Postmillennial Worldview

PMW 2023-054 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

A reader had a question arise regarding a previous article (“Every Mountain was Moved”). I thought his query worthy of a bit more reflection than usually offered in a comment response. He noted regarding Revelation 16:19 that I stated “the cities of the nations” represents Gentile cities, setting them over against Jerusalem. He writes:

MY READER:
“They are distinguished from ‘the great city,’ showing that they are Gentile cities.

But which Gentile cities fell in AD 70? This is clearly simultaneous with the siege and fall of Jerusalem, taking place well after the year of the four emperors (Rev. 16:10-11) and the gathering of Roman troops (Rev. 16:12-16). So it can’t be referring to the Roman civil war. How was this fulfilled?”
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PMW 2023-053 by Geerhardus Vos

Gentry Introductory Note:
I am continuing a three-part presentation of Geerhardus Vos exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5. He wrote this in opposition to the arising of the new (in his time) liberal view that Paul’s theology changed over time. He originally believed in a physical resurrection of the dead, but eventually began to believe that at the moment of death believers received their new resurrection body as a spiritual body. This is the third and concluding article in the series. Now to Vos’ argument.

VOS’ PRESENTATION CONCLUDED

The difficult verse 3. We must now look for a moment at the passage as a whole, and in connection with this at the difficult verse 3. We do this in order to grasp the import of the entire section, and thus to gather in the fruit of our somewhat laborious exegesis. The passage connects with 2 Corinthians 4:17–18 by means of “for” (gar): “For we know that in case our earthly tent-house shall have been dissolved, we have a building from God,” etc. In 4:17–18 the “affliction” in the body works out an eternal weight of glory. This is likewise to be enjoyed in the body, since there, in the body, the “affliction” was borne. The future body thus appears from the outset as the bearer of an eternal weight of glory. The knowledge that such a new body shall be ours is basic for the hope of possessing and enjoying the certainty of this eternal glory. Without such a center the glory could not exist. Especially the description of this new body as a “house” admirably fits into this train of thought, because a house is not a mere place of shelter, but has attached to it the aesthetic conception of a center of manifestation for the glory of its inhabitant.
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PMW 2023-052 by Geerhardus Vos

Gentry Introductory Note:
I am continuing a three-part presentation of Geerhardus Vos exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5. He wrote this in opposition to the arising of the new (in his time) liberal view that Paul’s theology changed over time. He originally believed in a physical resurrection of the dead, but eventually began to believe that at the moment of death believers received their new resurrection body as a spiritual body. This is the second in the series. Let us hear Vos!

VOS PRESENTATION CONTINUED

“Our habitation from heaven.” A contact for the idea of pre-existence has further been sought in the closing words of 2 Corinthians 5:2: “our habitation from heaven.” But this “from heaven” is simply another form of statement for what is called in verse 1 “from God.” The resurrection-body is from heaven because it is in a special supernatural sense from God. Heaven is the seat and source of the Pneuma by which the resurrection-body is formed. [1]

On the other hand, the word ependusasthai, in this second verse is distinctly unfavorable to the view that Paul looked forward to or weighed the possibility of receiving the new body at or immediately after death. Endusasthai means “to put on,” and ependusasthai signifies “to put on one garment over another garment.” The preposition epi effects this plus in the meaning. The latter word expresses the same thing, which in 1 Corinthians 15:53, Paul calls endusasthai. There the subject of the act is the present earthly body: “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” Here in 2 Corinthians 5, on the other hand, the subject is the self, the incorporeal part of the believer. It is conceived as already clothed upon with its present body-garment, and desiring to put on over this, as some over-garment, the eschatological body.
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PMW 2023-051 by Geerhardus Vos

Gentry Introductory Note:
I am currently working on an edited version of some of Geerhardus Vos’ eschatological writings. In this work my friend Bill Boney and I are editing Vos’ technical, Dutch-impacted style of writing, as well as updating some of his early 1900s features (use of Roman numerals, long sentences, very long paragraphs). We are doing this to make his writing more easily accessible in the current environment.

