Questions and Answers — Part 2

Inmillennialism requires us to view many Scriptures in a new way. It challenges some of our underlying assumptions. For example, few people think of the “last days” as the final period of the Mosaic age. Inmillennialism says we must adopt the perspective of the biblical writers to understand their meaning. Only then can we apply what they wrote to ourselves.

This sometimes-radical refocusing creates questions. It also generates challenges about the validity of this prophetic model. The other models¹ may not meet our needs, but at least they are familiar. And, there are many books that discuss the common questions they raise.

We have created a section of this blog dedicated to answering questions about inmillennialism. This post will add to that section by addressing issues identified by two of our readers. We will only make a start here. Future posts will, Lord willing, complete our responses and allow us to consider other issues.

Typological Miracles

One faithful brother has identified a mistake. He gives a quote from our Age Transition post. We wrote, “In his last miracle, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38–44).”

This brother says Jesus “had more miracles after raising Lazarus (i.e., healing Bartimeaus and another of blindness, cursed the fig tree, healing the servant’s ear, raising himself from the dead, the haul of fish, his ascension, Acts 3:16, Acts 4:10, etc.).”

Right he is! I am thankful for this feedback and consider this a fulfillment of a proverb. Solomon said, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Prov 27:17, ESV). This was some much-needed sharpening. I apologize to him and other readers for chopping with a dull blade.

Here are two of the paragraphs I wrote: 

Consider Jesus’s miracles as antitypes to those of Moses. His first miracle turned water into wine (John 2:1–11). In his last miracle, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38–44).

The typological inversion is striking. Moses represented the law that brings death (e.g., Rom 7:5). His miracles reflect this. Jesus brings life and joy in the kingdom. His miracles correspond to this.

Here is a longer version that conforms better to Scripture:

Jesus’s miracles—as recorded in John’s Gospel—are the antitypes to those of Moses. John said Jesus did many miracles. He selected certain ones to produce faith in Jesus as the Christ. Here are his words:

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. (John 20:30–31; emphasis added)

Of the ones he selected for this book, the first was turning water into wine (John 2:1–11). The last was the raising of Lazarus from the grave (John 11:1–44). These miracles of joy and life are typological inversions of Moses’s miracles of stench (Exod 7:21) and death (Exod 12:30).

Moses represented the law that brings death (e.g., Rom 7:5). His miracles reflect this. Jesus brings life and joy in the kingdom. His miracles correspond to this.

Previous posts also contain this mistake. I will soon try to locate the errors and correct them. To make matters worse, I have preached sermons in which I made this mistake. I will also try to correct that mistake to whatever extent possible.

Remote Christians and the “Great Tribulation”

Another brother asks a series of questions. 

First, if the parousia of Christ did not occur till AD70, then in what sense did witnessing believers who were remote from Judea, for example in Rome, experience this? Were they somehow immediately or soon after, made aware of it? And what difference would such awareness make to their commitment to making Christ known? Do we have any evidence of how they changed?

Second, how does the awareness of the parousia affect the thousands of people who had received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and who then immediately began a supernaturally endowed lifestyle—which was clearly the new wine and the ‘rivers of living water’ referred to in the gospels, and still is with us today—how does this fit in with your thinking?

Thirdly, most believers down the centuries believed from the pre-AD70 teaching of the apostles, that they had Jesus’ presence (and not absence) both within them and when 2 or 3 gather in his name? So what further blessing took place in AD70?

Fourthly, if the Messianic Age is identified with the Kingdom of God, and if Jesus announced its arrival when he started preaching the gospel, the ‘time being fulfilled’, and if he also commanded the apostles to announce to the people in the towns that ‘the kingdom has come to you’, then how does this fit in? Paul also taught the Kingdom of God.

These wonderful questions deserve answers. I show them all to give the reader an example of how inmillennialism requires us to reexamine our assumptions. The limitations of this post will not permit us to do more than lay a foundation for our future responses to these questions. 

Toward that end, I want to focus on one sentence in these questions. “In what sense did witnessing believers who were remote from Judea, for example in Rome, experience [the parousia]?” 

And, I want to limit this question even further. I want to discuss how remote Christians experienced the events that established the parousia. Jesus gave more signs than the “great tribulation” and the Temple’s fall. All of them occurred in Jesus’s generation (Matt 24:1–3, 21, 34).

Jesus’s words to the church at Philadelphia provide a context for our discussion. He spoke to them about the trials they would soon face. He said, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world (Gk. oikoumenē), to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev 3:10; emphasis added). Why did Jesus warn this remote church about events confined to Israel?

There is a short answer. Jesus did not confine the events in the Olivet Discourse² to Israel. He spoke of “those things which are coming on the earth (Gk. oikoumenē): for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:26). The “hour of temptation” in Rev 3:10 is the same as the shaking of powers in the Olivet Discourse. 

