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Historicism

4 Reasons Why the Great Tribulation Does NOT Span Over the Entire Church Age: A Reply to Historicism – Ep. 113

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Historicism is the eschatological position that says the thrust of prophecy in the Olivet Discourse and Revelation are fulfilled in the span of the church age. So for example, they would say that the great tribulation was not fulfilled in the first century, nor is it to be fulfilled in the future. Instead, it spans the entire church age (i.e. inter-advental). 4 Reasons Why the Great Tribulation Does NOT Span Over the Entire Church Age: A Reply to Historicism – Ep. 113

You may by surprised to learn that most evangelical scholars are not preterists or futurists—they are historicists. But many are a mixture of preterist-historicist.

There are at least four reasons why Historicism is not a valid interpretation.

For then there will be great tribulation unlike anything that has happened from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen. And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved.  (Matt 24:22)

 

 

Reply to Thomas Kidd: “When Christians Began Speaking of ‘the’ Antichrist”

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Since the comment section of Thomas Kidd’s blog does not work, I will post my comments to his blog article here (his blog article is linked below).

Thomas,

Thank you for your article. If I may, I would like to point out a fundamental flaw in your reasoning without being verbose.

I believe you are linguistically stacking the deck by framing the issue around selective evidence (i.e. the word-concept fallacy).

Christians have been talking about “the Antichrist” from the very beginning because they interpreted Scripture as teaching a future Antichrist personal figure that would persecute the last generation of the church. This is shown in the first Christian document outside of the New Testament, The Didache:

“And then the deceiver of the world will appear as a son of God and will perform signs and wonders, and the earth will be delivered into his hands, and he will commit abominations the likes of which have never happened before” (16:4, my emphasis).

I could cite many more like this in early Christianity, who clearly teach both a future and a personal, individual Antichrist figure; e.g.:

“For all these and other words were unquestionably spoken in reference to the resurrection of the just, which takes place after the coming of Antichrist, and the destruction of all nations under his rule” (5Iren 35:1).

Now, you may claim that the first example above does not use the phrase “the Antichrist”; but then you would be committing the word-concept fallacy, confusing word with the concept. See James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language (ch. 8).

In other words, you are suggesting in your conclusion that Christians did not talk about the concept of a personal eschatological Antichrist figure because the term The Antichrist was not used in most of church history (which is not true in the first place), while at the same time you are limiting your evidence to a single term.

Typically the word-concept fallacy is discussed in biblical texts. But per your argument you can find it in church history. Just another example, Michael Kruger points out when liberal scholars try to argue for a late date of the canon, they focus on the single term “canon,” appealing to the fact that the term “was not used to refer to a list of Christian Scriptures until the fourth century or later” (The Question of Canon, p. 28).

You also assume that in English the lack of an article means that it is not referring to a definite person. My book is titled Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord and yet there is no article in my title, not to mention in the book itself I talk about the Antichrist numerous times without using an article. In the history of the English language, anarthrous ellipsis has been so incredibly common, among other languages as well.

In summary, I believe your analysis and intended conclusion is skewed by excluding important evidence, and thus confusing word with concept.

The notion of the Antichrist is not some recent “dispy” teaching, nor was it some idiosyncratic concept in the corners of church history. The notion of a personal, future, Antichrist figure was the pervasive teaching of our Lord (personified in “the abomination of desolation”), Paul (“man of lawlessness”), John (“Beast”), a host of other terms in the OT, and pervasive in the early church writers.

So to answer your question: “But why do historians routinely assume that sources like this must mean ‘the’ antichrist, even to the point of putting ‘the’ in corrective brackets?”

Perhaps they do this because that was the concept that people were aware of.

Regards,
Alan

 

When Christians Began Speaking of ‘the’ Antichrist

 

 

How to Prepare for Jesus’ Second Coming: DON’T Take the Mark of the Antichrist – Ep. 66

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itunes cover art biblical program 3000This episode warned of the future mark of the Antichrist and its consequences for taking it. The Bible’s warning in Revelation 13–14 is for the Church.

