The gathering of the elect

End Times
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Gregorio
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Re: The gathering of the elect

Post by Gregorio » Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:55 pm

Another problem for my mind on this is

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

just within this senetence it says "heavens and earth pass away"(which you say are principles then says "and the elements melt with heat"(you say principles), then it says " the earth also AND the works that are therein shall be burned up."

the last phrase makes a distinction between the earth and the works...
if your view this would have to read "the principles of this world and the works therein are burned up"

the first two phrases as well seem to reeiterate "heaven and earth burning" by repeating "and elements melt" to clarify and then repeats the phrase "earth and works therein" that really seems like a lot of principles to repeat in one sentence if they all refer to principles only and not a physical earth..
This is hard for me to get i guess. The translators must have had a hermaneutic mess in translating this sentence with so many metaphors ha ha i'm a poor greek student so no help from me yet.. LOL
I'm not disagreeing yet.. just throwing challenges out to ya, that come to mind, and wanting more info and need to study this out...
thanks and blessings Greg

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Gregorio
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Re: The gathering of the elect

Post by Gregorio » Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:33 pm

Doug can you also give me a website or something to check out about teaching of the kingdom increasing or continually growing. I'd like to study that... sounds kewl..
I've heard of this somewhere..
Thanks

dwilkins
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Re: The gathering of the elect

Post by dwilkins » Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:37 pm

Gregorio wrote:ok and also please explain rev 21:1 I saw the new heavens and earth for the old had passed away... is that only metaphor? if all the old passed away was referring to principles of living why refer to it as a metaphor and why use "earth passing away"... and also in this view that you speak of.. are all the old testament references to physical earth passing away metaphor as well?
Thanks

i'll be reading up more ... all new to me..so lots of questions :) :S
If you don't already have it, download Esword or something similar to make the following easier. Spend some time looking through how the phrase "heaven and earth" is used throughout scripture. It appears to me that there is more than one point being made with these terms. In some places literal items are used to describe metaphorical ones (why, exactly, can't your average Christian throw mountains into the sea?). The following are a number of ways that "heaven and earth" are used. None of it has to do with destroying the physical universe (as I mentioned, something Wright has demonstrated was not part of the first century Jewish mindset outside of what was influenced by Stoicism and other parts of Greek philosophy).

1) In the first century 'heaven and earth" was a phrase used to describe the temple in Jerusalem. Beale's "New Testament use of the Old Testament"

http://www.amazon.com/Commentary-New-Te ... +testament

goes into some detail about this (p 1155 and following). Basically, the idea of a temple throughout ANE culture was seen as a sort of landing pad or portal for the gods. It was where the gods interfaced with the earth. Syfy fans might think of it as a sort of stargate, where a precise location is used to interface between heaven and the earth. The Hebrews used the Tabernacle and Temple in almost exactly that way. For them to refer to the Jerusalem Temple as the "Heaven and Earth" was to at least say that this is the merger or interface between the two. The symbology inside of the temple was also used to describe elements of astronomy and cosmology, so that Philo would describe it as a microcosm (or miniature representation of all creation). At the very least, it should be interesting to us that when Christ and his Disciples were sitting on the Mount of Olives during the Olivet Discourse, "heaven and earth" was a phrase used to describe the building adjacent to them. It has been commonly accepted throughout Christian history (Eusebius, Luther, Lightfoot, etc.) that the Olivet Discourse was fulfilled (at least the beginning of it) when the Temple was destroyed. So, to a group of people sitting on a hillside a couple of hundred yards from the Temple,

Matthew 24:32-35 (ESV)
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.

might simply mean that "the Temple will pass away, but my words will not pass away".

2) I will try to look for the reference later today, but there is a sense in the Old Testament that "the earth" is a reference to the way things on the earth are managed and "heaven" is a reference to the way things in heaven are managed (I believe what I'm looking for is in the Kings somewhere, but it might take a bit to find). On a slightly more esoteric level, saying that the heaven and earth are going to be renewed might have carried with it the idea that the way in which heaven and earth will be managed will be renewed. Hebrews 1 strongly implies that there was some sort of paradigmatic shift in the way that heaven operated after Christ's session. This is also seen in Revelation in the story of the Woman and the Dragon. The paradigm of Job, where Satan had free reign to stand before God and accuse believers radically changed when the Dragon was cast down for a short time. It's also possible that God's MO of using evil powers to militarily defeat his apostate nation (Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, etc.) would be modified somewhat when the nation on earth was redefined from a single discreet nation comprised of both believers and unbelievers to a multinational group of only believers covering the whole earth. In this sense, the management of heaven and the management of earth changed radically in the first century.

3) Isaiah 65-66 (a very important passage in the Old Testament because it's only place where the phrase "New Heavens and New Earth" appears) is clear that the goal is a faithful nation. There is going to be a judgment against the Mosaic Covenant nation, the faithful remnant is going to be saved out of it, and then a New Heaven and New Earth is going to be established.

