul was dealing with in Romans (specifically 11:11-24) – that some Gentiles were claiming that Jews were cut off so that they could be grafted in – is the same problem in 1 Corinthians. Some Gentiles, Frost says, were of the “Paul party” while some Jews were of the “Peter party” (citing 1 Cor. 1:12). The argument is that some Gentiles in Corinth were denying total participation in (soteriological) resurrection life for the Jews, who were “dead” because they were under the Law (Old Covenant) which brought death. This therefore identifies “the dead” as not the biologically dead in the Hadean realm, but the covenantally dead under the Law.
I have two problems with this view. First, the Gentiles in Rome were not denying participation in Christ to all Jews (meaning, to those who were believers in Christ and in the church), but rather to all the remaining Jews who had not believed (those who were “broken off for their unbelief”). Second, and more importantly, there is no indication that Paul was addressing this concern at any point in 1 Corinthians. The “I am of Cephas, I am of Apollos,” et. al. remarks were not based on Jew/Gentile distinctions, but on personal preferences in styles of preaching and rhetoric for the different evangelists, as clearly seen in 1:17 to 4:21.
Frost then argues that Paul makes a “modus tollens” argument (I’ll explain “modus tollens” shortly) in 1 Cor. 15:12-19, which establishes that the resurrection deniers were not denying resurrection to themselves, to Jesus or to those asleep in Jesus, but only to some other group called “the dead” (i.e. the Jews, according to Frost). The modus tollens is an “if then” argument. “If p, then q; q is not, therefore p is not.” “If the dead are not raised, then Christ is not raised.” “If the dead are not raised, then you (Corinthians) are still in your sins.” Gordon Fee in his commentary on Corinthians raised this issue which Frost borrowed to make his argument. According to Frost, in order for this modus tollens argument to work on the Corinthians, they would have to reject the “q” or the consequences (they are still in their sins, Jesus hasn’t been raised, etc.), in order to change their belief on “p” (that the dead are not raised).
I agree that Paul used a modus tollens argument to demonstrate the absurdity (reductio ad absurdum) of the Corinthians belief that “the dead are not raised.” However, there is a problem with Frost’s leap of claiming Israel was the only group being denied resurrection. If we eliminate the groups of people to whom all the negative consequences towards resurrection apply (Christ, and those asleep in Christ), and accept that the Corinthian resurrection deniers were not denying Christ’s resurrection nor that of those asleep in Christ, then who does that leave? It leaves more than just the Jews. It would actually be for everyone who died before Christ. Resurrection was for all of the just and the unjust (John 5:28-29; Rev. 20:11-13), not just the Jews.
It is more logical to see that these Greeks in Corinth inconsistently believed that Christ was raised, while at the same time denied that anyone else would be raised. It makes more sense that the “some” who were denying the “resurrection of the dead” were the typical Greeks of the day who held that there is no resurrection of the dead. The dead either live forever in Hades as “shades,” or their “pneuma” (spirit) returns to the heavens (stars) since that is the material that the stars were made of. One of the common cosmological views of the day did allow for special heroes, kings and warriors to be resurrected, though this was a very rare occasion, so it would be possible for a Hellenistic Corinthian to believe that Jesus was raised but not anyone else. Corinth was only 40 miles from Athens, and we recall how the idea of the resurrection of Jesus was ridiculed in Athens in Acts 17:16-34. What was taught in Athens was also taught in Corinth, so it is much more plausible that we have Greeks in Corinth who were denying the general concept of resurrection from the dead for everyone. Paul employs at least two quotes from Greek philosophers (vs. 32-33), so it is not likely that the deniers were Jewish Sadducees since quoting Greek philosophers would hardly be effective. (For more information on common Greek views of the afterlife, see: “From Grave to Glory: Resurrection in the New Testament” by Murry J. Harris.)
Paul, in my mind, was talking to rookie Christians who became so by believing in the resurrected Christ. But, they didn’t realize the implications of their new belief. Though their former belief systems of Stoicism and Epicureanism didn’t believe in resurrection (and I think the first portion of Paul’s argument is more tightly focused on the former Epicureans), they had accepted the resurrection of Christ in order to become
Christians. What they hadn’t realized is that if they accepted this, then by implication they are accepting resurrection of everyone else as well.
So, in my opinion, Paul’s logic in the chapter unfolds like this:
(v. 1-11) He reiterates the gospel that he used to save them (former Stoics and Epicureans), including Hebrew Scriptures as well as eye witness proof that Christ was in fact raised.
(v. 12) He recognizes that some of them don’t believe in the resurrection of dead people.
(v. 13-15) He points out that if Christ is in fact raised then so is everyone else.
(v. 16-28) His logic loops around a few times to prove the universality of resurrection.
(v. 29-34) He goes on to address specific problems that Epicureans would have had with their new religion.
(v. 35-49) He then adopts and reimages some Stoic cosmological assumptions to explain the true nature of resurrection.
(v. 50-58) He completes the task by showing how this is all the culmination of the expectation in the Hebrew scripture.
If there is one thing CBV advocates cannot do, it is explain why there is so much overlap between Epicurean and Stoic worldview in this chapter. If the trick to Paul is to figure out the hidden 1/2 of the phone conversation, then I don’t think you can figure out 1 Cor. 15 without engaging those groups. Clearly, in that part of the world, the majority of pagan converts would have come from those groups.
