A Jumble of Thoughts Between Topics

Kind of bogging down lately. Thought it might clear my head to sketch out some of the traffic jam therein.

Next post plan is to address the Amillennialist view of the 70th Week of Daniel. It shouldn't be too complicated but it's hard to get going on it for some reason. I only want to write about the last week, but it will require a little background on that whole passage and I think that's where I'm bogging as I don't want to get too deeply into all that.

Then I wanted to post on a couple of websites that looked at first glance like good defenders of their respective end times position, one pre-trib with a strong emphasis on a Jewish Millennium, the other post-trib with a good grasp of the Fall Feasts of Israel as stages of the Second Coming. But then as I got to reading more extensively in them I've discovered some views that are at least borderline heretical. Seems to happen a lot these days, can't take anything for granted. I may post on them anyway.

Meanwhile, maybe I can just telegraph a few thoughts on the way there.

Kim Riddlebarger, whose series Amillennialism 101 is my source for the Reformed Amillennial position, said a couple of times that the idea of a literal thousand-year millennium just doesn't occur in the NT: He doesn't see the NT writers having a future thousand-year "golden age" in mind. Answer: The prophets of the OT didn't have two future comings of Christ in mind either, but that nevertheless turned out to be the case and in retrospect it can be found in their writings.

I've been wanting to get more of a sense of what Millennialists expect in a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth and found one expecting a restoration of Old Testament temple animal sacrifice and all the OT laws back in place. This could almost make Amillennialism look good to me. I was just shaking my head through the whole description. How could such a thing possibly occur with Christ reigning on the throne of David, the Sacrifice Himself? I can see how a restored temple could be part of a short period of God's resumed dealings with blinded Israel before Christ returns, especially as scripture does seem to suggest that, but not after He returns.

Nevertheless I'm still most drawn to the pre-trib Rapture, and as I think through the specific scriptures that support it their interpretation seems most solid. What to think about the Millennium is still down the road for me.

One thought I had, though, was that there's something fitting about a thousand-year rule of Christ on earth to finish up humanity's story, as it would make up the 7th Millennium since Adam and Eve, and seven is the number of perfection or completion. But what life in that millennium would look like I haven't begun to grapple with.

Later: Listening to an old tape of Art Katz on the (millennial) Restoration of Israel in which he adamantly rejects the pre-last days Rapture as a heresy, for the reason that since in that period (before the Millennium) Jews will be persecuted all over the world their only helpers could possibly be Christians (to give a cup of cold water "to one of the least of these My brethren"). So Christians must still be present and go through the persecution with the Jews in the period before they come to know their Messiah. [However, what with not being able to buy and sell if you refuse the "mark of the beast" as Christians certainly would, it doesn't seem to me that Christians are going to be in any better shape than the Jews.]

So far my investigations into the relevant scriptures are dealing with Amillennial objections to passages that don't specifically bear on the Rapture, but do suggest a focus on the Jews in the end times -- the temple, the 70th week of Daniel etc., and so far I'm deciding against the Amillennialists on those points. So the plot keeps developing here but not for or against the Rapture yet. Eventually maybe I'll actually come to a conclusion about that.