Michael Fenemore does a fine job with his preceding article:
Matthew 24: Is Double Fulfillment Possible? He demonstrates the thoughtful Bible skills that deduce the Lord's 70AD Return. What mystifies me, though, is when others who also esteem such Bible skills and thereby come to the same 70AD conclusion, then go on to violate those very Bible skills to fudge together all manner of dubious theories. What comes to mind specifically in regards to "double-fulfillment" theories would be "Full-Preterism's" very own "Bi-Millennium" theories that see in the Rev 20:1-10 passage two distinct "1000 Years" periods, simply because John relates the vision by sometimes writing, "A thousand years" while at other times writing, "THE thousand years." Ludicrous! Why don't we just start coming up with Bi-Salvation theories? Or Double-Messiah theories? Or Dual-Covenant theories? Or two different "God's People": one group who loves Jesus and another who hates Him? Or dubious guesses of the Apostles predicting Double-Days of the Lord? Ridiculous! (Actually, history records people doing exactly these things). Such fancies and loose handling of Holy Writ are NOT how the 70AD Return of Christ was deduced in the first place.
Bisecting Bi-Millennialism:
Revelation 20:1-10
[Before the 1000 years start]
And I foresaw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for A thousand years, 3 and threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he should not deceive the nations any longer, until THE thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.
[During the 1000 years]
4 And I foresaw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. And I foresaw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for A thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until THE thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for A thousand years.
[After the 1000 years are completed]
7 And when THE thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, 8 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. 9 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. 10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
NASB ("I foresaw" is substituted for "I saw" since this is was a predictive vision, Rev 1:1 & Rev 4:1)
A) Rev 20:2 Foresaw how Satan was to be bound, cast and sealed into the abyss (bottomless pit) for A thousand years.
B) Rev 20:4 Foresaw how the souls of Christ’s martyrs who rejected the Beast (Nero) came to life and reigned with Christ for A thousand years.
C) Rev 20:6 Explained this was to be the first resurrection of the two mentioned here: the blessed group of souls were foreseen to resurrect and then reign with Christ for A thousand years, but the rest of the dead were foreseen to resurrect after the thousand years end.
D) Rev 20:3 Foresaw that Satan was to be released from the abyss at the end of the thousand years just referred to in Rev 20:2 : therefore, Rev 20:3’s “THE thousand years” = “A thousand years” of Rev 20:2. D=A
E) Rev 20:5 Foresaw that the rest of the dead were not come to life again until the end of the thousand years just referrred to in Rev 20:4 : therefore, Rev 20:5’s “THE thousand years” = “A thousand years” of Rev 20:4. E=B
F) Rev 20:7 Foresaw that Satan was to be released from his prision, (the abyss of Rev 20:3), upon completion of the thousand years just referred to in Rev 20:6 (and in Rev 20:3) : therefore, Rev 20:7’s “THE thousand years” = “A thousand years” of Rev 20:6 (and of Rev 20:3). F=C .
Additional observation: Rev 20:7 = Rev 20:3 Both verses foresee Satan being released at the end of the thousand years from the imprisoning abyss into which he had been bound & cast at the beginning of the thousand years: F=D . And since, as shown previously, F=C and D=A, therefore F=D=A=C .
Bi-Millennial Preterism correctly admits that:
A=B=C
“A thousand years” in Rev 20:2 = “A thousand years” in Rev 20:4 = “A thousand years” in Rev 20:6.
D=E=F
“THE thousand years” in Rev 20:3 = “THE thousand years” in Rev 20:5 = “THE thousand years” in Rev 20:7
But, as shown above, it is equally obvious from the Bible Text that:
D=A Rev 20:3’s “THE thousand years” = “A thousand years” of Rev 20:2
E=B Rev 20:5’s “THE thousand years” = “A thousand years” of Rev 20:4
F=C Rev 20:7’s “THE thousand years” = “A thousand years” of Rev 20:6 (and of Rev 20:3)
Every appearance of the term “thousand years” in the Rev 20:1-10 passage is referring to one and the same, exact period of time, recent innovation notwithstanding.
There is no more two Millenniums in Rev 20:1-7
than there are two Tribulations in Mat 24.
BIBLE SKILL EMPHASIZED HERE: no amount of appeals to distant texts can escape the plain message of the immediate context.
Context, context, context:
1) Every passage must first be reconciled with its immediately surrounding passages,
2) Then those passages are to be reconciled with their immediately surrounding chapters,
3) Then they are to be reconciled with the entirety of the book in which they are found,
4) Then they are to be reconciled with the remainder of the New Testament, Apostolic Teaching,
5) And finally, they are to be reconciled with the more distant passages within the corpus of Holy Writ, the Bible.
A measure of credibility is forfeited when this context principle is ignored.
BONUS OBSERVATION: anyone who:
1) says that the 1000 years ended at 70AD and then
2) says that Jesus Returned at 70AD has just taught that
3) Satan was released when Jesus came back.
(review Rev 20:3, 7)
RELEVANT LINKS:
Honestly, does the Bible really teach that Satan was bound, cast & sealed into the Deep (Abyss) while Christians ruled with God & Christ throughout the bulk of the 30-70AD period? (Actually, wasn't such blessings what they were expecting to arrive with Christ's soon Return?)
Comments
Debate
I am content with the present debate
Kurt,
Thank you for visiting the site and considering my article. I know this is a subject dear to you and that my view is a challenge to yours. And I congratulate you on your successful refutation of Sam Frost in your recent, written debate. And I have considered your invitation of a written debate between you & I. No matter how many times I go back to consider your generous offer, I always come back to the same initial conviction: I am content with the written debate we are already having. And the forum of such debates are an ongoing matter in the mind of every reader. And they alone are the quiet judges. Those arguments that truly wield credibility are quietly adopted within the hearts of the studious. And those arguments that are exposed as faulty are quietly abandoned. Your website is your podium and this website is mine, and wherever else our words on the subjects are found. I am pacing myself for a matter of 30 years or more regarding the presentation of eschatology; greater haste deemed unnecessary.
I hope to find a considerate way to say this, but that I find it equally unnecessary the application of much more attention concerning the matter of Bi-Millennialism, since it is such an unheard of and easily dismissed novelty. "Over the course of two thousand years, the best minds and most able scholars – men of house-hold name like Eusebuis, Jerome, and Augustine, Erasmus, and Calvin, among countless lesser known others, have searched the scriptures to" not even once hint at a Bi-Millennium. I respectfully invite you to reconsider your own advice and see if what you write in the second paragraph of your article does not aptly apply to "Bi-Millennialism," as well. As it has all along, the burden remains upon you to convince anyone to adopt a model of a Bi-Millennium, even as the burden remains upon me to promote the model of a 70-1070AD Millennium, the Last Day. In short, what has been presented here against Bi-Millennialism is already what lawyers call "a slam dunk" and I am not convinced that the Lord Jesus would have me distracted away from what I am presently doing.
Please forgive my short tone. I don't wish it to be so. I just want to put it out plainly and firmly and promptly. I hope we can always have a friendly rapport, though, we disagree here.
May God persuade the readers of just those words that form wholesome doctrine through Christ our Teacher, yours & mine, and guide them towards the bountiful production of the fruit of the Spirit from their lives of obedience to Him,
Sincere thanks for your visit here, Kurt, and the respect to even consider a debate with me.
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