PROBLEM PASSAGES CLUES TO ESCHATOLOGY?

I’m “considering” this idea, which means that I have not reached an ironclad conclusion and have acknowledged that God is in charge of all things. In the spirit of 2 Tim. 2:15, “”Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” I am attempting to study this matter out using scripture and the logic God gave me.

Deuteronomy 18:22: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” (In other words, if a “prophet” speaks a prophecy and it does not come to pass, his hearers should disregard him for he is not speaking for God.) This causes some problems because Jesus spoke some predictions while he was on earth that did not come to pass!

Matthew 16:28: Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

Matthew 24:34: Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. (This is after telling his disciples about the tribulation period and his glorious return: Matthew 24.)

John 21:22: (NIV) Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” (Jesus seems to be expecting to return before this guy dies, but of course that did not happen as he has not returned yet nearly 2,000 years later.)

Matthew 10:23: But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

Mark 9:1: And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.
What I’m saying is that if God said the sign of a false prophet is when their prophecies do not come to pass, then would Jesus be considered a false prophet? My feeling is that these unfulfilled prophecies of Jesus might now be clues that Jesus was acting on the assumption that his people would accept him when he made these predictions because if he hadn’t emptied himself of the foreknowledge that they would not accept him, he could not in good conscience have offered their kingdom to them at that time. Possibly these statements would only come true if Israel as a nation at that time accepted him.

After Jesus ascended into heaven to await his enemies being made his footstool, His Holy-Spirit-filled disciples assumed their task of convincing Israel that their Messiah had come and was awaiting their invitation to return with their kingdom (“I go to prepare a place for you”). When only a few believed, God converted Paul and sent him “to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile” with the good news of the coming kingdom in the hopes that when the Jews saw Gentiles accept the invitation to partake of that kingdom, they would be provoked to jealousy and want what the believing Gentiles had: “I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” (Romans 11:11). But even that ultimately failed to convince the Jews and they were “let go” in Acts 28. Soon after, Paul received the “revelation of the mystery” he speaks of in Ephesians 3:19: That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
Fellow heirs with Christ (not with Israel as some have suggested). Because Israel as a nation did not believe, there has been a dispensational change to a time when individuals (apart from national Israel) are being added to “the church, which is his body” (not his bride as Israel was to be). Paul’s letters written following the Jews being let go in Acts 28 do not speak of Israel receiving her kingdom, or of the coming tribulation period, or the anti-christ, etc. All of those end time events are spoken of or implied in Paul’s earlier epistles written while he was still trying to win the Jews over to their Messiah. Today, Christ is our Saviour, the Head of the Body; not the Bridegroom of the Bride Israel.

I used to firmly believe that when this dispensation ends, God would resume his wooing and testing of Israel, but now I am daring to question that. I’m thinking that the fact that what Jesus plainly told the Jews would come in their lifetimes did not come at that time because of their unbelief, and maybe it will never come because Israel has used up her chances by rejecting God the Father, God the Son – and God the Holy Ghost (the sin which Jesus said would not be forgiven!) Christ will come back, without a doubt, but perhaps the kind of world he creates for those that love him will be different than the one he offered to Israel.

Many dispensationalists have tried to explain Daniel’s prophecy of weeks in Daniel 9:24-27 by inventing a parenthetical interruption between the 69th and 70th week in order to insert this dispensation of Gentile grace into it, but I am now considering that there was to be no interruption at all (just as it is written) and that whole period of time was to have proceeded to its stated conclusion. Because enough of Israel and her leaders did not accept Christ as their King, this prophecy too was not fulfilled and never will be.

Daniel 9:24-27 King James Version (KJV)
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
‘So, in obedience of 2 Timothy 2:15, I am merely studying the scriptures as a whole and searching for the clues that God put in them that will help us understand where we fit into God’s plans. Yes, God foreknew that Israel would not accept his Son, but he also allows his creatures to exercise the free will he gave us to either love him or not. Perhaps in his allowing the outworking of mankind’s relationship with him to proceed according to man’s natural instincts to tend to love themselves more than their Creator, God is weaving it all together to shew forth his glory and mercy. None of us deserve the future he has planned for those who love him, however imperfectly.

The soon-to-be-fulfilled promises of Jesus not coming true can lead one to Preterism

Here is one Bible-believer’s account of how the predictions Jesus made of his second coming being very near which then went supposedly unfulfilled led to this man embracing the preterist view of eschatology which maintains that all Bible prophecy has already been fulfilled in the first century. While I don’t agree that that is so, it does point to the fact that there are those that believe and study God’s word that go to this length to explain away the fact that the early Christians were operating on the understanding that all these things would shortly come to pass! https://revelationrevolution.org/path-preterism/

The Kingdom was contingent upon Israel’s belief and acceptance! (And they blew it.)

