Transcription
All right, here we go. This is going to be a bit of a longer video. Uh, but since I'm covering six different perspectives um Christians have on the end times, how they look at the book of Revelation, what they think about things like the millennium, uh not the millennium falcon, [laughter] we're talking about the thousand-year reign of Christ, uh the second coming, the tribulation, the rapture, that kind of thing. I'm going to put timestamps down below after this whole thing's over just kind of getting you the six, you know, starting points for the different views. Um, so we're going to be covering those six different ways that Christians view the end times and how they interpret the book of Revelation. They're often identified as I give you like our little intro part here. This is good information to have help bring clarity. By the way, I'm I'm just going to let you guys know this is going to be a little bit more advanced. I can't um avoid certain terms and terminologies as I'm talking about these things. And so it might be a little bit of a challenge, but I do hope that I bring a lot more clarity than confusion here, but I'm I'm letting you know that if you've never heard some of these views before, you you you may just this first time around say, "Okay, I sort of understand that view. Maybe I need to watch again or read a book about it or something to get it better." And that's okay. That's all right. We we can learn. We can be learners here.
So the [clears throat] um the views themselves are often identified in general by you know their attitude towards the millennium towards the millennium this thousand-year reign of Christ that we read about in the Bible in the book of revelation. It's only in that one place in the book of revelation that it's identified as a thousand years. And there are those who are uh going to say hey is the millennium a past thing is it a present thing that's happening now or is it a future thing that's going to yet happen one of these days? And so the next question they're going to ask is and and when does Jesus return? Does he come before that millennium or does he come after that millennium? And so these attitudes turn into different sort of titles for views of eschatology or views of the end times for Christians. Premillennial, postmillennial, and ammillennial. That's kind of like our starting point for the groups we're going to cover today. And then a couple of these are going to break into other groups. Um anyway, you'll see as it goes. Hopefully I'll bring clarity. Oh, I hope so. This is this is challenging stuff to talk about because we're dealing with not only an entire book of the Bible, Revelation, but we're dealing with massive sections of large portions of the Old Testament and that turns into a complicated issue. So, try to make it as simple as possible.
The goals today are this: clarity. Clarity, that's the hardest one. I hope to bring clarity um that you can understand these views and not from a biased perspective. It's true that I have my own agenda in the sense of like I have my view, but I hold my view very loosely and I don't want to push that view on others. In fact, if you're thinking, "I really just want to know what Mike's view is of the end times because that's going to be my view automatically because I just trust him." I'm going to encourage you, if you trust me, trust me when I tell you this: don't do that. Don't do that. My if you want to if you want to just borrow my view, my view is that I hold my view fairly loosely because I could I could be wrong and I could understand more, read more, put it together in a different fashion, and go, "Oh, I'm now a different view." And and I'm okay with that. So, that's the the third goal there is is humility. I didn't I skipped the second goal, which is unity. Um, I I want us all to be humble about these things, but also that creates unity. It gives us a sense of unity in the body of Christ. I don't need to divide from you or be suspicious of you if you are a premillennial, postmillennial, or amillennial Christian. There's only one view that I think is very suspicious. We will talk about that. That is called full or hyper preterism. And pretty much everybody else says, "Guys, that's heresy." And we'll talk about that as well because um that's significant.
There are things all these views have in common. All the Christian views have in common. And that would be Jesus's future bodily return. That there really is an eternal kingdom on its way and there's an actual bodily resurrection for the saints where we're going to live and dwell in that eternal kingdom with God forever. So there's a glorious, perfect eternity coming. All three views and the subviews, which will turn into six views today, um, well, five of them all agree on that. The one, hyper preterism, does not. That's enough of an intro. Let me dig into the first one today, that is postmillennialism.
The postmillennial, who I'm not at all trying to to demonize or misrepresent here. Forgive me if you're postmillennial and I don't represent your view. Even within each of these views, there's there's differences. There's some people who hold it this way. Some people hold it that way. Some people have nuances. So, I'm trying to give you a general representation of them all. But in general, postmillennials, they think that Jesus is returning at the end of the millennium. So the thousand years, which is not a literal thousand years, but this this long season of of Christ reigning, that that is something that happens uh him reigning from heaven, and then at the end of that thousand years, he comes to earth bodily. And so all of the stuff that we're waiting on next in, you know, big earthly changes, those things are all going to happen at the second coming of Christ. That's when our, you know, what some would call a rapture type thing happens, right? Where we where we're caught up and we're transformed, where the dead, those who are alive are transformed. The those who have died in Christ are raised. um all resurrections and judgments and good and bad things all happen right then, and then the eternal kingdom begins.
So the postmillennial millennial person thinks that the tribulation period um, what a lot of us are familiar with, like the um 7-year tribulation stuff, you know, where that's kind of like what the the premillennialists often are thinking about and talking about as a future event. Well, to the postmillennialists, that's a past event. The tribulation happened a long time ago. Like this stuff was like before 70 AD. It it all happened. In fact, it the most intense part of this stuff was the last 3 years between 67 and 70 AD because there's like, and you got to know this, there's like an important historical event that happened in 70 AD if you're not familiar with it. It's the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus himself talked about this when he was talking about future prophecy. He talks about the destruction of the temple. And they're like, "Guys, we what the rest of the people don't realize is that all that tribulation stuff, it was all about the stuff that was going to happen in Jerusalem."