One last thing before moving on. Notice 1 Cor. 15:32, which is an Epicurean maxim (and is quoted in the
LXX version of Isa. 22:13):
(ESV) (32) What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
The death of “tomorrow” for Paul was not spiritual or covenantal death, it was clearly biological death. That was the context for Epicureans, and also was the context in Isaiah. This solidifies that “the dead” for Paul and the Corinthians were those who had died biologically and were in Hades, not the spiritually dead people of the old covenant.
A Solution to the Problem
It is important to understand what prompted Max King to develop the concept of a corporate body resurrection. First, from sources I have spoken with who were involved in the movement when it first began, there was much confusion on how to understand “resurrection” in the early days. Max King, being from the heritage I was in from birth (the Churches of Christ, in which I was a 4th generation minister), focused on the spiritual aspect of the kingdom and rebirth/regeneration/resurrection (e.g., Romans 6). I know all too well that it was common in our fellowship to focus on the spiritual kingdom since we were battling from our pulpits since at least the 1930’s against premillennialism.
If the resurrection of the dead happened in AD70, and graves still existed, there is a need to explain how an invisible (“spiritual”) resurrection took place that isn’t “physical.” The early pioneers wrestled with how to explain this from a preterist perspective. Max relied heavily on the book “The Body” by John A.T. Robinson; it is referenced throughout King’s massive “The Cross and the Parousia” (a work I have plunged into several times over the last 9 years).
Robinson’s “The Body” takes the basic approach that there were two different concepts of the body – a Greek one and a Jewish one. The Greek one according to Robinson (who quotes another) is that man was described as “an angel in a slot machine, a soul incarcerated into a frame of matter” (pg. 14). The Hebrew one was that man was “an animated body, not an incarcerated soul” (pg. 14). It was argued that the Greeks had a Platonic view of man, whereas the Hebrews had a holistic view of man connected to his community. Therefore Robinson presented only two real concrete ideas of a bodily resurrection for King to plug into a preterist view: either the body was the shell of human (the flesh), or it was a collective group of people (here, the “body of Christ).
The result was a view (current CBV) that every single eschatological instance of “the resurrection of the dead ones” in scripture has not to do with what is happening to dead people coming out of Hades at the great judgment in AD70, but only of the covenant transition away from the Law of Moses via the lens of spiritual regeneration and restoration of fellowship.
Scholars today (Engberg-Pederson, Long, M. Lee, Rasimus, Dunderberg, D. Martin, et. al) claim that Robinson’s depiction of Greek and Hebrew cosmologies incorrectly described those of the first century. Not only did Robinson’s view ignore the diversity within ancient Judaism, as well as that many Jews such as Philo of Alexandria held very Platonic concepts of the “body,” it also was based on questionable assumptions about Greco-Roman culture; mainly, that the Greek culture of Jesus and Paul shared our modern Cartesian dichotomies of body and soul, which we now know are false.
Platonism had waned before the first century began. Around the century before Christ and at its peak during the time of Christ, the Roman world accepted the basic worldview of Stoics (and to a lesser degree, the Epicureans and Skeptics). This doesn’t mean they practiced Stoicism or Epicureanism, but that how they came to understand the nature of man and the universe was couched in basic terms developed by these Greek thinkers. It was common “scientific” language on the street throughout the Empire. It would be as common to them as gravity or a superficial understanding of the Theory of Relativity is to us today. Just because everyone today knows what gravity is doesn’t mean everyone is a physicist. The same was true in the first century with Stoic and Epicurean cosmology.
In Stoicism, the word “pneuma” (spirit) was the most refined, pure material that held all things together, and in large enough quantities became a sort of life force. Humans had far more and better pneuma than rocks. God (or the gods) had a perfect quality of pneuma. This overlapped to a large extent with the Hebrew concept of spirit (“ruach”) being the breath of God, etc.
I propose a solution to the problem. Forcing a corporate body into all the uses of “body” in resurrection of the dead contexts clearly does not work. A body of flesh resurrection does not work for a variety of historical, archeological and theological reasons within a preterist schema. But a resurrection of a body made solely of pneuma does work on all levels theological, grammatical and historical.
When dealing with Greeks, Paul could draw on the Stoic system of physics to explain the Hebraic concept of pneuma as an animating force as well as a physical element of a person’s body. For example, notice how Jesus used pneuma in his discussion with Nicodemus:
John 3:8 ESV “The wind [Greek: pneuma] blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit [pneuma].”
Notice the same Greek word underlies the translators’ words “wind” and “Spirit.” Pneuma would have been sort of like the rarest, highest quality gas that represented the person’s body in the invisible realm. As a person became a Christian he was issued God’s pneuma. When God’s pneuma interacted with a given Christian’s pneuma it renovated it and became the source for a kind of “empowering datalink” if you will between not only God and man, but a Christian and another Christian.
The idea of being indwelt by Christ, Christ becoming a life giving spirit, and everyone in Christ being one body can be seen as quite literal due to their understanding of pneuma. Paul saw this new man as a superior creature to the simply flesh person (“natural man”) that represented all unbelievers. It also explains the horror of Christians having sex with a pagan temple prostitute.
As mentioned already, this understanding of pneuma would have been as intuitive to Paul’s audience in Corinth as the modern definition of gravity is to us today. Paul is simply saying that the body that is resurrected from Hades, after the flesh is put in the ground, is made of pneuma, which is a type of substance that is suitable for heaven. It was the real individual that went into the grave, but it was the pneuma of that person that was resurrected from Hades. The flesh rots away. (For more information on this, please watch or listen to my 2014 Preterist Pilgrim Weekend speech “Stoics and Gnostics” available from Don Preston at the Preterist Research Institute.)
