Ezekiel

Ezekiel 38-39

by Charles Cooper
written by Charles Cooper

Ezekiel 38-39
When? Where? Who?
The First Question: When?

Nothing frustrates me more than the inability to figure out the meaning of a critical text – such as Ezekiel 38-39. It eluded me for many years. No rapture position (Pretrib, Prewrath, or Posttrib) has dealt with the text to my satisfaction. Now, however, I am comfortable with my conclusion that the fulfillment of this passage must occur after the 1000-year kingdom.

The inherent problem for me was always the references to burning weapons for seven years and burying the dead for seven months in Ezekiel 39:9 and 39:15, respectively. The normal, natural, customary sense of the text demands that those numbers be taken in a literal sense. Nothing about the context, grammar, or historical fulfillment suggests that a non-literal sense is intended. And since the numbers are to be taken literally, Israel must be back in the land and living under divine protection.

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A Word to the Wise!

by Charles Cooper
written by Charles Cooper

Be Careful About the Writer You Read!
Charles Cooper

At the risk of offending some people, I want to express what’s on my heart – because I believe it’s essentially true and needs to be shared. One of the beautiful things about the PreWrath position in my estimation is the ease with which the average lay person can comprehend the scriptural foundation that supports it. This feature makes it very easy for a person to teach and defend it. One does not have to be a seminary professor to be able to do this. It is, therefore, unlike the pretrib position, for which even seminary professors have a difficult time developing their own biblical presentation. The same set of teaching notes from Dallas Theological Seminary forms the basis for countless thousands of Bible colleges, churches and Bible experts trying to teach the position. Very little original work exists these days. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong in this regard.

The PreWrath position allows the average lay person to teach the material that he or she can very easily develop on his or her own. Once a person utilizes the normal, natural, customary sense of the text, that is, a face value method of approaching the Scriptures, the timing of the Lord’s return is more easily understood in my opinion.

Some lay people will be emboldened by this fact, as is evident by the rising number of new books being published. Almost daily a new book defending or arguing some fine point about the PreWrath position hits the market. Much of this is made possible by the evolution in self-publishing. With eBooks, self-publishing, and cheap printing, anyone can publish a book these days. Therefore, a word to the wise: be very careful about what you read and knowledgeable regarding its author.

As with any book, before I buy and read it, I look at the author. What are his credentials? While one does not have to be an authority on a subject, he should certainly have the skills necessary to make his case. In my opinion, making one’s case does not mean having the ability to use a few Bible study tools. Strong’s Concordance, Vine’s dictionary, and a couple of study Bibles are insufficient to establish the precise meaning of a passage of Scripture. If one is reading devotionally, he or she can gain insights about a verse through the aforementioned tools. However, if one is attempting to discover the precise meaning of a difficult passage, those Bible helps are basic at best and will only provide possible alternatives for the correct usage of terms in the text. However, only a grammatical, historical, contextual, and theological evaluation of a passage can insure that the correct interpretation is found.

I was told as a young child that practice makes perfect. I believed that statement for most of my life, until recently, when I met a professional baseball player. He told me that practicing correctly makes perfect. In other words, it does not matter how long one practices. If he is practicing incorrectly, he will never get it right. Just because a person studies Scripture for a lifetime does not automatically mean that the insights he or she gains are true. Many good Armenians prove that point every day.

Watch what you read, but also be informed about the author who wrote it.

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Day of the LordIsaiahOlivet DiscoursePretribulationismPrewrathThessalonians 1&2

A Biblical Response to Eric Douma – Part 4

by Alan Kurschner
written by Alan Kurschner

I am responding to Eric Douma’s sermon on April 3rd 2011, “The Day of The LORD: A Look at the Imminent Day of Salvation and Judgment.” We continue.

Douma claims that the term “birth pangs” in the Bible is a technical term for the day of the Lord. That is, every time it is found in the Bible it must refer to the day of the Lord. This is categorically false and unproven. It is an assumption he makes to maintain the unbiblical doctrine of imminence. What do I mean by this?

Since Douma claims the rapture must occur before the great tribulation (so the church can avoid encountering the Antichrist), he interprets Jesus’ expression in Matthew 24:8, “the beginning of birth pangs,” to refer to the day of the Lord. He argues that since Paul uses the birthing metaphor in 1 Thessalonians 5 drawing from Isaiah 13 to refer to the day of the Lord, then Jesus must be using it in the same way. Therefore, he concludes that Matthew 24:4–35 describes the day of the Lord.

However, his premise is deeply flawed, for Jesus’ purpose of using the metaphor of birth pangs is just the opposite of Paul’s purpose.

