Category: Eschatology

Book Plunge: Why The End Is Not Near

What do I think of Duane Garner’s book published by Athanasius Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This book is a part of series of answers in an hour. The book is short enough that if you have the question about the end times of if the end is near, this book is meant to answer that. Of course, one could say we don’t know when the end is so it could be near, but I’m inclined to think we still have time since there are still unevangelized parts of the world.

Thankfully, Garner does hold to the future resurrection of the dead, but most of this is meant to deal with premillennial dispensationalism. Readers of my work know that eschatology is a favorite topic of mine and I speak as a former holder of the view of premillennial dispensationalism. Garner sums up well in his book reasons for my own change in position.

The position that he is responding to is quite likely the most prominent one in the church today, which is odd since it has virtually no presence in the early church. Even those who try to point to a few isolated passages would have to say those are the exception and not the rule. This is not the case with premillennialism itself. While I do not hold to that position, it was a prevalent one in the early church.

Garner asks how it was that the modern interpretation came about. There are some that trace it to a minister who held to some heretical positions named Edward Irving or the visions of a Scottish girl named Margaret MacDonald. It was largely popularized by John Darby and then further pushed by Scofield’s Bible.

Garner will point out various hermeneutical problems that I have with the rapture view. One main one is how do you divide the comings of Jesus? We are to talk about the second coming but the rapture is Jesus coming for His church, yet somehow it is not a coming, and then the second coming is seven years later. I’d add in also that Jesus says the resurrection will be on the last day and Paul says at the last trumpet, but if you read Revelation with the rapture viewpoint in mind, then there are 1,007 years at least after the last day and seven more trumpets after the last trumpet.

The far better way is to read passages like the Olivet Discourse like you would Isaiah 13. Isaiah 13 sounds like a doom and gloom future passage about what’s coming up. However, it is a prophecy against Babylon. Some would try to push this into the future with a future Babylon (Think New Babylon from the Left Behind series), but the reading of it as referring to Isaiah’s near future works just fine.

While I hold a great love for my brothers and sisters who hold to the idea of the rapture, I do hope that will start changing soon. End times madness is incredibly shaping in the church and those from the Preterist viewpoint, like myself, often have our orthodoxy questioned immediately as if we’re denying the Trinity. I look forward to the day when the church is caught up in understanding many more aspects of the faith than just prophecy.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth.)
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Please Stop Buying Books On Prophecy

Are we hurting the church? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was going to do a book plunge today, but other events showed up in my own personal life and I had to talk about those. Yesterday at church, I hear some of the ladies in the row behind me talking about a book with such an excitement. Would that it was N.T. Wright or Mike Licona or Edward Feser or William Lane Craig or someone like that. Nope. It was the Harbinger.

I’m a member of Nextdoor, an online chat site where you chat with others in your community. Someone posted Jeremiah 29:11 for a new year and as we know, posting something from the Bible never stirs up controversy. In the thread, someone else recommends the Harbinger saying it is very prophetic.

Now I have reviewed the book here and definitely recommend David James’s excellent response to it here. (For those interested, James comes from the dispensationalist perspective and still has a problem with the book.) It’s an awful book and not only is it bad theology, it’s bad writing period. The Da Vinci Code was a load of nonsense, but at least it had an interesting story to it. The reporter in The Harbinger makes the staff at the Daily Planet look like Einsteins.

I don’t know if someone has happened recently to get people talking about this book again, but they are.

So what I want to say again to people is PLEASE STOP BUYING BOOKS ON PROPHECY! I would really love to see a day come when doctrines like the resurrection or the Trinity or the virgin birth (Which I do affirm) are taken as seriously as prophecy. Would that one day churchgoers would have discussion before church about various theories of the atonement instead of trying to figure out who the antichrist is.

The reality is, we’ve all been through it before. How many people were taking people like Hal Lindsey and Edgar Whisenant super seriously? How many people gave up all they had for Harold Camping? How many people bought into the Four Blood Moons material? How much of that material has lasted?