In this and the next two articles, I will be posting Vos’ insightful exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5, which has been so abused by some in the current eschatological debate. Vos is rebutting the view that Paul’s eschatological developed over time, allowing us to trace his changing outlook on the basis of the dates of his epistles. We begin citing Vos where he engages the innovate liberal view of his day that argued that Paul began to believe that believers received a spiritual resurrection body at the moment of their death. So, here we go!

VOS’ PRESENTATION BEGUN
Let us discuss the alleged third stage in the evolution of Paul’s resurrection-belief. This is the stage in which the Apostle is supposed to have moved forward the endowment with a new body to the moment of death in case the death of his earthly body should occur before the parousia. This view is not ascribed to Paul as a firmly established conviction. Rather, it is a more or less contingent eventuality, which nonetheless he seriously reckoned with. The passage on which it is chiefly based is 2 Corinthians 5:1–8, a context extremely difficult of interpretation. This is partly as a result of some uncertainties in the text. These, however, may themselves have arisen from a desire through emendation to remove exegetical or doctrinal obstacles. Paul writes:

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:1–8)

The best method of dealing with the passage seems to be as follows. First, give first a cursory exegesis of the successive clauses, paying particular heed to their syntactical coherence. Then sum up the results obtained in a brief paraphrase. This would be so that the exegesis may be conducted with the greatest degree of discrimination. Thus, it is desirable to place clearly before our minds the traditional understanding of the words.

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PMW 2023-050 by A. A. Hodge

Gentry note: We are witnessing in our day a small but growing and tenacious number of Christians who are defecting from orthodox Christianity to a gnostic-like conception of salvation. By that I mean that these folks are denying the physical resurrection of the body and a physical eternal new heavens and new earth. And in this they are corrupting the biblical understanding of salvation as necessarily involving man in his fullness, body and soul. They are also so-reinterpreting Christ’s resurrection (as spiritual, not physical in nature!) that they deny his ongoing (resurrected) incarnation. And that is just the beginning of their slide out of orthodoxy.

I thought it might be helpful to present a Reformed discussion of the resurrection from A. A. Hodge, son of Charles Hodge. He presents his “Outlines of Theology” in a Q&A format, which is both succinct and helpful. The following material is from A. A. Hodge’s notes on the resurrection:

1. What is the meaning of the phrase, “resurrection of the dead,” and “from the dead,” as used in Scripture?

Anastasis signifies etymologically (based on earliest known translations) “a rising or raising up.” It is used in Scripture to designate the future general raising, by the power of God, of the bodies of all men from the sleep of death.

2. What Old Testament passages bear upon this subject?

Job 19:25–27; Psalm 49:15; Isaiah 26:l9; Daniel 12:1–3.

3. What are the principal passages bearing upon this subject in the New Testament?

Matthew 5:29; 10:28; 27:52, 53; John 5:28, 29; 6:39; Acts 2:25– 34; 13:34; Romans 8:11, 22, 23; Philippians 3:20, 21; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17, and 1 Corinthians15

4. What is the meaning of the phrases, soma psuchikon, “natural body,” and soma pneumatikon, “spiritual body,” as used by Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:44?

The word psuche, when contrasted with pneuma always designates the principle of animal life, as distinguished from the principle of intelligence and moral agency, which is the pneuma. A soma psuchikon, translated natural body evidently means a body endowed with animal life, and adapted to the present condition of the soul, and to the present physical constitution of the world it inhabits. A soma pneumatikon, translated spiritual body, is a body adapted to the use of the soul in its future glorified estate, and to the moral and physical conditions of the heavenly world, and to this end assimilated by the Holy Ghost, who dwells in it, to the glorified body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:45–48.
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PMW 2023-049 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

A QUESTION ABOUT THE FIRST FRUITS

A reader wrote a question in response to my article: “Spiritual Resurrection at Death?” (PMW 2023-042). In that article I argued for the universal, historic doctrinal position of orthodox Christianity that our eschatological resurrection will be material/physical. There I pointed out that the “first fruit” resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:20, 23) demands that the final resurrection will be of the same kind as Christ’s, which was material/physical (Luke 24:38–39; John 2:19–21; 20:19–20, 25–27).

In response, my reader wrote: “It seems that could make for an extremely long germination period. How does one decide whether the similarity of the harvest to the first fruit, i.e. Christ’s resurrection, is in nature and/or in timing?” Continue reading →