Prophecy & Eschatology, Part One
a lecture series by Dr. Michael S. Heiser
This is part one of a four part series on bible prophecy and eschatology by the late Dr. Michael S. Heiser,1 published here with the transcript.2 I post these videos of Dr. Heiser because I consider him a mentor and think that people will benefit from his content. I started following him in ~2016, have read all of his books/papers and hold certificates in biblical studies and biblical history from the school he founded; AWKNG School of Theology. I’m also working on an MA in Biblical Studies from Redemption Seminary, where Heiser was on the board before his passing.
I plan to publish more of my own content after I am finished with my degree in 2025. Until then, it is relatively quick and easy for me to share things that I find valuable and may want to reference in my own work at a later time.
If you’re interested in more details about Dr. Heiser’s position on prophecy and eschatology, I would recommend this fifteen part series on his blog.3
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 1
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 2
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 3
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 4
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 5
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 6
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 7
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 8
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 9
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 10
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 11
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 12
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 13
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 14
Why An Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time, Part 15
Transcript
Michael Heiser 0:00
So for those of you, you got me wrong, we're okay, a little bit of self introduction. True confessions, I guess would be a better way to put this, I have to tell you that 10 times is probably my least favorite subject and who theology. But that's sort of relative, it is interesting. The reason I say that is because, and I'm going to try to make this clear, I'm not married to any of the positions. I want to say this not in a negative way, but a positive way, I don't really care, I don't really care what position you have, I'm not going to try to disabuse you of anything that you already think. Okay. So the ambition of this, the goal of this, and this is why DAX and I talked about doing this is that I honestly, am just willing to let all the positions be what they are, and let you be happy with them. I'm not going to critique anybody's position. And I'm going to do my best to get through all four weeks without telling you what I think. I don't know if I can pull that off. Because to be honest with you, there are a lot of things about eschatology that I think are really indeterminate, you really can't know. You can guess some guesses might be better than others. But we really can't even tell that in some places. What I'm more interested in, is when you think about your position, think about things you've heard, think about things you embrace, think about things that are really important to you as far as your position, that's great, but I want you to go away understanding why it is you have that position. And if you understand that, you will also be able to tell to some degree where you could switch or shift or how you could be something else. If you made one or two really, seemingly small decisions about certain passages, you do that you're going to wind up somewhere completely different than where you are. So those are sort of my two goals. I want as Dak said, you know, charity is the number one thing, and I'm not going to try to change anybody's mind on anything. What I will try to get you to think about is, well, I have this position, but how do I get there? How did I get there? And let me telegraph it by saying this, the answer to the question of how you get there is not that I know this verse over here, and I can quote it. What you're going to see hopefully, is that all of the positions, this is why people write books on them, they all look beautiful. They all look perfectly coherent. You can pick up a book on you can pick up 100 books on any of these positions. And they have an answer for everything, even though they're diametrically opposed. Well, the reason for that is because they've systematized and they've prepared their thoughts to defend their position. What they're not necessarily telling you is, there's a set of decisions that you make prior to even going to any passage that help you filter passages in such a way that they steer your interpretation in one direction or another. A lot of this is just subconscious. We pick these things up because of what we've heard in a sermon or on the radio reading a book. And we've never really examined sort of the filters that we use, and everybody uses one. Okay, including me. So I know it's a little ambiguous, and it's a little vague, that's deliberate. I am gonna go through some terminology. I don't care about the terms. I would rather have you fixate on the ideas. The other thing I want to say before one of the next slide is I'm hoping that I get a lot of interaction because what I want is I want to hear from you where, why you are where you are, and then we'll sort of use some of that to go in different places. So some of this can be completely ad hoc. I do have more than one slide. So I actually did prepare something. I'm not trying to fake my way through if I say let's just have audience participation. I can go through and I want to go through a few things, but I'm really hoping that you're able to steer me in different places. So the basic question is, why are you where you are? Why do you land where you land? Now, this is probably familiar to most of you. I'm going to hit this because we might have somebody in here that just I'm totally new to prophecy. new believer, I'm not a new believer, and I've never really bothered to get into this. This is sort of representative of a large segment of what we call popular Christianity, popular evangelicalism. timolol Hey, Ryrie, McArthur, Schofield. The view of n times is this that we're living in a church age now. This is now somewhere down the road, there's going to be this thing called the rapture. That's when Jesus descends in the clouds and takes believers living and dead, up with him, presumably back to heaven. After that event, there's a seven year period is known as the tribulation, it's literally hell on earth. At the end of that Jesus returns to Earth. So we have actually two sort of return events. They are different but related in this scheme. After that, we have 1000 year kingdom on earth, it's known as the millennium. And after that we transition from this to the new heaven and new earth, heaven, or there's different conceptions of it, but it's the eternal state. Let's put it that way. The real question is, Why does anybody believe any of that? For instance? Why do we believe that today should be known as a church age? Like, where does that come from? Other than the Scofield Reference Bible? Okay, where does that come from? It's an idea that has a foundations from from somewhere. Why do we dis why do we separate? The coming the second coming into two phases or two events? Why? Why did we do that? If you hold this position, why do we think that this tribulation thing occurs on Earth? Literally? Why do we look at the kingdom as literal? Now, again, where most people are at is Otto. That's revelation 20. There's a verse that that uses the word 1000 years, and it's six times. People who don't believe in an earthly Millennium know that that verse is there. They're fully aware that that verse is in Revelation 20. But they look at it an entirely different way. Why? Why is it one and not the other? And why do we, in this diagram, why don't we sort of make a distinction between the eternal state and this kingdom? Why? Why can't they be the same? must they be different? Why? The reason is we make decisions about how we're going to look at passages before we ever even get there. Example. We need to interpret prophecy literally. Like what is literal mean, for one thing? Does the New Testament authors always do that? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Every time a New Testament writer cites the Old Testament, is it a literal one to one correspondence? Sometimes the New Testament authors cite passages that aren't even prophecies at all, but they treat them like prophecies. Example, Matthew, in chapter two, refers to Jesus coming up out of Egypt, with Joseph and Mary as a fulfillment of Hosea chapter 11, verse one, if you look at Hosea 11 One, it's not a prophecy. Hosea is referring backward in time to Israel coming out of Egypt. He's not looking forward, he's looking backward. And he doesn't say anything about that event. Having any future significance. It's an observation, Hey, God took Israel out of Egypt. Israel was known as my son, God refers to Israel as my son. That's it. So why does Matthew treat that like it's a prophecy to be fulfilled? These are questions. You look at what the New Testament writers are doing.