We rightly would hold a pastor accountable if they had a major moral failing, such as having an affair. Should we not do the same thing if they have a failing such as trying to claim God says X in prophecy and it doesn’t happen? This is why James 3:1 tells us few will should be teachers because they will be held to a greater accountability.

Honestly, being a prophecy expert would be a great position to have in Christianity. You are an expert just because you say you are and you write books and hold seminars that everyone takes seriously. Within your own lifetime often, you are shown to be wrong, but you wait a few years and publish another book with another interpretation and you’re still held to be an expert.

How many books are gathering dust in the back of Christian bookshelves for claiming XYZ is the antichrist and that person is dead now? There have been people who have claimed Trump was the antichrist. Some people claimed Obama was. No doubt, some people will claim Biden is or that Kamala Harris is. As the hype spreads, the rest of the world looks on and thinks we’re nuts.

They already think that. We don’t need to give them more ammunition.

Not only that, but we miss the real messages of Scripture. We become focused on ourselves and think that Jesus is coming for us because, well, we’re just such a special generation. The fact that Jesus is going to return someday should give us joy, but it should also give us some degree of terror and urgency. What are we doing to spread the message? What kind of lives are we living?

I don’t know how many times I have to answer atheists who insist that Jesus said He would return soon and they use all the same texts to argue it. They insist, like everywhere else, on a hyper-fundamentalism that not even the most fundamentalist Christian I know of would accept. As I started Bart Ehrman’s book on Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, I made a prediction that he would never once mention Orthodox Preterism in his book. I wish I had made a public bet beforehand because my prediction was entirely accurate.

Folks. There are other doctrines in Christianity besides prophecy and considering how many people with a dispensationalist hermeneutic have got the interpretations wrong, you first off have to wonder why you should take this next guy doing it seriously. I would like you to go a step further. Why should you take the hermeneutic and even the mindset behind it seriously?

I’m not saying you have to jump immediately into the Orthodox Preterist camp, but please at least consider abandoning a bad prophecy hermeneutic today.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Is the Antichrist the Beast, The Man of Sin, etc.?

Does the antichrist fit the profile of all these people? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Sometimes when I argue with dispensationalists, I notice a theme of the antichrist and his identity. It is said that the antichrist is the beast and he’s the man of lawlessness or sin in 2 Thess. and he’s the prince who will come in Daniel 9 and most any other figure you can think of that seems to have an evil description in the text. Every single time, I ask them to demonstrate this claim.

Usually, it’s demonstrated just by listing the Scriptures about each of these people, but it’s important to note that nowhere does the book of Revelation say the Beast is the antichrist. Nowhere does Paul say the man of sin is the antichrist. These are assumptions that are brought to the text.

Now does the Bible talk about the antichrist? Yes it does, and it’s interesting that this only shows up in the epistles of John. This is in 1 John and 2 John only. You can easily look up the references on a site like Bible Gateway. They’re very short. Let’s look now.

1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

1 John 2:22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.

1 John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

2 John 7
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

This really isn’t a lot to go on to make a whole doctrine of the antichrist, but yet dispensationalists keep asserting that this figure is the same as all these other figures. Now I am not saying that that absolutely isn’t the case, but I am saying that that case hasn’t been made.

If you are a dispensationalist and you are making this case, then it is up to you to demonstrate it. It is not enough to assert it. It is not enough to assume that there is one great evil figure coming in the future. That would be just begging the question on your end. You need to demonstrate it.

So for dispensationalist friends and readers, that ball is in your court. Can you demonstrate your case? If not, then keep in mind your case could still be right, but it could also be wrong and what that could mean for your system.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Why Are They Not Fasting?

Should the disciples stay in joy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

After the events described in Matthew 9 concerning the calling of Matthew, Jesus is asked why He and His disciples don’t fast. This is not really a hostile question seeing as it comes from the disciples of John the Baptist. It’s a valid question to ask. Shouldn’t good Jewish boys be observing the fast?

