Today I will be sharing with you a conversation that I had with Aldo Leon on the topic of replacement theology and a meme he shared on his Facebook. My hope is that this will serve as a reminder of the strengths of dispensationalism and will also demonstrate the shortfallings of covenant theology. We are grounded by God’s Word and there it must be that we guard and protect against those that would call the Word into question.
The purpose of this article is an attempt to defend the futuristic understanding of commonly used preteristic proof texts such as Matthew 10:23, 16:27-28, 24:34, 26:64; Revelation 1:1, 3, 22:6-7. This article will attempt to harmonize these texts with the futuristic interpretation while simultaneously showing that these texts fit far better under our eschatological worldview than the preterists. Below, I will identify what I believe these texts teach upfront. You will observe that I don’t believe any of the commonly held preteristic proof texts relate to the temple’s destruction in A.D. 70, meaning, I don’t believe that the preteristic interpretation for any of these texts is sufficiently grounded.
Here is my position on each text:
Matthew 10:23 – Second Coming of Christ Matthew 16:27 – Second Coming of Christ Matthew 16:28 – Transfiguration Matthew 24:34 – Transhistorical Type/Class of People Matthew 26:64 – Tied to the Martyrdom of Stephen Revelation 1:1, 3, 22:6-7 – Imminency & Certainty
Thanks Josh Kriese for the encouragement to finish this list. As I had promised a while back I would get a list of commentaries that I considered to be “go-to” for Christians. I haven’t read all of them (there are some difficulties in getting some of these here in Canada), but from what I know these are some of the best-of-the-best.
Note: I don’t endorse all the various perspectives and interpretations that will be seen in these commentaries, I simply hope that this will be a guide to building your library.
Gary DeMar on July 7th, 2022 decided to begin a multipart response to my article on “this generation.” To see his article, please follow this link: “Is “This Generation” Past or Future?” This will be my response to his critique.
It is often said that if you want to understand a clear distinction in Israel and Church terminology Pauline letters are a wonderful insight, particularly Romans. When I first came across the Covenantal idea of Church and Israel, I was bewildered by the fact that this idea would affect not just new testament reading, but Old testament reading. And I came about reading Romans 11, and that was the final knell to my struggle in understanding this issue. I do not know how any scholar would come to the conclusion that the Church is equal to Israel after reading this chapter. Let me go through short and small interpretive insights that help us to understand this ever-debated issue. Grammatical structure is so clear in this chapter that there is no other way to understand this chapter differently. I will not be going into big commentary since this topic is huge to deal with in the blog. I am considering few linch-pin clauses to latch onto,
I have finally compiled a list of theological books that I would recommend from a variety of sources. Granted, the list needs more work and their are a ton of authors that are missing, but I hope this serves as a baseline to help others study more theological concepts in depth and to look to the best other positions have to offer.