Understanding the Great Commission

We read about the Great Commission in Matt 28:18-20, where Christ says - “18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” The Dominionist reading of the Text goes like this - Since Christ has been given all authority, Satan has been divested all his authority. Therefore, it is the duty of the church to invade his kingdom and establish itself over the earth. Christ’s statement that His kingdom is not of the earth refers to its origins in heaven and not to its purpose in this age. Since the Great Commission calls for the Church to teach all nations to observe all of God’s commandments, one of the ends of the proclamation of the Gospel is the transformation of societies and establishment of righteous laws. On the surface this sounds like a coherent understanding of the passage. Yet, this departs from the themes and motifs that have already been revealed in the Old Testament and are further revealed in the New Testament.

Redemptive Kingdom Structure in the New Covenant: Part 3 – King and Holy War

In the Old Covenant, the Israelites waged holy war against the Caananites within the boundaries of the promised land. Likewise the Christian is also engaged in holy war. In the New Covenant, there are two categories in which this war is waged and these categories are not mutually exclusive. Since the Christian himself is the domain of God’s Kingdom, we wage an internal holy war to cleanse ourselves. Then we also wage an external holy war against the forces of darkness. Since the Kingdom of God is not a physical kingdom, this war is not a physical one but spiritual in nature.

The Inauguration of Christ’s Kingdom

Let us use some of these Apostolic methods of interpreting Biblical prophecy to understand when Christ’s Kingdom began. If we understand when this Kingdom of God was inaugurated we can devote ourselves to studying  Christ Himself as the substance of Scriptures and how that ought to affect our lives. Placing the inauguration of Christ’s kingdom is critical to understanding where we are today and where we are headed. Is the Kingdom of God a future event? Or is it something that has already been inaugurated?

How did Christ and the Apostles Understand Old Testament Prophecy?

We have seen the Redemptive Kingdom develop in various stages in the Old Testament. We have also seen some key narratives that have always been part of this Kingdom structure. Now it is time to start connecting the dots to see how those narratives develop towards God’s Kingdom’s in the New Covenant. Before we can get there though, we need to consider some basics in understanding Biblical prophecy. This will help us understand prophetic literature through the lens of Scripture itself. We need to understand Biblical prophecy as the authors of the New Testament did.

Postmillennial Eisegesis of the Great Multitude of Revelation 7

I can't recall how many times I've had Postmillenials quote this verse to me to justify a massive conversion of mankind to Christianity, a time when all those passages concerning persecution and being a remnant will become a thing of the past, prior to the Parousia of our Lord! In reading select Apocalyptic and Prophetic texts in this manner, the Postmillenial commits the same error of the Dispensationalist, and reads such Literature with a literalist rather than a spiritualist hermeneutic. The presumption made is that "which no man could number" indicates a number in the billions or even more, or as some claim, the elect in history outnumber the reprobate.

A simple survey of the Biblical usage of such terminology, however, would indicate that the Postmillenial conveniently uses a literalist hermeneutic for this Text while ignoring the figurative usage of such terms in the breadth of Scripture. Lets consider the census in Numbers for instance.