And it should raise questions like well, do they always do the same thing every time? You know, what is this literal hermeneutic but we've heard the words literal hermeneutic often enough, that we just sort of it seeps into our mind and then we go to prophecy. And that's when we feel compelled to apply it to End Times stuff. Because we've heard it somewhere, instead of actually asking ourselves, well, maybe I should take the next two or three months out of my life and look at the way the New Testament writers quote everything, and see if there's a consistent pattern or if they do three or four different things, and then I've got a different problem. If they do that, then I got to sort all that out. That's an example of one sort of mental decision that we we have made subconsciously that we've gotten to the Bible, specifically, within times. Now your other views real quickly. This is what's known as historic premillennialism. Notice, there's no rapture, they'll still refer to the Church Age, and there's a second coming, and then there's a literal millennium, then we get the turtle state. This is what used to be known as premillennialism. Jesus comes pre before the millennium. Physician back here is pre millennial to fail. But we have two stages before a millennium. Question that again, is why why is there only one of these instead of two? Because this person has made certain decisions that result in not having to events. We'll talk about that next week specific. millennialism the church age now right now, where we're living right now is the kingdom. It is what it is. Okay. It is the kingdom. Now Jesus will return at some point. And then we'll have the eternal state. Now. Some of you might be familiar with Preterism. Preterism refers to the question of are all prophecies fulfilled already? Or are there some remaining if they will? What a stupid question, of course. I mean, how can we even talk about prophecy? If there's nothing out there to be fulfilled? Well, there are there are some believers who believe that either all prophecies in the New Testament are already fulfilled, even the return of Jesus. Not a surprise, like how did we miss that? Okay, well, they would say you didn't miss it. You just You just weren't looking for it in the right way. Those would be full preterist. Everything's fulfilled, fully. Partial preterist would say there's still a second coming out here. But everything else in the book of Revelation is already fulfilled. Okay, so there's some overlap there. And why did they look at it this way? Why don't they make a distinction between the church age and some future rule of Jesus on earth? Why? You know, why is it the same with them? Same reason, they've made certain decisions, partial. And in post millennialism, we have the Church Age, not equal to the kingdom, but the church age, transformed society in such a way that it ushers in the kingdom, the rule of God on earth. And once that's achieved, of course, it's a little nebulous on how you know when you're transitioning to it. But once that's achieved, there's some sort of golden age for an indeterminate time, there's sort of a utopia on Earth. And then after that is established, then Jesus comes, so you actually have a kingdom without Jesus at all. Okay, in a post millennial scheme, it's our job to get him to come back to work here on Earth, so that he will return. Okay, so we have a post millennial return. Again, why did they think this because they made certain decisions. So we've already talked about goals. I do want you to realize that none of these views is self evident. You can't just open your Bible and one of them is just so crystal clear that all these other positions, all these other Christians must be just a little loopy, or they just haven't studied enough or they haven't read the right books, or they haven't fill in the blank, okay, none of them are self evident. They're all going to have points of clarity. And then they're going to have points of unclarity where it takes a theologian to write a book and come up with answers to all the places where it's kind of rough to make it work. But everybody does that. Everybody has a way to make their system look completely beautiful. Again, we want to talk about assumptions and knowing your assumptions will help. Now Tonight's topic is the kingdom. If you didn't notice, looking at those slides back there, it's really important whether you believe that there's going to be a kingdom on earth or not. And if you believe there's a kingdom on earth, what its nature is, if you don't believe in a literal future, not today, but for future kingdom. If that's not part of your end time scheme, then you really don't need a lot of this other stuff. You don't need a tribulation, it's literally you don't need a rapture, you may or may not have a second coming. It really affects other things. So if you do that all those other things are become important to. So what is your view? What's the basis? And what would it take to change your mind? We're going to start with the kingdom. So here's the question. Does the second coming of Christ result? In an earthly reign of Jesus for 1000 years? Yes or no? This is a first fundamental question. Does it result in earthly rain of 1000 years? Yes. Or no? And then why do you decide yes or no? If you say yes, then you're going to be in this camp is going to be a pre millennialist. Because Jesus returns and then we have a kingdom on earth. If you say no, you're either an amillennial list, because the Kingdom is already here. It doesn't result from Jesus coming. Or you would be the post millennialist. Again, there you have a kingdom ushered in before Jesus even gets here. So it's the reverse. So yes or no. Now, I want to stop here and ask you. Here's the question. You tell me. Now you can, you can ask me questions, or I want to hear responses. Based on either what you think or you can pretend to be somebody. You can pretend to be a position and be saved. Some of you have to believe in a literal kingdom. I want to know why you do. Anybody. You know, you're trapping yourselves into being all amillennial. Listen, I'm just gonna change the question. Okay, so why? Give me an answer and tell me why. Yes. That's not a very good answer. I was waiting for that. But I mean, that's honest. That's an honest answer.
So you're, I'm gonna play devil's advocate with you. If I see Steve, get up, I'll know when to stop. So you base your theology and your feelings? Is that what I'm hearing? You're no fun. I mean, again, that's honest. Because, you know, we've all we've all done that, you know, we
Speaker 1 18:00
greatly huge chart charts. Really, really, really?
Michael Heiser 18:13
So are you saying that people who don't take that view, they really, they really either don't have a reason to hope or they have less of a reason to? Do we have any millennialist? Here? Anyone wants to defend the millennialist? How does the millennialist have any hope?
Speaker 2 18:35
Well, I don't, not Millennials actually, but
Speaker 1 18:39
think they are? And when is he now we're in now are the window now? It's like open a nap.
