ECT 10 Principles of NT eschatology

[Interplanner]

1, Rom 11 is prodding not prediction
2, Gal 3:17 is the true RT issue
3, Isaiah shifts Davidic promises; it is not a recent or even a Paul idea
4, Acts 26 shapes Israel's outcome
5, The "people" of Mt 21 are Christians
6, Rom 2 is about both Jew and Gentile on the day of judgement
7, 2 Pet 3 is the best passage on the future
8, NT eschatology does not mix 1st century Judean events with future worldwide day of judgement
9, the apostles spent their time expounding Ps 2, 16, 110, not Ps 83
10, "saved" in Rom 11 is justification from our debt of sin, not a future theocracy for Israel

 

[Cross Reference]

1, Rom 11 is prodding not prediction
2, Gal 3:17 is the true RT issue
3, Isaiah shifts Davidic promises; it is not a recent or even a Paul idea
4, Acts 26 shapes Israel's outcome
5, The "people" of Mt 21 are Christians
6, Rom 2 is about both Jew and Gentile on the day of judgement
7, 2 Pet 3 is the best passage on the future
8, NT eschatology does not mix 1st century Judean events with future worldwide day of judgement
9, the apostles spent their time expounding Ps 2, 16, 110, not Ps 83
10, "saved" in Rom 11 is justification from our debt of sin, not a future theocracy for Israel

What religious persuasion do you consider yourself, Interplanner?

 

[Interplanner]

Post-Dispensational Historian!

 

[Cross Reference]

Post-Dispensational Historian!

?? Is that of a religious organization or are you just taking online courses for college credits and this forum is part of the course?

 

[HisServant]

Post-Dispensational Historian!

In other words, your mind woke up one day. Good for you!

 

[genuineoriginal]

1, Rom 11 is prodding not prediction
2, Gal 3:17 is the true RT issue
3, Isaiah shifts Davidic promises; it is not a recent or even a Paul idea
4, Acts 26 shapes Israel's outcome
5, The "people" of Mt 21 are Christians
6, Rom 2 is about both Jew and Gentile on the day of judgement
7, 2 Pet 3 is the best passage on the future
8, NT eschatology does not mix 1st century Judean events with future worldwide day of judgement
9, the apostles spent their time expounding Ps 2, 16, 110, not Ps 83
10, "saved" in Rom 11 is justification from our debt of sin, not a future theocracy for Israel

Those are not principles, those are opinions.

Here is a set of principles:

_____
10 Principles for Doing Eschatology

The 3 Do’s

1. Hold your feet to Scripture

2. Examine passages according to each viewpoint.

3. Probe for (in)consistency.

The 7 Don’ts

1. Don't choose a side and then look for evidence to support it.

2. Don't choose a side for its social capital.

3. Don't act as though eschatology doesn’t matter.

4. Don't say you are without bias.

5. Don't dismiss an argument because it seems new.

6. Don't dismiss ideas because they have been abused.

7. Don't make eschatology the hill to die on.
_____​

 

[Interplanner]

Those are not principles, those are opinions.

Here is a set of principles:

_____
10 Principles for Doing Eschatology

The 3 Do’s

1. Hold your feet to Scripture

2. Examine passages according to each viewpoint.

3. Probe for (in)consistency.

The 7 Don’ts

1. Don't choose a side and then look for evidence to support it.

2. Don't choose a side for its social capital.

3. Don't act as though eschatology doesn’t matter.

4. Don't say you are without bias.

5. Don't dismiss an argument because it seems new.

6. Don't dismiss ideas because they have been abused.

7. Don't make eschatology the hill to die on.
_____​

These things are not opinion. After 40 years of hearing everything from every direction, it is still possible for the dust to settle and for the historic thing to emerge clearly.

I have don't most of your list, btw. That's how I got here. I have probably spent 2 years exlusively on how the NT uses the OT.

Hold on, though, about your #2. It sounds worthless. That is not exegesis. That is testing the winds.

