Another question today:

Is Ezekiel speaking of the destruction of the temple to come in chapter 9, or more of the end times?

We can unravel somewhat the mystery of Ezekiel's prophecies by looking at the overall outline of the book:

1. Chapters 1-24 concern prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem. These are fulfilled in the "near term" from Ezekiel's perspective. He prophesied around 593 to 572 B.C. and the city and temple were destroyed in 586 B.C. in the midst of his ministry.
2. Chapters 25-32 concern near-term fulfilled prophecies against the nations.
3. Chapters 33-34 are a call to repentance by the watchman Ezekiel.
4. Chapters 34-48 are about the future restoration of Israel with a focus on the future millennial temple and its worship. These things are almost all to be fulfilled in the far future in the end times.

To look a bit more into chapter 9, let us back up to chapter 8. There, God shows Ezekiel the awful idolatry of the nation of Israel, with idols even inside the temple. In chapter 9, God explains to Ezekiel that there will be a severe judgment against the people for their idolatry. This judgment, in agreement with the outline above, is soon, within Ezekiel's lifetime.

As that information was being revealed, Ezekiel saw in his prophetic vision some movement of the glory of God in and around the temple. This movement shows that God is slowly, sadly leaving the temple. The Shekinah glory was moving out because idolatry had moved in. Notice the movement:

9:3 - Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. (ESV)

10:4 - And the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the LORD.

Next, the glory of God leaves the temple, accompanied by the cherubim, to the east gate:

10:18-19 - Then the glory of the LORD went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. 19 And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out, with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.

Next, the glory of God leaves the city:

11:23 - And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city.

The glory of God had now departed. It will not return to a temple until the new temple in the millennium. But the Lord Jesus did suddenly appear at the temple in the first century, but He was rejected by the officials of that temple, just like God was rejected in Ezekiel's day.

I heard that your pet dog or cat died today.

I am very sorry to hear the news. When this happens, I am reminded of Proverbs 12:10. Why don't you take a moment to look that up in your copy of God's word and see what it says? Christian people care for their animals, as they should because animals are part of God's creation and we have been assigned stewardship over them. Animals cause us toil and tears from time to time, but they also bring great joy. God has created them for our enjoyment and use (Gen. 1:26-28). They also to help us learn responsibility. But they can also become a misplaced priority that reduces our love for God or our resources to do God's work.

We are thankful to God in every situation (1 Thess. 5:18). I am thankful that you had the years of enjoyment that you did with your beloved pet. I am sure you are ten times more thankful than I am because you had a personal stewardship connection with the animal. I hope you will make the conscious choice to thank God for His gift of your pet, so that instead of focusing on what you no longer have, you thank God for what He gave.

Sometimes people ask me if their pet will be in heaven. We naturally hope that the answer is "yes," but we do not have Biblical data to indicate this is the case. We know there will be animals in the millennial kingdom (Isaiah 11:6-9). Scripture does not say explicitly that there will be animals in Heaven. However, it seems plausible that there will be animals there because when God created animals in the beginning, they were part of his "very good" creation (Gen. 1:31). In other words, there is nothing "wrong" with animals that would prohibit their presence in Heaven. In fact, we know that some of the angelic beings appear to be part animal in form (Ezekiel 3:10).

A diverse and peaceful animal kingdom in the Heavenly state would glorify God because they would show His handiwork for all eternity. Of course, redeemed people will show God's saving handiwork in a far more significant way. Animals were hurt as a result of mankind's fall into sin (Romans 8:22) and in the restoration of all things it would be fitting for the animal kingdom to be restored from the suffering of death. But the Bible does not indicate salvation or after-life for animals. So while I cannot say that your particular pet will be in heaven, I believe that animals like your beloved pet will be there. There will likely be some that look similar or are even more wonderful than your pet (if that is possible!). But of course, our focus in heaven will not be on pets or the environment; rather, it will be focused squarely on the Triune God.

Meanwhile, look to the Lord for comfort and guidance so that you are not overwhelmed with sorrow and lose sight of why you are here on this planet--to trust in God through Christ, to live for God, to honor God, to worship God, and to do good works. May He help you do that in these days and also give you wisdom about your next steps.

May God's grace direct you toward Himself so that you not be overtaken with inordinate grief.

I have enjoyed auditing a class on the doctrine of Israel at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary with Dr. Mark Snoeberger and Dr. Sam Dawson. Just now I am reading Forsaking Israel: How it Happened and Why It Matters by Larry Pettegrew and company at Shepherds Seminary.