So, the millennium, since the tribulation's already happened, the millennium is already going on right now, or to some uh postmillennialists, it's going to happen soon, like sometime eventually. Maybe we're in the middle of it, or maybe we're like working our way towards it. But the nature of the millennium is the is us Christianizing the world, not only with the gospel, but a sort of political, you know, Christian kingdom that dominates the planet. So they're looking, you know, so whereas say the premillennial, they're often looking for a doom and gloom sort of one-world government that's like really bad news for everybody. The postmillennialist is is actually thinking that we're kind of going to have a Christian version of that. And um this can lead to abuses, but but most postmillennials probably are not not heading down that path. But that's their view of the millennium. It's happening now and we Christianize the world.
So this does change the way that they view the world. They're very optimistic. They do think Satan is currently bound. The postmillennial view, the binding of Satan happened beginning with Jesus's earthly ministry where he talks about the strong man being bound, and then Satan has already been bound, as you read about this in Revelation. That happened a long time ago, guys. Um, so you're like, well, how's how's he bound? The premillennialist is going to be like, "Well, that's kind of a he's got a long leash, you know." But the postmillennialist can make a case for the binding of Satan. They could say, and the amillennial person later we'll talk about will do the same thing. And they'll say, "Look, you know, before the death and resurrection of Christ, God's work was primarily among the Jewish people. But Christ comes, he binds the enemy, so to speak. The death and resurrection happens, and the gospel goes out to the nations. And now, while there are many people who don't believe, the gospel is and the knowledge of God has spread throughout the world." So, the binding of Satan isn't like he's totally bound, right? But it's it's that that sort of worldwide delusion against God that he he had sort of a monopoly on in at the first century has ended. And now the gospel goes out and, you know, billions of people would name the name of Christ. So that would be their view on that. Um, maybe you take that view, that's fine. I'm cool with that. I just want people to understand what the view is. So yeah, it's a very optimistic perspective [snorts] on things. The postmillennialist tends to be very optimistic. People talk about the end times like, "Man, they're good times then." um they may be postmillennial. Most likely they are. Of all the views, the postmillennial is the most immediately optimistic. Every view is tremendously optimistic when it comes to the eternal kingdom because the second coming of Christ happens and boom, pure optimism at that point. in every view. All the views hold that except for preterism, which is full preterism, which is heresy. We'll talk about that too. Um, so yeah, the the potential problem with postmillennialism, a critique is that it does lead to potentially um people trying to set up theocracies, you know, trying to take over kingdoms, world governments, and run them with um, you know, running them with say the Old Testament law being like adapted and enforced in a Christian perspective, that kind of thing. And this this can and has caused problems historically. And I don't hold this view. So my view of our involvement and interaction with government is influenced by me not being postmillennial. Whereas someone's present view of, I mean, I do want to be involved in government, but but in a different way than perhaps some postmillennials would. So yeah, you could see that. Um, I think um, well, I don't want to name too many names because I do think Bethel would would probably be postmillennial in their perspective. I'm pretty sure like Bethel is, and they would take it into a realm of like uh use the word realm into a place of of being something like um uh we're going to spread the seven mountain mandate. We're going to spread into the world. And then then you might think that postmillennial is like some hyper charismatic thing, but but no, I mean, there's plenty of very sober-minded, forgive me, you guys, I'm not trying to be mean here, I just want you to understand the scope of of different people who are postmillennial. Um, so-minded people who are who are not like that at all, who still are postmillennial in their perspectives, and um, they're it's not tied to hyper charismatic views. Um, more often charismatics tend to be premillennial, actually.
So let's talk about how postmillennialists view the book of Revelation because each of these views I'm going to deal with today. They all have like a different sort of grid they'll place on the book of Revelation, and it's kind of like a decoder ring. You know, the old decoder ring, like you'd you'd swing like in some of them, you'd swing like this little colored lens over a bunch of text that was hard to read or impossible to read, and it would it would blot out or or cover certain parts and highlight others, and you would suddenly be able to read it. Um, in advanced versions of this, you might have multiple colored circles you could pull over, lenses you could you could use. Um, well, think of it like this: these different these different views of the end times have different sort of grids or decoder rings they put on the book of Revelation. And very quickly, if you have their view of Revelation, you realize, "Oh, that's why they think the way they do. It's the way they look at Revelation." Sometimes it's it's the presuppositions they bring to the text. And this is probably the case for all views, my own included, right? That it's it's only as strong as my presuppositions about the book of Revelation is the view itself.
Well, the postmillennialist, what they're going to do is look at the book of Revelation as a preterist. Um, now this is not the bad kind of preterism. This is a general, more normal preterism that I would consider my brothers and sisters in Christ are preterists. Um, I I think like Apologia Studios looks at the text this way through say preterism. That's I mentioned this because we're on YouTube here and they're very well-known and and that's maybe they're right. I mean, they might be right. Like maybe I'll change my mind at some point, and I'm open to that. But they would say that most of the book of Revelation, most of it, I mean, the vast majority of the book of Revelation, was all fulfilled by 70 AD. So, remember I talked about the tribulation happening right there at the time, right before the destruction of the temple, right? They look at the vast majority. In fact, uh, one preterist I spoke with said that the the point in the book where he says, "Boom, now we're in future prophecy is Revelation 20:6." Like, that's the point where it shifts. I'm going to share with you guys on screen. Now, I did warn you today is going to be a longer teaching, right? Well, it will be. All right. Revelation 20:6. "Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such the second death will have no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years." And and they're viewing this as happening now. And everything in Revelation, at least in some some preterist and postmillennial views, everything in Revelation up till 20:6 already happened. Then verse 7, "And when the thousand years are ended, it being a symbolic time that's happening right now. When that's over, when this season's over, then there is going to be this brief release of Satan who's going to be deceiving the nations. There's going to be a final judgment and the second coming. And then there is uh the eternal kingdom." So that's that's their view on the thousand years is happening now.