This will be a real, future event that individuals living at this time will have to face—it could be this generation. If you take the mark of the beast, your fate will be sealed. If you refuse the mark you will face martyrdom. But the glories that lie beyond death is so much greater than extending your life a few more years.

I also related the mark to the apostasy mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2 where false believers will capitulate to the temptation to follow Antichrist. The time to prepare for Antichrist’s great tribulation is on now—not later.

To be an overcomer, as the book of Revelation teaches, is to overcome the Antichrist, overcome his system, his mark, his allegiance. You must follow Jesus.

 

How to Prepare for Jesus’ Second Coming: 4 Views that Militate Against Biblical Readiness – Ep. 65

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itunes cover art biblical program 3000I started a series talking about how to prepare for Jesus’ second coming in a biblical fashion. Today I described four views that militate against this readiness.

1. Pretribulationism: The warnings are relegated to “tribulation saints.” We will be raptured out of here so we do not have to concern ourselves with Jesus’ warnings.

2. Preterism: The warnings were only applicable to the church in the first century. No need to concern ourselves with them now or in the future.

3. Historicism: The events are not referring to concrete circumstances in the future, so they only apply generally. They have no discernible features.

4. Pan-millennialism: We cannot know what will happen so don’t concern yourselves with biblical prophecy. Focus on “more important” issues.

 

Links mentioned in program:

Learn Biblical Greek

Prewrath Pamphlets

Bible Prophecy Conference in PA

 

4 Reasons Why the Millennial Debate is Important, i.e. Why Premillennial Theology Matters – Ep. 53

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Alan Kurschner itunesPremillennialism teaches that at Jesus’ second coming he will deliver the righteous and judge the ungodly. Then the righteous will enter into a period—the millennium—of peace and righteousness where Jesus establishes on earth his physical reign of all nations—including a restored nation of Israel who recognizes him as the Messiah. All nations will worship Jesus as King and Lord. The future millennium will be characterized socially, politically, ethnically, and spiritually. This is why Christians pray to the Father, “May your kingdom come.”

I believe premillennialism is the correct biblical view because the narrative in Revelation 19:11–20:3 indicates this. Traditionally, interpreters have mistakenly started the millennial debate at chapter 20. But the narrative context begins before Revelation 20. There is a cause and effect action where the victory of Jesus at the battle of Armageddon will cause the defeat of the three enemies of God: the beast (i.e. Antichrist), the false prophet, and Satan. The passage states that Satan’s immediate punishment will be his binding in the abyss for 1,000 years (i.e. the millennium). In short, since Jesus’ battle victory occurs during his future second coming, the binding of Satan must begin at the second coming.

Interpreters who approach Bible prophecy with frameworks that preclude a future reality of key prophecies either collapse biblical prophecies as already happened in the past (preterism), throughout church history (historicism), or making it all merely ideas (idealism). Premillennialism takes the warnings of the Bible seriously as they relate to the future intervention of God’s Son with humankind at the end of the age.

I gave four reasons why holding to the premillennial view is important, and thus why the millennial debate is significant.

First, Satan is not bound during the church age (contra Amillennialism), but instead he is “a roaring lion . . .on the prowl looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8). Premillennialism takes seriously the spiritual battle that the Bible portrays within the spirit world, especially as it will escalate just before Christ returns.

We are also not living in the blessed millennial age. We are living in a wicked age where injustice, immorality, and no fear of God dominates this world. We long for the day when our righteous King returns to defeat his enemies and “break them with an iron scepter; [and]  smash them like a potter’s jar!’” (Ps

Second, premillennialism rightly takes into consideration the complex nature of God’s dealings with his people. Amillennialism, on the other hand, views the return of Christ as an overly simple event, monochromatically. That is, there is no emphasis on the events leading up to the return of Christ; basically, in their schema, the return of Christ will happen in a single day, and we will all be suddenly ushered into the eternal state.