Jesus’s answer is highly eschatological. How is it that His disciples can enter a time of fasting normally attributed to mourning and sorrow when the bridegroom is there with them? Wedding language is normally used in the Old Testament to describe the relationship of God and His people and the same happens in the New to describe Jesus and the church.

When the wedding is going on, there is to be joy and celebration. You don’t fast, but instead you feast. Jesus is saying that with His coming, the time of the marriage is at hand. The people are all there to celebrate.

This was typical for weddings in the time of Jesus. They would normally last a long time in the sense of the celebrations. The people gathered would celebrate the marrying of the couple and then the consummation of their marriage. To get an idea of that, just imagine spending your honeymoon with all your family right there and knowing what happened on the wedding night and celebrating that openly.

But Jesus does say there will be a time of mourning later. Here, He hints that His visit is just that, a visit, and He will not be there forever. We have no indication in the text that His disciples asked Him about this. We know a number of times they wondered about what He said without asking Him.

For now though, the celebration was on. Jesus was with His people, and not just His disciples but Israel. What is the good news about Jesus’s coming? That will be discussed more in the life of Christ as we continue later on.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Calling of Matthew

Why does Jesus hang out with tax collectors? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been a gameshow junkie. I sadly think gameshows are going to pass away with the advent of streaming, but I can still talk on and on about mainly older gameshows. As a teenager, I got a wish to come true when Gameshow Network went on the air. I was curious when I started seeing older ones from the 50’s and 60’s like What’s My Line?

In this game, a panel got to ask a contestant yes or no questions. Every no gave the contestant $5 for a maximum of $50 if he stumped the panel and they were told no ten times. The question every time was to guess what the person’s job was.

Normally, this would be met with applause, but I remember one time specifically where the applause had some boos thrown in. The panel noticed it too which led to the conclusion this must not be a well-liked job. What was it? IRS tax agent.

No one likes taxes. They and death are the two great inevitables in the world. If you rank right up there with death, you have to be pretty unpopular. Jews are no exception to this and the past is no exception. Jews of the past particularly hated tax collectors. They not only took the money, but they were seen as betraying their people by aligning with Rome and normally, they would also line their pockets with a little bit extra.

So when Jesus calls Matthew, it’s a shock to everyone, and no doubt Matthew as well. Keep in mind also that Jesus’s entourage also included at least one zealot so that must have been fun to have someone who was extremely pro-Israel and anti-Rome and someone seen as a collaborator in the same group.

Jesus is asked about this, and understandably so, though prostitutes are also included the mix. Jesus points out that it is the sick who need to see a doctor. He has come to call the sinners and not the righteous. Let’s look at that point of Jesus saying “I have come.”

First, there are shades of pre-existence here. It’s not a slam dunk by any means, but there is evidence of it here. If that is what is going on, this certainly is a high Christology going on and coming from the lips of Jesus Himself.

However, Jesus certainly has a view of Himself as a man on a mission. He is here for a specific reason. He has come to call the sinners. He also doesn’t speak of fellow sinners. He never indicates any need on His part. It is also as if He can provide righteousness.

With anyone else also, we would get concerned. Imagine if you heard your pastor had had a meal with several prostitutes, and this not even at a restaurant but at someone’s house. “Sure pastor. I’m sure that’s all you had. Say. What was served for dessert?”

Similar could have been said of Jesus. This was the scandal that the man Jesus was and still is. Yet we look at Jesus as not only hanging out with prostitutes, but leading a celibate lifestyle. It’s worth pointing out that when Jesus walked this Earth, he freely forsook one of the greatest joys He had created.

We’re not wrong in being suspicious of a pastor doing this necessarily. I know there are some guys who can actually do ministry in places like strip clubs. More power to them. I don’t want to risk it. However, even as I say that, some of you might be thinking that you’re sure they’re doing “ministry.”