Now when they look at Revelation, um you have to understand if if you look at it from a premillennial perspective, as as I always have, [gasps] [snorts] you're like, "This is ridiculous. That's what you think. This is ridiculous." The preterist thinks all this stuff already happened. Like worldwide destruction, fourth of the earth is killed. Like, what? But their decoder ring that they're putting on top of the book of Revelation, and and it's it's not without warrant. It's not like they can't try to build a case for it because they can't. But the ring would be to say, "Hey, when you see 'world,' it's talking about Israel, right? It doesn't mean always the whole world." When when you see the judgment upon, you know, all the nations, what you're really looking at is judgment upon the tribes of Israel. When you when you see things that look global in the book of Revelation, they're very much centered in Israel in the Middle East. And so, they're going to constantly look at things like that. The destroying of the trees of the earth is just the trees in Israel. Um, not all the tribes of the earth are mourning. It's the tribes of Israel that are mourning as they did in 70 AD, and the destruction of the temple came. Everything seems a lot smaller from the preterist perspective, and that's why they can find fulfillment in a very, you know, crazy and hard event that happened in around 70 AD, the Jewish war uh with Rome and [clears throat] their terrible loss in that battle, prolonged loss in that battle.
So the the other thing they're going to put in their decoder ring, not only is it focused on Israel and not the world, all that stuff up till Revelation 20 um 7, but they're also going to be saying that they look at Revelation as something that's called apocalyptic literature. Now you're like, "Apocalypse? That means I mean Revelation is an apocalypse?" Like literally the word apocalypse means revealing or unveiling, and Revelation is just a synonym for that. But we're not we're not using the term like that. When you're talking about a genre of literature, apocalyptic is a genre that some would say Revelation fits into where it has these certain categories and certain style of writing. And long story short, when you say Revelation's apocalyptic literature, what you really probably mean by that is it's poetic hyperbole. Poetic hyperbole. Now, poetic hyperbole exists. We have poetic hyperbole with like when one of my favorite examples is in the Psalms when David says, "I make my bed swim with tears," and and you're like, "Well, his bed's not swimming. His his room is not literally flooded with his tears. It's poetic hyperbole. Everyone knows that." So, you interpret it as he's in great sorrow. He keeps crying. It's not lying. It's not deceptive. And in their view, like Revelation is not not exaggerating wrongly. This is just normal apocalyptic language for, you know, elevating the language of destruction so that you could see the the spiritual magnitude of it. When God's destroying the temple where his presence once was because now he's working in the church, it's judgment upon Israel for having rejected their Messiah. So they're looking at it through that lens. So when you say, "Oh, it's about Jerusalem and Israel," and you add the other lens of like, "Oh, it's apocalyptic genre," it becomes a lot easier to find fulfillments in 70 AD.
In chapter 19, or oh, I should mention this. Um, another important thing in preterism in my view, as I understand it, is Revelation 6 through 18 where it talks about the the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls. These these three consecutive judgments, they're not viewed as consecutive in preterism. The preterist view or the postmillennial view is going to say that these are overlapping things. So the trumpets, the seals, and the bowls all happen at the same time, like they're all happening at the same time. And so there's what they call recapitulation, or the repetition of the same the same things. You're you're basically it's like you're you're looking at a scene, it's described as seven trumpets. You look at the same scene again. Historically speaking, it's described as um or for seals, trumpets, bowls, it's described in in those orders, but it's the same scene viewed three times through different um apocalyptic language. That would be their view of those things. Um, that is important, I think, for the preterist view of to because if you're going to try to find fulfillment for all those things in 70 AD, you're going to need them to be repetitive and not consecutive.
We will talk about some specific examples of where they see stuff being fulfilled in 70 AD. And you might be surprised because the postmillennial, they there's reasons why people hold this view, right? They're not they're not just off out to lunch, right? It's not like they just don't believe the Bible. Like, please don't do this. Like if you're premillennial like I am, don't do this to them. There are intelligent and thoughtful reasons why they built a case for this view. There's reasons why people are I would say right now increasingly holding this view. All of these views have trends. They go up and down. I'd say right now it's more of in a growth trend, postmillennial views. [snorts]
Now, um, chapter 19, uh, it's the coming of Christ to complete the judgment of Jerusalem. Now, chapter 19 in Revelation, you'd think this is the coming of Christ, period. Like premillennials, I'm speaking because most of you guys are premill. So, I'm going to talk to you like you are because most of you are. Um, it is the most popular view. Well, at the end of Revelation 19, um, we read about the coming of the of Christ, and he's riding on a white horse, right? "I saw heaven opened, behold a white horse. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true. In righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written on written that no one knows but himself. He's clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he's called is the word of God." Clearly, it's Jesus, and he's coming in in judgment. This is a wrath judgment coming. He is clothed in um, oh, sorry, verse 14. "And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and purple, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations." And nations, they would probably say, "Well, this is more more about Israel." "And he will rule them with a rod of iron." And not all of them will say that, but some would. "He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of Almighty God." And and it just goes on. This this coming, this coming for this great judgment moment is viewed as already having happened. For I think most preterists, most premillennial people, they're like, "Jesus in Revelation, the coming of Revelation 19 isn't really the second coming of Christ. It's a coming or a return of Christ to Israel for judgment. He doesn't really come to the earth in like his return like Acts talks about in the same way in which he left. His return. This is a different issue altogether." So most of us would probably view Revelation 19 as Jesus's future second coming. They would say, "No, no, that was a 70 AD coming of Christ." This is probably one of the weaker spots of the preterist argument. But there are stronger spots of the argument. And the preterist does still believe there's a future second coming in Revelation 20 through 22 talks about all that currently. [sighs and gasps]