Let’s begin.

Paul says,  “Now when they are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction comes on them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will surely not escape” (1 Thess 5:3). Paul’s analogy of “labor pains” is drawn from a day of the Lord passage in Isaiah 13:

(6) Wail, for the LORD’s day of judgment is near; it comes with all the destructive power of the sovereign judge. (7) For this reason all hands hang limp, every human heart loses its courage. (8) They panic—cramps and pain seize hold of them like those of a woman who is straining to give birth. They look at one another in astonishment; their faces are flushed red. (9) Look, the LORD’s day of judgment is coming; it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, destroying the earth and annihilating its sinners. (10) Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations no longer give out their light; the sun is darkened as soon as it rises, and the moon does not shine. (Isa 13:6–10; see also Isa 26:17–21)

We should not confuse Paul’s use of the birth pangs analogy with Jesus’ use of it in the Olivet Discourse, for it serves a completely different purpose than Matthew 24:8 (“All these things are the beginning of birth pains”). There are six differences that demonstrate that Jesus does not use the birth pangs metaphor to refer to the day of the Lord:

1. Jesus’ usage in Matthew 24 occurs before the great tribulation; Paul’s usage is found at the inception of the day of the Lord. In other words, Jesus uses the birthing metaphor to warn that the end has not arrived (“Make sure that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is still to come. . . All these things are the beginning of birth pains”). Paul uses it to announce that the end has arrived (“then sudden destruction comes on them, like labor pains,” cf. Isa 13:7–8).

2. Accordingly, Jesus emphasizes the tolerable stage of “the beginning of birth pains” (Matt 24:8); hence, the reason he reassures, “Make sure that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is still to come” (Matt 24:6). In contrast, Paul is drawing from Isaiah’s labor imagery focused on the intolerable stage of actual giving birth, “cramps and pain seize hold of them like those of a woman who is straining to give birth” (Isa 13:8).

3. Jesus teaches that the “beginning of birth pangs” is what Christians are destined to experience (Matt 24:4–8); Paul teaches just the opposite that Christians are promised exemption from the hard labor pains, the time of God’s wrath (1 Thess 5:9).

4. The labor pains in Matthew 24 refer to natural events such as false christs, wars, famines, and earthquakes (Matt 24:5–8). Paul’s reference is to the supernatural event of the day of the Lord (2 Thess 1:5–8).

5. Jesus’ usage of the beginning of birth pangs occurs before the celestial disturbance happens (Matt 24:8–29). But in the Isaiah passage that Paul is drawing from associates the birth pangs of the onset of the day of the Lord with the celestial disturbance (Isaiah 13: 8–10).

6. Jesus uses the birthing metaphor to apply to both unbelievers and believers (Matt 24:5–8). While Paul uses it exclusively applied to unbelievers (1 Thess 5:3–4).

So we have seen that Douma is mistaken to think that Jesus is speaking of the day of the Lord. A red flag should go up whenever someone claims that this or that is a “technical term,” for the danger is not taking contexts into consideration and thus flattening out an author’s intention. In this case, Douma has abused Jesus’ intention of the birthing metaphor to serve his own theology of imminence.

 

 

 

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Day of the LordPretribulationism

A Biblical Response to Eric Douma – Part 3

by Alan Kurschner
written by Alan Kurschner

I am responding to Eric Douma’s sermon on April 3rd 2011, “The Day of The LORD: A Look at the Imminent Day of Salvation and Judgment.” We continue.

In this part, I will respond to Douma’s repeated error of equating the “thief” imagery with “imminence.” In part one I responded to this misunderstanding as it relates namely to Peter’s usage. Even though most of what I need to say is in part one, I want to briefly respond to Douma’s claim as it relates to Paul’s use of the thief imagery. The text reads:

“For you know quite well that the day of the Lord will come in the same way as a thief in the night.” (1 Thess 5:2 NET)

Douma equates this statement with an “imminent rapture” because he says since we do not know when a thief comes, it follows that there are no prophetical events that must occur before the day of the Lord.

Douma is making a category error by not reading Paul accurately.

The thief imagery is intended to teach spiritual watchfulness, not physical watchfulness as some newsflash on CNN. This is shown in the remaining passage where Paul’s thrust is exhorting believers to stay spiritually awake and not be spiritually caught off guard when Christ comes back.

Hence, the reason Paul says that Christ is not coming back as a thief to those spiritually prepared!

“But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would” (1 Thess 5:4).

Why Douma wants to teach his people that Christ is coming back as a thief to them is beyond me. As Christians, God wants us to be spiritually prepared so that he will not come back as a thief for us because we are “not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would.”

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