PMT 2014-064b by Don Strickland
This past Sunday I was reminded of a sermon I heard while at seminary. It was preached by a friend of mine who had been an actual shepherd of sheep in Australia Continue reading
Author Archives: Kenneth Gentry
TONGUES AND ESCHATOLOGY (1)
PMT 2014-063 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Eschatology is not an addition to Christian theology. It stands at the very heart of it. Consequently, it impacts and colors all areas of biblical truth. Oftentimes we can understand a biblical phenomenon better if we see in terms of its implications for the outworking of redemption, for redemptive-history’s progress to its climax.
Willem Van Gemeren succinctly notes that eschatology is “the totality of the teaching of Scripture on the redemption of God” (Van Gemeren, Progress of Redemption, 458). Thus, as Michael Horton observes: “Eschatology should be a lens and not merely a locus. In other words, it affects the way we see everything in scripture rather than only serving as an appendix to the theological system” (Horton, Covenant and Eschatology, 5). Continue reading
DISPENSATIONALISM AND THE NEW JERUSALEM
PMT 2014-062 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
I consider Dr. John F. Walvoord to have been one of the two leading scholarly representatives of classic dispensationalism in his heyday. He and Charles C. Ryrie were the most prominent advocates of dispensationalism throughout the period of dispensationalism’s hegemony in the populist market (1955–85). Dr. J. Dwight Pentecost never quite made the grade, partly due to the problem regarding his magnum opus: Things to Come ought to have been called Things to Quote. It was merely an inventory of classic dispensational thought with little creative interaction.
I myself was once a dispensationalist, though I got over it. I graduated from a dispensational college with a degree in Biblical Studies (Tennessee Temple College, B.A., 1973). For two years I attended a dispensational seminary (Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Ind.). I always found Walvoord and Ryrie to be the most reputable, trustworthy, and compelling authorities to cite in promoting dispensationalism during those halcyon days in which I could study at leisure in the comfort of my home the identity of the (current) Antichrist prediction and formulate new and more compelling dates for the rapture. Continue reading
CHRIST, SALVATION, LAW & POSTMILLENNIALISM
PMT 2014-061 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
This is my final article on Jesus’ kingdom teaching and its endorsement of God’s Law. This is important for distinguishing postmillennialism from social gospel liberalism, which many falsely charge against the postmillennial hope.
Let us note:
Christ Perfectly Keeps the Law
The Scripture teaches that he comes to keep the Law: “Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; / In the scroll of the book it is written of me; / I delight to do Thy will, O my God; / Thy Law is within my heart” (Psa 40:7– 8). The writer of Hebrews applies this verse to him (Heb 10:5–7). He perfectly keep God’s Law in his own life: “I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love” (John 15:10b). Because of the nature of sin as transgression of the Law (1 John 3:4) Christ is sinless because he keeps the Law: “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” (John 8:46). Continue reading
Faithful as Samuel
PMT 2014-061b by Don Strickland
1Samuel 2:11-12, 17-18: Then Elkanah went to his home at Ramah. But the boy [Samuel] ministered to the LORD before Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the Lord. . . . Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD, for the men despised the offering of the LORD. Now Samuel was ministering before the LORD, as a boy wearing a linen ephod.
GOD’S LAW AND MAN’S CULTURE
PMT 2014-060 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
This is my third article on the nature of the righteousness which postmillennialism expects to prevail in the world before Christ returns. Postmillennialism is not a form of social gospel liberalism. In fact, it is just the opposite. Social gospel liberalism operates in opposition to God’s Law, not in affirmation of it.
I have been focusing on Jesus’s own teaching regarding the Law. The New Testament, of course, has a lot more to say about the continuing relevance of God’s Law, but as the central person in the postmillennial hope, his teaching is especially instructive and encouraging.
I will now pick up where I left off in the previous article. I will point out four important observations in demonstrating Jesus’ endorsement of the Law. Continue reading
The Christian and Death
PMT 2014-060b by Don Strickland
Exodus 3.6
“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Recent comments