The Times of the Gentiles

[acceptedinthebeloved]

Mixing timing and context again AITB. I can do that too but choose instead to practice exegesis not eisegesis. Cherry picking verses and portions of commentaries out of context isn't strengthening your case.

And forgive me please for not engaging you any further this night in the parsing of words. But this exercise of re-plowing the same field is yielding little fruit. I've also been trying to do this while multi-tasking all night long. Even had to leave the house for an hour with the computer stuck on several websites so for tonight at least, it's time to give this a rest.

I understand, brother Steve. No problem.

I do want to place what I added to the end of my previous post after you grabbed it... (because it DOES have to do with "timing"):

[q'g the end of my last post]
"I think I still hold to Matt 26:29 (Lk 22:16, 18, etc) as being future. [Matt 26:29 correlates with Matt 25:31-34, time-wise... (oops, forgot to add-->)... BECAUSE of what both Matt 19:28 and Lk 22:30,16,18 say]"

___

I understand that you see no "connection" between Jesus' parables of "the wedding supper" and "the wedding supper" of Rev 19 (which you say is its only mention [what you regard as a "heavenly" supper]). This is basically the crux of our disagreement.

Have a great and restful evening, brother! I've enjoyed the discussion (as usual).

 

[RandallB]

Curious how you reconcile John 19:28-30 with the above? "After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."

This was not a fulfillment of the Lord's statement. Many have tried to beat this sour wine to mean the Kingdom has been completely fulfilled by the Holy Spirit coming into our hearts and therefore try to justify Replacement Theology.

Plz look at His statement recorded in Matt. The Bride has to be involved and sharing. And They are going to drink it NEW. Nope not a fulfillment.

Matt 26:29 "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."

No different than when today addressing a group of men and women en mass and saying something like, "Hey, you guys want to come to my house?"

Steve, are you seriously taking a current English colloquialism to reinterpret the plain Greek literal meanings of words that the Holy Spirit inspired??? Do you have ANY example from any other scripture that would support your conjecture?

They were very careful with their Greek tenses, genders and pluralities with their word endings - especially with when writing.

Really can't escape the plain scriptural linguistic facts that:
The Bride is always referred as Singular and Female.
The Blessed Ones are Male and Plural.
Makes ABSOLUTELY no sense for a Bride to be invited to her own Wedding Supper.

And Steve, for your own sake, plz check out the 2nd half of verse Rev 19:9. " And he said to me, “These are true words of God.”" The Lord specifically states that these words are TRUE. They are NOT a "Hey You Guys" type of colloquialism that you have been required to conjecture in order to support your "Wedding Supper Before 2nd Coming" position.

Not sure where these 24 elders fit into your eschatology, but the ONLY resurrected beings in Heaven before the 2nd Coming are the Bride and the Lord.

 

[acceptedinthebeloved]

Plz look at His statement recorded in Matt. The Bride has to be involved and sharing. And They are going to drink it NEW. Nope not a fulfillment.

Matt 26:29 "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."

Thank you, RandallB, for actually spelling out the verses I was referring to in my last post. It is a point I have made, as well... the fact that He specifically says "new with you" makes it clear that what He took while on the cross was not its "fulfillment."

(the "timing" issue is there in those set of verses, as well, for anyone willing to look at them)

 

[RandallB]

anyone willing to look at them

Ya ... I think that we were typing our replies at the same time. Great Thots!!!
off to you... You have been carrying the discussion admirably for YEARS!!!

 

[WaitingForTheTrumpet]

As far as I'm concerned, I'm just thankful I'm part of the Bride. Is it time yet, Lord?

 

[Chris]

As far as I'm concerned, I'm just thankful I'm part of the Bride. Is it time yet, Lord?

Agreed. The rapture can't get here fast enough for me!!

 

[Andrew]

Sounds like we all need to "agree to disagree" and move on to other threads. There's a lot of tire smoke and cars not moving.

 

[Andrew]

As far as I'm concerned, I'm just thankful I'm part of the Bride. Is it time yet, Lord?

 

[Steve53]

I understand, brother Steve. No problem.

I do want to place what I added to the end of my previous post after you grabbed it... (because it DOES have to do with "timing"):

[q'g the end of my last post]
"I think I still hold to Matt 26:29 (Lk 22:16, 18, etc) as being future. [Matt 26:29 correlates with Matt 25:31-34, time-wise... (oops, forgot to add-->)... BECAUSE of what both Matt 19:28 and Lk 22:30,16,18 say]"

___

I understand that you see no "connection" between Jesus' parables of "the wedding supper" and "the wedding supper" of Rev 19 (which you say is its only mention [what you regard as a "heavenly" supper]). This is basically the crux of our disagreement.