Michael Heiser 18:55
It's true. It's true. Take a little further. If you're an on millennialist. What are you hoping for? Return to Christ. In other words, does not believe does believing or not believing that when Jesus returns then we get a kingdom? Does that dampen your hope? I would say well, if I'm an amillennial, of course it doesn't. Because when he returns, we're out of here. Okay. It's the eternal state. So I'm very hopeful that Jesus is going to return. It's just that you think when he returns, we're going to be here for another 1000 years, and that'll be great. Partially, because there's a lot of bad stuff happening in the premillennial system. It's not quite heaven on earth. In fact, there's a lot of non heaven on earth at that point, but the millennials would say, Man, I'm just relieved. I don't have any of that nasty stuff going on during the kingdom like the satanic rebellion that Scofield or Ryrie talks about. He's coming back and we're out of here. It's great. You
You're not alone. Somebody will hit the rapture next week. But the short answer is to that. The whole timing issue depends on how you define. First of all, you got to get over this question. You got to accept the literal kingdom literal tribulation. No wonder beyond that. The timing issue depends in part on questions like to tribulation? Is that word ever used of a seven year period in the Old Testament? And does it matter? The reason that question is asked is because of something called the 70th week of Daniel, Dan, Daniel chapter nine. And we'll hit that in week three, out now catch this, this is just a little a little prep. It's assumed here we go back to presuppositions and assumptions, it's assumed by everyone who takes any view of the rapture. Except for maybe the pre wrath people. It's assumed that the seventh eighth week of Daniel, which is seven years is the tribulation period, there isn't a single verse in the Bible that says that you will not find that anywhere. But that's assumed it's an important part of the system. Now, if you make that assumption, then other things fall into place. But you don't actually have any textual evidence for it might be a good guess. It might be completely correct. And then you have to move on to some other things that the viewer depends on. But you're down to things like parsing terminology. Making educated reasonable to you guesses between how two passages relate to each other, you first of all, you're assuming that they do. And then you're assuming that they do in a certain way. Even if you don't have anything to actually hang it on. It just It looks like it really works. And every system does that somewhere. Every system does that somewhere. Because you're trying to comb through the Bible. And you've got all sorts of statements about the future and about disaster and Apocalypse and the return of Christ and all this stuff and you're trying to bring it all together. And you're trying to make some coherent thing out of it. Trying to put a puzzle back together without the box lid, okay? And you think you know where everything's supposed to go and a couple pieces are a little rough over here, but if I put fits, works it looks looks good. Looks fine. I'm happy. Every view does that somewhere. Now back to the kingdom. I would still like other answers why do you think might sound like a dumb question? Because we assume that there's going to be this kingdom of God out there are the there is this kingdom of God? Why do you if you say yes, is there anything more to it than that? Is it hope isn't I was taught that there's there's got to be something more to
Unknown Speaker 23:32
my experience insurances exposed to more frequently.
Michael Heiser 23:43
So I think that's largely true
Unknown Speaker 23:48
that the other side
Michael Heiser 23:55
as well know, I think that's fair because the it's sort of a truism that if you if you look across the board, the pastors, TV pastors, TV preachers, public figures, the ones that sort of get more notoriety happened to be, you know, the pre millennial, often pre trib position and so you get a you get a saturation that sense to Let's Talk Go ahead, Dax. I thought sure. I'm glad you didn't say Harold Camping. Thank you for that. No, it's true. Sometimes I wonder if I don't know what Driscoll is, but I know he's a Spurgeon fan so that might might be coaxing him a little bit. Kingdom pay there's gotta be more to it. Go ahead DAX.
Speaker 3 24:57
Just because of the market getting it In my entropy, that's what I saw in seminary. But, but even more than that, if you study, okay, then the choices I'm making, for example, specific prophecies in the Old Testament, here to say Jesus literally returned, talking about, for example, and it's like forever talked about putting his feet on calls. And the Jews kind of running to the gills or is very specific.
Michael Heiser 25:23
When he puts his feet on the Mount of Olives, does he start a kingdom
Unknown Speaker 25:29
appears to be literally back
Michael Heiser 25:31
to the ambulance would say the leaves. Alright, but yeah, there's that contact thing. That's part of it.
Speaker 3 25:43
Some of the over overwhelming pieces of Old Testament prophecy, that and then some of the passages in Matthew, that are very interesting. Have you interacted much with like, ln or the greatest of the kingdom?
Michael Heiser 26:03
A little bit? I tend to not. I tend to not read theologians. I mean, I spent years reading them, and then I just quit. I, this is gonna sound kind of silly. I just preferred the text. I don't know how else to say it. I would just rather be buried in the text, and then sort it out. With with everybody I see. I see again, things that look that have a high degree of a higher degree of clarity than others. And I'm not. And that comes from everywhere for me. Let me ask it this way, what do you have in the kingdom? Let's imagine that you have a literal kingdom. What what's going to be there? Well, we've got sort of got the king this touching thing. Okay. And go ahead.
Speaker 1 27:07
I think and I'm okay, so I don't know a lot about Revelation. And I've never really, I guess, have that kind of like looking good point. I have these different views from that. But if you're, I would think that you're gonna answer this question based off of what you think the kingdom of God is supposed to be.
Michael Heiser 27:33
Because if you're, it's a good place to start.
Speaker 1 27:37
Now, I personally don't think this is the kingdom. But you know, I would think that, you know, Jesus would be on.
Michael Heiser 27:48
So you're just to break in here, it makes more sense to have a king and have a kingdom at the same time. Okay, just something simple like that.
Speaker 1 28:02
I mean, there's more than I think what this world is now suffering, and there's so much evil and death and all that, in the midst of all the TV and everything, and I don't see the kingdom of God is really having, I don't know, if they haven't been, you know, maybe it's more related toward that heaven on earth, or so I was No, I wouldn't see this as being the kingdom of God now. So I know, that kind of takes me out of a window. And then the post millennialism I believe, you know, when you put this establishes the tradition established to them, I feel we are taking that upon ourselves to establish something that God is supposed to be establishing this kind of ticket on God's dam. So, you know, now then that was historic and pre Mille and kind of between them, but I think in my decision in answering that question, that's right.
Michael Heiser 29:00
Now all those things that you mentioned, you didn't you didn't sever them from an attachment to Earth you more or less said it's it's better than Earth now. Okay. So you still have an attachment to Earth which would fit with the pre millennial kind of thing. If we have a kingdom on earth in a future sense again, with a king ruling here, what else is here? The these are things that drive people to Premillennialism what's it like a temple Okay. Do we need a temple right because, you know, the temple comes into the question because well if if the Lord is here, he like needs a house. Okay, again, these are these are just these are simple thoughts, but we're starting to put them together. So Old Testament statements about a temple become important in the discussion. And you have to go, you'd go to a passage like Ezekiel 40 to 48, which describes the grand super temple at a time. Okay, this is Ezekiel, the temple has just been destroyed. So as eagle is envisioning this superduper temple of God. And so for those who would say, well, it makes sense to have if you're going to have a king and he's going to, he's going to come back. And, you know, if he comes back, he's going to be somewhere and somewhere would be like Jerusalem and Jerusalem was where God lived. And, okay, if he's living there, you need a house, you see how all these ideas get tied together. So we have a king a place. Okay, the places on Earth, let's just make it big. Now. You know, earth, the earth is the kingdom after Jesus comes back. Now we have a temple as part of the discussion. Why would we assume that we need a temple? What do you do at a temple? You worship? What else was done at a temple? kill animals? Well, there's a point of incongruence. But there are there are many who are premillennial that will say to be consistent, that we have a temple and animal sacrifices are done again. They come back, because why else would you got to Temple that's what you do in a tumble. You do sacrifice and there's a big fight over that.
Speaker 4 31:37
Secret government? Christ, Christ, which is he rules from Jerusalem.
Michael Heiser 31:46
So it's a sphere of authority. Yes.
Speaker 4 31:52
Is coming to the way God was created? Otherwise,
Michael Heiser 31:56
do you need a structure for that? A building?