The thought occurred to me that God has had a people from ancient times in order to glorify His name. Said another way, God must have a people to bring honor to himself. Should the people He chose (Deut. 7:6-8) disappear from the earth, it would appear to the peoples of the world that that people's God was no more significant than all the other deities of extinct people groups. But the Triune God is no temporal phenom. He is eternal and thus must have a people for all eternity to show forth His glory. That people, Israel, will be re-constituted as a glorious nation in order to bring glory to God (Ezekiel 36:22-23). God will be vindicated through the means of the existence of a human people group.

Contained in the paragraph above is an argument as to why Israel cannot disappear or be "replaced." So what is the place then of the church? God's keeping of the people of Israel is, in the words of Isaiah 49:6, too small a thing to proclaim the glories of our God and His Messiah. Therefore, God will choose out from the entire world another people—the church— to further glorify the Messiah. The benefit of this to people will be not only "salvation to the ends of the earth" but also an expanded understanding of the infinite glory of God. The benefit to God will be an expanded base from which His excellencies may be known by the angelic and human realms.

It is not enough that God should have one people. He deserves more glory. He will have two peoples, one from the past age and one from the present. And then, there will be an expansion of both groups in the millennial kingdom, to the praise of the glory of God's grace.

How are these two peoples related to God? The only way possible: through Jesus Christ! Are they forever distinct? YES, in the sense that a Gentile is never a Jew and a Jew is never a Gentile. Physical lineage is what it is. But this distinctness does not undercut the completely harmonious, happy existence of saved Israel and the saved Church throughout the upcoming millennial kingdom. Different, yet united. Distinct, yet without discrimination.

It occurs to me that there is a likeness between these two ideas:

1. Splitting the Mosaic Law into components and pulling forward (from the past) the moral component into the church age.

Left behind are the ceremonial and civil parts of the law, as well as the curses for disobedience.

2. Splitting the New Covenant into components and pulling back (from the future) the spiritual component into the church age.

Left "ahead" are the physical, agricultural, economic, and political parts of the New Covenant. Also left "ahead" are spiritual components that find no fulfillment in the present era (all will know the Lord, universal forgiveness for Israel).

It seems inconsistent to criticize #1 at the same time to accept #2.

It seems more consistent to accept both #1 and #2 or reject them both.

The problem with accepting both it puts Christians today under parts of two covenants--the Mosaic and the New. This has a somewhat suspect basis. I say this about the Law covenant because Paul writes:

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (Galatians 5:18).

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? (Galatians 4:21)

But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "the just shall live by faith." (Galatians 3:11)

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:14)

So, Christians are not under "the law," nor are they under "part of the law." This is no major loss, for we have the Law of Christ as our directive, a law operational on the basis of grace and the indwelling ministry of the Spirit.

As far as splitting the New Covenant, the New Covenant is specifically directed to Israel, not the church. This is clear from a review of the primary passage:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. (Jeremiah 31:33)

Note the phrase "I will make with the house of Israel."

Finally, it does not appear to me that the New Covenant has actually been made yet. Certainly, its sacrificial basis is complete in the work of Christ. Certainly massive spiritual benefits come out of that work into Christians today. But those are not necessarily direct fulfillments of the New Covenant. They do not constitute the "making" of a covenant, where the people group to be covenanted has offered no agreement to the terms of the covenant. In fact, most of the terms of the covenant (and some could argue all of its terms) remain unfulfilled.

The prophet above says that the time of the making of the covenant is "after those days." Jeremiah is clear that those days were "coming" future to his writing.

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- (Jeremiah 31:31)

According to Ezekiel 20:35-37, this will happen during the eschaton:

"And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face...I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant (Ezekiel 20:35, 37)

This has not happened yet.

The most accurate viewpoint, as I understand it, is to keep both the Law and New Covenants whole, not splitting them such that some terms of one or the other, or both, fall upon the church.

Today's question is an interesting one:

I have a question about names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. It was my understanding that our names are added to the Book of Life when we accept Jesus' atonement for our sin natures (i.e., saved by grace through faith). But some verses seem to indicate that all people are in the Book of Life until they reject that God-designed provision. These texts include Exodus 32:33, Deuteronomy 29:20, Psalm 69:28, Isaiah 48:19, and Revelation 3:5.

The first book is the "book of the living" which is mentioned in Psalm 69:28. It is poetic way of referring to the census or list of all people who are alive at a given time. So, to wipe someone out of that book is a very poetic or euphemistic way of saying that the person would be killed. In other words, they would be "cut off out of the land of the living." Other phrases express the same thing. For example, Deut. 29:20 says that someone will be blotted out from under heaven. This means that they will be killed. Isaiah 48:19 is a bit different because it is used in a corporate way to refer to the offspring of Israel (48:1, 12). The "cutting off" is the same as above, that is, ceasing to exist on the earth. With this background, we can better understand Exodus 32:32-33 in which Moses wishes to die physically. If the Lord will not forgive Israel, Moses prefers death to life. This idea is found mostly in the Old Testament.