Yet when God comes before us, who does He go to? Not the best of the best, but the lowest of the low. He goes to the ones who are cast out and the ones who see themselves as hopeless. We are told elsewhere that prostitutes and tax collectors are entering the Kingdom due to repentance. Prostitutes certainly don’t stay prostitutes, but Jesus has a heart for these women who are trapped in the sexual trade either willingly or unwillingly.

Jesus was a scandal then.

He still is today.

And we’re meant to show His love today, even to those tax collectors and prostitutes.

Maybe it would be better to pray for that What’s My Line contestant instead of booing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Forgiving the Paralytic

What does it mean when Jesus heals the paralytic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In Matthew 9, Jesus goes into a building to teach and a paralytic is lowered down to him. Jesus tells the man his sins are forgiven. When the Pharisees have indignant thoughts at this, Jesus calls them out on it and then shows who He is by telling the paralytic to take up his mat and walk, which he does.

This is more than just healing. We’ve all heard several messages about how Jesus could forgive and that shows that He is the one who thinks He has been sinned against. This is true, but I want to point out something else meant by the forgiveness.

Normally, if you needed forgiveness, you would need to go to the priest and make the proper offering. This would be centered around the temple. Jesus cuts out the middlemen entirely. Jesus plays the role of a priest and He plays the role of the temple.

Orthodox Preterists like myself stress the meaning of the temple being destroyed in 70 A.D. It was no longer needed. It was a sign of the old covenant and when that covenant was done, the temple that represented it had to go.

When Jesus heals the paralytic, He is not just showing that paralyzed people will not be in the Kingdom seeing as they will be healed and moving about, but He is also demonstrating more. His healing of the body backs His authority to proclaim healing of the soul. He is showing to His audience that there is no need of priests or the temple to obtain forgiveness. All that is needed is Jesus.

Why do we not have priests like that anymore? Because Jesus is our high priest. Why do we not have a temple anymore? Because Jesus is our temple. Jesus comes and shows the covenant system is fulfilled in Him. The new has come and there is no need for the old.

For a Jew, this is completely radical, and it should be for us as well. We need to really recognize what a major shift Jesus caused in the world politically and theologically when He came. The temple was seen as the emblem of Judaism. Now as Jesus says later on, one greater than the temple is here.

One greater than the temple is still here. Our true high priest and temple has already come.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Jesus and the Pigs

What do pigs have to do with eschatology? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Jesus reaches His destination and is approached by two demon-possessed men. They beg Jesus not to judge them before the appointed time. Obviously, it’s the demons speaking at this point, but let’s notice what they say.

The appointed time.

What is that? It’s a time where the demons know that they will be judged. It’s a set day. This is not a secret idea. The only secret is when it’s going to be. When Jesus shows up on the scene, the demons fear that that time has come, but yet something tells them that this is not the time.

Now a lot of skeptics like to look at this chapter and think about how awful Jesus was to those pigs or how awful he was to the townspeople for depriving them of bacon. We’re not really going to tackle those today. We’re looking at Jesus and the demons.

It’s quite interesting that demons actually take theology much more seriously than we do. The Pharisees and priests weren’t scared to nail Jesus onto a cross. They didn’t know who He was to be sure, but His presence was one they thought they could dispose of. The demons, on the other hand, are terrified of Him.

We see this in James also. James says “You believe in one God? Good. So do the demons, and they tremble.” Most of us don’t tremble before God. I know the demons love to see us mouthing off to God, but I wonder if they see us do that sometimes and think “They are sure making things worse for themselves.” They have a better idea of who we’re messing with.

This should also show us that our idea of gentle Jesus meek and mild is not always accurate. These guys know Jesus is a judge. Jesus can lay down the hurt as it were. They are scared to death of Jesus. You never see a demon in the Gospels try to challenge Jesus at all. Jesus is calling the shots.