Speaker 4 32:00
I'm not I'm not sure. Because I wonder to myself after this, this, this kingdom has been created by by Christ. And he's created all the different rulers are on different parts of the kingdom. What happens at that? I mean, why are we doing it? I mean, why?
Michael Heiser 32:23
What's the point? This is really, this is a good example. Now listen to the question. I'm going to ask you heard that he's defining temple as authority. And not quite sure whether you need a building or not. Listen to my question. Is he a literalist or not?
Okay, what does literalism mean? I'll tell you many people think non literal means not real. And that is not the case. Non literal, does not mean not real. I like to put it this way. Okay, let's pretend I'm an all Millennials now, believe we're gonna have a little temple and we're gonna have a literal kingdom. And you're coming back to me and saying, Well, you just, you know, you're just spiritualizing everything. You're not interpreting scripture, literally. And then I would ask you does, are you saying that I don't believe that the kingdom is real? Do you believe God is real? Do you believe God is more or less or equal real than You? Are? He's at least as real as you are? Is the Spiritual World less real than our world? If you answer no, I've got you. Because then my spiritual view is just as real as your view. I can't knock on it. It doesn't have a door that I can knock on it. But it's real. So this all this discussion about interpreting the Bible literally? Well, I won't say it's a useless term, because it's not I mean, there's there's probably better words to use. But if you're dividing literal and spiritualized interpretation into real and not real. Then you need to examine what you think about the unseen world, then, what do you think about non material things? Are they real or not? It's a trap. Hope you can see that it's a trap that I'm that I've just set for you. Because if you say yes, you're with me, if you say no, my next question is, are you an atheist? Are you materialist, atheist? I mean, come on. How can you believe in a God if you don't believe the unseen world is real? I have to be a materialist. The only thing that's real is what I can touch and detect with my five senses. Okay, so it's a trap. But again, we don't really think about it that way. Let's go back to King place. Building. Spirit of authority is still on Earth, even if it's not a building. Let's talk about the place. Where would the kingdom be? And I you say, well, it's Earth. But is it really? Okay, you think about Revelation 20? It's the earth but more specifically, where's the kingdom at? Where's the authority? Jerusalem? Okay. Why would we expect a kingdom in Jerusalem? Somebody why? Why would we expect that?
Yes, that's the promised land. That's where the First and the Second Temple was. And it was there because that's the land given. It was occupied, because that's the land given. So now here's my next question. What's the basis for expecting? Or presuming that the promise of a land is still intact? Wasn't Israel driven out of the land? I mean, there's this thing called the exile in the Old Testament. What does the gathering mean? Does he have to gather them to that spot? Or can he gather them from the four corners of the earth? There's not gonna be the millennials again. Go you there for make disciples of all nations. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna gather the harvest from all nations, and the world is the kingdom. Why do we all have to gather in this one spot that's less than the size of New Jersey? Why? Somebody? Somebody should have an answer for that. I'll give you a hint. It's because of something in the Old Testament. Why would the presumption be that we need the Promised Land promises to be still in effect?
Where does that come from? He's gonna get mad. Come on, you know where it's, you know where? It's, it's, it's in here, because you just you just quoted part of it. The whole part about God getting mad at people who are after Israel? Where does that come from? It's in Genesis somewhere. Two places actually, actually more than two places, but to two primary places. Genesis 12 first three verses, you might as well go there. Genesis 12. This is when God gives Abraham three promises that he's going to have children are going to be like the sand of the sea. We're gonna have, I'm gonna take you to a land. I'm giving you this land. And of course, the land turns out to be Canaan, which is Israel and all that stuff. Then in Genesis 15, that promise is repeated. It's repeated in several places. And so here's the assumption. The thinking goes like this. This is one of your assumptions. You're preaching your presuppositions. You make a decision on this before you ever go anywhere in Revelation or the New Testament. Here's, here's the, here's the assumption. God gave promises to Abraham. You know, they cut up animals and walk through them and they know only God. So God initiated it. God was the one that took the responsibility. One of those promises was a land. Israel, got in the land, they had a lot of fighting. They had the 12 tribes reunited under Saul, David and Solomon and everything just blew apart. And eventually they got kicked out of the land. And they got brought back. They build a tent, another temple again. But then they got overrun by the Greeks and the Romans, you know, it just it just went bad again. And the Jews were scattered everywhere. Until 1948. Then they get a nation again, they come back, but there's actually still more Jews in New York City than there are in Israel. So they don't really regathered or kind of regather The assumption there is that the nation of Israel needs to exist because of what God told Abraham, and that when they got kicked out of the land, that wasn't a final punishment. And they never actually really had all the land. All three of those ideas are fundamental, to premillennialism. For that promise to be fulfilled, there has to be the full. We have a down payment, but there's got to be the full fulfillment, the total landmass under control of God, the rule of God reestablished on Earth, because if it doesn't happen, then the promise failed. Okay, those are assumptions. Now the millennials will say, they did get the land. And God would have blessed them. They said, God had warned them back in the days of Moses, when I take you to the land, and I put you in the land, and you go off and you worship other gods. I'm gonna kick you out. That's it. It's actually in the Old Testament in the Torah itself. You get kicked out, then the question becomes why that? Why did God bring them back? Because he's nice. No, no, he has compassion. He brings them back. Hey, build a temple worship me, I'm still your god, there's still a remnant here. But then the question becomes, why didn't that work? Because they lost it all under. And the Greeks and the Romans all the way up to the 20th century? Like, is there something in the Old Testament that talks about all these intermediate periods? And you know, all that kind of stuff? It's a debate. Some people would say, yes, other people would say, No. Have you ever heard the idea that Israel did get the land? Okay, a couple of you have heard that. I want to talk a little bit about that with the kingdom. Because if you don't catch this, if you don't need the promises to Abraham to be fulfilled anymore, in other words, if they were fulfilled, and then God sort of wipe the slate clean when they when they went into apostasy, if you don't need the land anymore, you don't need a kingdom, you don't need the premillennial position. That's one of the key ideas there. So we've covered a bunch of questions. What is literal mean? You got to make a decision on that? Are the is the Abrahamic Covenant, the promise still in effect? Was it send away or here's the other option, the church inherited it. The church inherits the promises of Abraham, the church's global, the Kingdom didn't fail. It's bigger than Israel, it succeeded even bigger than one little place the size of New Jersey. Okay. Now, Miles is gonna say the kingdom is here we are it. It didn't fail. It'll never go away. It's here to stay. So you got to make a decision there. Some of these we can defer till next week about tribulations and all that sort of stuff. So I'm hoping you see, you got a few things to think about before you even crack the New Testament open. Here is the Abrahamic covenant. And you'll notice here, we've got the land right there with the other blessings. Genesis 15, the same thing, except we get a little more detail. I'm going to go through some passages now that again, you'd need to think about to answer these questions, I realize we've sort of gone through a smattering of views. And again, I don't care what your view is, I want you to be able to detect, okay, he said that I need to go back and look at that this cell phone over here, I need to go back and look at that. I need to think about these questions. That's what we're trying to do tonight. Let's look at a few passages. And I'll see I'll try to show you why it matters that you think about these questions. It's repeated, but look what we get here. To your offspring, I will give this land from the river of Egypt To the great river, the river Euphrates without going into all the boring geographical reasons why this is not the