The alert reader may remember a similar case in Romans 9:2-3. There, Paul says that he wishes he could be accursed from Christ for his Israelite brothers, that they might come to faith in Messiah. This does not necessarily include the idea of physical death (at least, immediately). The real focus is on spiritual separation from Christ. That is, if it were possible, Paul would trade his salvation for theirs. Paul would have his name erased from the book of the saved so they could get theirs put into that book. And that is the second book, to which we now turn.

The second book is the Lamb's book of life. This is revealed mainly in the New Testament (but see Daniel 12:1) and is not the same as the first book. The book of life is the registry of all the redeemed of all ages, whether in the church age, Tribulation, Kingdom, or Old Testament period.

I'm not big on emphasizing that there is an actual codex/book in heaven, made with paper and cardboard and glued at the spine, that has a huge list of names in it. But in effect we can think of it that way. God knows that list of names intuitively and instantaneously, and the reason for that is that He has graciously chosen to bestow eternal life on each person listed in the book. Passages that refer to this book are Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15, 21:27, and 22:19.

Of these, several passages offer difficulties to the Bible reader. Revelation 3:5 says, "I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life." I take this not to say that names will be or can be erased, but that they will NOT be erased! Most people read this and believe that there is a possibility of erasure, particularly if you fail to "overcome." I don't read it that way, and I believe that it is an Arminian tendency to emphasize the erasure view. Overcomers (by faith, 1 John 5:4) will never lose their salvation. They will never be erased from the book.

Revelation 13:8 attaches the phrase "from the foundation of the world" to "the lamb that was slain." This is a good interpretation based on the word order, but it can be understood to refer to the names of the people not in the book of life. Revelation 17:8 makes it clear that "from the foundation of the world" is associated with the names not written in the book of life. The point is this: there are names that are NEVER written in the Lamb's book of life. In other words, there are people whose names have never appeared in there. By implication, (1) those names cannot be erased, since they have never been present; and (2) there must be names in the book which have been present since the foundation of the world.

Revelation 22:19 is another passage that indicates the possibility of a name being taken away from the book of life. But there are major textual transmission problems at this point in the Textus Receptus (and thus the English KJV and NKJV translations). The correct text is not "book of life" but "tree of life." (Why? The critical text AND the vast majority of Greek manuscripts say "tree of life.") Reading it as "tree of life" eliminates the only other verse in the Bible that could suggest a person's name can be removed from the book of life. The "removal" is simply a statement of judgment—if you mess with God's book, God will see to it that you have no share in the tree of life = basically heaven.

To summarize: the "erasure" view is that the names of all humans who ever exist are written in the book of life from the start, and names are erased as people die without exercising faith in Christ. One problem with this view is that there is no text that clearly says names WILL be erased. Furthermore, Revelation 17:8 tells us plainly that there are some names which are not written in the book ever. Therefore, we could also call this the "start full" view, but it fails at Revelation 17:8.

Then there is the "start empty" view. It would seem to make more sense to have zero names in the Lamb's book of life at the beginning—because we are all sinners deserving of eternal punishment from birth, our names don't deserve to be there. One's name could be added when one comes to faith in Christ. I think that is a very common understanding. But even that doesn't work, because it seems there are some names that are present in the book from the foundation of the world, and some that are not (see above explanation).

Neither the "start empty" nor the "start full" views of the book of life work.

Think about this very important related issue. Who has the power to put a name in or out of the book of life? If your answer is "people" then you will likely have a start-full or start-empty view. You are reflecting the idea that salvation not only involves a person's participation, but it is ultimately based on that person's choice. If your answer is "God," then you have an entirely different perspective. Then you are saying that salvation is ultimately based on God's choice. The latter better fits the Biblical revelation--God is the author of the book of life.

But since God knows everything and in fact has decreed everything to come to pass as it does, He never has to make edits to His book. Consequently, I understand that names are not ever added or subtracted from the book of life. The names were set down there from before the foundation of the world and that list is fixed and inviolable for all eternity. It is the list of those known as the elect. Some of them have already come to faith, and some shall come in the future, but all will eventually come to faith while they are alive. (I believe that even infants who die in infancy are listed in this book, and God graciously regenerates them so they can partake in the eternal kingdom. But I digress into an area of some debate among theologians.) The impossibility of erasure reflects the doctrine of eternal security. The impossibility of addition means that people who are not elect won't be saved. This may sound harsh, but follow the next paragraphs.

Now, who are the elect? I don't know, and no one but God knows. Well, we can know if someone comes to genuine faith, and we can know about ourselves if we are believers. We do know there those whom God has graciously chosen to bless with salvation because of certain clear texts of the Bible (2 Thess. 2:13, 1 Thess. 1:4, 2 Timothy 2:10, Titus 1:1, and others). But as for the billions of people on the planet, we cannot know who the elect ones are in advance. Consequently, we preach the gospel widely, praying to reach people who will respond. Ultimately we won't know who is elect until after the fact. God knows the elect before the fact.