I am linking an article:

ISRAEL’S REPENTANCE AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Michael J. Vlach

Professor of Theology

The Master’s Seminary

I’m linking an article that basically does NOT agree with my premise that Israel, by rejecting God’s offer of their earthly kingdom with his Son, Jesus Christ, as their king, lost their last opportunity to receive that kingdom in which Israel would have the preeminence over any Gentile inhabitants. I’m linking the article because (a) I’m too lazy to type all of those scripture references the author cites; and (b) he makes my point for me – IF while you read the article, you keep in mind that all of the passages he cites are written about a time prior to when Paul received the “revelation of the mystery,” that provides a guide for believers today, both Gentile and Jew, and which never even hint at a kingdom to come that puts Jew before Gentile. I do believe there is a kingdom which the Lord Jesus Christ will bring to this earth, but this new kingdom will be one where all those that have believed God and his Christ will dwell together without class distinctions of any kinds, save rewards for faithfulness that may be received by individual believers.

The author, Michael J. Vlach, does a stellar job of underscoring the reality of the kingdom promised to the nation of Israel being contingent upon their acceptance of its King. What I am proposing is that Israel was given sufficient time and reason to accept God’s offer and that that offer closed when God let the Jews “go” in Acts 28:21-31. Verses 30-31 are very telling: “And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.” Paul was still preaching about the kingdom of God, but this was a very different kingdom where all that have trusted Christ will have an equal share.

Keep in mind that all of the predictions of his second coming in glory made by the Lord while he was on earth (and those made by other new Testament writers before Acts 28) concerned a coming that would have taken place during his hearers’ lifetimes. I now believe that this fact is the “key” to understanding that, if this was not to occur within that generation by their acceptance of him, it was not to occur at all – at least in the form prophesied all through the Old Testament scriptures. (Note: It is my belief and understanding that, because of their context, all of the New Testament books, other than Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, were written before the Jews were let go in Acts 28.)

The Anti-Christ or “Beast” has Come and Gone

The “Book of the Revelation” or “Apocalypse” is a section of the Holy Bible that is surely one of the most perplexing and confusing to understand, especially for us modern readers. One thing that makes it especially difficult to relate to is the fact that the scenes it portrays seem to be set at the time in which it was penned. Those “seven churches” (Revelation 2 & 3) may have been in existence then, but they are nowhere to be found today, nor does it seem likely they will come into being in the future.

The Book of Revelation’s companion scriptures in the Old Testament, in particular, the Book of Daniel, is equally filled with descriptions of fantastic happenings that are difficult to imagine happening in modern times. Then there’s the matter of Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27! Scholars spanning centuries have tried to figure out how to fit the two thousand plus years that have passed between the beginning of the “seventy weeks [of years]” from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the bringing in of everlasting righteousness and seal up prophecy. Could this be because they could not see that the prophecy was all of a piece and its intention was that all of the events leading from the restoration of Jerusalem to the Messiah and him being cut off and the coming of the “prince” and all the desolation which would follow before the most Holy could be at last anointed would play out consecutively without a parenthetical period interjected in which to place this “dispensation of the Grace of God”? Yes, the dispensation of grace has appeared without the consummation of this “time” prophecy; but may I suggest to you, dear reader, that perhaps this has occurred because of the rescinding of this prophecy’s fulfillment by Almighty God due to Israel’s stiff-necked unbelief when their Messiah appeared?

Now, let’s look at a prophecy in the Book of the Revelation that has even grabbed the attention of non-believers and cultists even into these modern times: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding, count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” The number of the beast (or antichrist) is 666! This article, “The Secret Meaning Behind the Devil’s Number, 666,”

explains the particular meaning of the number 666 to readers of John’s Revelation prophecy living at the time it was originally circulated.

It is my contention that one particular man living at the time the Book of the Revelation was written – Nero – was appointed by God to be the “antichrist” or “beast” that would persecute the believers during a time of testing before the return of Jesus Christ to the earth to set up Israel’s kingdom. Israel did not meet God’s condition of belief and was set aside (Acts 28:28) so Nero, although he was a great persecutor of the Christian converts, did not have the opportunity to defile the temple by declaring that he was God, etc., and fulfill all the other prophecies regarding “the man of sin” (2 Thessalonians 2:3); and it is also my opinion that now neither he nor any other antichrist-type character will fulfill that role in the future, for as Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:9: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,” but we are now “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” (Titus 2:13).

A Biblical Observation that Points to the Possible Cancellation of Israel’s Kingdom Promises

My hypothesis is a simple one: Nowhere in the letters which the Apostle Paul wrote after the Jews were let go in Acts 28 does he ever mention the future fulfillment of Israel’s prophetic end time events! Paul speaks of the “last days” (2 Timothy 3:1) in his post-Acts letters but never once does he mention Israel’s prophetic end time events such as the tribulation, the antichrist, and their receiving of their kingdom. I realize that the period of time which was Paul’s main concern in those post-Acts letters – this present dispensation of grace apart from Israel’s program – does not have anything to do with Israel’s prophetic program; but coupled with the fact that every prediction uttered before the close of Acts concerned the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth, I see a dichotomy that cannot be easily ignored. These predictions were directed at the believers living at that time, and no mention was made of any postponement until a later time of Israel’s kingdom promises if certain conditions were not met.