Notice how easy to understand 1 Cor. 15 becomes with this background in mind:
1 Corinthians 15:35-50 ESV “But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (36) You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. (37) And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. (38) But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. (39) For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. (40) There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. (41) There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. (42) So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. (43) It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. (44) It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual (pneumatikon) body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual (pneumatikon) body. (45) Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (pneuma). (46) But it is not the spiritual (pneumatikon) that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual (pneumatikon). (47) The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. (48) As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. (49) Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (50) I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”
There is much more that could be said regarding 1 Cor. 15, particularly the meaning behind Paul’s use of the various terrestrial and celestial bodies in vss. 38-41, but we do not have the time to develop that now. One concept worth mentioning that I see behind the ultimate goal of the resurrection of the dead is the judgment of the gods (elohim) – Paul’s “rulers, principalities and spiritual powers” – and their dethroning from the Divine Council of YHWH over the nations, and their replacement by the saints on thrones in the heavens. That view is based on the direction modern scholarship is advancing on certain texts such as Deut. 4 and 32, Psalms 82 and 89, Daniel 12, John 10 and in Second Temple literature (e.g. 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, Testament of Moses, 4 Maccabees, 1 Enoch, Philo, etc.). For a mind-blowing podcast which takes this approach, seehttp://www.nakedbiblepodcast.com/naked-bible-95-david-burnett-resurrection-and-the-death-of-the-gods/ (though from a partial-preterist position, it plugs perfectly into a full preterist viewpoint).
The guest speaker in the above podcast, David Burnett, has written a yet-to-be published paper (scheduled to be released later this year at the annual Society for Biblical Literature meeting) on this very subject. The abstract can be found here: http://www.dburnett.com/?p=2640.
What Now?
I see “resurrection from the dead” as a one-time event for the dead ones in Hades at AD70, and not an ongoing function post-AD70. Those saints are in heaven and are co-regents with Christ, ruling from thrones with him. Since Hades is no more, there is no longer a “resurrection out from among the dead ones” (the “dead ones” were in Hades/Sheol when that was written). But, since the “age to come” was described as one where those living in it have eternal life, and since Revelation describes those who die after the Judgment as “blessed” (Rev. 14:13), and since the church was to last “for all generations forever and ever,” I would argue that all those in Christ after AD70, who have Christ’s pneuma in themselves, already have resurrection life and are not resurrected out from sin-death or from Hades, but continue to live after death in their true pneumatic body given to them by the breath of God.
This view is not “futuristic” as some CBV advocates attribute to an “individual body view.” It is no more futuristic than the fact that the kingdom was consummated in AD70 but continues indefinitely with new people coming into it and being “raised unto eternal life” daily. If the existence of ongoing benefits for a one-time event means it’s futuristic, then the CBV would also be futuristic since they also believe in the on-going benefits of the cross and the kingdom as well.
The “Corporate Body View” of the Resurrection (CBV), as held by some preterists, teaches that resurrection refers primarily, if not exclusively, to recovery of relational death between man and God. This view understands resurrection to be purely collective, covenantal, and metaphorical—and thus, by extension, is only individual and bodily in a limited (or murky) sense. This view harkens back to the dry bones passage in Ezekiel 37ff in which God resurrects his people (Ezekiel 37:11-14) into a new covenant (Ezekiel 37:26-28). CBVers also call on such passages as 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 where Paul quotes Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14 as fulfillment of the Old Covenant doctrine of the resurrection of Israel.
The CBV view stands against the “Individual Body View” (IBV). The IBV view teaches that there is an element of spiritual “resurrection” in the sense of salvation of the living (Ephesians 2:1-7; Colossians 2:12-14). But there is also a resurrection of new glorified bodies of believers at death?to heaven, leaving the old physical body behind (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). CBV advocates may or may not acknowledge an individual aspect to resurrection. All preterists reject the idea that fleshly bodies will emerge from their physical graves, that is, the “Body out of Graves” view (BOG), which is held by many futurists.
The topic of resurrection is the most difficult of eschatology subjects, in part because the biblical writers sometimes use the same terminology in different contexts to mean different things. I could be wrong, as I often am. But I see the CBV, if taken as a stand-alone doctrine, as incomplete and potentially misleading. Here are some thoughts:
The corporate sense of resurrection is part of the meaning of resurrection. But is it the only sense of it? To believe this, one has to essentially hold that every time the word “body” (Greek “soma”) is used in the New Testament (some 142 times), that it refers to a collective body, i.e. the church. This is highly improbable. Only a relatively few times can soma be interpreted, indisputably, as the collective. I fear that CBV-only advocates have forced a single meaning into this word to reach a desired conclusion.
CBVers rally around the language of the New Testament that “body” is usually singular, implying one collective “body of Christ.” But in language, it is not unusual to use body (singular) to mean bodies (plural). An example is: “Using too much of that substance will make the body ill.” Obviously “body” here is not limited to one unit or person. So, the application in a passage like 1 Corinthians 15:35 “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do THEY come?” does not limit its understanding to a collective body (of Christ). Rather, in context of Jesus’ own resurrection, Paul is clearly speaking about the nature of the afterlife bodies of individual believers.
Is the “hope of Israel” limited to some sort of metaphoric collective positioning? I think you have to ignore dozens of passages in the New Testament to accept that conclusion. There are too many passages about the afterlife and heaven as a place of rest, hope, etc. for individual persons. And further, despite objections from CBVers, I think that the individual nature of the afterlife is how it would have been understood by the original hearers. Consider: Martha in John 11:17-27; John the Baptist’s messengers in Luke 7:22; the disciples in John 3:16 and14:2-3; the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17. (Re-read these passages to see if you agree.)