If there is someone who genuinely wants to get saved, and is afraid they are not elect, I would quickly disabuse them of that thinking by telling them that God commands us to repent and believe the gospel. If you do that, you are saved, and thus prove that you were listed in the book. From the human perspective, since we don't and can't know who is "in" and who is "out," we should not worry about who is in the book, and instead focus on obeying God, and everything will be fine. This goes for evangelism too. Our job is not to figure out if someone is elect. Our job is to proclaim the gospel.

Editor's note: I hesitate to attribute words to God, but I mean for this fictional genre to communicate biblical truth in a dire situation. My hope is that someone who is deceived about their own state of grace may read it and be caught up short, and by this means be able to escape their self-deception.

Imagine you are standing before the Lord just after you have breathed your last on earth. You've left behind your family and friends and are standing alone with the Lord.

"Hello. So...why are you here?", He asks.

"I just died, I guess. I think its time for my judgment. I want to come into heaven. There are people there that I want to see."

The Lord replies, "OK. I've been watching you and pondering your case for a long while."

"You have? I thought..."

"Yes, I know what you have been thinking. About believing in Jesus and all that."

"I do!"

The Lord continued, "Indeed, you did believe in Him, after a fashion. But what bothers me is the fruit of your life. It seems to deny that you really knew Jesus."

Anxiety rising, you ask, "What do you mean, Lord? I did a lot of stuff at church, wrote stuff about you, listened to Christian music a lot, and other things."

"I know that too," God replied in a very kind voice. "But there are other things you aren't mentioning. Let me take one area, as an example. Forgiveness has been a tough thing for you, hasn't it? I watched how you treated your spouse and kids. When you did something wrong, you were grateful for their forgiveness because it meant things could go on normally and without much interruption. But when they did something wrong, you were highly critical of them. Not always to their face, mind you. Sometimes it was just in your heart, or in your journal. And sometimes you were right about how wrong they had been."

"But sometimes," He went on, "when they came to you with an apology, asking forgiveness, you didn't listen. Your spouse might have apologized for days afterward. They did that because they were stricken in conscience that they had done wrong. But it didn't matter to you. You said that they shouldn't have wronged you in the first place. It was too late to apologize. And, you complained that they were picking and choosing what to apologize for. You refused to forgive them."

"I admit that. Because they were inconsistent! Their inconsistency just made me mad! It was like they were using me."

"I understand that completely. I see a lot of inconsistency in your life, and it is not pleasing to me either. I sometimes wonder if people who say they believe in Jesus are just using Me."

"But I did believe in Jesus."

"I know you did, but remember, I said that you believed after a fashion. I meant that you believed in a certain kind of way. You knew the fact of who Jesus is and what He did, but there was a key thing missing."

Your anxiety level spiked. "I do believe, Lord. And I'm sorry for not being forgiving like I should have been."

The Lord spoke very directly, "I know that you are trying now to make this right, but it's too late. The damage has been done. I sense that you are just saying you are sorry, but if you really meant it, you would have been sorry back then for your lack of forgiveness toward your family, and you would have changed your behavior in your life long before now. I can tell you are not truly repentant because of what your sin did to Me; nor are you repentant for what the sin did to them. Since I know your heart, it is evident that you are regretful for what the sin is now doing to you. That's not true repentance, which is part of what real faith in Jesus is all about."

Continuing, He said, "Do you remember the parable of the unforgiving servant? What Jesus was trying to teach you was that if you had truly experienced My vast forgiveness toward you, you would be able to forgive others. The fact that you did not extend forgiveness to your penitent family members shows that you didn't understand the whole concept of forgiveness. Unfortunately, you have been very deceived."

I read Tim Challies' article about why he is not dispensational and was interested to find that his defense of amillennialism was basically that it was the position he was taught from youth, and he had not been convinced otherwise since that time.

I believe pretribulational premillennialism most accurately represents the Biblical teaching on God's plan for the future. This view is sometimes called dispensational premillennialism, to distinguish it from historic premillennialism. I have written on it in prior blog posts (here, here, and here).

This view relies on the principle of literal interpretation, in which words are understood according to the plain meaning. This is not the principle used by amillennialism or postmillennialism. And that is not a straw-man charge: consider this quote referenced by Challies regarding the definition of amillennialism:

Allison: "With respect to eschatology, the position that there is no (a-) millennium, or no future thousand-year period of Christ's reign on earth...Key to this position is its nonliteral interpretation of Revelation 20:1-6: Satan’s binding is God’s current restraint of him, enabling the gospel to advance everywhere. Saints who rule are Christians who have died and are now with Christ in heaven. At the end of this present age, Christ will defeat a loosed Satan, ushering in the last judgment, the resurrection, and the new heaven and earth." (The Baker Compact Dictionary of Theological Terms).