Nile. There's a different word used for Nile and the Old Testament. This is a river, North East of the Delta. If you know where Gaza is today sort of around there, but it's a lot of land. Genesis 17 One. Abram was nine years old, the Lord of Pierre de Roman said, I am God Almighty walk before me and be blameless. Well, wait a minute, if we come back here, it looks like God's saying, Hey, I'm going to do this, that and the other thing for you here and there's no conditions set. God just says, Hey, I like you. I'm going to do these things for you. No strings attached. It doesn't matter. Why is that important? The implication if you don't see strings attached is that even if your people said, I'm still going to give you that stuff. But what if there were conditions and they failed? be blameless verse one, verse two, why to be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you. And may multiply you greatly. It looks like a string. It's kind of a big one blameless. But I don't know if I can do that. And I will give to you, same chapter, verse eight, in 10. I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your soldier earnings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. Abraham all you got to do is be blameless. What kind of a deal as well you got to do is be blameless, and it'll all be yours. And God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep My covenant you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant. I mean, how much clearer can I be, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring? After you every male among you shall be circumcised, so now he narrows it a little bit, to circumcision is supposed to do something. Genesis 22. This is the Abraham offering Isaac chapter. The angel Lord called Abraham second time, you know, don't don't slay Isaac. And then he goes into this covenant language again. And then here in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. That's Genesis 12 Three repeated. Because why? Because you obeyed. Not because I like you.
But because you obeyed. What did you obey God and while he took music, and he was gonna sacrifice, we don't really know what, you know what that was all about. But But Abraham said, I'll do it because God told me to do it. Because, you know, back aways, he told me, I had to be landless. So I don't get it. But I'm gonna do it. Now we know the story. You know, Abraham sort of implications there that he believed that God would raise Isaac, even if he killed him. But he nevertheless, obeys. Exodus 23 odd place to have the covenant again, I will set your border from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, and he talks about sending the people into the land. Here's the condition, you got to kick those nasty Canaanites out. And if you do that, then this is what you're gonna get. Now, the question is, do they ever do that? Really kind of Joshua took two steps back onto the judges. You know, you might argue that they finally defeated all of the Canaanites, in the days of David, with the Philistines, being taken care of that might become important later. But again, there's a little condition there. You don't want to be a loving lamp, these words of mine, your heart, so on and so forth. Your days, your days, the days your children maybe multiplied in the land of Lords swore to your fathers to give them for if you will be careful to do all this commandment. Then the Lord will drive out these nations now. We know that they blew it. The nations weren't driven out for a long, long, long time. And maybe, maybe not ever. So we have a connection here between doing the commandment driving the nation's out and Hello, here we go again. Lebanon wilderness Lebanon from the river, the river Euphrates to the western sea again the land is linked to certain things that they have to do. Now, look at these passages. Genesis 15 river of Egypt, Exodus 23. Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, which is the Mediterranean that Philistines lived in the five Philistine cities here on the coast. From the wilderness to the Euphrates, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can any of you read what this map is of? These are the parameters, the orange lines of the land promised to Abraham? Is it important? Does it matter? That these are also the boundary markers of Solomon's kingdom. First Kings for Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and serve Solomon all the days of his life. The millennials would say, there's your kingdom right there. And the reason we don't have the kingdom now is because Israel sin, God abandon them. God was merciful, He allowed them to come back because he said he would. He's a good God said, worship Me, I will still be your God. But God had a plan in the back of his head. His plan was to reclaim not just the Jew, but everyone who would believe in Him from every place on the globe. And he needs the Jew to fulfill that plan. Why? Because we got to have a messiah. It's Jewish. Through the exile, think of the book of Acts now. Why is it kind of neat? I know if I was a Jew back then I wouldn't think it was neat. Why is it kind of neat that the Jews got scattered all over the world? Because in Acts chapter two, they're there. And they come to Pentecost from every part of the known world. And what happens at Pentecost? They hear the gospel, they see the Holy Spirit, and they believe and then what did they do? Let's do here. Now. They go back home. And they tell everybody, they tell their friends, and they tell more friends, and they tell more friends. The survival of the Jew. Again, I'm speaking I have my online analyst hat on now, the survival of the Jew is important. Because it was the key to bringing the Messiah and the gospel to every nation. And God didn't forget them. This is why Paul said to the Jew first, and then to the Greek, then to the barbarian. Paul looks for two places, and every time he goes in the synagogue, because that's where he started, and the jail, because that's where he's ending. Okay, that's just what he does. His mission, He Paul looked at himself. There are passages in Isaiah 66. They're really interesting. Paul looked at himself as the key instrument to reclaim the nations. He is the he is the apostle to the Gentile. And he's a Jew, find Malama anomalous and say, Look, we don't need a future kingdom out there. Where are the Kingdom? In fact, we are global, we're bigger. We don't need this. Now. The problem is there are other passages, again, that talk about this earthly presence is touching this sort of, he's like there, okay, that Jerusalem still pops up in places in the New Testament. And Paul still talks about his hope for Israel. And the question is, does he mean, the church that's replacing Israel or Israel as a as a nation as an ethnic nation that has identity, people fight over that? People who would say it's an ethnic entity, they're going to be sort of the Jews for Jesus people, you know, the premillennialists, you know, very much in favor of Zionism and all that kind of stuff. And then they'll be other Christian groups, who use terms like replacement theology, the church replaces Israel and who really cares what goes on in Israel, they serve their purpose. If they want to become Christians, that's wonderful. We need to evangelize them. But we don't need to worry about them politically, because that isn't their purpose. Their purpose is done. They're just any other nation now. So this this has a ripple effect into politics and other things. But live it goes back to this. Leviticus 26, which you didn't think we get in Leviticus tonight. Look at what it says, You shall not make idols for yourselves, okay, keep my Sabbath, revere my sanctuary, walk in My statutes, observe my commands, then you believe your bread of the fool and dwell in your land securely. Okay, so keep the laws and you'll develop on your land security securely. Not only that, I'll make my dwelling among you, and you'll be my people. But if you won't listen to me, and will not do all these commandments, if you spend my statutes if you just do what you want, I'll set my face against you. It'll be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, so on and so forth. I myself will discipline you seven fold for your sins, you're in big trouble. I myself will devastate the land so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. I'll scatter you among the eight Does it sound familiar? I will scatter you among the nations I will unsheathed the sword after you. Your land shall be a desolation your city shall be a waste. I mean, it can't be any glare. You shall perish among the nations and the land of your enemies shall eat you up, those of you who are alive shall rot. Okay, I've heard enough, you know, it just goes on and on and on and on. For the bad consequences. shift, shift the premillennialists like this. But if they can, they're in the iniquity of their fathers and their treachery that they committed against me. Also, in walking contrary to me, so that I walk contrary to them. Okay, I will remember my covenant with Jacob. Well, if it's over, like, like when they did all that, and God kicked them out of the land, if it was over? Why would God remember it? I'll remember my covenant with Isaac my covenant with Abraham, I will remember the land. Now the question is, has Israel met these conditions? Have they come back to Yahweh.