The CBV-only view, IMHO, misses the fact that the Bible discusses both spiritual AND bodily death, therefore implying both types of resurrection. I am persuaded that the first type of resurrection was a “resurrection” of the LIVING in a soteriological (salvation) sense?”dead in your sins and made alive in Christ.” Consider these passages: John 5:24-25; 11:25; Romans 6:1-14, 23; 8:6-11; Ephesians 2:1-7; Colossians 2:12-14; 3:1-4; 1 John 3:14. The second type of resurrection was a resurrection of the physically DEAD in an eschatological/bodily sense (“immortal glorified body”). I think these passages are about bodily resurrection (and judgment): Daniel 12:2-3; Matthew 13:36-43; 16:27-28; 25:30-46; John 5:28-29, 6:39-40; Acts 24:14 (mello); 1 Corinthians 15:35-50; 2 Timothy 4:1 (mello); 1 Peter 4:5, 17; Revelation 20:11-15. To think that the resurrection of the living and the resurrection of the dead are the same thing defies logic.
This CBV-only doctrine is very new to the church. It stems, apparently, from one guy–Max King (1930-2023), who developed it, apparently, from the very liberal theologian John A. T. Robinson, who even doubted the bodily resurrection of Christ. It is reasonable to be suspicious of the origin of all this. I think there is a whole lot of group-think among preterists, and it mostly emanates from King, who we understand adopted universalism. Are preterists guilty of the very thing that they accuse futurists of—rallying around ideas from prominent theologians?
The CBV-only view has led to unfortunate inferences of “hyper preterism” such as (a) universalism, (b) the notion that we are in heaven now (on earth), (c) that the afterlife holds nothing better for believers, or (d) even that sin no longer exists since AD 70. These conclusions are abominable errors. The CBV-only view has been the archway for many poor souls right out of Christianity.
CBV-only advocates (like some futurists) have failed to grasp that the idiom “heaven and earth” (sometimes used as a Hebraic expression about covenants) is not the same thing as heaven itself. Even in English, we use the terms “heaven,” “heavens,” and “heaven and earth” in several different ways. In every language, some words have many different meanings. This is just basic hermeneutics.
The CBV folks emphasize that you cannot understand the NT on resurrection unless you understand the OT. Well, I do not see how anybody could miss that such Old Testament passages as Isaiah 26:19; Job 19:26, and Daniel 12:2 are about individual persons to life after physical death.
I don’t see how you can miss that 1 Corinthians 15:35-50 is Paul’s attempt to explain the nature of the afterlife for believers. His discussions about the seed analogy seem as obvious to me as it certainly has been to believers throughout Christian history. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, Paul sets this earthly life over and against the resurrection life in heaven in spiritual, imperishable bodies, confirming his teaching of our personal life after bodily death?as Christians have always understood..
It is evident enough from Scripture that Jesus has a body in heaven (Colossians 2:9; Philippians 3:21; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 1:3; 4:14; 10:12). There is no indication in these passages, or Acts 1:9-11, that Jesus’ body disintegrated as CBVers propose. It was changed (or glorified), but not annihilated. Jesus’ eternal body sets the pattern for us (Philippians 3:21). We will have a body in heaven. But it will be an immortal body—a new body suitable for our eternal habitation. Paul used the terms “glorified,” “immortal,” “spiritual,” and “imperishable” explain the nature of our heavenly bodies (1 Corinthians 15:35-50, 52b, 53). Jesus said that we will be like angels in heaven (Matthew 22:30; cf. Matthew 17:2). These terms add to our understanding that our eternal bodies will have physicality—corporeal and personal in some sense, like those of Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration.
I fear that CBVers have lost sight of the gospel. Yes, Paul said in Acts that he taught nothing but the “hope of Israel.” But he does not limit this hope to a collective. The New Testament declares that all of God’s covenant promises, thus the hope of Israel, were fulfilled in Jesus (Luke 1:54-55, 69-75; 2 Corinthians 1:20). This is the heart of the New Testament. Salvation comes through the faith of the individual, not from a collective. “Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) is not corporate, but individual.
Are CBVers confusing Old Testament promises with New Testament realities? In Ezekiel 37 the nation (corporate body) of Israel was to be restored to its homeland after the exile. That was a shadow of New Testament resurrection. But Jesus personalized all of theology. Numerous passages in the New Testament explain that one’s personal salvation is by grace through a living faith in Jesus Christ alone. It should be evident that the passages on salvation are immensely personal in nature—not about corporate salvation. Likewise, we face judgment as individuals, not as a collective. The home of believers is heaven, not a piece of dirt.
If you ask a CBVer what they believe about the afterlife and where they think they go when they die, you never get the answer “heaven.” Rather, you will get an answer something like “I continue to live in the house of God” or “We will reside in the presence of our Creator.” But if challenged on such answer by “Do you mean as an individual or in the collective?” you likely will get silence as an answer.
So, in summary, there appear to be multiple compounding errors from the CBV camp:
The corporate sense of resurrection confuses soteriology with eschatology. We are not saved by corporate identity in any sense (a similar error made by dispensationalists who see salvation of Jews as emanating from simply being Jewish), but by grace through our personal, living, penitent, trusting faith in Jesus.
Jesus personalized everything. CBV national “resurrection” was fulfilled to teach a typological lesson about individual resurrection.
