I personally believe He will, but what it will be like?
What will it mean to those who will not obey God?
I believe Calvin tries to have this theocratic government, but if God Himself will be the ruler what will His millennial reign will looks like? Will it be that Christians will the only participants in that kingdom?
I can offer you a link to one article from the premill view that attempts to go into some detail regarding the questions you have asked. There are other things also that can be said but it offers some pretty good remarks.
http://the.mysteryofisrael.org/2011/07/18/the-third-that-survives-the-tribulation/
Also, Isaiah the 11th chapter is a good place that describes the millennium as well as Isaiah chapters 60-66. Plus Isaiah 2:1-4 and Micah 4:2. Nature will be revivied and the curse lifted as it is changed from a minor to a major key and manifestation again. Nations will not be allowed to learn war anymore and Christ's word which goes forth from Jerusalem will not be voted on by committee. What He says is what will be done.
I see you reside in the Phillipines. How is the church overall doing there bro?
Thank you.
I think the best we can say is that the Isaiah passages MIGHT be referring to some future earthly reign of Christ but it is equally possible that it is referring to the gospel age.
We have to remember the nature of prophetic passages and the type of language employed. For example, lions laying down with lambs might mean literal animals or it might mean men once at enmity (Jews and Gentiles) living in peace as brothers in Christ. Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
I believe the things mentioned in many of the prophetic passages and in the Isaiah passages are impossible to have already occurred or will occur during the gospel age. The more one becomes familar with them, and many aren't I think rather they just go by what they have heard and been told, the more one can become convinced from scriptural evidence of a future time for Christ to reign on earth from the nation that He ascended from and promised to return to. That has led me to believe that many of these passages can only be describing a time between the Day of the Lord which ends this present age and the later beginning of the eternal state. A millennial reign with Christ sitting on the throne of David in an earthly sphere will not be without purpose. The Lord I believe will vindicate Himself in time and history for a thousand years in the sight of the nations before moving on.
/ We have to remember the nature of prophetic passages and the type of language employed.
Rmembering this is why many verses and passages can be taken to mean what they plainly say. There are symbolic and allegorical passages used in Daniel and Revelation but that doesn't mean all prophetic passages are symbolical or allegorical. The prophetic genre employes both types of language but because some passages are symbolic and written in pictures etc. does not mean all of them are. The allegorical scvhooll of thought in my opinion has made a pretty dtermined effort to view most or all of the passages as really meaning something other than they say.
/ For example, lions laying down with lambs might mean literal animals or it might mean men once at enmity (Jews and Gentiles) living in peace as brothers in Christ. Jesus is the Prince of Peace.
I don't believe there are any symbolic pictures or types given here in this passage from Isaiah. If God meant to say one day Jews and Gentiles will live together in peace in Christ then it's reasonable to think He would have said it that way. Lions and lambs might mean literal animals? Why would it mean anything else? The type of language employed in "some" places does not mean this type of language is employed in "all" places. If God had meant to say one day Jew and Gentile will one day live in peace then I am believing He would have said it. It's always been difficult for me to read a passage and then say it MIGHT really mean something else. But even then I acknowledge that in places the apocalyptic genre does use symbols and pictures at times. But I don't believe the lion laying down with the lamb is one of them.
David I am not really arguing and in fact I said it could be literal.
Do you think men will literally beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks? Again, they might, but the language may equally be figurative. To me it seems like a figurative, poetic way of saying there will be peace.
I think the correct word to describe certain prophetic passages is "figurative" as opposed to "allegorical."
Is. 39 says that the fires of Edom's burning shall not be quenched and the smoke shall go up forever. So, does the passage mean that Edom will be gone forever, or that the fires will literally burn forever? On what basis should this passage not be interpreted figuratively vs literally?
I didn't feel like you were arguing and I hope I didn't come across that way. If you are not arguing I fully receive that.
/Do you think men will literally beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks? Again, they might, but the language may equally be figurative. To me it seems like a figurative, poetic way of saying there will be peace.
There could be some turning of weapons of war into agricultural instruments. Nonetheless, if there isn't, this verse has been figuratively interpreted to mean that men are ALREADY learning war no more. Men aren't as warlike in their dispositions to one another etc. now that they are in Christ. It has been changed by the figurative interpretation to mean something before Christ returns. So "figurative" as it may be perhaps, it cannot possibly be construed to mean that men and the nations are already learning war no more. It pertains to the time after Christ returns. And following in this vein, the Jerusalem of Isaiah 2:3 has been figuratively interpreted to mean the present church when it doesn't come close to saying that. If it says Jerusalem it means Jeruusalem I propose.
The lion laying down with the lamb has been figuratively interpreted to pertain to Jews and Gentile beginning to get along in Christ. It doesn't say that. It pertains to animals in the animal kingdom. How can one change it to pertain to men? The figurative interpretation method of viewing scripture has been taken too far in my opinion although I agree many passages contain figurative expressions. But lo, if the figurqative view strips the context and interpretation of original meaning and thought and makes it into something else altogether then is it sound or overdone and over employed?
/Is. 39 says that the fires of Edom's burning shall not be quenched and the smoke shall go up forever. So, does the passage mean that Edom will be gone forever, or that the fires will literally burn forever? On what basis should this passage not be interpreted figuratively vs literally?
I don't see that in Isaiah 39 so maybe you got the wrong reference but that is no problem. I've done that also. I never have said that entire passage regarding Edom etc. should be interpreted literally. There is some figurative languiage there. People with my view have always said there is much that is fugirative mixed in with the literal. Yet we can't say something like since this is figurative it doesn't pertain to Edom at all. That is the way the beating swords into plowshares and the lion laying down with the lamb has been done. Supposedly, since it is figurative, it doesn't pertain at all to learning war no more after Christ comes and the lion laying down with the lamb is not supposed to be about a change coming in nature and the animal kingdom after Christ comes. I dont think this type of figurative interpretation is altogether sound and has been taken too far.
Meanwhile, there are passages that cannot refer to the present gospel age and cannot refer to the eternat state either so it seems, with scriptural support, there is a time described between this present age and the eternal state. That time would be the millennium which is to be pregnant with meaning and divine instructiono the nations. Most views I believe that presently see Israel as non persona and rendered irrelevant usually take up the figurative method of interpretation since to include a literal Israel as still relevant would upset the apple cart so to speak. Then they would have to acknowedge that when Isaiah wrote that "the word of the Lord will go forth from Jerusalem" he meant under divine inspiration that the word of the Lord woud go forth from Jerusalem to the nations. At the same time that these nations will not learn war anymore and the lion lays down with the lamb. I believe that if Christ ascended from Israel and promised to return that He will indeed return to Israel at His second advent. How Israel can then be deemed irrelevant in God's plan remains beyond me at this point and I believe the figurative vein of interpretation helps promote the idea that Israel is irrelevant. That can be explained further but I have no time right now good bro.
Blessings this day. Thank you for your comments.
I think the best we can say is that the Isaiah passages MIGHT be referring to some future earthly reign of Christ but it is equally possible that it is referring to the gospel age.
Agreed. Church is a place where God is a king. Hence it represents a glimpse of how his rule will be on earth. I have applied and preached on many things in Isiah about the rule of Jesus to the Church of these days. When we apply like that we can see the vision of God for a Church.
This is an offshoot of that question that I am giving up on knowing any answer for it. That disheartens me to no end right now.
Nobody knows. No matter what they write, no matter how many letters of academia follow their name, no matter how big their churches are or how many books they've sold or how many views their videos have on YouTube -- nobody knows.
For a people who are called out and given the Holy Spirit so that we DO know, we are a sad lot.
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