And in today's day and age, might be defined a little differently than it would have been pre Jesus. I will remember the land but the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoyed Sabbath while it lies desolate, so on and so forth. Yet for all that when they're in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them for I am the LORD their God. So I will not break my covenant with them. I will for their sake, remember the covenant with their forefathers whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations that I might be their God. So does Leviticus 26. Favorite the analyst or the pre millennialist? I don't know. I mean, that's the issue, you have to decide. You have to try to come up with an answer to that, because your answer to this will dictate how to interpret a host of passages of the New Testament.
Speaker 4 58:33
to Palestine at the end of the 19th century? No, that's the most productive. The least. I mean, I, my belief is that that's going to bring them back.
Michael Heiser 58:53
So in the language of Leviticus 26, that would be the time that he remembered the covenant. Yes. So there you go. You're seeing a living illustration of how we're parsing Leviticus 26. And that matters. Okay, because that gives you a frame of reference for other passages, other other questions that you have to hit and you have to answer in the course of creating your own framework for end times. It's actually really fundamental this whole question of is the covenant still in effect, does the land still matter? Did God revisit the covenant it's pretty clear that they had the land and that's that's just what First Kings for says. It's no accident that the same parameters are given. Okay, that wasn't just like a blunder of a scribe. Oh, too bad. I put that somebody will think we got the Latin I can't change it. No, no, I mean, it's there for a reason. The issue then becomes when when they They lose it when they get kicked out. Has God remembered the covenant? Is it still in effect at that point? That's the ambiguity. That's the fuzzy area that your end times position depends on. That's just one question. Here's the good half dozen other questions that are just sort of that murky, that are going to drive you in different directions. You look at how the New Testament actually refers to Leviticus 26. Here's a twist. So we have here I'll make my dwelling among you, My soul will not abhor you. I'm going to like you again. Okay. Look at that I will make my dwelling among you. Now the premillennialists will say, we're going to have the temple again. Literal Temple is going to be back. Look what Paul does with it. What Accord as Christ with Belisle? What portion is a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement is the temple of God with idols? Well, wait a minute, is he talking about the temple? Or, you know back in Jerusalem? You know, we're hearing the Corinthians here? No, For we are the temple of the living God. As it is written, even says, I'll prove it to you. I'm gonna quote Leviticus 26. I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God, they will be my people. Did Paul help the millennialist? Were the pre millennial last, or both? There's a better question. Is that literal or not? Is Paula literalist, or not?
Speaker 5 1:01:50
Worked as weird. Like, before Christ, it was differently thought about different. And they've had crisis, where the country's a mess was like, one era, another era. And so the kingdom, the millennial kingdom would be like another era.
Michael Heiser 1:02:12
And that is precisely our pre millennialist. What? Let me say it better. That's one of the ways that a premillennialists split dress. What's happening here, the homily analysts would say, you're only dividing it up into errors because you need to get back to the literalism, you know that. In other words, they're going to say you're doing that because you need to do that. Whereas you could say, well, you're not doing that because you need to not do that. So you get this again, this little turf war over it. By the way, in Corinthians, Paul says this, you are the temple, he says two places, one is plural you the whole body. The other is singular, individual Christians. What is the temple? Temple was where God lived, doesn't make any sense to have believers and the church be a temple. If you believe the Holy Spirit's living within you, it does it makes perfect sense. Because the same glory, Paul even uses this language, the same worry that was back there in the Old Testament, the tabernacle now tabernacles in you. That's why he's he's looking at you like you're a temple? Because you are. Again, the issue is, does it end there with Paul? Is it a both end? Or an either or? For Paul, if he were here is do I have to choose one or the other, Paul? Or can I have them vote? That's the hard part for hold on DAX, you had to
Speaker 3 1:03:42
make an assumption that we could do with whether we should be trying to interpret the Old Testament as Matthew did when he's
Michael Heiser 1:03:49
interviewed. You can do better than Paul. No. That's what right not that's the reverse. That's the reverse.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:02
writing something down and applying and not giving.