Um, the um, the thing that surprises me the most about preterism whenever I do look into it, and I have over the years a few different times, is [snorts] how good they are at finding quotes from Josephus, a first-century historian who's not a Christian, right? A Jewish Roman historian. They're finding quotes from him that look like they do correspond with the book of Revelation. And it's kind of surprising how good they are at this. You're like, "There's no way you're going to find a quote for that." And yet they do, and they do it really well, but not good enough in my opinion. Let me let me explain what I mean so you can at least appreciate why some hold this view. In um Revelation 6:14, we read about mountains being removed during the sixth seal. I'll put the text up on the screen for you. Revelation 6:14, it says, "The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place." So what is this? Every mountain and island. Um, you know, premillennialists would say, "Like, obviously that hasn't happened." [laughter] I mean, even if it's not literally every mountain and island, but this is maybe this is describing like kind of like a worldwide cosmic event that everybody would notice. It didn't happen in 70 AD. But to the preterist, they would say, and this is a historical preterist. This is the non-heretical preterist. They would say that the mountains being removed in the sixth seal, it's the Roman workmen who were leveling roads for horsemen to travel unhindered to attack Jerusalem. Remember, "every mountain" is talking about Israel, not the world. And the leveling of mountains. Well, from a even from an Old Testament and and New Testament perspective, mountains were seen as the protection for the nation. It's hard for armies to cross mountains. You build your cities on a mountain. Leveling a mountain could be removing your protection against the armies of Rome. And Josephus, and like I mentioned quoting Josephus, he really does record that Roman soldiers did level the roads and they also built ramps to get over the walls of the cities of Israel. So they go, "Oh, do you see how their lens?" Oh, it's about it's about Israel. It's it's about 70 AD. We have historical quotes from Josephus. It's it's it does come together at least somewhat.
Uh Revelation 6:15-16. Then I'm just reading now the very next section, next couple verses from what I read before. "Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains calling to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, who can stand?'" Now you might see this as global, and it and it is kings of the earth plural. That would you might think that's the that's the global. It's great ones and generals and rich and powerful and everyone slave and free, but they're going to suggest this is more focused on Israel. So these are like leaders of Israel, these are the people of Israel, and they'll quote Josephus again. And Josephus does record that in that time, what they'll call the great tribulation between 67 and 70 AD leading up to the destruction of the temple, that people were actually hiding underground in caves in Israel and around Jerusalem, hiding from the Roman troops that they were like hiding there, that they were just terrified and hiding. So, you might say, "Well, that there seems to be some correspondence, but it seems like it's a little it falls short." And that would be, you know, my analysis of it. But, um, let me give you another one, and I'll actually read to you from Josephus because I think it's pretty interesting.
Here's Revelation 9:14. I'm going to read this to you, and I want you to think, "How on earth are they going to find this in 70 AD or thereabouts?" And I'll tell you how they do it. Revelation 9:14, "saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, 'Release the four angels who were bound at the great river Euphrates.'" So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops, and it shifts from angels to troops, so they're related somehow, was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number." Now, what is this possibly about? Well, let me read you a quote. This is directly from Josephus. Josephus is not a preterist, okay? He's not a Christian. Um, he says this in his uh book, The Jewish Wars, in 653, if you're looking for the specific um chapter paragraph reference. "A certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared." Now he's describing what happened right, you know, at the edge of the destruction of the um of the temple and of Israel. "A certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared. I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those who saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals. For before the setting sun, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds and surrounding of cities." This is also quoted by Tacitus, who may have gotten it from Josephus, or maybe maybe he heard from some other source. But the idea is that there he's reporting here, he's you can't say he's biased, right? Or in the sense of being a preterist, he's reporting that there were visions of these angelic armies surrounding the cities before their destruction. And that kind of would work with Revelation 9, right? I mean, there's it's interesting. At least you could at least say it's interesting. Um, [clears throat]
Now, as far as the angels being at the river Euphrates, they would say, well, and at least some preterists would say the river Euphrates touches Syria. And here's a little bit of stretching. Syria, where the river Euphrates touches, where these angels were kept. Happens to be where four Roman legions were also kept. So there's four angels, there's four Roman legions. The angels are kind of like, anyway, you find some correspondence. The question is, and every preterist has to ask this, is some correspondence enough correspondence? Is this coincidental, or is it perhaps partial, or is this actually the real fulfillment of this thing? In some places, um, it's interesting because preterists would be equally confident and, you know, in one passage, in one in particular, Revelation 13, they could be very confident about Nero and then totally in confusion about the second beast, which is the false prophet. So, if you're familiar with Revelation, great. If not, I'm sorry. I'm not going to explain in great detail because again, 22 chapter book, um, it's just too much to cover when I'm covering six different perspectives. But their view is that Nero is the beast. And the mark of the beast, the 666, is is a um what's gematria is what it's called, but it's it's a Hebrew way of doing numbers. It's not weird. Okay, this is like really how they did numbers. Um, they used Hebrew letters to symbolize different numbers. What might be weird to some is that they would take Nero Caesar, that name, not his whole name, Nero Caesar Augustus Dolicus or whatever. I forget his full name. So they're not going to take his his whole name. Sorry, someone's trying to call me. Denied. Um, sorry, driving me nuts if it just keeps buzzing on me. Um, so they'll take Nero Caesar and they'll take specifically a Hebrew spelling of Nero Caesar that turns it into Neron Caesar, which may or may not be the most likely way of spelling, but what's trippy about it is that it really does equal 666. Like you can get from Neron Caesar 666. And then to add more confusion to this, here's true story. There are um there is an ancient reading in in a church father that suggests that Revelation should read 616. Now that has kind of puzzled people for years until they found an actual ancient papyrus or an ancient manuscript or really just a piece of Revelation that actually had the mark of the beast as 616. Why is that significant? Well, it's probably not the original reading. It most I don't know anybody if anybody thinks it is. What's interesting is that some scribes did put 616, and it seems like they did it on purpose. Well, the preterist would say the reason they did that is because while Nero Caesar or Neron Caesar is in Hebrew 666, Nero Caesar in Greek equals 616. And this scribe, they would theorize, he deliberately changed it to 616 because he realized his audience reading this copy of of Revelation didn't know Hebrew as well as John's original audience. So, he makes sure that they'll get the message that this is about Nero. Um, I mean, that's a pretty interesting argument. Um, they'll they could even point to how the beast, this beast, this, you know, someone called the Antichrist, he persecutes for 42 months in particular, 42 months of major, major persecution. Well, Nero did do 40 about 42 months of major persecution from the time of his his just intense hatred of Christians in particular. He put them on, he dipped them in tar, put them on torches, set them on fire. I mean, horrible things, and just a horrible persecution until he killed himself, was forced to kill himself, the story goes. And um, so yeah, that's interesting. So all that to say, like Revelation 13, the first beast, it's like, wow, preterists have like a strong case for that being Nero. They really do. Maybe it's right, maybe it's not.