Have a great and restful evening, brother! I've enjoyed the discussion (as usual).

I did see the original AITB....and I know you and Randall both enjoy playing this little game. I do too - up to the point where it turns into a minutia-land quagmire and begins to lose any and all edifying value.

Before we declare we've hopelessly sunk into the mire I must confess that in an effort to get you both to see that overall context is key, I very much on purpose tried to draw the attention of you both back to the cross because that’s where all this really gets started.

It's important for reasons I hope will become clear because the focus here is very broad in scope. Many of the things of prophecy are often looked at under a microscope when a satellite view gives the entire picture in a much more understandable way. When we are given specifics, things are easy, when we’re given overviews; we have to understand that there are happenings of various sorts that make up the constituent pieces of the whole.

We cannot allow ourselves to get stuck while on the road to understanding if iron is to sharpen iron. When we confine ourselves to the study of the individual words used in the construction of any sentence we can derail ourselves into chasing rabbits down their holes and totally ignore the surrounding terrain in which we find ourselves. Soon we’re down in the valley, lost in the weeds and chasing things that aren’t there when we arrive. And all the while we ignore that the view we should be considering, is the view from the top of one mountain over to the top of another. There are valleys in-between.

When Christ said "It is finished" He did so immediately after taking a sip of sour wine (not "new" wine). He did this in fulfillment of the Scriptures and it was also a "marker" of sorts denoting that from that moment forward He was going to gather for Himself a people from amongst the Gentiles right up until the moment of His return at the 2nd coming and, the subsequent earthly (temporal) establishment of the Kingdom Age.

This is not replacement theology. The Church does not ever replace Israel. God's direct dealings with Israel have merely been suspended until the full number of believers (predetermined by God) has been reached and then the rapture will take place. This is not the same as the fullness of the Gentiles (as was also previously noted up-thread).

Jesus gave Israel one last chance to see all the prophecies fulfilled. National Israel recognizing Him post cross - even then - would have allowed the Kingdom Age to begin sometime during His 40 days on earth after the resurrection. However, Israel remained blinded, the Kingdom Age was put on hold, and the Age of Grace officially began.

How does this relate to the context of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb as distinguished from the symbolism of the Wedding Banquet as described in the parables (aforementioned in this thread)?

Different contexts! One context, the parables, and their audience, concerns the Jewish people and the eventually saved Gentiles that come out of the Tribulation. Another context concerns the Church which is euphemistically called the “Bride.” And still another context introduced into this conversation concerns the timing of events in the Kingdom Age.

Three separate contexts. And IMHO, we err if we try to force fit them together into a singular narrative and say; “Well if this context then that context because of this other context must fit together in so and so fashion.” That’s not how we build precept upon precept within the narrative of Revelation.

Revelation’s overall narrative incorporates the finishing of Christ’s gathering of a people from amongst the Gentiles and chronicles the return of His attention to His chosen people Israel and the overall fulfillment of prophecy.

This thread was ostensibly about the times of the Gentiles so let’s stay focused contextually on the Church because the Kingdom Age prophecies and all other texts related to that time and especially those texts regarding the “banquet” fulfillments and the drinking of wine are primarily for the Jews.

Let's start again with Rev. 4:4; - Here's where we find the first mention anywhere in the Bible of the 24 Elders. Note what they are wearing – “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.”

The temporal chronology of this observation by John is post rapture and is (thankfully!) not in contention. The people he sees are seated. They are clothed in white and are wearing crowns and thus, the 24 Elders are only representative of the Church because they obviously do not incorporate the full number of Church Age believers being that there are only 24 people there. No where else in any OT description of Heaven are the Elders mentioned so, that means this event is taking place in John's future (and ours as well for that matter).

Let's move forward to Rev. 19 - Here the Elders are mentioned again. The temporal (earthly) chronological context is after the Judgments and immediately just before the 2nd coming. So, aside from the Tribulation judgments, what else has happened in Heaven between Rev. 4:4 and Rev. 19:1?

Among many other things, God turned His attention back to the nation of Israel...Israel has cried out to God and her promises are now being fulfilled within the construct of temporal time and the Church is witness to these events.

We know Heaven is outside of the constraints of time as we know time to be a strictly linear construct. And although Heaven is not constrained by time, nonetheless, the Church has been (past tense) arrayed in fine white linen, we have (past tense) received crowns at the Bema Seat, and we have been corporately wedded (symbolically as the body of the Bride) to the Groom. And all of the preceding has already happened in Rev. 4!