Note also Jesus never used formulas or anything close to what is called magic in doing this. Jesus doesn’t need to use artifacts of any kind to get a demon to go. He just has to say the word. Jesus is remarkable in this. This is why in other accounts the people are amazed at what Jesus can do and the Pharisees have to explain it away somehow.

What we see though is temporary. Judgment day is coming for the demons and it is coming for all of us. The demons are scared of what will happen to them on that day. Let’s make sure we’re not on the same side of them. As we’ll see later, Jesus says you are either for Him or against Him.

Choose wisely.

Preferably against the demons.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Jesus Calms The Storm

What does Jesus’s power over the weather tell us about who He is?

As we move through Matthew, let’s keep in mind why we’re looking at who Jesus is in relation to eschatology. It’s because if Jesus is the King who is coming, that has immediate ramifications for eschatology. If Jesus is God incarnate, it means something about who He is and what was and is going on in His work. There are real implications.

In Matthew 8, Jesus is asleep in a boat while the disciples panic over a storm. First off, I find it amazing that Jesus is so calm in all of this that He just simply sleeps right through it. Jesus is confident enough in His disciples that He trusts them to handle the sea. Too bad these men, many experienced with the sea, don’t have such trust in Jesus.

Note that the disciples are in a panic, but there is no sense of urgency or panic on the part of Jesus. Some of you might think that if such a violent storm is going on at sea, isn’t it natural to panic? Perhaps, but if these people are to believe who Jesus is, they have to believe He came for a mission and God is going to let Him do that mission. He is in charge of the story even if it seems to be going off-script.

Jesus is in charge throughout this whole course of events. He is so much in charge that He can issue a command to nature itself. The disciples could have thought of Psalm 107:29 or Psalm 65:7 which talk about God calming the storms immediately. This leads to the question of who is Jesus.

Which is what is fascinating about Jesus. Still 2,000 years later, we are debating who He was and is. (And no silly mythicists, we are not debating if He even existed because that debate never even started anyway) It could be tempting for some to deny a miracle story like this because miracles never happen, but that needs to be shown first or have an argument given for beyond Hume’s question-begging one.

If Jesus is who He said He was, then that has huge ramifications indeed. Many of us like to go to our favorite verses, but really one of the most powerful arguments is the overall life of Christ. It’s not a shock that high Christology came right out of the gates.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Why Don’t We Hold False Prophets Accountable?

How should we treat those who claim to be prophecy experts? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

You get the news one day and you hear a story about a pastor having an affair at a church. The usual cry is that the pastor should step down. Absolutely. Sexual sin should be taken extremely seriously.

You read something about the pastor stealing from the offering plate. The pastor needs to step down. Absolutely. Theft is something very serious and should be taken that way.

You read about a pastor who claimed that the Bible says that the world will come to an end on such and such a date and we need to be ready for the rapture. The date never comes. The pastor is asked to step down immediately because false prophecy should be taken seriously.

Whoa. Wait. Hold on. That last one doesn’t really happen. Too many prophecy experts have written books about who the antichrist is and when the rapture will take place and they’re not held to account for it.

I thought of this looking at my Facebook memories last day when I asked if anyone saw when John Hagee had repented for his Four Blood Moons nonsense. Of course, I made the post in jest pointing out that I wanted to make sure I hand’t missed anything. Nope. Hagee never repented. He never recanted. I know of no record of him giving back money from the book sales. He was still teaching and still broadcasting.

So let’s get this straight.

We deal with sexual sin and we deal with theft and other such sins. If a pastor had a problem with a harmful addiction, we would at least demand he get help. However, a pastor makes very public statements about prophecy that real people respond to and suffer real losses from and bring real shame on the body of Christ and we do nothing?

Keep in mind, in the Old Testament, when you had adultery, that was grounds for death. It was the safe for false prophecy. However, we treat false prophecy like it’s just a matter of missed interpretation and that’s it. It’s not. Many people can give up on going to college or getting married or sell retirement accounts or anything like that. Are they being gullible and naive? Yes. Does that justify what the prophecy experts do? No.