Note well that the nonliteral interpretation of Revelation 20 is key to this view. I could never believe such a notion, and so amillennialism is basically dead on arrival when it comes to my doorstep. I argue opposite, that the literal interpretation is key to understanding this portion, and indeed any portion, of the Bible. And in fact, the literal interpretation is feasible. It presents no impossible difficulties.

A critical review of Allison's definition raises several deficiencies in it. First, Satan is not presently bound in any meaningful sense of the term "bound." 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that Satan prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking people to devour. He freely deceives individuals and nations throughout the world.

Second, the gospel has not advanced everywhere: certainly not in closed countries; and even in open countries it is now on the decline. This agrees with the pessimistic view that the Bible presents about mankind and its sin (2 Timothy 3:1, 13; 4:3).

Third, the ruling saints, if they are ruling from heaven, are not doing a very visible or effective job of their rule. There is no territorial realm which they rule over; there are no people they rule over; and their ruling function does not appear to be exercised here on earth. World conditions hardly indicate the uniformity and righteousness that would be present if in fact glorified saints were in charge of things. Furthermore, there seems to be little or nothing that requires ruling in a perfect heaven.

Fourth, Allison says that the saints who rule with Christ had died and are now ruling in heaven. But the text of Revelation is explicit that they "came to life" (CSB, ESV, NAS, NET, NIV). That is, they were resurrected and then reigned with Christ!

Fifth, the kingdom is always portrayed in the Bible as future and earthly. To redefine the rule as present and heavenly is another example of how a nonliteral interpretation does damage to the plain meaning of Scripture. I am aware that this assertion demands proof. That will have to be taken up another time.

Sixth and finally, at least for this brief critique, it needs to be noted that the Bible is explicit that there are (at least) two resurrections. They are separated by a period of 1000 years. There is not one general resurrection.

In Perspectives on Israel and the Church: 4 Views, Chad O. Brand and Tom Pratt, Jr. criticize Robert L. Thomas's view of the kingdom on page 150:

He then identifies that as the millennial kingdom, which in his view includes only Israel with Christ in the Holy Land.

I read Thomas's chapter, and I did not get that exclusive of a definition of the kingdom from what I read--only Israel? It strikes me that Brand and Pratt are imposing their view of dispensationalism upon Thomas.

Granted, I could have missed something in my reading of Thomas with my own predisposed view of dispensationalism. That matters far less than this fact: the text of Scripture is clearly against such an exclusive view of the kingdom, even on a dispensational reading of it.

For example, Isaiah 19:25 speaks of Egypt and Assyria along with Israel, and a highway connecting them. We understand this to be in the millennial kingdom. Zechariah 14:18 speaks of judgment on any nation that does not come up to share in the Feast of Booths with Israel during the kingdom. Psalm 2 refers to the nations who will be subjugated under the world-wide rule of the Messiah. This too is during the millennial kingdom. Revelation 2:27 promises power over the nations emanating from the iron-rod rule of Christ. The Son has always been destined to rule all nations, not just Israel, according to Revelation 12:5 and 19:15. This reign will be shared with resurrected saints of unspecified ethnicity, according to Revelation 20:4, 6. We know that the faithful in Christ will be privileged to participate in this reign, according to 2 Timothy 2:12, which is a reference to the church.

Thus the nation of Israel will be the head and not the tail: they will sit atop the nations of the world as closest to the Messiah in His reign (Deut. 28:13) instead of in the despised position they occupy in this age.

Let theologians of every persuasion be clear, whether progressive dispensational, covenantal, progressive covenantal, or new covenant, that the millennnial kingdom includes Israel in its holy land, and Christ, and the church, and the nations of the world as well.

For just about a year, our church has had the privilege of getting to know Pastor Malcolm Borden. A 1959 graduate of Dallas Seminary, he has been blessed with many ministry opportunities over the years. Circumstances recently brought him to Ann Arbor where he joined our church for the past year. Now, he has to move to a retirement facility nearer to his family, so he will be leaving Ann Arbor.

This occasion prompted us to republish his master's thesis that was finished in May 1959. Because it was typewritten, it was not accessible to a larger audience. We are hopeful that with this digital edition, more people will be able to access this short book and the key idea it contains: that God's grace will be operative during the future Tribulation period. The Tribulation will not be a period solely consisting of judgment; it will also evidence God's grace toward individual Jews, individual Gentiles, and the nation of Israel corporately.