What else has already happened? Hint: Anybody hungry?

In John’s vision, because the Elders representing the Church are already seated around God's throne we can know that the promise of reigning and ruling with Christ has already been kept in the eternal – heavenly sense of time. Are we to believe that ruling and reigning start immediately after the symbolic wedding of the bride and Groom and there's no Marriage Supper of the Lamb held before we take our places as co-heirs to the Throne?

Obviously, many scholars and a lot of folks here would seem to think so. I respectfully disagree. Don’t marriage suppers happen right after the nuptials?

Permit me to digress for a moment - While I do not think many will see things they way I do, please note again, that this opinion of mine did come about by accident. It came about after studying the Word. What the Word says and what it doesn’t say was very instructive through this process. So yes, I’ve been there and done that as it concerns the MK banquet POV and I have changed my mind for the reasons outlined before and reiterated herein.

OK, so where am I going with this? What’s all this got to do with the idea of overall context I keep harping about?

Picking things back up from what can be ascertained from the parenthetical backwards view of Rev. 19:1-9, (and all of Rev. 1-9 is looking backwards) there has been at least a temporal 7 years of the fulfilling of Daniel's 70th week prophecy occurring on earth. During this temporal period of time, Jesus has also been busy breaking seals in accordance with the Scriptures so; Jesus' focus has been on Israel now for some unspecified time. And note that here again this is relative to Heavenly time in the eternal sense. Soon enough, Jesus will depart for earth via re-entering the temporal.

The statement; “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” is declarative past tense and permanent. This statement is contextually accurate given the preceding verses and is clearly referring to an event which has already occurred in Heaven. “Blessed” is an adjective – it’s an attribute of something that already is, a state of being and in this case; most definitely in the past tense.

Furthermore, while we’re parsing words, within the textual context of Rev. 19 verses 1 through 9, the masculine forms of the verbs and adjectives as used, is proper, as they are grammatically inclusive of a corporate body of individuals. We must keep in mind that the terms “bride” or alternatively “wife” are catch all euphemisms for raptured believers and therefore should not be constrained by a purely singular, feminine and only feminine interpretation in accordance with a preconceived personal or taught and believed-at-face-value viewpoint.

(Hopefully by now, we’ve ruled out the purely feminine aspect of the “Bride” to everyone’s satisfaction. Because really folks, how many men are going to a part of the Bride? )

Next in context is the eternal/temporal shift of Rev. 19: The timing and context of John witnessing a gathering around God’s throne in Heaven – needs to be seriously considered. Note that in this ongoing portion of the narrative time and location do not shift from Heaven until verse 11.The timing in verses 1-10 simply do not allow for, or include, any other group or groups of people other than the Church. (There is an Angelic presence also but they aren’t a part of this narrative.) There has been no time for anything else to have yet occurred within the span of these descriptive verses. This is a telling of what’s already happened and to recap, up to now it includes:

Jesus’ resurrection – literal. Also including some OT Saints (Matt. 27:52-53)
God’s focus shifts to the Gentiles – not to be confused with RT.
The rapture – literal. Includes the dead in Christ.
The Bema Seat – literal.
The “Bride” adorned and given crowns – literal.
The “marriage” – figurative as we all are heirs with Christ – numerous verses attest to our adoption into God’s family so the “marriage” is symbolic in every way.
The marriage supper of the Lamb. No Biblically sound reason that I have found whatsoever to believe we won’t be dining with our Lord and Saviour in Heaven.
The assignment of the Church as co-rulers reigning with Christ./The judgments begin. (These might very well be sequentially interchangeable – I need to study on this some more.)

Contextual time and location shift from the eternal realm of Heaven to earth and temporal time keeping happens next -

Christ’s 2nd coming - literal. Resurrection of the remaining OT Saints and Tribulation martyrs.
The earthly establishment of the Kingdom Age (includes the Sheep and Goats judgment).
The wedding “banquet” – a celebration of Christ’s taking for himself a people from amongst the Gentiles – His “bride” a forever testament to the incomparable riches of His grace. There will be many feasts for the next thousand years.

In summation: As it concerns the Church, we cannot divorce ourselves from the context of the narrative as laid out in Revelation. Without clear direction, I still fail to see where the Bible anywhere absolutely establishes the Wedding Supper of the Lamb as taking place on earth.

 

[billym]

Thanks for posting Chris, good discussion