Michael Heiser 1:04:10
Let me let me give you the Malayalis response, and you can decide whether it's cheesy or not. Right, but for the rest of you, you can decide whether this is cheesy or not. I'm just gonna go with what Paul says. I'm not going to say any more than what Paul says. And Paul says we're the temple Well, that's great, but it didn't answer the two or three questions I had after that. You know, but again, this is this is the kind of thing you know, Can Can we really know with precision? What is in Paul's head? When he says or doesn't say something? I don't know. I wish he were here. Again, you have to decide, here we are again presuppositions, you have to decide, yes, based on what Paul says, I'm going to lock him in. And I'm, and I believe I know what he was thinking. And if it says this and nothing else, then that's where I'm going to be. That's an honorable position. Another person would say, Well, Paul said that, but he didn't address this thing over here. So and I don't really want to apply this and move it over here to answer this question, because Paul didn't really address that question. So this is still an outlier for me. I'm gonna leave it there too. It's just hard to know. It's hard to know how to how to think their thoughts after them. I'll remember my covenant with Jacob remember my covenant with Isaac, so on and so forth. That's quoted in Luke one. blessed to be the Lord God of Israel for his visited redeemed his people raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke with them out of His holy prophets from of all that we should be saved from our enemies from the hands of those who hate us. To show the Mercy promised to our fathers remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear. So you have this remembering theme. You don't have an explicit citation here, but you do have this. Okay, the idea of remembering His covenant. Now, if you're in Luke chapter one, well, what's Luke thinking? How's it How did God Remember his covenant? He's writing about what in Luke chapter one first chapter, the Gospels Zechariah. He's putting in the mouth of Zechariah. What is Zechariah thinking living in the first century? to Now you really got to psychologize people. Here's Zachariah priest, you know, he's old. And he sees you know, he witnesses the Messiah. And he harkens back to this remembrance of the covenant. So we know at least this, that in his mind, there was a connection between God remembering His covenant. And this baby. Okay, that much he knows that much we got. Now fill in all the blanks. I mean, what are you going to do? You can you really take what he says here and erect a whole theology out of it? You can't people do millennialist do premillennialists do. It's just hard to know what was really floating around in his head. X one. Lord, will You at this time restore the Kingdom Israel? Now the pre millennials will say that's a great question. See, they were thinking of a literal kingdom, they're thinking of, you know, bringing it right here on Earth, get rid of the Romans established the literal physical kingdom of God. Yay for the pre millennial lists. What will the omline list do? I'll say, what was his answer? I mean, you can't when, you know, he says, no, no, I'm not. I'm going to leave now. And then I'm going to send the Spirit to tabernacle with you, because you're the temple, you know, you have all these other passages that would fit into that. So the pre millennialist gets points for the question. The outline always gets points for the answer or the non answer. What are you gonna do with that? Last slide. I think you don't want her to kingdom in the New Testament, here's a few things that you're going to have to struggle with one way or the other. Acts 812. When they believe Philip, does he preach the good news about the Kingdom of God? What was Philip preaching? He's preaching about Jesus. He's preaching. He's preaching the gospel. What's the relationship of the gospel to the kingdom? Trying to imagine Philips conversations with this unbeliever? Is he really saying, hey, you know, someday, Jesus is going to come back. And he's going to set up a kingdom. We're going to rebuild the temple, we're going to kill some animals. Is that what he's saying? Maybe? I mean, we don't we don't know the conversation. Because the millennials would say, it says kingdom of God because to be a Christian is to be in the kingdom now. It's as simple as that. And the Premillennialism would say, Oh, we have to assume that that was part of it. But there's more. There who's right I don't know. He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly. reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. Here's a good one. Paul says to the Colossians, He has delivered us. It's a past tense in the Greek from the domain of darkness and transferred us also a past tense to the kingdom of his beloved son. Now, how can you be a Christian and be already transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son? If the kingdom is future? The millennials would say you can't. The kingdom is now the pre millennialist. Who has his thinking cap on? will say, I think it's both. I think we already are in the kingdom. But I think there's more coming. That's what's known in theological parlance as the already but not yet view. There are a lot of things that are that are true of you already as a Christian. So think about this. Are you sanctified? Are you elect, you know, are you saved? Are you you know? Try to think of another another one about the Christian life. Are you Are you a child of God? We would say, Well, yeah, I'm all those things. Well, when do we really know that you're all those things? You would say right now? Well, what about the Christian life? What about sanctification? What about the book of James? Because there's this here and now. You know, Christian, do you know who you are and what you are, you will be okay. The Christian life is the process of becoming what you are. Okay, that's what it is. It's the process of becoming what you are because there's these this dual aspect. I have these things now, but I will be them at some point. And God, you know, God can look at it that way. Because he's, he doesn't need time. You don't have any issues with time. tenses don't mean a whole lot to him. Second, Timothy 418, the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. Well, that sounds future doesn't it with Paul and Paul would Paul fight Paul's Paul like schizophrenic? You know, there's good Paul and bad, Paul, or what is that? Paul wrote them both. This one sounds like an already reality. And this one is future. Why Paul, you're just weird. Maybe he believed both made us a kingdom praise to his God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. So even in the book of Revelation, it sounds a little past there are a little already. Even in a book like that. You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, they shall reign on the earth. Well, wait a minute. How come they're not raining now? If they're a kingdom, aren't they raining now? What's this shall rain? How can you be a king and not right? I mean, what is that? How can you have one without the you know, you have these questions? If you really look at what's being said, looks like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. Maybe that's the case. Again, my goal is I want you to go away I want you to go away confused every succeeding, you know, I'm unrepentant. Okay? If that's the case, I'm unrepentant. Because you need to struggle. You will not know it better. If you don't struggle. Okay, take it from one who knows? Alright, you will not learn it better.
If you don't embrace the messiness and try to parse it out. You can you can go buy a book, pick your you can go buy a book, someone will present it can to you. It'll look beautiful. It'll answer every question you have. Until you pick up the next one. You need to know where the trouble spots are. You need to know that there there are key issues. When I post this, I mean, I'll post these on my own website too, but you'll have the video. By the end of this. My plan is to have a summary, a list of questions for you to think about if you want to sort of get into End Times Questions are not going to be like, what verses do I need to prove that there's a seven year tribulation? I don't care. The verses will be things like, Are you sure there is one, when you don't have two verses that connect? I mean, how are you going to frame that argument, that's the kind of thing you need to do, you need to get into the text, and start embracing the messiness and wondering about it and going at it, doing the best you can. And that may solidify a position you already have, it may introduce you to a new one you like better. But you should still do the same thing, even with the one you like better. It's not. It's not easy. It's a lot of work to do that. But I'm just hoping that you, again, see that you're not just going to flip open your Bible. And you know, the harps are going to sound off and there, there's my position. It's just not that easy. This is one of those areas in theology, where you don't have the clarity, you have some other things. Questions, unless you just want to take off, that's fine. If you want, if you have to leave, you're not going to offend me by leaving, by the way. You want to take a few questions to actually want to get out here. Anybody? Anybody with questions? By the way? I don't mind heretical questions. I teach Israelite history at Western. I get lots of good questions. So the, the, the more the more pugnacious the question, the the discussion is, is almost invariably better. So don't be afraid to ask me.