I think what you may need to see, what many people need to see, is that there is no clear distinction between eschatology and justification. That is why the sample sermon in Acts 13 turns Israel's destiny into the theme of justification. You can gawk at that and say he lost his train of thought. I disagree. It is actually what Isaiah's 2nd half was saying all along.

I could demonstrate the essential fact in each one, but will wait to see if you have a specific question. What, for example, is loose about the proposition about 'people' in Mt 21? Once you realize that there is a play on the term 'ethnes' it is quite clear what happened to ethnes, of which Israel is one.

 

[Interplanner]

In my master's program, we studied the effect of the Jewish Revolt on Luke-Acts. In fact, I would say that is about all the higher scholarship study, because it shows itself seeping through in many points.

For ex., one problematic thing in Luke is that the guys who take over the temple for money-changing in the 'overturning the tables' scene are referred to as 'leistes.' The difficulty of that term is that it is a terrorist--insurgent--renegade, and yet 'leistes' did not control the temple in Jesus' time but they did during the revolt they disgraced it by using it as a fort. So why use the term so early? Were they actually funneling off money to support Jewish rebels? See how fast it gets really sticky and really involved in those historic background events?

 

[Interplanner]

I was raised in dispensational Bible churches. While at their Bible college, I heard a missionary to the US from Australia (he was a very passionate Reformation historian and scholar and spoke about the perils of subjectivism today), and Dr. Francis Schaeffer, L'Abri. By the time you're done absorbing them, dispensationalism is simply an amateur, feel-good approach, possibly orchestrated by Zionists.

I'm about to re-release my novel FOOTHOLD which squeezes about all the suspense you possibly can out of modern pop eschatology in its situation with Islam. I also live 15 miles from where Resham invaded with his trunk full of chemicals bound for LAX on Y2K. It factors into the novel.

 

[patrick jane]

I was raised in dispensational Bible churches. While at their Bible college, I heard a missionary to the US from Australia (he was a very passionate Reformation historian and scholar and spoke about the perils of subjectivism today), and Dr. Francis Schaeffer, L'Abri. By the time you're done absorbing them, dispensationalism is simply an amateur, feel-good approach, possibly orchestrated by Zionists.

I'm about to re-release my novel FOOTHOLD which squeezes about all the suspense you possibly can out of modern pop eschatology in its situation with Islam. I also live 15 miles from where Resham invaded with his trunk full of chemicals bound for LAX on Y2K. It factors into the novel.

I'll be sure not to get that novel.

 

[genuineoriginal]

These things are not opinion.

That is your opinion.

Hold on, though, about your #2. It sounds worthless. That is not exegesis. That is testing the winds.

No, it is a principle you yourself followed, as shown in this statement:

After 40 years of hearing everything from every direction. . .

I could demonstrate the essential fact in each one, but will wait to see if you have a specific question.

Ok.

 

[genuineoriginal]

1, Rom 11 is prodding not prediction

Romans 11 is both prediction and prodding.
It affirms God's declarations that He will restore the children of Israel to their place as His chosen people and warns Gentiles that they are not to gloat over the fall of the children of Israel.

2, Gal 3:17 is the true RT issue

I don't know what you mean by "the true RT issue".
God's covenants are unchangeable and eternal.
Adding a new covenant does not replace an older covenant, nor can a new covenant subtract from an older covenant.
The new covenant only adds to the older covenant.

3, Isaiah shifts Davidic promises; it is not a recent or even a Paul idea

Maybe you should explain what you mean by "Isaiah shifts Davidic promices".

4, Acts 26 shapes Israel's outcome

No, Acts 26 is too late to shape Israel's outcome.
Israel's outcome was shaped when the 490 year prophecy ended right before Cornelius was chosen to be the first Gentile convert in Acts 10.

5, The "people" of Mt 21 are Christians

I assume you are referring to the statement, "we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet."
The people are not Christians, they were Jews who believed the Messiah (Christ) was going to come.

6, Rom 2 is about both Jew and Gentile on the day of judgement

Romans 2 is more of a warning against thinking your destiny will be a good one in the Judgment when your life now is not righteous.