But when it comes to the second beast, it's an example of where preterism does have problems because it's if you look at Revelation and you only gather the passages that look like they do have connections to Josephus or other things like that, preterism looks very strong. But what I've noticed in preterist commentaries is they often only present the strong passages and then they pass over the weak passages, the ones they don't have good preterist interpretations for, with no commentary. So that you won't even know there's a weakness there. And so that can be a problem. It can create overconfidence, I think, amongst some preterists. For example, the second beast of Revelation 13, right after all these neat things about Nero that they think they can connect. The second beast um well, he makes everybody worship the first beast. He makes an image of the beast, and it can talk, whatever. Now, maybe that's symbolic. It could be apocalyptic, but it's got to mean something. Well, I I've never even heard a preterist guess at what the talking of the beast is. And I looked and looked and spent way too many hours just on Revelation 13 looking for postmillennial perspectives on it. Um, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. What I'm saying is there's no clear correspondence. Some say the second beast is the Jewish high priestly system, but when did the Jewish high priests make people worship Nero? Like, that didn't happen. The Jews had special permission not to worship Nero, so that doesn't really make sense. Some said the mark of the beast is the phylacteries that the Jews would wear. The phylacteries. I'm like, I'm sorry, but that's that sounds totally far-fetched to me. Others would say it was the Roman emperor's cult, but then they have a hard time explaining how that beast arises out of the land, or what the talking of the image is, or how they were actually not just telling people to worship, but killing those who didn't. Right? Where does that happen during the reign of Nero or or shortly thereafter? Um, it's just difficult for them to find historical correspondence to all of Revelation. It's easy to find for pieces. So I would recommend, pay attention to preterist commentaries. There's a lot of details that are just passed over. They just don't I kind of wish I would read a commentary from a preterist so they go, "That's interesting. That should have fulfillment. I don't know what it is." Now, you can as a preterist say, "I'm postmillennial on preterist. I think there's enough correspondence in Revelation to 70 AD that I'm going to I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to all these other places where I'm not sure where the fulfillment is." You can do that. I'm not going to criticize that. I just want us to be honest about the areas where we don't know. That's it.
Um, well, let me see. Here's a weak point for preterism. While there are some strong points, there are some weak points as well. Um, one of them is just the idea that Satan is bound now. I I do think a lot of people have a hard time really seeing Satan is bound now and is bound ultimately from the from the cross, that he's he's bound at that point. Jesus bound him. Later, there are scriptures that talk about him being the god of this age currently and him actively blinding the minds of unbelievers. This is going on years and years after the cross. Now, a response to that is, well, he's bound, but it's like the binding is progressively happening, like the effects of it are progressively happening, and so it's not fully in place or something like that, but that would be a challenge to that view. Um, probably one of the harder [clears throat] challenges to preterism is their view of Revelation 20. Revelation 20, verse 4, and and amillennialists are going to share this same issue here. There is a resurrection that's mentioned in Revelation 20. Uh, premillennialists are going to say this is about the future resurrection. They're going to say this is a spiritual resurrection. The problem with that is, and I'm trying to summarize these things here quickly, but the problem with that is that you've got two resurrections mentioned, and they're viewing one as spiritual, one as physical. And you can try to build a case for it, but it's definitely a weak spot in the argument. So, let me read the passage and just point a couple things out to give you some insight. Revelation 20:4. Um, this is part that has already been fulfilled in the preterist or postmillennial view, and amillennial in a sense, depending on what kind of millennial you are. "Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God." Okay, let's talk about those people. "And those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and that is a a Greek word, *anastasis*, that is like a word for resurrection. They came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years." Now they think this is happening already, right? So they see this as a uh symbolic or, you know, spiritual, you know, resurrection, not a not a literal one. But then verse 5 says, "The rest of the dead did not come to life until a thousand years were ended." Okay, but that one they take as being a literal resurrection, literal bodily resurrection. So here you have the same phrase in the same context. One's spiritual, the other one's literal. That is a very weak point. Not only that, there's just been a lot of work on the word resurrection, scholarly work done by N.T. Wright, who happens to be postmillennial. He has the view that one's spiritual, one's one one's literal here. And his work on *anastasis* or um in his book, *The Resurrection of the Son of God*, is to suggest, I mean, it's it's just massive Greek word study on the topic to suggest that *anastasis* always means literal physical resurrection, and so you have to work pretty hard to get a symbolic one there. Um, it's quite a quite an odd spot for the view.