The CBV concept has confused the covenantal concept of “new heaven and new earth” with the realities of the physical earth itself and of heaven itself. This has led to very unfortunate inferences, which are leading people away from fundamental Christianity. In particular, some CBV advocates actually teach, or imply, that heaven is on earth and that there is nothing better to be expected in the afterlife. Further, it has led some to the inference that God did not create the physical universe per Genesis. Instead, God just popped up on the scene or intervened in an already existing universe to manipulate people by covenants and judgments. This diminishes God. One CBV advocate described God as a being that “moves in and out of deism.” This is an incredible distortion of Christianity.
Conclusion: There is much disagreement, wrangling, and confusion among Christians about many doctrines. This is certainly true among preterists too. While some futurists (especially dispensationalists) have interpreted the Bible in overly literal terms, some preterists seem to find metaphors under every rock. Both approaches create more problems than they solve. Preterism will never gain traction among mainstream Christians unless we can correctly define our views in line with classical Christianity.
The Preterist movement, or “Realized eschatology”, has been a breath of fresh air within the modern church, as it has laid bare the false assumptions, particularly of the most prominent and widely accepted eschatological system known as Premillennial Dispensationalism.
That being said, a significant number of teachers within the Preterist system have sadly veered far off course and run the risk of discrediting the entire viewpoint due to serious errors that they are propagating. Some of these errors are most disconcerting as they have moved outside of the historical viewpoint of the church for the past two millennia.
This brief essay deals with their claim that the Lord Jesus “died spiritually” on the cross. Their claim is that the physical death of Jesus was not what was most important but rather it was His “spiritual death” that was efficacious. They state that since men who believe in Christ still die physically, then Christ’s physical death could not have been a substitutionary one but rather was only a means to his experiencing “spiritual death”.
To further substantiate this interpretation, they have also come up with another term analogous to the “spiritual death”, which they call, “separation death”.
I should note here that neither of these two terms is expressly used in the entirety of Scripture. We do see the apostle Paul using the term, “death” and “dead” quite regularly in his letters to various churches, but nowhere does he ever use the terms, “separation death” or “spiritual death”.
It is this writer’s opinion that some of these well-meaning men, have not seriously thought through the implications of this view.
I will grant this before we delve into the Scriptures further – those advocating the use of these two terms do attempt to define them using other portions of Scripture. That I do not have a problem with on the surface. The issue I have is that their attempt to define both terms has led them into error.
First of all, let’s go back to their view of what happened to Adam in the Garden. They claim that Adam died “spiritually” on the day that he sinned or as they further explain, he suffered “separation death”. In other words, Adam became separated from God on the day he sinned in the Garden of Eden. But is this statement true? In my opinion, no, it is not.
The Bible nowhere states that Adam was separated from God. As a matter of fact, if mankind was ever completely separated from God, it would cease to exist.
“…in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.”(Job 12:10)
10 Therefore, listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do wickedness, And from the Almighty to do wrong. 11 “For He pays a man according to his work, And makes him find it according to his way. 12 “Surely, God will not act wickedly, And the Almighty will not pervert justice. 13 “Who gave Him authority over the earth? And who has laid on Him the whole world? 14 “If He should determine to do so, If He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, 15 All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust.” (Job 34: 10-15)
And again,
7 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.” (Psalm 139: 7-10)
Man cannot ever be completely separated from God. Yet, the Scriptures do speak as follows:
“But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear”.(Isaiah 59:2)
So here in Scripture we have clearly stated that sin (iniquity) separates man from God. It is further amplified, as is common in Hebrew, that sin results in a hiding of God’s face from the sinner.
When God is said to “hide His face” from someone, it means that they are separated from His gracious presence not utterly from His person. If the latter were true, the man would be dead since God is a life-giving Spirit, without Whom, nothing would exist, for He alone gives life to all things and upholds all things by the word of His power.
24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;” (Acts 17: 24-25)
1 “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1: 1-3 NASB)
Referring back to the idea of God hiding His face from man on account of his sins and a breach in the relationship between God and man, the New Testament uses the word, “reconciliation”, when speaking to one of the things that Christ accomplished by His death on the cross.
Reconciliation is necessary when there is a breach created between two parties, either caused by the actions or words from one or both involved. This creates a state of hostility which needs to be repaired before the relationship can be restored.
In other words, God hides His face from man when He is angry with the man on account of sins. Thus, while the man is not utterly separated from His maker, the life-giving Spirit, he is separated from His gracious presence. He has no favor with God, no true expectation of having his prayers answered, or for that matter, even heard.
He has no promise of Divine protection, of God being a hiding place in time of trouble, a shield, a rock, a fortress, a deliverer, a strong tower, a mountain that surrounds him, a provider, a healer, etc. For God to no longer hide His face from that man, that same man must FIRST be reconciled to God. That is precisely what the gospel message tells him. Even more than that, it tells the sinner that God has made a way for that necessity of reconciliation to actually take place!
10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” (Romans 5: 10-11 NASB)
18 “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5:18-19 NASB)
In the case between God and man, God is the party aggrieved as it is not possible for the Almighty to do anything wrong. He did nothing to disturb the relationship that existed between Himself and Adam in the Garden. Everything Adam needed to be happy was given to him, including a companion fit for him. It was indeed a Paradise. Rather it was the man, who refused to obey the simple command from His Maker, who spoiled all things by one act of disobedience and thereby caused the breach in the relationship.
From that moment on, all mankind, every single human being ever born on this planet who traces their descent from Adam, entered life, by nature, as an enemy of God needing reconciliation. However, they are not utterly separated from the person of God, for the reasons we have cited above.
