Some stuff from SHEEPLE’S Forum

Some stuff from SHEEPLE’S Forum

A brother was accusing me of being a preterist concerning an article I posted on John’s doctrine of antichrist. So I have decided to post several thoughts concerning “last days,” Daniel’s 70 weeks, from a non-dispensational point of view.

To Providential if your just trying to put me into your theological box, NO I am not a preterist.

I am a former Charismaniac turned back to the 1st Century word for followers of Christ, Christian. I believe the Kingdom of God is a very real very now Kingdom, God has always had a Kingdom and always will. I do not believe the Kingdom is obtained by force but that it is advanced by the proclamation of the Gospel and disciplining those who become converts. I do not believe in dominion theology as taught by Paulk, Wagner, the son-ship and Manifest Sons teachers. I believe the kingdom of God is a moral and ethical Kingdom. I believe the Kingdom is in the Spirit.

Why do I believe what I believe? Good question, I am glad you asked. Mainly because I came to the place I could no longer buy into “it’s gonna get darker and darker and then Jesus will come and rescue us all” or the other mainstay of dispensational thought “Why polish the brass on a sinking ship.” I fully believe the Church Jesus builds will prevail over the gates of hell, that Jesus quoted from God’s promise to Abraham in Gen. 22:17; “Indeed I will greatly multiply your Seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your Seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.” To understand “Seed” read Paul’s writings in Gal. 3:15-29. IN Christ we are the seed and heirs according to the promise. This promise does not sound like a remnant to me. I firmly believe that according to Eph. 4:10 “Christ ascended IN ORDER TO FILL ALL THINGS” that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas! This will be the result of His ascension and not His 2nd coming.

I fully believe in the 2nd coming when AFTER every enemy has been made His footstool He will then turn the Kingdom back over to the Father. I believe according to Ps. 110 that Jesus rules in the midst of His enemies and that the Church is the instrument He uses to accomplish His work in the earth realm.

Now going back to the question at hand. Since the 1st Century church there have been many who came out of the Church who became a part of the antichrist system that John spoke off. Remember it was John who taught concerning antichrist that they had been members of the Christian Church but had apostatized. John taught this I didn’t.

One of these 1st Century antichrist was Cerinthus, the leaders of a 1st Century Judaistic cult. He came out of the Church just as john taught those of the antichrist spirit would do. This Cerinthus was regarded by the Church Fathers as “The Arch Heretic,” and was identified as one of the ‘false apostles’ who opposed Paul. Cerinthus was a Jew who joined the Church and began to draw Christians away from the orthodox faith. He taught a lesser deity, and not the True God, had created the world, in this he was holding with Gnostic teaching that God was much too spiritual to be concerned with material things. To his way of logic, this also meant a denial of the Incarnation, since God was ‘much to spiritual’ to take on a human body and a truly human personality. This nutcake was consistent; he also declared that Jesus had been just an ordinary man, not born of a virgin. he taught “The Christ” (a heavenly spirit) had descended up the man Jesus at His baptism thus enabling Him to perform miracles. he also advocated justification by works, the absolute necessity of observing all the Old Covenant ordinances in order to be saved.

I saved the best heresy for last; apparently he was the first to teach that the 2nd Coming would usher in a literal reign of Christ in Jerusalem for a thousand years. WOW! Can you imagine anyone believing that?

His teaching this was contrary to the apostolic teaching concerning the Kingdom, Cerinthus claimed that an angel had revealed this doctrine to him. (Much like Joseph Smith, and of course Todd Bentley’s claiming to have received angelic revelation. You can label these two as you see fit.) (Also interesting to note that many feel the dispensational view of the rapture came from a charismatic, visionary woman named Margret MacDonald, who supposedly had a vision that revealed this to her, as an established view it began to be taught by J.N. Darby and the Plymouth Brethern in 1830 some two years after Margaret’s supposed vision).

The true apostles sternly opposed his heresy. Paul admonished the churches; “But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed!” (Gal. 1:8-9)

According to Church tradition, the apostle John wrote his Gospel and his letters with Cerinthus especially in mind. (We are also told again according to tradition; that as John entered a public bathhouse he spotted this antichrist ahead of him. the apostle immediately turned around and ran back out, crying: “Let us flee, lest the building fall down; for Cerinthus, the enemy, of the truth, is inside”).

According to Eusibus’ “Ecclesiastical History” the Early Church did not teach nor accept the idea of some future 1000-year earthly reign as many teach. Here is a quote from the “Writing of Tertullian,” Vol. 3, pg. 433, “ They are not to be heard who assure themselves that there is to be an earthly reign of a thousand years, who think with the heretic Cerinthus. For the Kingdom of Christ is now eternal in the saints, although the glory of the saints shall be manifest after the resurrection.” Calvin says in his “Institutes” Vol. II Book III, Chapter 25 says; “Not long after the days of Paul, arose the Millennarians who limited the reign of Christ to a thousand years. Their fiction is too puerile to require or deserve refutation.” Isn’t it interesting that today those of us who do not accept the 1000-year earthly reign of Christ are the ones considered to be the heretics?

This doctrine of Cerithus which most regarded by most Christians as ‘offbeat,’ it was always an “ism.” Even from the time of Cerinthus it came to be called chiliasm, meaning thousand-year-ism. Today it is know as premillennialism, the doctrine that the “Kingdom Age” will not take place until the 2nd coming of Christ. This view has always been on the fringes of Christian thought until it was revived in the 19th Century by a number of millennialist sects; it finally achieved widespread publicity after the appearance of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909.

Yes, I also know the Bible talks about the “man of lawlessness” and the beast, as well as the false prophet. The false prophet came out of “the land” or Israel and according to John’s description of antichrist as coming out of the Church, would not fit into John’s definition. The beast came up out of the sea, or the nations and the man of lawlessness seems to also speak of someone in governing or secular authority. While yes they oppose Christ they do not fit into John’s teaching. John was simply warning his readers to be on the lookout for those among themselves who would rise up in the spirit of antichrist and teach against the Christ. There is a Bible teaching on “the Beast” and the number 666 that more reveals the concept of beastly empires. I’ll not go into that but it is a good study. You can see many types of the beast throughout O.T. Scriptures.

I will not continue this on the forum, I will post my thoughts on http://ginowan777.wordpress.com for anyone interested in checking it out.

Blessings from Okinawa