This is not what the Bible depicts. Instead, the premillennial view rightly views a complex-comprehensive whole in which God will fulfill his redemptive purposes through stages: Antichrist’s great tribulation, eschatological suffering of the church and Israel, resurrection, rapture, the day of the Lord’s wrath (itself a complex series of events), salvation of Israel, new heavens and earth, the complex social, ethnic, political, material aspects of the millennium, Satan’s final defeat—then finally the eternal state.

Third, premillennialism does not believe that the world will increasingly get better before Christ returns (contra postmillennialism, Pat Robertson, Gary DeMar, et al.). There are many postmillennial churches that are misleading God’s people teaching that God will use politics as a means to better this world and prepare the world for the gospel.

Premillennialism teaches, instead, that the Bible shows the world will increasingly become more wicked before Christ returns, and that only Christ himself will usher in the age of righteousness (1 Thess 1; Mark 13, Luke 17, 21; Matt 24; Revelation; the Old Testament passages are too numerous to list here).

Fourth, premillennialism (at least most) affirms the unconditional promises to national Israel. God will remain faithful to his promise to Israel. Amillennialism and postmillennialism denies a future reconstituted national Israel, and thus denies God’s faithfulness to his promise to Israel. This is important to the millennial debate because it relates to one’s fundamental approach to biblical interpretation. In addition, it will distort their theology of the nature of the church and its role in God’s redemptive purposes.

 

5 Views that Deny the Church Will Face the Antichrist’s Great Tribulation

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There are five views that deny the church will face the Antichrist:

1. Preterism
2. Historicism
3. Pretribulationism
4. Agnostic-Tribulationism
5. Pan-Tribulationism

The Prewrath (as well as many post-tribs) affirm that the last generation of the church will face the Antichrist’s great tribulation just before Christ’s returns.

See my book on this topic on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Antichrist-Before-Day-Lord-Christian/dp/0985363312

 

Why the Bible Teaches a Literal, Physical Temple (Naos) in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, Not a Figurative, Spiritual Temple – Ep. 23

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Alan Kurschner itunes 600I talked about Paul’s use of the term “temple” (naos) in 2 Thessalonians 2:4. Does Paul have in mind a literal, physical temple? Or is he referring to a figurative, spiritual sense? I argued the former, the literal, physical sense.

I first explained that naos does not require some large Solomaic-like structure. Instead, it can refer to a small tent-like structure or inner sanctuary. In addition, it must be erected before the midpoint when the Antichrist is revealed and commits the abomination of the desolation.

I then responded to the historicist interpretation of “temple” in 2 Thess 2:4. Typically, they interpret it in a spiritual fashion such as “the church.” I explained two exegetical fallacies that they commit when arguing for this conclusion, including the “corpus fallacy.” This latter fallacy is a common lexical fallacy that is linguistically naive. I gave a couple of analogies to illustrate my point. Historicists at the end of the day must import a foreign meaning into 2 Thess 2:4 to maintain their figurative-church interpretation of naos.

Finally, I cited three New Testament scholars (two of them Thessalonian scholars) who I thought have made excellent points on this issue. Colin R. Nicholl gives four reasons relating to the worship of the Antichrist. Daniel Wallace demonstrates a development of Paul’s thought on the temple. And Gene L. Green makes the point of the orientation of the Antichrist’s claims that militates against a “church” sense.

 

Links mentioned in program:

Colin R. Nicholl. From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica: Situating 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 126. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004. See also his “Michael, The Restrainer Removed (2 Thess. 2:6–7).” The Journal of Theological Studies, April 2000.

https://bible.org/article/”temple-god”-2-thessalonians-24-literal-or-metaphorical

Gene L. Green. The Letters to the Thessalonians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, 312.

