RICHinCHRIST wrote:dwilkins wrote:I'm not seeing where the verses you provided challenge my point. In "this age" (at the time of the writing of the NT) there was no eternal life, resurrection, or fully implemented Kingdom. The gifts that the believers were given were a down payment and part of the promise that they'd attain to eternal life, resurrection, and share in rule in the fully implemented Kingdom. At the transition to "the age to come" people who have died and been resurrected have eternal life in heaven and great reward. In addition, there is ongoing human history on earth.
It sounds to me like you are proposing that there is no ongoing human history on earth after the 2nd Coming. If this is your position, then I can see why you've come to that conclusion.
Doug
I'm not really following you. According to my understanding, the resurrection occurs on the last day. The only ongoing human history that continues is on the new earth, not the version of our current world. At first I thought maybe you were a full preterist, but some of your comments seem to mean otherwise.
If the age to come means that individuals receive eternal life at the resurrection, then the implication of Jesus's statement sounds like there is potential forgiveness available after the resurrection, which occurs on the final day of human history, also known as the last day.
The key, of course, is what is "the last day?" There is quite a bit of discussion, especially since Wright has made the point a key to his eschatology, about the fact that the Jews didn't expect an end of human history on "the last day." Instead, the Apostles would have understood it as the last day of the old system that introduced the new system. There are some complicated implications that come from this, but I think it'd be a good idea to focus on whether or not we expect to have ongoing human history on earth after the establishment of the New Heavens and New Earth. Isaiah 66, from which the term is adopted, seems to indicate to me that there is ongoing history. Combined with chapter 65 (as well as images from the end of Revelation which show sinful people milling around outside of the New Jerusalem, but invited in as long as they become sinless), there is an unavoidable dynamic of people still being converted, which means ongoing sin and rebellion to God.
It seems to me that the crisis you are addressing is how to see people being invited to repent after the implementation of the New Heavens and New Earth. I think the common mistake is that people have flattened the period after this transition to only include heaven. If it includes heaven and earth (the earth is renewed, not done away with), then the relevant passages are switching back and forth between their description of the heavenly and the earthly. Unflattening the narrative into both heaven and earth allows you to have people repenting on earth, but not in heaven.
I'm not proposing Full Preterism, but instead Duncan's system of Premillennial Preterism.
Probably the most important thing to do is to re-read Isaiah 65-66, keeping in mind that this is not describing the Millennium. And, if you pay close attention to the context, it is clearly postulating that it will come into effect when apostate Israel is put to the sword and a new Israel and Jerusalem are established in which there are 100% believers (one of major upgrades of the Old Covenant is that only the faithful will be allowed into the New Covenant).
Doug