Instead of a glorious triumphant second coming as a conquering Messiah-King to grant Israel their glorious kingdom, the Apostle Paul refers to an event that he calls, “the appearing” of Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 1:10, 4:1, 8; and Titus 2:13), at which time Christ shall “judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom” (2 Timothy 4:1). “His kingdom” calls to mind what Paul wrote in Colossians 1:13, how that God “hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” The kingdom has become the “kingdom of his dear Son” – no longer the kingdom with the nation of Israel as its centerpiece where “the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” (Isaiah 60:3).

With Israel’s stubborn refusal to accept their Messiah, even after he exhibited all the signs and wonders that pointed to him in their prophets’ writings, and even after he sacrificed himself to become her kinsman redeemer, she has now forfeited her chance to become the bride of Christ. The kingdom on earth is certainly the inheritance promised to Christ, and the honor of sharing that inheritance with him has now passed to the Gentiles who “should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6). Those Israelites, or Jews if you will, that have believed God and in his Christ, will of course have a place in that kingdom to come; but it is my contention that the kingdom will have a completely different complexion than the one portrayed in scriptures that deal with Israel’s prophetic program. The coming earthly kingdom will be predominantly Gentile in its population.

Could these be the key to understanding the Bible?

Might these disturbing statements of Jesus which did not come to pass hold the key to understanding where WE stand in the plan of God? I believe they do! It’s an exercise in logic to recognize that these predictions of his second coming during the lifetime of his hearers were conditional – conditioned upon the nation of Israel’s acceptance of their Messiah, and, hence, their promised kingdom on earth! And, if these promises were not fulfilled because of Israel’s failure to accept their Messiah, then ALL the prophecies and promises made to them were likewise conditional upon their acceptance. We know, from Acts 28:20-28, that after the leaders of the Jewish nation could not come to any agreement and rejected Paul’s words regarding their kingdom and their Messiah, Jesus Christ, Paul pronounced that “the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.”

I realize that it is a very difficult thing to consider the idea that perhaps this was the final straw for the nation of Israel with God and that with this pronouncement in Acts 28, God was withdrawing all of the prophesied promises he had made to them from their beginning after crossing the Red Sea. Israel was the sought-after “wife” of God, but this unfaithful “spouse” ran after pagan gods and responded to God’s pleading with stiff-necked disobedience. In later times, as illustrated in the book of Hosea, God divorced Israel, and Jeremiah later said, “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.” (Jeremiah 3:8).

God’s desire was to win his bride back to him in righteousness and faithfulness, as expressed in Hosea 2:19-20: “And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord.” And that is what his Son, Jesus Christ, came to earth to accomplish, doing everything necessary to redeem her and prove that he was her true husband. But, as we know, the nation as represented by its religious leaders did not accept him; instead they had him crucified, and even his reported resurrection from the dead did not win them over. God had given his creation free will and Israel made full use of it in her rejection of her betrothed. We can only imagine the hurt this brought to the heart of God!

We must ask ourselves, “Does God intend to give Israel yet another chance some time in the future?” There are many, many Old Testament prophecies indicating that God planned to someday give his chosen people a kingdom on earth. This would occur after a prophesied time of wrath and testing by the ultimate antagonist, the antichrist. But, like the predictions Jesus made of his glorious return to be witnessed by the generation that existed at the time he uttered them, perhaps the prophecies of Israel like Zechariah 2:10: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn,” were to be fulfilled shortly after the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ into heaven to await that day. If these events were conditional upon Israel meeting certain requirements of readiness, Israel must not have met those requirements – or the predictions of his soon return spoken by Christ himself and his apostles writing after his return to heaven would have come to pass!

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

If you are a Bible scholar or someone who is just trying to understand the Holy Scriptures, you’re probably familiar with one or more of the passages in the gospel accounts where the Lord Jesus Christ makes a prediction of future events to come. As in Matthew 16:28 above in my tagline, the Lord prophesies of his second coming to earth in glory – in his “kingdom,” or “in the clouds with great power and glory,” (Mark 13:26) – and lists all the things that would happen before his coming ending with, “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.” (Mark 13:30).

Now I know that Bible scholars and pastors through the years have tried to rationalize these things by saying that the Lord’s words must be taken spiritually and not literally, or that his words were fulfilled in the transfiguration, or in the church being established in the world; but when we study the scriptures, “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), it is possible to find the remedy to the alarm we just naturally feel when reading the plain words of Jesus Christ predicting his return in glory that he declared would take place during the lifetime of his listeners!

Using right division and logic, I intend to offer a simple explanation to you, the reader, regarding these hard-to-be-understood prophecies of his second coming to his followers by the Lord Jesus Christ and also the similar statements made by other New Testament writers such as Paul, Peter, the writer to the Hebrews, and John.

In order to refresh your memory as to what those prophecies were and where to find them in the Holy Scriptures, I suggest reading this excellent article on a website called, “Black Non-Believers,” here on WordPress.com at: https://blacknonbelievers.wordpress.com/jesus-failed-prophecy-about-his-return/

As you can see from the article referenced above, these difficult passages can result in weakening or even destroying the perceived veracity of the Bible when a seeker comes face to face with them! Please stay tuned for my surprising and heretofore unheard of solution to this dilemma! Until next time…

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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