Right, if they use the word kingdom, that sounds postmillennial. Because we need that convert to get the kingdom here. Okay. And then Jesus can come back so it sounds postmillennial the way you articulated it. I don't know. See, now you're baiting me.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:20
What's the connection between the kingdom of God
Speaker 4 1:17:30
currencies we. We and all the other churches that believe in Jesus Christ, and we're all part of that church. That might my own belief, right? Understand if you're having another is that there will be raptor and we will be going out to the desert race. We will go there with Christ. And then he will he'll come back with us all. And establish that came. That's my honey center. Where is the church that
Michael Heiser 1:18:08
you you would have to you would have to ask yourself and answer for your own satisfaction. Whether you want to reserve Kingdom talk for after the Second Coming, or if you're okay with using it before and after. Now, earlier when you connected kingdom to I'll use another word, Dominion authority. If you're going to think of the kingdom in that way, you don't need to reserve your kingdom language for later. You can use it now and later. Because there's a certain there's a certain sense where because we are the temple, you know, we are the people of God and some of these biblical phrases, we do have authority and Jesus assumed that the disciples had authority when he said the gates of hell will not prevail against you. Hope you realize that that's a defensive statement. It means that the gates of hell won't be able to withstand the church. The gates of the forces of evil aren't the ones on the offensive in that statement, it's the church, the gates of hell will give way to you. So when Jesus is around saying stuff like that he assumes authority and dominion right now. Okay, in some sense, through the church, which is His body, but you have these again, future statements out there so i i personally, I'll tell you this much. I think the already but not yet idea helps a lot rather than having to pick one because what what you have in theological systems, honestly, with eschatology is you can look at scripture and you can see where there's a lot of spirit total fulfillment. And again, that doesn't mean not real. It's just as real, maybe more real than our real. Okay? So there's a lot of this stuff going on in the unseen realm. And you also have a lot of earthly oriented talk, as well. So what systems do is, one says, Man, I sure like that spiritual stuff that explains a lot, you know, to me, I'm going to become an millennialist, I'm going to take that aspect. And that's what I'm going to champion. And another person comes along and says, I like that originally stuff, man, that's where I'm at, I'm going to, that's going to be my orienting point. And I'm going to develop a system from that. The systems just pick one aspect. And it becomes the orienting thing for them, it becomes what guides them through all of the texts through all of the passages. And what I would, would suggest to you is, why do you need to pick? I actually see a lot of both going on. Because I think, to paraphrase something in the gospels here, I think when Jesus said, When you know, the Lord's Prayer, and another passage is talking about, as in heaven, the unseen realm, the realm that we don't inhabit God's realm, as in heavens on Earth. I think there's a symbiotic relationship to what happens in the same unseen worlds? And could it be that prophecy works on both realms in both spheres? I think it does. So that helps me I don't have a name for that. I don't have a system name for it. It doesn't fit any of the other systems, but I don't really care. Okay. I think the reason why the systems are beautiful, is because they've latched on to something that's true. But they've sort of married it a little too much to the neglect of, of this other stuff over here. And maybe maybe we ought to start thinking how to fit everything together. So I like your Dominion idea. A lot. See what a different difference a word makes instead of structure, tempo, tempo, meaning dominio. That's what interpretations about I mean, if we see words used by the apostles that seem to refer to buildings, and then over here, the same word seems to refer to authority. You know, that's important. Maybe we should think about both possibilities. Wherever we're at, you know, whatever passage we're at. There was another question over here somewhere. Yes. All right. Right, there's still tilting one way or the other. Yeah. Project.
Speaker 6 1:23:13
Financially, looking into the question. When Jesus said, All things wouldn't have happened before this generation had passed away. Well, brothers, and some people once wasn't answered, and so we shed light on the other systems.
Michael Heiser 1:23:36
Yeah, they? The It depends, obviously, on what this generation is. Is it the one that he's speaking to? Is it the one that he's referring to in the abstract in some future time? Those are your two main options. If it's, if it's the generation he's speaking to, then you got Preterism. If you project it as an abstraction, the generation that I'm talking about what and you're assuming that he's talking about a future reality, that generation will that rules out Preterism from the get go. So that's really where sort of the battle is on that? Is it? Is it concrete, situated in time to Jesus time? Or is it abstract? So I, that's it's a long way of saying, I don't think the verse proves either. I don't think it proves anything. It just gives you something else to sort of think about. The real the real issue with Preterism is the temple. And that takes you into the question of what was the book of Revelation written? And that takes you into the question of here's the key question, are there temple references in the book of Revelation? There are sort of inferred. Is John writing about a structure still standing? Or is he referring to something that will be rebuilt? Or something abstract? I don't know. Because if it's something if it's still standing when revelation is written revelation would have to have been written before 70 ad? Because that's when the temple was destroyed. And if that's the case, then pretty much everything in there is already fulfilled. If it's not, if it's post 70 ad, then the game is wide open. Okay, they don't it's like, we don't know what John could possibly be referring to. Because he can't be referring back there. I mean, so the argument must be referring something, you know, out in the future. Be nice if revelation just told us. Okay, it doesn't. You know, it's not self evident, either. Yes. What
Unknown Speaker 1:26:01
was the genesis 12 on the screen without
Unknown Speaker 1:26:03
religion three?
Unknown Speaker 1:26:09
I mean, do you want to mix things up? Yeah,
Michael Heiser 1:26:11
no. Maybe Maybe I maybe I should have maybe I just assumed that I thought I would. I would hit in the in the course of the discussion. What Bradley's talking about is in Galatians, three at the end of the chapter, and a little bit in the beginning. Paul point blank says that believers Christians have inherited the Abrahamic covenant. And what he doesn't say there in Galatians. Three is he doesn't, here we go. Here we go with the with the interpretive games. He doesn't specifically mention the land. Now, you'd say, well, it was part of the covenant. I mean, what does he have to mention everything in there for it to be fulfilled in the church? The pre Millennials would say You bet it does. If Paul doesn't connect the land to the church, I'm not with you, Mr. millennialist. And the online house would say, Come on, it says point blank. If you are, you know, in Christ, you are Abraham's seed and air according to the Prime Minister, what more could Paul say? I'll tell you what more he could have said he could have said something about the land. You see how it just goes back and forth. Because of the MLS will say, if the church inherits that covenant, then then the covenant is fulfilled in the church. That's, that's what it was looking forward to. We don't need to look any further out there for a kingdom. The answer to the Abrahamic covenant is the church. And Galatians three is a key text for that, but it does not specifically mention the land. And so the premillennialists will, will bring that up. Say it's already but it ain't yet. The land is still out there. Another question, there was one over here.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:03
A lot of these distinctions
Speaker 6 1:28:06
really be between dispensational Greenville, and the start.
Michael Heiser 1:28:11
Some of them would be the real fight over that, you know, I sort of wanted to reserve that for the rapture issue, because that's the big battleground there, but that that's fair. That's fair. Some of them you're on millennialist is gonna feel more I don't know if I use the word comfortable but he's probably got more in common with the historic premium over the dispensational primo there are fewer things they disagree about, but it's still not terribly compatible. But there is there is some overlap if you if you do the already not yet. Then you embrace a lot of our millennialism but you don't buy our millennialism you know because you're you're saying I like what you say but you don't say enough. Okay, that's really where you're at. And you get with historic pre mill there is an already not not yet sense. So there is there is some camaraderie there. So they'd be closer than your standard dispensational position, which includes the rapture. Anybody else? Okay, thank you for coming.
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I do not think prophecy or eschatology is a waste of time, but certainly an obsession with it is. I would say I had an obsession for years, and while motivating, it led me into some faulty convictions. It is something to be careful with and keep in perspective. Dr. Heiser does a good job of helping us think better about it.
So you're amillenial?