You can access the thesis in two formats: .docx and .pdf

Grace in the Tribulation, by Malcolm Borden (Master's Thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1959, 57 pp.) (docx, pdf)

Thanks Pastor Mal, and we will miss you!

Kevin DeYoung has written on the identity of the 144,000 servants of God in Revelation 7:3-8. He starts this way:

The 144,000 are not an ethnic Jewish remnant, and certainly not an Anointed Class of saints who became Jehovah’s Witnesses before 1935. The 144,000 “sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” (Rev. 7:4) represent the entire community of the redeemed. Let me give you several reasons for making this claim.

I have no argument with Pastor DeYoung's second denial--that the 144,000 are "certainly not...Jehovah's Witnesses." But I have to take issue with his assertion that these are not an ethnic Jewish remnant.

Let us suppose for a moment that God will in fact seal a certain number of ethnic Jews for a particular purpose or mission during the Tribulation period. Just how could God express this fact in writing through John if He could not convince the modern reader with the words that He used in Revelation 7:4? Perhaps something like this would have been sufficient:

Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. I. Mean. Jews! And. I. Mean. One. Hundred. Forty. Four. Thousand! (hypothetical Rev. 7:4)

The hermeneutical contortions that DeYoung forces upon the text are just too much. The text is clear as it is written. If God means what DeYoung says, why did He not simply say it plainly that way?

Now for a brief critique each of DeYoung's supporting arguments.

First, whether or not it "makes sense" that God would seal all of His followers, the text only mentions these 144,000 Jewish ones being sealed. Satan's action in chapter 13 is irrelevant.

Second, using a text from Ezekiel 9 to support a seemingly "similar distinction based on who worships God" and denying any Jewish connection is tenuous. This is particularly so since those who were sealed in Ezekiel were Jews.

Third, DeYoung says, "the 144,000 are called the servants of our God…There is no reason to make the 144,000 any more restricted than that." What he means is that the only descriptive phrase that is allowed to be taken literally is "servants of God." The number and the ethnicity are not allowed to be taken literally. When John heard the number, what he heard was not significant, DeYoung implies. So why didn't John just say, "Then I heard that those servants were sealed," and dispense with the remainder of verses 4-8? In fact, the phrase servants of God, the number, and the ethnicity all contribute to the meaning of the text.

Fourth, DeYoung argues from the descriptions "redeemed from the earth" and "purchased from among men" that this language is generic, applying to everyone. Again the question must be asked—why didn't God just leave out the extra descriptions, and make explicit that this was all the redeemed that were on the earth at that time in the prophecy? He asserts that the number is symbolic of the redeemed "drawn from all peoples, not simply the Jews." He adds that it must be symbolic, because "not defiled with women" (14:4) cannot mean celibate Jewish men…in spite of the fact that the text affirms that they are virgins.

Fifth, DeYoung states that the tribe list and their numbers are highly stylized, so they are not to be taken literally. This reminds me of the framework hypothesis of the creation account, which argues in part that the account is highly stylized, so it cannot be understood as a literal narrative of the events of the creation week. To the contrary, though both passages display wonderful literary quality, this does not mean that it cannot be understood literally.

In sum, the bottom line of DeYoung's argument is that he cannot make sense of the text literally within his theological framework, so it makes more sense to take it to mean something other than what it says. Granted, there is much symbolic language in Revelation. But, for example, an angel whose "face is like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire" is quite a bit different than a number and a list of tribes of Israel. There is a distinction between symbolic language and plain language, and Revelation 7:3-8 is definitely on the plain side of that divide.

I would add one more argument in favor of taking the text literally to refer to Jews. Read on to verse 9:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. (Rev. 7:9 NIV)

John refers to tribes of Jews in 7:3-8, and then immediately mentions "every nation, tribe, people, and language." This strengthens our understanding that the 144,000 are in fact ethnic Jews whom God sets apart for special protection and service during the Tribulation. Why would God refer to "all the redeemed" as 144,000 of the Jewish tribes, and then immediately repeat Himself but using the broader language of "every nation"? It makes more sense that Scripture means Jews when it says Jews, and it means "every nation" when it says every nation.

Ultimately what is at stake in this debate is how we read the Bible. Someone like DeYoung reads the exact same passages I do; but he reads at least this one a whole lot differently than I do and, I would argue, he reads it incorrectly.

Clint Archer also defends a literal reading of the 144,000. He follows up with a good article on why the 1000 years of Revelation 20 is to be taken literally.

A couple of details mentioned in Revelation 19-20 about the beast, false prophet, and the devil give us a clue that we are correct in our basic chronology of a 1,000-year kingdom between the Tribulation and eternal state.

In 19:20, the beast and false prophet who were so active during the Tribulation are thrown alive into the lake of fire. They are the first residents of that place (all prior souls have gone to a similar but different place called Hades).