What is astonishing is that it was the God of all grace who would make provision to repair the relationship between Himself and His creature, not the man who actually initiated the breach.
Speaking directly to the serpent of old, God proclaimed his demise, a demise that would undo the ruin his temptation had brought on man.
As this promise would become more clearly defined with the passing of time, the Seed of the Woman, would Himself bring in a perfect righteousness, one that would be everlasting which would allow the breach, the separation between man and Himself to be closed.
18 “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” ( 2 Cor 5:18-21)
This was typed out in the Garden scene in the third chapter of Genesis:
“The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” ( Gen 3:21).
To obtain this clothing for both Adam and Eve, it was necessary for the animals to be slain. Why does it state that it was God who made the garments? Answer – to show that it was the God of all grace who initiated the reconciliation and that this reconciliation must needs involve the death of substitutes.
When God warned Adam…
16 “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”” (Gen 2:16-17)
…He was not bluffing. The threatened punishment had to be inflicted or the Lord of Heaven and Earth would have been shown to be a liar, something that it is impossible for God to do (Hebrews 6).
Here was grace and mercy mixed with justice or as the Psalmist would tell us years later:
“Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” (Psalm 85: 10-12)
Instead of the blow falling upon Adam and Eve, the Lord Himself, as He would do many, many years later for His servant Abraham, provided a sacrifice that would die in their place. The threat, “the soul that sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:3), was carried out, but it was upon the substituted animals that the judgment would descend. Divine justice being satisfied, God could then justly deal in mercy with His now fallen creature. The animals were prefiguring the One, True sacrifice, the Lord Jesus, the One for Whom a Body would be prepared:
4 “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME; 6 IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE. 7 “THEN I SAID, ‘BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME)TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.’“ (Hebrews 10:4-7)
Both Adam and Eve had the gospel message preached to them directly by God Himself. They in turn taught it to their sons. Where else did Abel learn that he needed to offer a firstling from his flock showing that he understood the demands of Divine justice that the blood of the substitute had to be shed for atonement for sin? ( Gen 4:4)
The apostle Paul clearly tells us in his letter to the Romans, that faith, true saving faith, comes by hearing the word of Christ, the gospel.
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Roman 10:17)
“By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.“ (Hebrews 11: 4)
Abel understood that he needed a substitutionary sacrifice if his person was to be acceptable to God Most High. This he no doubt learned from his parents. This alone would reconcile him to God and close the breach between himself and His maker, albeit if only temporarily since the sacrifices had to be repeated constantly prior to the coming of the Perfect Lamb of God.
To sum up – Adam sinned in the Garden and as a result, his former relationship with God, His maker, was marred. Guilt and shame were now his new fellows. Hitherto, he knew nothing of either of these.
Guilt was created by his now fully active conscience and that produced the new sensation of FEAR. Before that, Adam had enjoyed sweet communion with God. Now he hid from his Maker. He understood a side of God that he previously had not known, namely one of perfect Justice who would by no means leave the guilty unpunished.
Shame also now wracked him. Before he had been naked before God and was not ashamed. His sin had now produced a sense of defilement and uncleanness in the presence of a Holy and Righteous God. He felt dirty, unclean, defiled when the Light of perfect holiness shown upon him in his newly fallen estate.
A breach in the relationship with the Creator had now been formed and mankind would never be the same. To close this breach, blood sacrifices were instituted, which allowed for a substitute, one without sin or defilement, to take the place of the guilty sinner and to take the stroke of Divine Justice upon itself in his place so that the other could be set free and have fellowship with His Creator once more.
This is all one needs to know to understand the gospel message of reconciliation, of redemption, of atonement, of propitiation. Any attempts to confound this simple meaning by the unwarranted use of extra-biblical terminology such as “spiritual death” or “separation death” merely muddies the waters and produces confusion where they need not be any.
PART 2
We went in great depth into these things to dispel the novel idea termed, “separation death” by the teachers of the CBV or “spiritual death”. To repeat, no where are these terms used in the Scriptures especially as they are defined by the CBV teachers.
As far as “spiritual death” goes…
The term is not found in the Scriptures. The concept might be but it needs to be correctly explained and therefore understood.
Paul states in Ephesians that all of us were “dead in our sins and transgressions”. That is as far as he goes. He does not use the terms, “spiritually dead” or “separation dead” (whatever that is supposed to mean).
It simply means that man in his fallen estate is devoid of the life of God in his soul. The New Testament defines this separation as being “alienated from or excluded from the life of God”.
17 “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;” (Eph 4:17-18 NASB)
17 “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;”(Eph 4: 17-18 NKJV)
This alienation from the life of God is defined numerous times in the Scriptures:
“When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions…”(Col 2:13
“even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” (Eph 2:5)
Conversion, regeneration, the new birth, being born again, is exactly what it says it is – it is a NEW LIFE coming into the sin-deadened soul of man. That life is the life of God Himself. It is one thing to say that all men depend on the life-Giving Ruler of all things for their existence. It is altogether another thing to say that the life of God is within them. The latter only comes to man through the new birth, or regeneration.
This new life loves righteousness while it hates sin. It loves that which is good and clings to that which is pure. It despises evil in any form. It sees sin as an ugly, deforming thing, a leprosy of the soul while it sees righteousness as a thing of beauty and that which is to be desired and sought for. It moves the man to please God in all that he does or says, while the man devoid of this life cares not a whit whether he is pleasing to God or not.
