March 2006
“Historicism’s Antichrist” Feedback
Mar 21, 2006 · Posted in Emails, HistoricismIn regard to my post on Historicism Ian Myerscough commented:
Hi Tim,
I’m writing cos I normally just smile at your contributions on Fivedoves – but your teenage style dismissal of Historicism is more breathtaking than usual. The foremost writer of the last 2 centuries on historicism was Dr Grattan Guiness, the Maths and Astronomy chair of Dublin University, and the outstanding Bible teacher and preacher of evangelical Christianity of his day in Ireland. He also started one of today’s largest Missionary societies out of his own tireless evangelistic efforts. He wrote literally dozens of now standard scholarly texts on Church History etc. Try reading some of his works like ‘Light for the Last days’ before you rush into cyberspace again with a few trivial paragraphs. NB You’ll need a few weeks for each book – he’s not a 21st century soundbite peddlar!
Hi Ian, thanks for introducing yourself as another smiling reader of mine =). Seriously, I agree there is much more I could have written in my last post to debunk Historicism, but time did not permit it. But really, it ought to be enough to point out it breaks the plain reading of scripture. If we could all read the Bible properly and learn to not entertain theories that break the consensus of the face value meaning of plain scripture, there would be no one subscribing to Historicism, or many, many other things taught by the myriad contradictory flavors of Christianity.
As for your appeal to the authority of Dr. Guinness, this is a falacious argument given the high amount of expert contradiction in the area of eschatology. To whit:
If there is a significant amount of legitimate dispute among the experts within a subject, then it will be fallacious to make an Appeal to Authority using the disputing experts. This is because for almost any claim being made and “supported” by one expert there will be a counterclaim that is made and “supported” by another expert. In such cases an Appeal to Authority would tend to be futile. In such cases, the dispute has to be settled by consideration of the actual issues under dispute. Since either side in such a dispute can invoke experts, the dispute cannot be rationally settled by Appeals to Authority.”
The chief consideration of the actual issues in this case I would submit is whether a theory breaks plain scripture, something that Jesus emphasized in his theological debate with the pharisees (John 10:35).
I will also point out that Bible prophecy was sealed until the End Times so that people like Dr Guinness or Sir Isaac Newton, as great as they may have been, just like the great Daniel, were at a supreme disadvantage in understanding End Times Bible Prophecy because they were not of the proper generation when these things would be unsealed and “righteous” “wise men” would understand them (Daniel 12:9-10).
Finally, I cover the Biblical definition of the wisdom needed to understand prophecy in my book Planet X in Bible Prophecy, but I will state that it’s clear that neither Guinness or Newton fulfill that requirement, as well. If this assessment is true, then it would be scripturally impossible for them to properly understand Bible Prophecy, disqualifying them as experts all the more.
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Mar 20, 2006 · Posted in Historicism, ProphecyHas the Prophecy of the Beast / Antichrist Already Been Fulfilled in the Papacy?
Historicists believe that the Great Tribulation is 1260 years long and that there is no gap in the 70 weeks of Daniel. Believing the 70th week has already been fulfilled years ago, the Antichrist then must also be history. Who was he? Since the papacy arose out of the 10 horned kingdom of the Roman Empire, they conclude that the papacy is the Antichrist.
Is this right? Once again, this site tries to raise awareness that prophecy is not to be read any differently than the rest of the Bible. We are not allowed to break scripture, i.e. come up with an interpretation that breaks the plain face value meaning of it. Does Historicism pass this test? We will see that to believe any of these things you have to give very strained interpretations of many plain passages.
Is the Beast a Man or an "Institution"?
It says the Beast of Revelation 13 is a man who later in Revelation 19 is cast into the Lake of Fire with the other beast of Revelation 13, the False Prophet. Historicism changes this from a literal man to a symbol representing a manmade institution, the papacy. This unauthorized allegorization of the plain text breaks scripture and must be rejected, even if throwing the papacy into the lake of fire where it is “tormented” with smoke rising as a result made sense (Rev 20:10).
Tribulation 1260 Years?
Another problem is in believing that the Great Tribulation is 1260 years long instead of 3½. I have already written on how to determine the length of the Great Tribulation, step by step.
Other passages are simply unfulfilled and unexplainable by Historicism, such as
What Happened To the Heavenly Signs of Jesus’ Return?
Matthew 24:29 tells us that, immediately after the Great Tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give her light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. If the Great Tribulation has already happened, as the Historicist viewpoint contends, when did all these things come to pass? Obviously, they haven’t. Verse 30-31 continues right on to tell us:
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
This passage clearly states that, immediately after the tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven. It continues on to say that, right after that, Jesus will come in the clouds, the people of the earth will see Him, and he will send his angels with a sound of a great trumpet to gather His elect.
Are we to believe that Jesus has already come back? Has He in some mysterious way secretly gathered His elect? Of course not! The conclusion is simply unavoidable. The Historicist view that all these things have already happened is simply not true.
Conclusion
As you can see, if you consistently apply the principle of not allowing any interpretation to break plain scripture, then you will be able to discern erroneous interpretations for yourself. Historicism requires a heavy dose of broken scripture and should be rejected for that reason.
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Passover Rapture
Mar 16, 2006 · Posted in RaptureIt seems like every time a Jewish holy day comes around, rapture fervor reaches its peak among pretrib rapturists. Although the rapture can come at “any time” according to that believe system, the best speculation centers on the Jewish holy days like Passover, Pentecost or Rosh HaShana. With Passover 2006 approaching here in a month, this year is no different.
