Category Archives: Revelation

THE TEMPLE AND REVELATION’S DATE

Revelation September 12, 2014 Comments: 2

TemplePMT 2014-111 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

In this brief series I am presenting some of the evidence for Revelation’s early dating, before AD 70. This is helpful for postmillennialism because if it was written prior to the Jewish temple’s destruction, it may well be looking to that judgment. And if so, then its main judgment scenes lie in our past, leaving the future open for the progress of the gospel.

The first line of evidence I would present for the early date of Revelation is the presence of the temple in Revelation 11. In Revelation 11:1, 2 we read:

“And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.”

Continue reading →

WHEN DID JOHN WRITE REVELATION?

Revelation September 10, 2014 Comments: 7

Quill scrollPMT 2014-110 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

The Book of Revelation is often deemed evidence against postmillennialism. The judgments and woes that build in Revelation appear to contradict any hope for optimism. Yet a proper understanding of Revelation actually enhances the postmillennial argument.

One of the first issues that must be considered in dealing with Revelation is to determine when John wrote it. There are two basic positions Revelation’s, although each has a variety of slight variations. Continue reading →

FINAL BATTLE = FINAL COLLAPSE?

Objections, Optimism, Revelation September 5, 2014 Comments: 2

PMT 2014-108 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.Nuclear explosion

In Revelation 20:7-9 is often employed against the historical optimism of postmillennialism. However, postmillennialists are very much aware of Revelation 20, and they do not see it as contradicting the postmillennial hope. This is the fourth in a brief series on this passage showing that it does not contravene our historical optimism.

The passage reads:

“When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.”

The surrounding (parembolen) of the “beloved city” (Rev 20:9) by nations drawn from the “four corners of the earth” (20:8) probably mirrors the surrounding of Jerusalem in AD 70.“For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank [parembalousin: paremballo < paremballo] before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side” (Lk 19:43; cp. Lk 21:20). Continue reading →

THE FINAL BATTLE

Objections, Optimism, Revelation September 3, 2014 Leave a comment

PMT 2014-106 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.Tank

John’s stating that these nations are in the “four corners of the earth” is a Semitism for the far reaches of the earth, represented by the four cardinal directions (Rev 20:8; 21:13; cp. Ge 28:14; Dt 3:27; Ps 107:3; Isa 11:11-12; Jer 49:36). Here he mentions “nations,” which shows that tes ges here is not “the Land” of Israel (as commonly in Rev), but the broader world.

We should understand that “after the Thousand years the symbols become even simpler and broader. They are in the far future now, and St. John deals only with gigantic general principles” (Carrington, The Meaning of Revelation, 325). “This shows that the very distant future is designed to be merely glanced at by the writer. So it is with the Hebrew prophets. But here, there is a special reason for brevity. The main object of writing the book is already accomplished, for substance. Christians have been consoled by assurances, that all the enemies with whom the church was then conflicting, would surely be overthrown. . . . [So that] mere touches and glances are all which it exhibits, or which were intended to be exhibited” (Stuart, Apocalypse, 2:354). Continue reading →

LIGHTFOOT, REV 22, AND TONGUES (2)

AD 70, History, Revelation August 22, 2014 Comments: 2

Lightfoot JohnPMT 2014-102 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

In this article I conclude the citation of John Lightfoot’s notes on Revelation 22, wherein he discusses miraculous gifts and tongues-speaking as apostolic signs that were not to continue after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Except that those gifted with these phenomena before the fall would continue until they themselves died, and so would end such gifts.

Here is the conclusion to Lightfoot’s comments begun in PMT 2014-101:

At the first dispersing of the gospel, it was absolutely needful, that the first planters should be furnished with such extraordinary gifts; or else, it was not possible it should be planted. As this may appear by a plain instance: — Paul comes to a place, where the gospel had come never come; he stays a month or two, and begets a church; and then he is to go his way, and to leave them. Who now, in this church, is fit to be their minister? they being alike but very children in the gospel: but Paul is directed by the Holy Ghost, to lay his hands upon such and such them; and that bestows upon them the gift of tongues and prophesying; and now they are able to be ministers and to teach the congregation. Continue reading →

LIGHTFOOT, REV 22, AND TONGUES (1)

AD 70, History, Revelation August 20, 2014 Leave a comment

PMT 2014-101 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.Tongues Speaking book

In that I am reading the works of Reformed scholar, Westminster Divine, and rabbinic authority John Lightfoot (1602–75), I will present some of his insightful materials. Though he is an historicist (see PMT 2014-100), his historicism focuses much on the first stage of the historicist movement in AD 70.

And in that I believe the gift of tongues was an eschatological phenomenon providing a sign that the last days had begun with the final establishing of the new covenant in AD 70, I will present his interesting notes on Revelation 22. These are found in vol. 3 of The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot (vol 3, pp. 368–71). Continue reading →

REV 14 HARVEST: GOOD OR BAD?

Revelation July 21, 2014 Leave a comment

PMT 2014-087 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.Harvest

In Rev 14:14–16 we find the following vision:

“Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was one like a son of man, having a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. And another angel came out of the temple, crying out with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, ‘Put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ Then He who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped.”

What is this harvest? Is it a negative image of judgment? Or is it a positive image of something else? The next vision of the grape harvest is certainly one of judgment (Rev 14:17–20). Continue reading →