7, 2 Pet 3 is the best passage on the future

Claiming any passage is "the best" is an opinion.
I think Zechariah 14 is better.

8, NT eschatology does not mix 1st century Judean events with future worldwide day of judgement

I am not sure what you mean by "future worldwide day of judgment".
Are you referring to the Dispensationalist eschatological view of a seven year Tribulation period?
The 490 year prophecy of Daniel 9 ended before the events in Acts 10.
The fleeing of the believers to Pella in 66 CE, followed by the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE fulfilled many of the prophecies from the Olivet Discourse.
The great tribulation Jesus spoke of in the Olivet Discourse is the exile of the children of Israel from the land of promise, known as the Diaspora, which is still in effect.

9, the apostles spent their time expounding Ps 2, 16, 110, not Ps 83

I suppose you think you have a point there, but what it might be is not clear at all.

10, "saved" in Rom 11 is justification from our debt of sin, not a future theocracy for Israel

God's promises to the children of Israel will be fulfilled at the return of the Messiah and the kingdom described in Ezekiel 40-48 will be the kingdom from Zechariah 14.

 

[Interplanner]

Sorry, there is nothing in rom 11 about that. He wanted them to be missionaries right then. That is what he is prodding them about. Whenever you urge someone, you want to persuade and say 'this is what will happen if you help us' but that is not a prediction.

More to the point we know it is not a prediction because Paul's use of isaiah is historic. He's looking at what has already taken place. Look all through Romans and "saved" is never about israel civically or theocratically. it is about them being justified from their sins like their Gentile brothers who believe.

 

[Interplanner]

2, Judaism shifted who the promises were for. Paul says in Gal 3:17 that they voided and misappropriated them. They always were for the salvation of the nations, and he was a leader in rediscovering, and broadcasting that. that is indeed the heat of the main issue of the NT. Refusal to accept it lead to the jewish Revolt.

 

[Interplanner]

3, I purposely did not reference that passage to see if you knew it was quoted with all apostolic authority in Acts 13, which is a sermon that everyone should memorize. The Davidic promises no longer go to Israel, they are Christ's. We have been given an inside ear on a trinitarian conversation, and those promises are for Christ and those in him: justification, the Holy Spirit and the mission of the Gospel. Not oil and land and wives in Judea.

 

[Interplanner]

4, but Acts 26 does show the trajectory of things. Israel is still working away at its temple by that time (early 60s) and thinks that by keeping the cycle of Judaism going they will have their messianic age, which is actually going on right before them in the kerygma of Paul along with suffering. Paul wants everyone to be like him, except the chains, not every one to be in a theocracy in Israel. He and God want missionaries not 'fulfilled prophecy' as they knew it.

 

[Interplanner]

5, sorry that people is the 'ethnes' of the parable of the vineyard. The vineyard has been given to an 'ethnes.' The only thing that defines that 'ethnes' is faith in the Gospel.

 

[Interplanner]

The point of number 6 is that both Jew and Gentile are present!!! Not one and then the other. Not Israel in earthly battles. This idea that there are separate schemes of things going to happen in cryptically coded sequences is nonsense, total rubbish. See 2 Pet 3. All that happens at the end of history is the judgement of all mankind.

(There is of course the judgement just of Israel that took place in the Jewish War, Lk 21, but that is not what rom 2 or 2 Pet 3 mean, which is universal.)

 

[Nick M]

In my master's program,

Ask for your money back.

 

[Interplanner]

7, 2 Pet 3 is the best because:
*it is the longest run of verses in one place; no one-liners; it is also the last thing written on the topic by the apostles even when they did not know if the Jewish revolt, Lk 21, was actually going to lead right in to universal judgement
*it is not symbolic; doctrine should not be based on symbolic passages.
*it deals with the objection that the 2nd coming should have come already;
*it is the NT using the OT rather than us fumbling with it.

All other passages even in the NT will break down on these points. The first thing I would do with the one you chose is see how the NT uses it, which is going to go so many directions compared to what Peter says.