One man is alive to God; the other is dead. It is that simple. It needs not to be confounded by the introduction of extraneous terms such as “separation death” or “spiritual death”. Such extra -Biblical phrases only add to confusion and create uncertainty in the minds of some where none is needed.
Having dispensed with the notion that Adam experienced “separation death”, we now come to the more serious error concerning the nature of the death of Christ.
The teaching out of the CBV movement boldly asserts that the Lord Christ died “spiritually” or that He experienced “separation death”, since that was what Adam experienced and therefore, so their reasoning goes, so too must Christ if His death was to truly be substitutionary.
Of first importance, Christ was never separated from His Father. That is nowhere found in Scripture. What He did experience was the sense of being forsaken, abandoned, left to himself:
“My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1)
He experienced what many of us go through when the sense of God’s presence of love and care is withheld. This takes place when one grieves the Holy Spirit and His communications of the love, grace, mercy and tender care over His people is lost through repeated sin.
In its place, he experienced for the first time ever, a sense of the wrath of God against sin. Prior to His offering of Himself, the gracious sense of His Father’s presence never left Him. Why did our Blessed Lord have to undergo such things? Because this is the just desert of all sinners. By nature, all of us are “children of wrath”.
“Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.“ (Eph 2: 3)
“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)
Please note – this Scripture does not say that the wrath of God WILL COME upon him (in the future). It states that the wrath of God ABIDES (present tense) on him. He is already under the wrath of God and will remain so unless he repents and believes the gospel message. It abides on him now in the present and will follow him into eternity.
Read the entirety of Psalm 88 if you want to get a small sense of the amazing suffering that our blessed Lord went through for us! Mortal men cannot bear up under the wrath of God in its fulness but our Savior tasted it for all those for whom He came to die.
” 1 O LORD, the God of my salvation, 2 Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! 3 For my soul has had enough troubles, And my life has drawn near to Sheol. 4 I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength,
13 But I, O LORD, have cried out to You for help, And in the morning my prayer comes before You. 14 O LORD, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? 15 I was afflicted and about to die from my youth on; I suffer Your terrors; I am overcome. 16 Your burning anger has passed over me; Your terrors have destroyed me.17 They have surrounded me like water all day long; They have encompassed me altogether. 18 You have removed lover and friend far from me; My acquaintances are in darkness.”(Psalm 88: 1-4, 13-18)
Now, it is important to understand that this burning anger of God is what is due to sin. His perfect Justice demands that He punish it. Our Substitute therefore had to undergo such if His sufferings for His elect was to be complete.
We accept this concept every day in the workings of our modern court system. A person is charged with a crime, brought before a judge and/or jury, tried and if found guilty, is sentenced with a punishment commensurate with the severity of the crime. The exact same thing goes with the Judge of Heaven and Earth when it comes to mankind. Once the guilt of the suspect is ascertained, and it has already been decided so, then the punishment must be meted out.
“…Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;” (Romans 3:9)
Christ, the Substitute, was CHARGED WITH THE GUILT OF SIN. But this is important – His holy, spotless nature was never contaminated or defiled with it as is our nature.
“26 For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” (Hebrews 7: 26-27)
Even as a sacrifice for sin, He retained every bit of his pure, unspotted, undefiled nature. To say that he became “separated from God” or “died spiritually” [apparently the CBV teachers use the terms interchangeably] , one would have to ask what was the cause of such a thing? It would assume a defilement of His nature would have taken place, which would have rendered His sacrifice unacceptable to God. That flies in the face of Scripture which states that the Father was pleased with the Lord Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself.
“But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering,“ (Isaiah 53:10 NASB)
Notice, Christ, the promised Messiah, rendered Himself as a guilt offering. He was not mystically transformed into sin, with His nature becoming corrupted but rather He took upon Himself the guilt of sin and therefore bore in His own person its just punishment.
This is also the clear teaching of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians in his second letter to that church:
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5: 21 NIV)
The NIV provides a marginal note properly defining the Greek word used for sin as a sin offering.
To repeat, to therefore say that Christ died “spiritually” (again, this term is not found in the Bible) would entail that somehow His nature became defiled, which is the only cause of separation from the goodness of God. That in itself is so grievous an error that it is unconscionable to me that anyone claiming to speak on behalf of Christ could assert it. The men propagating these things should rethink what they are stating as this is so reckless with the truth that it is terrifying! They apparently have not thought through the ramifications of the things which proceed out of their mouths.
Those who spout this foolishness err greatly therefore because it is a symptom of the lack of understanding of the doctrine of justification through faith alone. It has often been said, by myself and many others, that to be wrong on this foundational doctrine, is to make oneself liable to fall into all sorts of error and confusion.
The entire method whereby God justifies sinner is a legal or forensic one. It is a declaration by a Judge and is in its essence, purely OUTSIDE of the sinner. In itself, it effects no change INTERNALLY to the recipient. What is does change is the state or STANDING of that sinner before Heaven’s tribunal.
Let me add here briefly, so that my enemies do not take liberties with my statement above – Justification is never separated from sanctification of the sinner. Wherever the first is found, the latter ALWAYS accompanies it. But make no mistake, the two are completely different from each other. One affects the standing of the sinner; the other affects his nature.
This being established, Christ’s nature was never defiled in any form, shape or fashion as those advocating the teaching stating that He “died spiritually” or He suffered “separation death”. We have already stated that is impossible or else God would not
have accepted His sacrifice, the proof of which He would have left Him in the grave and never raised Him.