Now, here's support for preterism. One of the probably the strongest support for preterism is, well, I'll share with you right now, the time indicators in the book of Revelation that suggest that these things are supposed to happen soon. Um, at least according to the preterist, and this is a strong argument for preterism right here. These are the things according to Revelation 1:1 that "must soon take place." And then some think, "Well, that just means it must quickly. Like once it starts happening, it has to happen quickly because it's a short time from the beginning to the end of the events." Well, in verse 3, it says, um, "for the time is near." Okay. Well, the time is near. That does seem to imply that these things are going to happen, not only quickly, but they're going to happen soon, relatively soon, like 70 AD would fit. Um, you could also go to Revelation 3, or let me I'll just skip to the here. Revelation 22:10. Jesus says, uh, or the angel, sorry, says to him, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near." Uh, now, in Daniel, when the when the book is sealed, it's because the time for those fulfillments is very far off. In Revelation, "Don't seal it because the time is near." I I think that that is a is a fair thing to say, "Look, here's a strong reason to look for early fulfillment." Doesn't mean it's clinches the whole deal, but I want to give credit where credit's due. And then again, in Revelation 20:6, "these are things that must soon take place." Um, now there's other places where they're also going to mention, you know, things where Jesus is saying that the things the prophecies are going to come true shortly. I'm not convinced by those. There's a big list like Matthew 26:64, um, well, all through the Gospels. Um, Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21. We'll cover this stuff in the Mark series in the next couple weeks. So I'll go over that in more detail, but they'll list a bunch of verses they think suggest that these things have to happen soon. Have to happen soon. Um, they're going to look at the Olivet Discourse where Jesus talks about prophecy in the Gospels as having been already fulfilled, or at least mostly fulfilled. And there's going to be some debate on how much of it's fulfilled, but but it's pretty much mostly fulfilled, at least. It's not just like um random people who have this view. R.C. Sproul is a preterist. He holds the preterist view. Gary Demar is known. Gentry, Philip Gentry is one of the major like scholarly proponents of the view as well.
There are criticisms of the view. Before we move on to the next one, number two, told you it's going to be a long video. I'm not kidding. It's going to be long. Um, there's some criticism of um preterism and postmillennialism that you should be aware of. It's accused of being anti-Semitic. Um, because it's like, "Hey, the church has replaced Israel. The last the last news for Israel is judgment. You know, the temple's destroyed. God's kind of done with you." Um, I think that this is unwise. I don't I would never accuse this view of being anti-Semitic. You can be anti-Semitic and hold this view. My encouragement to Christians is: stop it. Please do not try to prove your theology true or your eschatology by saying that, you know, "I'm nicer to Jewish people than you are." Like, this is not only is that not really true, it's also not how you should establish theology. We don't build our unless you're a progressive Christian. Then then you may establish your theology based on what feels like the nicest theology to have. Um, and we can't do that. We have to interpret the text. So don't do that. Don't call it anti-Semitic, please. Every debate it comes up, and I'm like, um, some would say that postmillennialism and amillennialism, that it removes the validity of the book of Revelation and because it's all been fulfilled. Like, what's the point if it's not even future? What's the point of the book? Why is it valid for us today? And I think that this is also a bad argument against preterism. Of course, fulfilled prophecy is valid. In fact, I prefer fulfilled prophecy to unfulfilled because it's more clear because you can see the clear historical fulfillment of it. I think it's more exciting to me. Just personally speaking here, please don't invalidate fulfilled prophecy to try to prove you're right on eschatology.
I will say this: good criticisms of preterism, it seems to stretch symbolism to a breaking point. And the further you get in Revelation, the more you're racking up these things where you're like, "Oh, that was just like that was a pretty big stretch for that being fulfilled." However, if they're right about their understanding of apocalyptic genre, which a lot of people would say Revelation's apocalyptic, they may or may not view it as that kind of apocalyptic genre. And um, you know, if they're right about that, maybe you'll just flip a switch and you'll say, "Yep." It does look like it downgrades a lot of the content in Revelation. Stuff that looks like it's worldwide is very much just Israel and very it just looks a lot smaller than than you would have thought if you just read the book by itself. It also seemed to have two comings of Christ: him coming in in 70 AD in judgment and then coming again finally. And two future comings of Christ, or from the perspective of the first coming now, there's two more comings. And that's a little weird. It does tend to require tend to require an early date for the book of Revelation. See, for these things to be future, Revelation has to have been written before 70 AD. And this is kind of a challenge. Um, most people, and I mean even conservative Christians, look would say that Revelation was probably written in the '90s, not in the '70s or excuse me, not in the '60s. Even if it was written in the '60s, it had a very little lifespan of it being predictive. Very small period of time there. And so, yeah, that um that's a challenge for this view. Uh, some postmillennialists will say, "Hey, I don't care if Revelation was written late. It's just recounting what already happened." That's fine. And and and maybe they can do that, but I would say the majority that I've heard, they do depend on an early date for Revelation, which seems somewhat unlikely. And yeah, the resurrections, the two resurrections I mentioned, that's a problem. Um, sorry. Details tend to be glossed over in preterist commentaries. They tend to just skip the things that don't have an
easy first century fulfillment. And I would consider that criticism.