 

 

5 Reasons the Bible Teaches a Literal, Personal Antichrist, Not Figurative, Impersonal – Ep. 22

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Alan Kurschner itunes 600I adduced five reasons why I believe the Bible teaches a literal, personal Antichrist figure, not a figurative, impersonal Antichrist. The Bible uses many descriptions and titles for this eschatological Antichrist figure. The term “Antichrist” is the most popular term. Historicists (most) and Idealists deny a literal personal Antichrist, construing instead an impersonal embodiment such as “government” or a “principle of evil.”

The five reasons I gave are as follows:

1. John in his epistle 1 John 2:18, 22 refers to a personal Antichrist figure. He describes an already-not-yet sense of Antichrist.

2. Jesus in his Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:15 draws from the prophet Daniel’s writing on the Antichrist figure, highlighting his desolating actions and personifying that action with “standing.”  Mark’s account in Mark 13:14 indicates the personal attribute of the Antichrist being masculine, as well as “standing.”

3. The apostle Paul provides the most explicit teaching that the Antichrist will be a real person, describing him with many personal pronouns and calling him “the man of lawlessness” and “the son of destruction.”

4. The book of Revelation describes Antichrist (i.e. the Beast) as a literal personal figure. I explained the distinction between figurative language and the referent it points to. The book of Revelation uses very rich figurative language to describe literal, personal figures (e.g. Jesus, Satan, and the Antichrist, etc.).

5. The early church document, the Didache, from the first century explicitly interprets Jesus’ teaching as referring to a real, literal Antichrist: “And then the deceiver of the world will appear as a son of God and will perform signs and wonders, and the earth will be delivered into his hands, and he will commit abominations the likes of which have never happened before.” (Didache 16:4).

Links mentioned in the program:

https://www.alankurschner.com/antichrist-before-the-day-of-the-lord/

 

 

What Is the Sign to the Second Coming of Messiah Jesus? – Ep. 18

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Alan Kurschner itunes 600I explained Jesus’ reply to his disciples’ question about what is the sign to his coming and the end of the age. Jesus warned that there will be false signs from false messianic claimants. Jesus—the Son of Man—described that his return will be unmistakable and universal using poignant imagery and a proverb. In essence, Jesus was teaching that the sign would be himself in all his radiant and brilliant glory. The sign would be situated by the backdrop of the celestial disturbances darkening the luminaries in order to accentuate the glorious return. I concluded with a couple of contrasts that the second coming will have with the first coming. Listen to find out what those will be!

 

alan kurschner sign to coming

 

What Does the Pre-Wrath Rapture Position Teach? – Ep. 17

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Alan Kurschner itunes 600I described the prewrath position by outlining 15 essential tenets that someone must affirm in order to hold to a prewrath position. They are core minimum beliefs. If someone denies any of these definitional points they cannot be said to be prewrath in a meaningful sense of the term.

I prefaced the program with two issues. First, I explained there are secondary issues that prewrathers disagree on that are not essential to the prewrath position. Listen to find out what some of these secondary issues are.

The second point I prefaced the show with was discussing the confusing and contradictory label “postrib-prewrath.” It is best to jettison this misleading term from the theological debate, and either affirm postrib or prewrath, because one cannot affirm both at the same time in any meaningful fashion.

In the main part of the program I discussed the following 15 tenets of prewrath eschatology:

1. There is a future seven-year period, and at the midpoint the Antichrist will be revealed and commit the abomination of desolation, initiating his great tribulation against the Church and Israel.

 

2. There is a biblical distinction between the Antichrist’s great tribulation against the Church and Israel and the day of the Lord’s wrath against the ungodly. The latter event happens after the former event.

 

3. The gathering of the elect mentioned in Matthew 24:31 refers to the rapture (cf. Mark 13:27; Luke 21:28; Rev 7:9–17; 1 Thess 4:13–18; 2 Thess 2:1).