If people only understood the words of Jesus in their proper Hebrew cultural and idiomatic context there would be no need to speculate on which day of the year the rapture will be on. We already can know which day it is (and by plugging in the Sabbath Year cycles, the rapture year as well). See my article on what Jesus meant by “No Man Knows the day or hour” in this article to find out what day of the year the rapture will fall on, whether you are pretrib, midtrib, posttrib or prewrath:
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How to Identify the Antichrist from Revelation 13
Mar 7, 2006 · Posted in 666, Antichrist/Beast, RevelationIf the Antichrist is alive today, can we identify him already? I posted to my website my favorite research article explaining just how to do that from Revelation 13′s literal clues. I’m speaking of the counting of 666 off of his name and knowing where to look for the strange beast coming out of the earth who represents him.
These things are surprisingly literal (just as I have found over the years is the case with the rest of Revelation). Read here yourself to find out who is the Antichrist.
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06-06-06, June 6th, 2006 = 666
Mar 3, 2006 · Posted in 666, Antichrist/Beast, EmailsTammy, a reader of my book Planet X in Bible Prophecy, asked:
Greetings,
I am a Elem school teacher in OK. I teach 6th grade Science. I had a student ask me today what I thought was going to happen on this date 06-06-06? He asked me if it was the devils #, I said “Yes”. I told him I couldn’t answer his question, but I knew who we could ask. We are asking you. Do you have any info about the coming storm around this date?
First, 666 is actually not the devil’s number, but the number of the Beast of Revelation 13 who receives his power, throne and authority from Satan (Rev 13:2). This Satanic help enables him to rule the coming one world government / NWO for 3½ years / 42 months / 1260 days. But more specifically, it says that 666 is only associated with the this man once you calculate it from his name.
Count the Number of the Beast?
For Western Gentile English speakers, this is a foreign concept. However, to the Hebrew John who wrote the Book of Revelation, this instruction would have been readily understandable. Not having Roman numerals for numbers, Ancient Hebrew has a different value assigned to each letter for representing numbers. Thus, by adding up the individual letter values of any Hebrew word, you could “count its number” or find its numeric representation. See here for details: Antichrist Identified
So, since this is explicitly given as the number of the name of a man, not the number of a date on any calendar, we should not be afraid of the date 06-06-06 or otherwise watch and expect anything on it except maybe extra Halloween Eve-type mischief from people trying to fulfill a misapplied prophecy. In all probability that day will come and go without event. If you haven’t noticed, it always seems that the unpublicized dates are the days that big things happen on (like 9-11, for example), whereas every time someone puts a specific date to watch and it spreads across the Internet so everyone is watching it, nothing happens. In fact, it seems to almost guarantee nothing will happen on that day if everyone is watching it, like a kettle on the stove =).
The True Biblical Prophetic Watch Day Is…
In conclusion, we should not pay attention to 666 appearing in any context other than the result of the calculation of some prince’s name (Dan 9:26). Moreover, that person had better also already literally fit the other face value criteria given in Revelation 13 to identify the Antichrist since focusing on 666 and ignoring the rest of the prophecy of the Beast is sure to lead you to misapply the prophecy as well.
06-06-06 is a counterfeit of the true prophetic day we should be watching. There are seven prophetic feast days given in Leviticus 23. Jesus fulfilled two completely of them in his ministry and through a partial fulfillment showed us how the next one would be fulfilled. In 2006, this day occurred only 2 days before 06-06-06, on 06-04-06. It was the Day of Pentecost. Click here to find out what disaster is predicted to happen on a soon future Feast of Pentecost
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Who Restores All Things: Elijah or Jesus?
Mar 1, 2006 · Posted in ElijahHas this statement of Jesus ever bothered you:
Matthew 17:11 — Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things.
Mark 9:12 — Then He answered and told them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and restores all things. And how is it written concerning the Son of Man, that He must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?
Compare that to this verse about the nature of the time of Jesus return:
Acts 3:21 — whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.
Who really restores all things, Elijah or Jesus? According to many prophecies about the Millennium, we know that Jesus will himself do this at his coming. If Elijah does the same thing first then there is nothing left for Jesus to restore of course. So this is a problem. To solve it, some doubt that Jesus really meant Elijah, but instead perhaps was referring to himself in some mystic way. Myself, I always hesitate to say the Bible should be spiritualized that far (i.e., “Elijah” is not Elijah but a reference to himself, Jesus). The solution in difficult cases like this usually turns up after carefully looking at multiple Bible version since the Greek NT we have is not perfect but a patchwork of many incomplete fragments subjectively pieced together by each translator.
In this case, I looked and found that the Aramaic for these passages says something different than “restore all things”:
Matthew 17:11 (Lamsa) — Jesus answered and said to them, Elijah will come first, so that everything might be fulfilled.
Mark 9:12 (Lamsa) — He said to them, Elijah does come first, to prepare everything; and as it is written concerning the Son of man, that he will suffer much and be rejected.
That’s makes more sense doen’t it? As I state in my About page, if you always accept that the Bible means what it (originally) says, a good answer will present itself without resorting to spiritualizing the text away from its face value meanings (plural because as we saw in this case, there are often more than one possible face readings because of the manuscript variants or word ambiguities). This, then is a good example of the benefit of resisting the temptation to deviate from reading the Bible naturally.
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