All right, let's go to our second view. The second view is is related to the first view. Um, and this is the heretical one. This is full or hyper predtoderism. I wish they wouldn't use the term predtoism because their view is not really Christian. Um, and and I I don't say that to be an insult, right? Like Mormonism is not really Christian. That's not because I'm mad at Mormons or something. Like Christianity is an actual thing and there are some things that may look similar but not be authentically Christian like say Mormonism in some in some cases um the theology is Christian but in essential cases it's not and the same here with full or hyper predtoism.
Hyper predtoism would take the predtoist view that everything from to revelation 20:6 has already been fulfilled and they would extend it to the whole book. They would also extend it to basically the entire Bible. Everything in the Bible has been fulfilled. The second coming has already happened. We're living in the eternal kingdom. And this turns into a denial of some central tenants of Christianity. There is no literal resurrection. None. No future resurrection, which it flies in the face of 1 Corinthians 15. Flies in the face of of everything we know about Christianity. There's no actual eternal life. Like we're just living. This is it. Like this is heaven, guys. Um yeah, there's no end of death or pain. Um wars and all this stuff. All the end of all those things has already happened. Jesus has already returned for the last time. It's it's done. It's over. We are currently living in the new heavens and new earth. Which means effectively by saying all that stuff's fulfilled. We're denying all of those things because they have not been fulfilled. As all Christians would agree, they have not been fulfilled. And so you're just denying that they were going to happen at all and saying that they already happened.
We call this heresy because it denies core teachings of scripture. Not only is it not biblical, but it's also not historical. From the earliest creeds of the church from the And I mean these are like actual ecumenical creeds like creeds when before there was like a lot of the division that existed later on where it was different groups trying to like you know claim power over the rest of the church and stuff like that. We have things like the apostles creed that says that Jesus is coming to judge the living and the dead. Right? This is this is long after the time of the apostles. The creed that all the Christians could agree on is that Jesus really is coming back to judge the living and the dead. the Nyine creed which says and I'll quote he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the father he will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead his kingdom will never end that would deny uh that that creed saying this is what Christianity is that would deny um hyper predtoism we look forward they say as well in the creed we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and to life in the world to come.
Uh the dedicay here's something really random I do worry about how long this video will be but maybe you don't so the dedicay is first century probably written around like 95 98 AD. This thing was probably written around the time of revelation and it's not a Bible book but the [clears throat] dedicay is probably it's a it's not that long of a book. You could find it online and read it for free. Just d I d a c h e dedicay. And um this this book it's probably like an instructional book like they wanted to like a new believer's packet in a sense right like let's walk you through new believers through these things. It doesn't it's not authoritative but it's interesting. Here's what the dedicay says. I'll read several verses from the dedicay here from chapter 16 3-8. This is what they said and their view seems to be a premillennial but the point is that it's an early statement about the belief in the future resurrection right shortly after 70 AD in other words the whole church missed it predtoist like full predtoist the whole church missed everything that that you make your view um let me read it to you dedicate 16:3 says for in the last days false prophets and seducers shall be multiplied and the and the sheep shall be turned into wolves and love shall be turned into hate they seem to be quoting Jesus here from the gospels and because iniquity aboundeth. They shall hate each other and persecute each other and deliver each other up. And then shall the deceiver of the world appear as the son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands, and he shall do unlawful things such as have never happened since the beginning of the world. Again, this is a this is a premillennial perspective. It doesn't prove premills are right, but this is their their perspective, and they dedicate. Um, then shall the creation of man come to the fiery trial of proof, and many shall be offended and shall perish, but they who remain in their faith shall be saved by the rock of offense itself. You can hear how they're kind of quoting scripture. Like, he who endures to the end shall be saved, Jesus says. And then shall appear the signs of the truth. First, the sign of the appearance in heaven, then the sign of the sound of the trumpet, and thirdly, the resurrection of the dead, tapping into Jesus, tapping into this his all of discourse in the gospels, tapping into first Thessalonians, um tapping into Revelation, 1 Corinthians, all that. It's all future in in the perspective of those who affirm the the contents of the dedicay in the first century and second century. Then in verse 7 it says not of all but as it has been said the Lord shall come and his saints with him. That's premillennial first resurrection the saints. And then in verse 8 then shall the world behold the Lord coming on the clouds of heaven.
So um my point here is that the one view you shouldn't hold is the second one I've covered which is hyper predtoderism. This view can be panned by everybody um including predtoists who rightly use the name predtoist. Um this view should be panned by everybody. um arguably should have a different title because it denies the real and future bodily return of Christ, the resurrection, and other things that all Christians have always affirmed.
Number three, pre-millennial views. This is again the view I hold with a loose hand. Forgive me, you may have more confidence about your view than I have of mine. That's fair. I wouldn't I'm not criticizing you for it, but I can only be honest about my my level of confidence, which is not super high [laughter] when it comes to esquetology. Um, one day we'll all know what it means, right? We'll all know we'll all be right because it will have happened.
The synopsis of the premillennial view is this. The premillennialists, they view that Jesus is going to in the future return to the earth. He's going to at that point have a thousand-year long kingdom, worldwide reign on earth. The resurre the first resurrection of the saints or the saved happens at the beginning of that kingdom. Then a thousand years of great reign. At the end of it, Satan is released. Right? Satan deceives those those who are who he can deceive, which we'll get into some more details about why that can be confusing for people. And then the the final judgment comes and the second resurrection, the final resurrections of the unsaved and for their punishment. Before the thousand-year reign, they believe that there is a tribulation coming. This is probably most of them would say this is a literal 7-year period. There's a 7-year future period of crazy tribulation that happens right before that millennium begins. So a lot of the premillennialists, they start debating, are we heading into the tribulation? We look at the world around us and we say, "Hey, is that going to be a one world government that we read about in Revelation? Is that going to be the beast? Is that person going to be trying to institute the mark of the beast? Is this thing going to be the mark of the beast?" And this is because they think that the next major thing on the prophetic time scale is the seven years of tribulation.