 

4. At an unknown day and hour during the second half of the seven-year period, the Antichrist’s great tribulation will be cut short by the Revelation of Christ to resurrect and rapture God’s people, and this will be followed immediately by the day of the Lord’s wrath executed upon the ungodly.

 

5. On the same day the rapture happens, the onset of the day of the Lord’s wrath takes place, just as it was in the days of Noah and Lot (Luke 17:22–37; cf. 2 Thess 1:5–10).

 

6. The second coming (parousia) is not a simple (instantaneous) event. The second coming is a complex-whole event containing various purposes of God, beginning with the Revelation of Christ in the sky displaying his Shekinah glory and power to the whole world, and resurrecting and rapturing God’s people, followed by the day of the Lord’s judgments upon the ungodly and Antichrist’s kingdom, restoring Israel to salvation, and culminating in Christ’s earthly reign.

 

7. Although Armageddon is an element within the complex-whole second coming, Armageddon does not initiate the second coming; instead, the second coming begins between the sixth and seventh seal.

 

8. The resurrection and rapture happens between the opening of the sixth seal and the seventh seal.

 

9. The first six seals are not part of the day of the Lord’s wrath. The first six seals are conditional events that must happen before Christ’s return.

 

10. The sixth seal signals the impending day of the Lord’s wrath as recorded in Joel 2:30–31; Matthew 24:29; Luke 21:25–26; Mark 13:23–25; and Revelation 6:12–17.

 

11. The seventh seal pronounces the day of the Lord’s wrath.

 

12. The trumpets, bowls, and Armageddon contain and execute the day of the Lord’s wrath.

 

13. The trumpets, bowls, and Armageddon will not occur before the seventh seal is opened.

 

14. Paul’s “last trumpet” (1 Cor 15:52) is not identified as the seventh trumpet judgment in the book of Revelation.

 

15. Christ’s return to resurrect and rapture God’s people is not imminent (“any moment”), since discernible prophesied events must happen first (e.g., the Antichrist’s revelation and his ensuing great tribulation; the apostasy; coming of Elijah; and a cluster of discernible celestial events). Christ can return in any generation of the Church.

 

Links mentioned in the show:

https://www.alankurschner.com/2012/07/31/tenets-of-prewrath/

https://www.alankurschner.com/2014/02/22/seals-trumpets-bowls-at-the-same-time-or-one-after-the-other-i-e-concurrent-recapitulation-or-consecutive-progressive/

https://www.alankurschner.com/antichrist-before-the-day-of-the-lord/

 

Read the transcript.

 

 

The “House” Metaphor as a Helpful Approach to Studying the Doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ – Ep. 16

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Alan Kurschner itunes 600I described a helpful approach to studying the doctrine of the second coming. The books of the Bible have been progressively revealed to God’s people in history with the book of Revelation as the very last book that was written to complete the Bible. So instead of starting with the book of Revelation, I suggest starting with key biblical prophecy passages in the book of Daniel, Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, and Paul’s Thessalonian epistles.

Accordingly, it is best to begin with Daniel giving us a temporal context. Then one should move next to Jesus’ teaching in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, where Jesus gives us a concrete outline to the events surrounding his second coming. Next, one should move to both of the Thessalonian epistles where Paul gives further description of the second coming. Finally, it is best to conclude with the book of Revelation, which fills in the details. In addition, while working through Jesus, Paul, and book of Revelation one can draw from the Old Testament prophets, such as Joel, Zephaniah, and others.

Having worked through this procedure, the student of prophecy will be in a good position with this background to make sense out of the book of Revelation.

I used a “house” metaphor to illustrate this approach. The following stages of building a house are the same stages in studying the doctrine of the second coming.

Daniel – The Foundation
Jesus – The Framework
Paul – The Facilities
Revelation – The Furnishing

 

Read the transcript.

 

Copyright © 2018 by Alan Kurschner.