After this, chapter 20 portrays the Devil as being bound and locked into another different place--the bottomless pit. After being incarcerated there for 1,000 years, he is released a little while (20:3, 7) and deceives the nations (20:8). This results in the final battle between God and Satan, who is thrown into the lake of fire (20:9-10).

In the middle of verse 10, note is made of the fact that the Devil is cast into the place where the beast and false prophet also already were. They had been there for 1,000 years. The fact that Satan is placed where they already were helps us to see that we have the order of events right. The beast and false prophet are sent to Hell, then there are 1,000 years, and then Satan is sent to Hell.

None of these things has occurred yet. We are boxed in by the text, so to speak, such that we must see a millennium intervening between two resurrections, all of which is yet future. The amillennial interpretation simply cannot be correct because it demands the present age immediately be followed by eternity with no intervening Tribulation and 1,000 year kingdom before the final judgment of Revelation 20:11-15.

We continue in our quest to carefully develop a sequence of future events as taught in Scripture. As we saw last time, such an eschatology must take the text in Revelation 20:1-6 literally.

When we do that, we immediately find deficiencies in other approaches. For instance, we find that we cannot take seriously any interpretive system that teaches a single general resurrection. The text of Scripture could not be more clear that there are two resurrections separated by 1000 years. There must therefore be at least two resurrections. The Bible may reveal more detail or even more resurrections, but there cannot be fewer than two. I think other interpretations are caught in the older revelatory information that says things like Daniel 12:2. The

It is also clear from a plain reading of the text that the Lord Jesus returns to the earth before the millennial kingdom and after the Tribulation. That is, His coming is premillennnial. That is how the sequence of events is portrayed by John in Revelation 19-20.

I did not spell it out in the last post, but I do hold to a futurist interpretation of most of the book of Revelation. The events described in the book after chapter 3 match nothing that the world has experienced in history up to this point.

Moving "backwards" in the sequence of events and to begin to answer the question about whether there is a pre-tribulational rapture of the church, let us shift our attention to Revelation 3:10. This text records a promise of Jesus that He will keep the church in Philadelphia from the hour of trial which is going to come upon the whole world. Contextually, it seems clear that this hour of trial refers to what is written in Revelation 6 through 19. I take this as paradigmatic of the church as a whole. Certainly the very believers in that church were kept from the hour of trial, since the Tribulation was yet future to them as it is to us this day in 2016. But their deliverance is a kind of pattern of the deliverance of the entire church from the Tribulation. Other texts of Scripture agree with this notion (1 Thess. 1:10 and 5:9).

The entirety of Revelation 6 through 19 support the absence of the church by its silence about the church. Granted, there are some believers present during the Tribulation. These people are converted during the Tribulation through the witness of God's messengers (Revelation 7 and 14). Their life is evidently difficult because of the persecution done by Satan. The marked silence of Revelation on the church makes it a fool's errand to prove that the church is present during the Tribulation.

There are a number of other supporting arguments for the pre-tribulation rapture. Among them are the nature of Daniel's 70th week focusing as it does on God's program with Israel, the consistent distinction of the church and Israel throughout the New Testament, the imminence of the coming of Christ (at the rapture) as contrasted with the signs that indicate that Israel's redemption is drawing near, the restrainer in 2 Thess. 2, the differences between a translation of believers and the coming of Christ to the earth, the 24 elders in Revelation, the proclamation of peace and safety in 1 Thess. 5:3, the lack of instruction about the Tribulation in the epistolary literature, Israel as the focus of Satan's attacks during the Tribulation (Rev. 12), and the complete apostasy during the Tribulation. These and more are detailed in chapter 13 of J. Dwight Pentecost's book Things to Come, pp. 193-218.

Since I have been asked recently about eschatology, I thought I would write on how to develop a simple, Biblical, systematic approach to eschatology, the study of last things.

The system of thought that comes out of this approach is called pretribulational premillennialism. It is sometimes called dispensational premillennialism, to distinguish it from historic premillennialism.

I start with the principle of literal interpretation, in which words are understood according to the plain meaning. I argue that the literal interpretation is key to understanding any portion of the Bible. Literal interpretation is feasible and much easier than a spiritualized or allegorical interpretation. It presents no impossible difficulties.

So, how do you develop a system of eschatology? Besides using literal interpretation, we also rely on clear texts to develop our framework, and then we fit less clear or harder-to-understand texts into that framework. All will admit that there are easier and there are harder texts to interpret and assimilate into our system of understanding the Scripture. I believe it is valid to read through Scripture, and build an understanding bit by bit from portions that are easier to understand, and to add in other portions as I go. As a finite creature, I'm not sure how else it could be done. Of course, later data may and certainly should shape and re-shape my earlier conclusions, but clear texts cannot be overridden by less clear, more difficult ones.