We have not previously highlighted this point in our blog. Our purpose has been to develop a prophetic model and show its application to New Testament books. This reader’s questions is causing us to show a larger picture. The “great tribulation” affected more than Israel. The Greek word oikoumenē often means the Roman Empire (e.g., Matt 24:14; Luke 2:1; Acts 11:28).

The Roman Empire experienced extreme political and civil unrest in the “last days” of the Mosaic age. This turmoil affected the remote churches in dramatic fashion.

William Hendriksen describes the time of turmoil the churches faced. He comments on the signs Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse. Regarding Matt 24:6 he says, 

When Jesus speaks these words, the Roman empire has been enjoying a long era of peace. But about four decades later political turmoil will upset the great realm from one end to the other, so that Rome will see four emperors in one year: Galba, Otho, Vitellus, and Vespasian.³

Gary DeMar discusses how the Jews suffered outside Israel.

The Annals of Tacitus, covering the period from A.D. 14 to the death of Nero in A.D. 68, describes the tumult of the period with phrases such as “disturbances in Germany,” “commotions in Africa,” “commotions in Thrace,” “insurrections in Gaul,” “intrigues among the Parthians,” “the war in Britain,” and “the war in Armenia.” Wars were fought from one end of the empire to the other. . . . Josephus writes that Roman civil wars were so common in the empire that there was no need to write about them in any great detail: “I have omitted to give an exact account of them, because they are well known by all, and they are described by a great number of Greek and Roman authors; yet for the sake of the connection of matters, and that my history may not be incoherent, I have just touched upon everything briefly.”⁴ The Jews were often the target of these wars. At Seleucia “more than 50,000 Jews were killed.”⁵

Sharon Rusten describes how these trials affected remote Christians. They “were arrested in great numbers and subjugated to unspeakable atrocities. As reported by the Roman historian Tacitus (55–120), ‘Some were covered with the skins of wild animals and then torn apart by dogs, some were crucified, some were burned as torches to provide light.’”⁶

Emperor Nero was the primary (human) cause of this “hour of temptation.” His maniacal behavior affected Christians in Israel and in remote locations.

Nero blamed Christians for a fire that destroyed a large area in Rome. This pretense led to his intense persecution of the Christians. After his suicide, a false notion spread through the Empire—Nero would soon reappear. Mark S. Krause says,

The prospect of Nero’s return was terrifying and disconcerting. This was particularly true for early Christians, since Nero was well known for his brutal persecution of Christians—he had used them as scapegoats for the great fire of Rome in AD 64. Jews also dreaded and hated Nero since he warred against the Jews of Palestine, captured Jerusalem, and destroyed the temple in AD 70. This myth is often referred to as the myth of Nero redivivus (Nero reborn).⁷

Here is another account of Nero’s persecution:

The fifth emperor of Rome (ruled A.D. 54–68), [was] known for his persecution of Christians. . . . Many of Nero’s cruelties are linked to the time of the great fire in Rome (A.D. 64). Nero was accused of setting fire to the city in order to divert attention from himself, but this has never been proven with certainty. The Christians, however, were made the scapegoats for this arson. Many of them, possibly even Peter and Paul, lost their lives.⁸

The events that established the parousia brought persecution to Christians in remote locations. It “commenced at Rome about the middle of November, in the year of our Lord 64.”⁹ “By the middle of June A.D. 68 Nero was dead in disgrace.”¹⁰ This persecution and the “great tribulation” in Israel both lasted about 3-1/2 years.

Conclusion

These two readers have provided valuable input. The first has given us an opportunity to correct a careless mistake. The second has provided an opportunity to show Christians in places outside Israel were not disinterested bystanders. They were keenly interested in the events that established the kingdom parousia (presence) of Christ. The “hour of temptation” threatened their physical well-being. Future posts will consider the other elements in these questions.

I again want to express my appreciation to these readers and others who have interacted with me about these posts.

Soli Deo Gloria.

1. For a summary of these models, see our Comparison of Prophetic Models.
2. As recorded in Matt 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5–38.
3. William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1973), 852. Emphasis added.
4. Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, trans. William Whiston (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), 4:9:2. This is DeMar’s footnote.
5. Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church (Atlanta: American Vision, 1997), 53. Per DeMar, this quote regarding Seleucia is from Henry Alford, New Testament for English Readers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 162.
6. Sharon Rusten and E. Michael, The Complete Book of When & Where in the Bible and Throughout History (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2005), 95.
7. Mark S. Krause, “Nero, Emperor, Myth of,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
8. Ronald F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, and R. K. Harrison, eds., Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), s.v. Nero.
9. John Laurence Von Mosheim, Historical Commentaries on the State of Christianity During the First Three Hundred and Twenty-Five Years From the Christian Era, ed. James Murdock, trans. Robert Studley Vidal and James Murdock (New York: S. Converse, 1851), 1:138.
10. A. T. Robertson, Epochs in the Life of Paul: A Study of Development in Paul’s Career (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), 315.