Isaiah 65:15-21 (ESV)
15 You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord God will put you to death, but his servants he will call by another name.
16 So that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth, and he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my eyes.
17 "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

The New Jerusalem, elsewhere referred to as being described as a bride is itself the new group of people (Rev. 21-22), this time composed only of believers who will please God. They will be a blessing to others and God will bless them. This new relationship between heaven and earth isn't the melting of quarks and dark matter, it's the establishment of an actually faithful group of followers.

4) Language used to describe the destruction of the Old Heaven and Old Earth is commonly used in the Old Testament to simply describe the end of a nation (we say, "it was the end of the world for them", etc.). One excellent example is Isaiah 34,

Isaiah 34:1-8 (ESV)
1 Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.
2 For the Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter.
3 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.
5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
6 The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood; it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged with fat.
8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

Here, when Edom is invaded by the Babylonians six centuries before Christ, all of the host of heaven rotted away and the skies were rolled up like a scroll. This actually happened in history past. It was not a description of a scientifically amazing event. It was a historical event of cataclysm on their nation. Apocalyptic language in the New Testament is taken from the Old Testament, and there are no grounds that I'm aware of for understanding it outside of the way it would have been used in the Old Testament.

The heaven and earth change was that a new group of people, using new liturgy, a new paradigm for God interfacing with man, and with new power against accusation by Satan, came into being in the first century. The old interface between heaven and earth was a single nation and single temple with a single landing pad in the Holy of Holies. The new interface is accomplished through each believer since individual believers are now the temple of God. We no longer conquer through war or territorial gain. Instead, now we do so through sacrificial love and conversion. We're in a totally new economy, or a New Heaven and New Earth.

Doug

dwilkins
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Re: The gathering of the elect

Post by dwilkins » Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:42 pm

Gregorio wrote:Doug can you also give me a website or something to check out about teaching of the kingdom increasing or continually growing. I'd like to study that... sounds kewl..
I've heard of this somewhere..
Thanks
The idea of the kingdom increasing is only foreign to us because we've been immersed in Premillennial Dispensationalism, which says that we eventually fail. On the other hand, Amillennialists and Postmillennialists have been writing on an increasing kingdom since the beginning of the church. Though their Calvinism is nutty, modern people writing on the success of the kingdom such as Chilton and McDurmon do a good job of summarizing the point. I don't support their use of the Mosaic Covenant to do so, but their basic position that on a long enough timeline we will eventually succeed is far more fundamentally Biblical than Lindsay.

Doug

dwilkins
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Re: The gathering of the elect

Post by dwilkins » Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:50 pm

Gregorio wrote:Another problem for my mind on this is

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

just within this senetence it says "heavens and earth pass away"(which you say are principles then says "and the elements melt with heat"(you say principles), then it says " the earth also AND the works that are therein shall be burned up."

the last phrase makes a distinction between the earth and the works...
if your view this would have to read "the principles of this world and the works therein are burned up"

the first two phrases as well seem to reeiterate "heaven and earth burning" by repeating "and elements melt" to clarify and then repeats the phrase "earth and works therein" that really seems like a lot of principles to repeat in one sentence if they all refer to principles only and not a physical earth..
This is hard for me to get i guess. The translators must have had a hermaneutic mess in translating this sentence with so many metaphors ha ha i'm a poor greek student so no help from me yet.. LOL
I'm not disagreeing yet.. just throwing challenges out to ya, that come to mind, and wanting more info and need to study this out...
thanks and blessings Greg
This passage doesn't seem too complicated to me. When Temple was destroyed the works associated with it were judged as well. Refining things in fire is used in several places in the New Testament. I don't think it was trying to make any more complicated of a point than that the works of the Old Covenant as represented by the apostate nation alive in the first century were burned up like wood, hay, and stubble always are. If you don't see the Great White Throne Judgment starting in heaven at that time, then I can see why it might seem more complicated. But, the Jews had been looking forward to a final judgment (Dan. 12:2) or justification since they entered the Promised Land (Deut. 32). In 70AD, when their temple and religious observance system was destroyed, I believe that a matching judgment began in heaven for individuals and their works. That was the moment when the dead were gathered from the four winds and had to stand judgment before God (Rev. 20). From that point on, as people die individually, they do so immediately after death.

Revelation 14:13 (ESV)
13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Blessed indeed," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!"

Doug

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Gregorio
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Re: The gathering of the elect

Post by Gregorio » Tue Feb 12, 2013 5:14 pm

Wow ok interesting...well you gave me a ton to read ha ha thanks bro.. I am new to all this.. I've been at preterism and a Mil for about a year... barely grounded in it now.. Sounds like I have a lot to go still and some things to figure out! I appreciate the info and letting me bounce q's off you guys ;)
Gonna buy some of these books LOL

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Aaron
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Re: The gathering of the elect

Post by Aaron » Fri Feb 15, 2013 1:21 am

I'm a newbie preterist myself - and have had many of the same questions. I'm still not sure why the new heavens and earth in Isaiah talks of people living a long life (but still dying), yet the new heavens and earth of Revelation speaks of no more death.

If 2 Peter was talking about the literal heavens being destroyed by burning, I have some questions about the physics of it. What heavens is he referring to? The atmosphere? The cosmos? It seems a little weird that the atmosphere could be destroyed with burning. That's a little different then the world being set on fire.
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