We will use as our starting point the same text that Challies mentioned above, Revelation 20:1-6. Somewhat surprisingly, the apostle John departs from the highly symbolic and figurative approach of the prior chapters in the Apocalypse and drops into some very normal prose.

For my amillennial friends, let me ask you to, just for a few minutes, suspend disbelief and suppose that God's program could be what the literal reading of this text suggests, namely:

19:11, Christ returns to the earth after a terrible time of tribulation upon the earth and executes His enemies and those who oppose His people. This time of Tribulation is one that has not been previously experienced in world history and thus is yet future.

20:1-3, An angel is comes down from heaven to incarcerate Satan. This imprisonment lasts 1000 years and its purpose is to prevent Satan from deceiving the nations during that 1000 year time period.

20:4, Believers who had been martyred during the terrible time of tribulation re-appear, seated with Jesus upon thrones from which they rule the world. Their re-appearance occurred because they were resurrected. The text says that they had been beheaded, but now lived. They did this for 1000 years.

20:5, The rest of the dead, which I believe refers to those who do not believe in God, were not resurrected until the end of the 1000 years. The resurrection which occurs prior to the 1000 years is the first resurrection. The second resurrection happens after the 1000 years. This proves that there are at least two resurrections.

20:6, A special blessing is pronounced upon those who take part in the first resurrection. The blessing has to do, among other things, with participating in the kingdom of Christ in the prior verse. The blessing also has to do with the fact that the second death has no power over them, but rather they will be priests of God and Christ, and will reign with Christ for 1000 years. 20:14 defines the second death for us, namely that which occurs when someone is thrown into the lake of fire.

There shouldn't be any question that God could do all of the above. I don't think there is any question that He is intending us to understand Scripture to say exactly that. I wonder how He could or should have been more clear if the above is not what He meant. The sequence of John's presentation makes it clear that he saw these things in his vision in the order they are recorded. The time words as to the 1000 years, and events before and after, make it clear that it is not only the order of the vision, but also the order of events are portrayed by the vision.

To be continued...

Sam Storms provides an outline of the premillennial view here, though he is refuting it at each point because he is an amillennialist. But I thought a point-by-point response would be helpful for someone reading out there in web-land, so here goes. The listed items are his evaluation of what a premillennialist must believe. My comments follow each one.

• You must necessarily believe that physical death will continue to exist beyond the time of Christ's second coming.
  
  Correct. Isaiah 65:20 indicates that death will occur. Storms is not correct, though, in suggesting that a PM must necessarily believe in death for believers during that time. They may or may not die, depending on whether the Lord is pleased to heal their diseases or if they are born toward the latter part of the millennium. Death certainly does occur after the second coming when Christ judges the lost upon His return.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that the natural creation will continue, beyond the time of Christ's second coming, to be subjected to the curse imposed by the fall of man.
  
  Correct. Revelation 20:8 indicates that deception will happen, so the curse is still present.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that the New Heavens and New Earth will not be introduced until 1,000 years subsequent to the return of Christ.
  
  Right. Revelation 20:11 and 21:1 seem to form a sequence, and 20:11 occurs after the devil was thrown into the lake of fire, which 20:7 says occurred after the 1000 years were finished. The straightforward reading of the text leads to Storms' conclusion.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that unbelieving men and women will still have the opportunity to come to saving faith in Christ for at least 1,000 years subsequent to his return.
  
  No problem here. See Isaiah 11:9-10. I don't understand why Storms writes, "Are Premillennialists asking us to believe that upon their attaining to an age when they are capable of understanding and responding to the revelation of God and the personal, physical presence of Christ Jesus himself, that none of them will be given the opportunity to respond in faith to the claims of the gospel?" That is, I don't understand his statement unless he is setting up a straw-man version of the PM argument. No PM that I know of ever said there would be no chance for unbelievers in the millennium. So, no, PMs are NOT asking you to believe that ridiculous statement. One key point about the millennium is precisely that many people WILL be saved! By the way, many came to Christ when he was on the earth the first time too.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that unbelievers will not be finally resurrected until at least 1,000 years subsequent to the return of Christ.
  
  You guessed it. This is right on. Revelation 20:5 says "The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended" (ESV). Again, a straightforward reading of the text seems to say just what Storms objects to.
  
  
• You must necessarily believe that unbelievers will not be finally judged and cast into eternal punishment until at least 1,000 years subsequent to the return of Christ.
  
  Ditto above.
  
  Since Revelation 20 speaks about and is structured around the one thousand year period and mentions it six times, it seems quite a stretch to say there is NO one thousand year period. Sure, one might debate when Christ's coming is relative to that period of time, but to say that period does not exist is a too much of a stretch to take.