Generally speaking, premillennialists also believe in a pre-tribulational rapture. But there are premillennialists who believe in a this means the rapture of the church. Like believers around the world will just be taken up, you know, brought up out of the earth before the 7-year tribulation. That's a pre-tribulational rapture. Then there are mid-trip people or pre-rath rapture people who think it'll happen at about the 3 and 1/2 year mark. They'll be brought up just before it gets really, really bad for 3 and 1/2 years. And then there are post-trip who think that we're caught up when Christ returns. We're we join him in the air and then we come with him down to the earth. Um, I don't have a really hard stance on the timing of the rapture. And um, um, and they do view the binding of Satan as very, very strong. Like Satan when he's bound during this millennium, this thousand year into Christ, like he has no influence of any kind on the earth. Like there's no influence. God is the one governing the world. He's he's he's not only god of all things, he's the god of of the age or of the world at the time. And there are um, this is where it gets a little tricky, right? There are people who live through the tribulation, at least on many premillennial views, they live through the tribulation and then they enter into the millennium and they're not saved and they have kids and they populate the earth and and they may or may not actually be saved. When Satan is released, those are the people ultimately he'll probably deceive. That would be the general, I think, view that's held there.
Now, there's there's kind of like three camps. I'm going to just talk about two of them. So, this is going to be um the the more common dispensational premillennial camp. I'm going to talk about them for a second. And then there's something called a progressive dispensational camp. And I find myself in that camp tentatively. Might change my mind. Maybe I'll become a millennial or predtoist or something. I don't know. Um that's possible. I don't like foresee it happening, but I definitely could see the possibility. And I'll let you guys know if I change my mind. Uh you certainly don't have to agree with me on this. But let me talk about the dispensational premillennial views. Then I'll talk about progressive dispensational premillennial views. So we'll consider this three and four of today's six views.
Three is dispensational, premillennial. Um, both of these are marked in both views are marked in how literally they take prophecy. They don't, it's a misnomer that they take it woodenly literally. Now, some of them may, but they just take it more in a more straightforward fashion than the postmillennialists or especially the amillennialists who we'll talk about later. They have an extremely flexible understanding of the book of Revelation and of prophecy. um at least from you know by comparison to the progressive or or just dispensationalist. So yeah, when Revelation uses symbolic language, we see it as symbolic, the premillennialists, but they're also going to say that the symbols are taken in fairly straightforward ways, right? When a fourth of the earth is dying, well, that's very much something a lot like a quarter of a quarter of the earth dying. Like it's going to be taken fairly straightforward. Um, and one view that's consistent amongst um dispensational and progressive dispensational premillennial people, I'm so sorry cuz I can feel I'm confusing people, but this is just confusing stuff. Do my best for you. One view that's consistent amongst them is that they will see that Israel and the church are not the same identical thing. Um so they're thinking that there are these prophecies in the Old Testament and the New Testament about Israel that will be fulfilled in the future in a national sense in Israel.
Now let me talk about some more details. The dispensational premillennialist has taken their name because it started with a view on what's called dispensations. This is printed in the Scoffield Study Bible. This is what it's famous for. I think it's a total distraction from the esquetological view. Let me mention it briefly and why it's a boogeyman and why people will often deal with dispensational premillennialists. They don't deal with the views. They deal with the boogeyman. So, let me explain. Um, dispensations is a term referring to different eras of how God structures humans human history. In Eden, it's an era of innocence. After that, it's an era of conscience. Man has to obey his conscience, but man doesn't. that leads to the flood because man is so wicked. Then you have the area the era of like civil government. This is after the flood up until Abraham. Then you have an era of promise and then between Abraham and Moses. After Moses you have the era of the law. Now God's interacting people with the law. Then you have the church age when Jesus comes or the era of grace. Um then you're going to have the ma next major one coming is the millennium where it's a worldwide theocracy. Now I I could go on for a week explaining all those different eras, but this is kind of a boogeyman because it's not relevant. It's not relevant to the dispensational view of premillennial esquetology. This is it's just not relevant. So Scofield in his Scoffield Bible that was very very popular back in the day and I don't know too many people who use it now. He had a view that was related to dispensations and it had it held that the Jews kind of had like a works path to God. Like that's what it reads like as you read his commentaries comments on like is it John 11:17 or something? It it looks like the Jews have a path to God through works, which is not at all a biblical teaching. And that raises red flags. And they're like, boom, if you're esquetology is based on that. And all I'm going to say is, guys, dispensationalists who are premillennial nowadays, they generally the term dispensational applies, but they don't focus on dispensations at all. Many of them prefer to just look at the human history as old covenant, new covenant, and that's it. So, we just need to ignore that. Um, the big issue though is that the church has not fully replaced Israel. Even if Israel and the church are united in one entity, there's still a national identity of Israel that is has prophecies to be fulfilled. That would be the more modern current um belief that's influencing premillennial dispensational views. [laughter] Man, this stuff is so confusing. You just you it's hard to understand what I'm saying. You go read what they write. O um it just gets really complicated and confusing. But hopefully I'm bringing some clarity.
The um the way that they view the book of revelation. Let's let's talk about how a dispensational premillennial person views the book of revelation. They see it as future. They're in fact the term for how they interpret revelation is futurist. So unlike the predtoist view most of revelations fulfilled it's like the it's like the opposite of that. They go almost all of this stuff has not yet happened. It's going to happen. And when it happens, it's going to have a much more