“10 But You, O LORD, be gracious to me and raise me up, That I may repay them. 11 By this I know that You are pleased with me, Because my enemy does not shout in triumph over me.” (Psalm 41:10-11)
When Christ completed His atoning work on the cross and His fulfillment of the Law by keeping it perfectly, He EARNED A RIGHTEOUSNESS as His reward with His resurrection being a Divine declaration to the world that His Father was pleased with Him and His sacrifice.
What took place at the cross was that our GUILT was credited or imputed to Him and God slew Him in our place.
What the Gospel tells us is that those who believe on Him for righteousness through faith, are then CREDITED or IMPUTED with it by God. There is a transfer of our guilt to Christ and a transfer of His righteousness (forensically speaking) to us done by none other than God Himself acting as a Judge.
This is what Paul speaks of his epistle to the Romans:
“because the Scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and ·God accepted Abraham’s faith, and that faith made him right with God [it was credited/counted to him for righteousness;Gen. 15:6].”
3 because the Scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and ·God accepted Abraham’s faith, and that faith made him right with God [L?it was credited/counted to him for righteousness; Gen. 15:6].”
4 When people work, their ·pay [wage] is not given [credited; counted] as a gift [grace], but as something earned [due to them]. 5 But people cannot do any work that will make them right with God. So they must trust in him ?But for the one who does not work, but trusts in God], who makes even evil people right in his sight [justifies/makes righteous the ungodly]. Then God ·accepts their faith, and that makes them right with him [credits/counts their faith for righteousness]. 6 David said the same thing. He said that people are truly blessed [happy; spiritually fulfilled] when God, without paying attention to their deeds [apart from works], makes people right with himself [credits/counts righteousness to them]. 7 “Blessed [Happy; Spiritually fulfilled] are they whose sins [lawless deeds] are forgiven, whose wrongs [sins] are pardoned [covered; blotted out]. (Romans 4:3-7 EXB)
Notice, these are accounting terms used in this amplified translation – like an entry into a ledger – it deals solely with their standing before God. Nothing happens internally ( speaking strictly of the manner in which God declares them righteous).
Why am I emphasizing this? Because if it were anything other than a forensic declaration by the Judge of Heaven and Earth, if there was an actual transfer of INHERENT RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST into condemned sinners when it comes to this Divine declaration of righteousness, then the opposite side of the transaction would have to also be true, namely that our evil was actually transferred INTO CHRIST! That would entail that His nature became contaminated with sin. Perish the thought of such horror!
Yet that is exactly what those accusing Christ of dying “spiritually” or experiencing “separation death” are advocating. I had heard of a similar teaching many years ago by several of the people who were in the so-called “word of faith” group, but never thought that others might be advocating the same grievous error. Those teaching it came right out and boldly stated that Christ actually became sin! While I am unaware of any of the current teachers in the CBV movement who have categorically stated this, when one examines the ramifications of their use of the terms, “died spiritually” or suffered “separation death” in reality, one can clearly see how dangerous and how far outside the historic understanding of the death of Christ has become.
Do not miss the significance of this! It was the guilt of our sins that was charged against Christ (imputed to Him), not the inherent defilement of those sins. Now we do indeed become partakers of the Divine nature but that is a separate work outside of our justification. Again, this work will always accompany justification, but it is separate and needs remain as such.
This is the reason that the Catholic church never could grasp the true gospel during the days of the Protestant Reformation. They kept confounding the doctrine of justification with that of sanctification. That error was what made all their so-called “sacraments” necessary to complete the salvation of their followers. They failed to understand that the righteousness which comes through faith in Christ is perfect, nor can it ever be diminished in any true sense when it comes to their declared standing before God.
The point in all this is that when one reads or listens to the teachings of the Corporate Body View people, one should understand exactly what the ramifications of their errors leads to.
Jesus Christ did not “die spiritually”. He did not undergo “separation death”. He tasted death, physical death and experienced the sense of being forsaken, of undergoing the wrath of God and the loss of the gracious presence of His loving Father for guilty sinners, but He was NEVER SEPARATED from His Father at any time. He was always pleasing to His Father, even while He was suffering on that bloody cross.
In a recent podcast “Melanie Phillips NOTICES Connection Between The Left and Islam & It’s Terrifying!“, Rabbi Pesach Wolicki made an excellent assessment which helped explain the left’s oddly synergistic relationship with Islam. Wolicki, whose podcasts I often find compelling, was one of Charlie Kirk’s trusted advisors. 
Ever since Christ’s ascension in AD 30, there have been constant predictions of the world’s end. This 
agreement: “collective singular subjects, compound subjects, indefinite plurals, and categorical plurals.” Both Robertson’s Grammar and Blass and Debrunner’s Grammar discuss this phenomenon, calling them “idiomatic plurals and singulars,” and constructio ad sensum (“construction according to the sense”), respectively. Turner’s Grammar says that using a plural pronoun with a singular noun in order to put emphasis on the noun, but not deny the plurality of the noun, was a common Hebraism: “Contrary to normal Greek and Latin practice, the NT sometimes follows the Aramaic and Hebrew preference for a distributive singular. Something belonging to each person in a group is placed in the singular: as in, TO SOMA HUMON (1 Cor. 6:19) and EN TE KARDIA AUTON (Luke 1:66).”
in the ancient Greek, and in Paul’s writings. According to the highly respected scholar F.F. Bruce (Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, 1977), “flesh” primarily referred to human nature, and was seen as the locus of temptation and sin; not literally in biological tissue, but more holistically in the individual as a whole person. That is, when one would say “his mind was set on the flesh” they meant he was living according to his own human nature, not brought under control by the mind of God through His Spirit (e.g. Gal. 5:16-21).