Not only that, but we embarrass Christianity to outsiders. Those on the outside looking in decide that if the faith tolerates that kind of thing and believes foolish things like that, they want nothing of it. We already believe enough things that we have a hard time convincing outsiders of. I understand a proper skepticism. Let’s not add to it with demonstrable things. A skeptic has to research the resurrection of Christ to really be able to argue against it effectively. For a false prediction, he just has to wait for the day to come and he has all he needs. Many will sadly, and wrongly, take the false prophecy as a grounds for rejecting the resurrection.

Instead, hold them accountable. If a book by a prophecy expert makes a prediction and gets it wrong, don’t buy them again. Don’t listen to them anymore. Someone like John Hagee should have lost his platform immediately after making a national deal about blood moons and then having nothing come of it. If we disregard it, we tell the world truthfulness really doesn’t matter to us and if it doesn’t, then why should they listen to us on any other such matter?

Also, prophecy is different from many other areas because someone can be demonstrably shown to be wrong. We all believe some wrong things about Scripture, but with prophecy, we are making predictions and claiming that this is what God is saying. That’s dangerous grounds indeed. Those who make such claims need to be held to the highest standards.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

A Centurion and a Feast

Who will take part in the banquet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As we look at eschatology in Matthew, we see next that Jesus is approached by a centurion for the healing of a servant. The centurion makes a statement that indicates that He knows Jesus is a man of authority and all He needs to do is speak a word and what He wants will be done. This is someone who really understands more about Jesus than Jesus’s fellow Jews did.

So the eschatology in this comes when we see what Jesus says about this man who would be seen as a pagan at worst and a God-fearer at best. Nothing is said about his circumcision status. The only thing we know about him really is how he saw Jesus.

You might want to think that this is just a guy pandering, like a politician might. There’s no reason to think that either. He really has a sick servant. He really wants Jesus to come to Him. He really believes Jesus is capable. This is a man who understands the authority that Jesus would have in relation to the God of Israel.

Jesus is amazed at the faith of this Gentile man and then says that many will come to feast with the patriarchs but they will be cast out. What a shock this must have been for the Jewish people in the time of Jesus. They, the ones who have the blood of Abraham in their veins, will not get to dine with father Abraham in the new Kingdom?

Yes. They won’t. Jesus is now saying at this point that your lineage doesn’t determine your status before God. God is looking for something else besides who’s your daddy. He’s looking for those who have faith in Him. Notice that Jesus doesn’t just say that this Gentile is coming.

No. He says many will come from all over the world, hence the references to the directions. They will take part in that feast. They will be the recipients of the Kingdom.

Not only this, but how does Jesus know this? He doesn’t tell us, but there’s nothing that says, “This is what I think will happen.” Jesus is not giving any hint He’s giving an opinion and frankly, He never does. This is something else amazing about Jesus. Jesus always speaks every time as if He’s 100% right and yet we still genuinely and rightly see Him as a man of humility.

This also will show that my interpretation about the narrow and wide gate is likely right. Jesus says few will find His way and then right here says many will come. Jesus consistently says few of His generation will see the Kingdom. It’s when we get after His generation that we see people who will see the Kingdom more and more and these among the Gentiles.

This would be staggering to a Jew to hear. Gentiles could come into the Kingdom, sure, but they would have to become Jews first. Jesus says nothing about this man becoming a Jew. What do we know about this man’s faith? It’s in Jesus. Jesus is setting this up as the new standard. Your position in the Kingdom is determined by how you see Him.

More and more we have to realize that Jesus said the most incredible things that have been said by any human being ever. No one ever spoke like Him and if any of us tried, we would not be able to do it. Try and speak like you’re the one that all reality should focus on and everything you say is not an opinion but pure fact. See how well you do.

Jesus tells His disciples at one point to strive to enter into the Kingdom. We know it is by faith in Christ. Let us have that faith in Christ.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)